AMANITA SEN

 

 

At The Airport Terminal

 

The mustard yellow of her dupatta

matches with my kurti-colour,

as we stand side by side, like our

golden deserts merge on either side

of the boundary that part us.

 

Our skin-colours match, so do

our expressions- a little lost, flustered

at the shared fate of delayed flights;

hers to Lahore, mine to Kolkata- writ large

on our faces the uncertainties of the day.

 

But we smile-a big one, joke about

our same clothes, same skin, same delayed

flight-time. Not writ large for this while

on our faces-the stories of shared betrayals,

the hush of the missile-laden shared borders.

 

Labelled

 

He sang with a full-throated ease.

This boy of ten- who couldn’t

fit into society’s leash.

His voice never quivered,

but not his will-that took

the critics’ blows as though

they were truths, his fate, deserved.

But when he sang, the musical notes

revealed his heart-the purest.

 

He laughed the loudest in his class.

This boy- who couldn’t keep up

with the pace of his peers, and wrote

papers he couldn’t pass.

But he laughed a belly-laugh as if

he hadn’t a care and the world was fair

like a perfectly written verse.

This boy-with talent unsurpassed,

labelled by the ableists: “neurodiverse”.

 

AMANITA SEN

 

AMANITA SEN is the author of 3 books of poetry. She is a mental health professional, living in Kolkata.