WHERE THE WAVES OF FIRE AND WATER COME AND GO

(To Das)

It has been a long time

Since I have visited that house

One has to walk some distance on the ledge

(That is know-ledge)

Of the river bank

Passing uncultivated paddy fields

To reach there.

A girl comes out from the house

Which the floods visit six times a year

And waves.

The cranes that touch down

On the reed thickets

The sparrows on the wire

A snake bird

Dipping itself in the flow.

Friend,

Eventhough you live

In the midst of the water

The flow  of the fires

Never left you.

Once

As if it were the beginning

Of the impossible

Fire came floating over the flooded river

From a train

Which had fallen

Head down into the river.

There were more incidents of fire

When year after year

The tall grass in the fields

Had caught fire

And had charred

The fishes, snakes, rats that had hidden in their holes,

Mynahs, seven sisters, crickets, scorpions

So many beings who had

Dipped their roots in the lows of the world.

Yet the houses on the river bund

Crossed through them unscathed.

Ammamma and chachan

Walked through the fields

Where tides of fire and water

Swept in and withdrew.

In their memories

Was an age that had

Stood with mud and water upto their knees

And this time

When they were left

Without cultivation

And they didn’t judge one definitely  as good or bad.

On a day

When having gone fishing

They had caught night itself

In the net

The thunder claps and flashes of lightning

Had filled your eyes  with fear.

To those who had sat on the bund

With grass and magic

Had come the songs of the Rastafarians,

John and his friends

And another song that you sung together with the nameless

Troups of street theater performers

Anil, Pradeep and Chinnan

Out there or sketching

A coconut leaf fallen into the river

Trips through the forests and ghats

Vijayamma, Jose, Lalu and Kabir

Where have all that gone?

The rodents from Jayalal’s drawings

The call of a crow- pheasant

Ways in which

The people rejuvenate themselves.

Somebody asked:

“How is the novel progressing?’

“In which class is your daughter?”

Without replying

You rowed the boat to the other shore

Seating those questions along with others

Through the flows

Of fire and water.