Tuesday, September 1, 2020

NAMITA RANI PANDA


NAMITA RANI PANDA


A Paradise in Paradise
I
If a Paradise really exists, it is this
With its impeccable natural beauty:
Snow-capped mountains with gurgling streams
That hum gleefully in silvery gleam,
Pine trees stand like tall towers,
Valleys decked with lovely flowers,
Lush green expanse of meadows
A feast for eyes, a bewitching show!
She adorns herself with a new look in every morn
In a fresh hue and aroma in every season:
Trees laden with apples wet with dew in apple season
She looks as if a teen in blush pink drenched in rain,
Buoyant bees and beautiful butterflies fly around in great excitement,
Through the shifting leaves sunlight peeps and dapples,
Air is perfumed with the sweet smell of apple,
Chinar leaves turn from olive green to golden in autumn,
She turns to a queen in her regal robe
Studded with orange gemstones,
She seems a lovely lass reclining in deep satisfaction
Draped with a flowery shawl of saffron,
In winter, a fairy in spotless white
Supremely pristine and a divine delight!

II
The jewel of paradise is shrinking
Plastic water bottles and wrappers are freely floating,
The shikaras, with muggy smell, wait for tourists,
Shopkeepers wait expectantly in the floating market,
Beautifully embroidered dresses hung outside
Faded and covered with dust particles.
From every corner rings the same question:
“Do you feel any violence here?
Tourists are our living Gods,
Nowadays, no profit in business,
Won’t you take another?
Special discount I do offer,
Especially for you dear!”
III
Asif, the guide, on the last day
Invites the tourists to his small cottage with immense joy,
His mom immediately offered blanket to warm our weary feet
And khawa, to our tired body, a sumptuous treat,
His father recounted the reminiscences of the old golden days
And insisted ,“Next visit, not in any hotel, here you must stay.”
His sisters were still working in the carpet factory
Weaving dreams with their tender fingers
Like the intricate designs of embroidery,
Aman, his brother, a graduate with high ambition
Loves his native land as well as the Nation,
Genuinely generous enough to gift us walnuts when we depart,
His mother kissed our forehead and carved a niche in our heart,
Mothers are like air, water and sunshine,
Impartially they scatter warmth and love, supremely benign!
That small cottage in that paradise I do earnestly yearn to revisit
And those golden hearts I do intensely cherish to meet!
#(c) Namita Rani Panda






An Invincible Moon

I wax or wane,
Make or break,
Appear or hide
Completely or partially
Like the lonesome moon:
Crescent or gibbous
New moon or full moon.

I appear in varied lunar shades:
Blue, pink, yellow, orange or red
To suit your ever-changing mood,
A perpetual process
To fit myself to any role or situation
To act as per the Time’s dictations.

When you remain absorbed in your own world
Like the sanguine sun,
After you ceaselessly I run
Scattering silvery affection,
An invincible moon I'm!






Cancer

Cancer rose in my body like a river,
That flowed forcefully
Spreading her distributaries in every direction
Without obstruction.

Cancer is a river in flood,
That carries away with her
My unshakable hopes, big dreams like powerless boulders
And reduces them to small pebbles.

Now it seems as if life is flowing in slow motion,
When I wait the river to mingle with the ocean
Holding tightly the grains of my diminishing dreams and hopes
That slip easily through my feeble fingers.

NAMITA RANI PANDA

Mrs NAMITA RANI PANDA is a poet, story writer and translator from Sambalpur district of Odisha, India. She now works as Vice-Principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Cuttack under the Ministry of HRD, Deptt. of School Education and Literacy, Govt. of India. Her three published Anthologies of poems are Blue Butterflies, Rippling Feelings and A Slice of Sky. Her signature words are love, optimism and self-confidence.  The main themes of her concerns are social injustices, love and other issues related to life. She is an active member of Cosmic Crew, a literary group of women poets in Odisha working with the motto “My pen for the world.”


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