ANURADHA BHATTACHARYYA

 

ANURADHA BHATTACHARYYA

 

The Quiet

 

We have become very quiet.

Maybe we loved to stir up the air with our voices

Words intermingled with bacteria

And we threw up venom whenever we felt like.

 

But these days we have learned to be quiet.

The lips are shuttered with a black strip of cloth

That reminds us not to argue, not to spit,

Not to bargain with the vendor at the door

Certainly not to curse a fellow human.

 

Our hearts, on the contrary, have become loud.

What our hearts say only the body can hear

Only the little movements of our fingers respond to.

 

The growl of the tummy has become louder.

The service we get from the stores daily

Satisfy our daily needs bordering on the few.

 

Surely we had failed,

Failed to be quiet about us,

Failed to restrain our interference…

 

We had fostered the necessity of our movements

Harming the earth, the sky and most of humanity.

 

 

 

Car Pool

 

“Man proposes, God disposes” – proverb

 

Cries of warning

On climate change

Have resounded through the alleys

Every hour; every balcony

Flagged the alarm

And conference rooms echoed

With suggestions

On how to control

The use of petroleum.

The ozone layer

Which had been growing a hole

For the past 30 years or so

Frightened the man of intellect

Into hollering for

Alternative sources of energy

To fuel our work

To fuel our desire to roam the earth

As our most prized possession.

And yet with more toxic emissions

We lived happily

Ignoring all cries of warning

As if our multistorey buildings

Were just labyrinths

Under the ground.

We had hoped for saving

The lessening fuel

By carpooling

And by electric driven freights.

But such is the doldrums we are in

That the new norm

Is to drive through

The blaze of the virus

In fewer numbers

Sitting far apart

In a car

And not use electric trains at all.

 

 

Death

 

Somehow it is always he

Who ends the show.

Somehow the little acts of kindness

Decide how he would enter the stage.

The vast land that we inhabit

Belongs to so many companions.

Somehow it is always we

Who bury and mourn the dead.

 

The eagle soars in the sky

As long as he can and then drops dead.

The four metre long python

Changes and charges afresh till it starves to death.

We don’t starve, we’re well provided,

Provided in the community’s interest.

But somehow we always seem to find

A way to invite death.

 

Our little acts of mercy

Prepare us to receive him well.

One small mistake enrages him

And he comes out of turn.

We have always had a shared harmony

With family and friends.

Unfortunate were only those

Whose death defeated all good intent.

 

ANURADHA BHATTACHARYYA

 

Dr. ANURADHA BHATTACHARYYA: is author of four books of poetry, four novels, two academic books and winner of 5 prestigious awards in the field of literature including the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi Award for Best Book of the years 2016 and 2019. She was one of the four jury members in the Lit Digital Awards 2020, India. She is an Associate Professor of English in a government college, Chandigarh.