NAMITA RANI PANDA

 

NAMITA RANI PANDA

 

Love In The Time Of Corona

 

Touch me not dear

For I can no longer blush in shy

Rather out of fear I’ll surely die

 

No more hugs dear

For in between love and life

I do prefer the latter

 

Let’s live like strangers

Without pretention

You in your home and I mine

In complete isolation

 

In the kingdom of Corona Death reigns

Doubt dictates with unchallengeable claims

Here a touch, once heart-warming, kills

A hug, once highly solacing, is a curse

 

So, let’s look at each other from a safe distance

With masked faces and gloved hands

No need to sit closer under the elms

And the star-studded sky

No need to paddle in the surfy shore of an azure ocean

Hand in hand

 

Let’s live like strangers again

But if we chance to meet

In an unknown street

Will you mind throwing a smiling glance

From a safe distance?

 

Hunger

 

Isn’t the happy home of hunger

The empty belly of the poor?

                                            That’s maximum twelve inches long                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Six inches across, can hold a quart of food to the maximum?

But hunger makes it incredibly larger

To hold a stormy sea of superpower

That drowns morality of even titanic stature

Hundred venomous serpents sting violently

The deadliest wildfire blazes ceaselessly

That irrepressibly maddens

That pitilessly tortures

A green forest full of dreams

Turns to a dreary desert of dead desires

Hunger tormentingly tears their future

Like a meat slicer

Like a python it devours conscience

As if a cyclone it shakes and uproots existence

A blood sucking bug incredibly inhumane

That reduces the unfortunate to a living skeleton

With sunken sockets and hollowed cheeks

A living scarecrow he’s, emaciated and pitifully weak

It strides valiantly in the hovels and huts

In the slums and streets

To pacify it is not a big deal

Just a pinch of sympathy, a square of meal

But it will continue to reign

As long as it’s a vote bank, a means of personal gain

Isn’t it the best theme also to gain name and fame?

 

 

Brutal Business

 

A business brutal and beastly

Where the living images of God:

The futures of a nation

Some helpless women's dream, hope

And bundle of jubilation

Are reduced to mere marketable commodities

For which factories flower and flourish

In the name of maternity homes,

Fenced with high walls

With crowded dingy rooms,

Worn and dirty mattresses,

Muggy air to breathe in

No chance of leaving the premises,

If anyone dares

Starvation and torture, the only reward,

A new dynamic form of exploitation

Where pain is never soothed by the first cry of the new born

But poignant pain pervades perpetually,

The flower of flesh is swapped for purposes unknown

Maybe for adoption by wealthy but childless couples

For whom marriage is only a baby producing union,

Or for domestic help

Or to work as slave in mines or plantation

Or for prostitution

Or to be tortured and sacrificed in occultism!

The vultures in guise of benevolent good doors

Promise to protect from hunger, harsh weather,

To shield from shame and stigma

Prey teenage unwed pregnant girls

Kidnap and alienate them from family members,

Lure with false promises of jobs

And the moment they are in their claws

No more they are Nisha, Nishat, Neelam, Nanet or Naija

But mere machines: baby producers.

These factories run ruthlessly

With the fuel of insatiable greed, coldest callousness,

Of another bunch of machines with more power,

The devilish agents

Who torture and rape the poor cluster of machines

To impregnate them

To produce marketable commodities of flesh and blood

And with bumper offer they sell:

Bye one and get in free dream and hope!

This systematic inhuman corruption goes on,

Will continue in full swing

As long as social stigma pervades,

Poverty perpetuates,

Indifferent are the people in power

And more over women are unaware!

 

NAMITA RANI PANDA

 

Mrs. NAMITA RANI PANDA is a multilingual poet, story writer and translator from Sambalpur, Odisha.  She has five anthologies of poems to her credit: Blue Butterflies, Rippling Feelings, A Slice of Sky and A Song for Myself and Colours of Love. She has co-authored Rivulets of Reflections, a book of translated stories form Odia to English. She is an active member of Cosmic Crew, a literary group of female poets in Odisha working with the motto “My pen for the world”. She has co-authored Radical Rhythm Vol.1-4, anthologies of poems published by Cosmic Crew with the credit of editing Radical Rhythm-2. Her signature words are love, optimism and self-confidence. Her works are widely acclaimed in national and international magazines. She now works as Vice Principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Cuttack.