NANDITA DE NEE CHATTERJEE

NANDITA DE

NEE CHATTERJEE

Belting Up!

The little girls are coming back from school.

Giggles and high- pitched chatter rent the air.

Non-stop talk, hair askew,

belts loosened,

socks trailing down.

How they drag their heavy bags,

water bottles slung on the fragile shoulders.

Dreams packed tightly into the satchels.

Smileys in their notebooks,

stars in their eyes.

Moms waiting at the school gate,

draped in smart casuals,

a quick juice to replenish the bottles,

sanitizers, wet tissues.

Off to swim, or to the tennis court,

some to where the ghungroos keep time

to tender, tapping feet.

A few have art and singing classes coming up.

Others just wait to go to the park.

Happy is the house where girls laugh,

their high-pitched voices

boss around,

pulling their mom's legs,

scribbling on the mirror with her latest lipstick.

Happy is the home where a daughter greets Dad at the door,

running to get him his glass of cold water,

showing off her classwork,

asking for his signature

on her report card.

Happy is the father of the bride,

who made him proud in her convocation robes.

Happiness fills their hearts when she presents him her first salary cheque.

How they watched her grow,

breaking glass ceilings on the way.

Now she's shaping the destinies of other little ones,

sometimes her own,

and at times someone else's.

The clouds in the sky are soft and white,

the flower bushes bloom

and the air is fragrant

when the girls lift their laughing faces to the wind.

But suddenly the earth starts shaking in its belly.

The sea swells

and lashes onto the land.

Lakes vanish and rivers retreat to the source.

Nature revolts furiously.

A little body recovered from the north.

A 4-month babe bleeding on the floor.

A daughter who doesn't return.

Parents screaming and shattering the gates.

Girls fleeing from their classes,

sweet voices forever stilled.

Who dares revolt,

shot on her own front door.

Who dares dream,

marked out.

An acid test,

growing up,

growing strong.

Fearlessly tying her shoe lace,

tossing in the pepper spray,

alerts set on.

Reporting for the class,

belts secured on,

black or brown.

A handy scarf

lest one needs to tie him down.

No benign smile,

no silly stuff.

Eyes with resolve.

Minds set.

Dad, I'll bring home the

report card,

the salary cheque.

Dads won't receive little bodies for long.

Dads will sign with pride.

No more death certificates.

No longer hiding the shame.

Girls will give

as good as they get.

Time's up.

Clean up your acts.

The new age girls have arrived.

Copyright @nanditade

At Sea!

The boat rocked mercilessly all night long.

The tides were high.

The night viciously dark.

Not a sound.

In the eerie silence

I could almost hear their heartbeats,

pounding frantically.

Fifty of us in the boat.

Fleeing our homes.

Never have I stepped out before,

now here,

death stalking us,

behind and ahead.

So many didn't make it.

The night swallowed them in its cavernous depths.

Shall we reach that shore?

Will they leave us

stranded at sea?

Will someone rescue us?

Will we be given sanctuary?

Babes in arms, they all fled, shelling furiously following them.

The road...if they reached it,

would take them to a place,

unknown.

If they were rescued,

if that night spared them.

If they saw another day.

Copyright @Nandita De

Unfit!

I was born different.

One of 0.0001% people.

A condition undiscovered,

till playschool.

Through the fun and frolic

I started getting isolated.

First the teachers,

then my classmates.

Bullied, ridiculed,

failing badly at tasks,

I grew up.

But I was good at texts.

And here I was, at 60,

for my farewell speech

at university.

The times were rabid.

Spiralling violence and infaction

vitiating the campus.

Racism and hatred

tearing up society at the seams.

On the dais, I took the mike.

'I have Achromatopsia',

I confessed.

'Total colour blindness.

Looking at you today

I thank God.

I can see what you cannot

in my black n white world.

Farewell.'

NANDITA DE

NEE CHATTERJEE

NANDITA DE NEE CHATTERJEE: Nandita De is a committed writer, journalist, housewife. Worked with The Economic Times. A freelance journalist, she wrote cover stories for The Saturday Statesman and features for Illustrated Weekly of India, Telegraph, Times of India, Femina, Filmfare, Germany Today Cityscape column etc. Her story was recently published at frontierweekly.com. Editorial Adviser of ETM, an Economic Times publication. Consulting Editor with Environ. She has editing experience. Was a Part time Lecturer at Calcutta University, PG Journalism, teaching Media Ethics for 7 months. She has a Fb Page and group Studio Quaintrelle. A blogger at BeBee.com. Administrator of two more Fb groups. Her poems are regularly published in various digital literary forums. She was a contributor, Voix Meets Mode, UK, latest annual. Her debut book as Co-author of an Anthology, Big Bang of Non-Fiction, Life in Reverse, was released this September 12. She's done her MA in English Literature and BA, English Hons, both from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Her chosen areas of work have been on children, social welfare, visually impaired, labour, social issues and human rights, lifestyle and investigative stories for mainstream Indian newspapers. She's passionate about epicurean cooking, nature, ikebana and social service. Belongs to an Army, Navy, Air Force background with father from Indian Air Force. Défense issues are her abiding interest.