Sindoor
(Jamshedpur riots, 1964)
Poems By Vidyarthy Chatterjee
(Jamshedpur riots, 1964)
i didn바카라t know
Mohit Chaudhuri was muslim
till he got killed
for being one
as if being Babur바카라s child
wasn바카라t enough
Mohit went and fell
for our Tripti pishi
running Mohit바카라s remembrance
through the parting
in her hair
Tripti pishi never married
(pishi means father바카라s sister in Bangla.)
Without you, Umar Khalid
i cannot imagine our country
without you, Bonjyotsna
i cannot imagine this land
given us by eternities of
togetherness
i hope
one better day
not far away
you will give us new children
and countless post offices
filling our empty/emptied souls
with letters love-stamped
and struggles not to lose them
without your flowers and fruits
veined leaves, arteried roots
i cannot imagine my country
reclaiming lost loves
birthing new hopes
you poets of a new dawn
till such time
this old man waits
for the post offices
bolted and barred
to re-open their gates
***
(바카라The commissioning of India바카라s largest blast furnace at Kalinganagar (on September 20, 2024) is a momentous occasion for the steel industry.바카라 바카라 T.V. Narendran, Tata Steel CEO & MD)
jal-jangal-jameen
the diku바카라s
for the taking
muscleright
in adivasi country
disciplined by
threats and bulldozers
audacity of
Ho mother바카라s prayer
for toehold
on ancestral land
didn바카라t go unnoticed
toehold on
earth she said
her forefathers tilled
fished bathed
rummaged
for nature바카라s bounties
bullets flew
knives glistened
Ho mother returned home
breasts wrists missing
gone for forensic tests
police calmly said
where Ho mother fell
blazes a guffawing giant
pouring silken steel into
moulds of progress
a once-reborn king
is once more reborn
to weep in the wings
for corpses strewn across
new battlefields
----
(jal-jangal-jameen translates as water-forest-land; diku is the adivasi바카라s pejorative term for the outsider, the grabber by force; Hos are a tribe to be found in Odisha, Jharkhand and other parts of eastern India.)
Children in dozens
bombed each day
add to thousands in no time
but there is no one left
to sing the parting song
as they are laid to rest
the poets
who would have rent the air
wailing like the wind
rushing through the groves
have long been taken care of
i weep for myself
at the theft of my heart
feeling no longer numb
for victims of Babiy Yar 바카라
see, what the rogues have done to me
may fire brimstone ashes
rain on the star of david, unfurled
waved aloft by revengeful usurers
may the Anna Franks of Gaza
resurrect to life
that day i will sing
my song of penance
(Babiy Yar is a ravine in Ukraine into which thousands of Jews executed by Nazis in world war-II were dumped.)
Vidyarthy Chatterjee spent almost his entire life in Jamshedpur and now lives in Calcutta.