Last Offering

On the bank of that river
We went to play with a shiver
On the pebbles of the shore
Its resplendent sand
We ran and sang
Stumbled upon a piece of bone
And I smiled for I knew
Someone’s smile have lost there
Drunk by the hungry sands
One tiny piece of fabric buried there
I smiled for I knew
Someone’s light of life melt into a whimper
Sucked by the thirty stones
Yet I smiled
What else could I offer?
Tears had abandoned my monotonous eyes
My wails no more fancy my throat
The frown on my brows
Betrayed me for a prettier one
And Look there! Walking away from me now
Is none but my ripped heart
Alas! What was left was my smile
The God there
The priest here
If something purest they seek
Seek it on my lips
To the bone; to the fabric
My last ceremony
Would be my smile
A virgin smile

The Lost Scent

Tonight my bound hair
Has fallen astray in this prison
The scent of chenghi in my tresses
Has vanished among the stink of the wolves

The lost scent of my tresses
Torments me
The indelible marks of paws
On my bosom haunt me
In my dream-like-life
Oh my tresses, my comrades
For many a seasons
Somebody cut it this day
It is beyond my endurance
The remnants of stench
In my tresses; in my body

Ema, please cut my hair!
Ema, please peel my skin!

One Day Ema!

It will rain
And you will unbound hair and wash it
In the slow dripping from the thatch
One day
The flowers will bloom
In your dark mystique bun
As if they were never plucked
One day
The wind will carry
The scent of your fresh steamed rice
Through the corners of this ravaged street
One day
They will come
Whom you have waited for so long
In this life or in this death
One day
The rainbow will color
The ashen shawl around your bosom
With your darling shades
One day
Your children will fling open
The eternally closed gates
With the calls Ema! Ema!
One day
The kites will fly
In your blue sky with tails of freedom
With no one to harness them with a string
One day
I will garland around your neck
The wreath so painstakingly woven
As you walk past the triumphant crowd
One day…
One day…

Her Inheritance

Dressed with skin to skin
Unbound hair
Let me wander freely
In search of an elusive bequest
Before I forsake this place forever
A mermaid and an angel at once
I wish to be
In search of an unclaimed space in this world
A piece of this earth will never be mine
So in water in air
I hunt for my birthright
A space I can call all mine
A reclusive, a null yet a totality
Seeking it
In the fullness of this absolute void
In the color of the colorless firmament
In the music of the still quietness
In a life of the deceased
I gathered
A morsel of myth
An ounce of sky
A bunch of space
A ray of sunlight
A handful of cloud
A fraction of thunderbolt
A yard of receding tide
All I can claim mine
So I clench them
Clench them tight
For they are my sole inheritance
From my foremothers

Khullang Nupi (the lady-reaper)

Lao! eidi awaba khangde
Khaoshi louse hathu hathu
Timphagi akeebasu leite
Linna chikpagi nachungbasu leite
Echagi puk thannanaba

Eche! Eche! hallage ei yumda
Eecha khomlang lamlammmani

Thamna khenjong na wai wai
Tharo thambalna hai hoom
Thambou nangshu onthokna luuna
Mara taredako adubu taangani eina
Echagi puk thannanaba

Eche! Eche! hallage ei yumda
Echa khomlang lamlammani

Numitna hayeng thorakpaga
Khwanchet laklaga marakke
Chinbandana momon minok
Thawai khubakta haplasu
Lakkani shoidana ei hayeng

Eche! Eche! hallage ei yumda
Echa khomlang lamlammani

Maphi maron thongda
Mamai mamit chamot chamot
Shannaramgani koichen chen
Nungshibana pathoraklaba mitni eigi
Uninglakle echado

Eche! Eche! hallage ei yumda
Echa khomlang lamlammani

Unburdening the dead spirits

Oh! Kunti you are lucky
At least you know the father of your first born
Look at me
I do not know who he is
But I am sure of what he is not
He is not that magnificent sun
Nor is he wind
Nor the earth nor the fire
Nor the water nor the sky

He came and keeps coming
Yet each day I knew him less
A formless
A scentless
A colorless being
Was he actually a man? That too I do not know

I remember that night
The eternally locked doors of my maiden-room unlocked itself
I crossed that uncrossable line
That infinite line in between him and me
That day they say
Some tiny spirits like ‘prestige’ deserted me
One after the other
I do not know
How many such death spirits I need to free
Before I free myself

That night he embraced me
On the floor of that horizonless expanse
He disrobed my clothes one after the other
With each pieces of clothes he rustle away from my body
A tiny spirit flew out from me like eternally caged birds

He put his lips on mine
And they say I lost my grace
He put his lips on my breast
And they say I lost shame
He merged within me
They say I lost everything…
Then………..
The smudged kohl of my eyes stained his shoulder
The disheveled hair of mine teased his cheeks
The rose of my lips shamelessly bloom on his forehead
My breast merged with his chest
I do not remember what covered our togetherness that night
My phanek or his khudei!
I know not

The wicked womb continued its eternal betrayal
Yet for the first time I loved to be betrayed
For the first time
I trump the eternal betrayal of this world
For the first time this betrayal freed me
From those dead spirits
Named ……….

Izzat
Leirangi leinam
Chastity
……………..
……………..
……………..

This ultimate union
Made me lose everything
I did not know it’s too easy to lose my essence
My maiden body has to take a man…
I did not know it’s too easy to lose everything
My maiden mind had to just spill a secret.

The Defiance

Let me cast aside these jewels
The adornments in my ears; the necklace in my neck
Who am I waiting for to be watched wistfully.
For whom am I waiting with such burden?

Let me cast aside the inner layers beneath my phanek
Let my blood flow along the smooth of my thighs
With a freedom that it has never known
Beyond all shame let it be seen by you all.

Why my breasts are being bound so with such tightness
Is it the crime of shedding the divine milk?
They say it’s a pair of divine beauty.
Divinity! Oh u always comes with chains

Who has thrown me a piece of veil?
Veil be cast aside,
It is your gaze, it’s your sense
What have I and my veil got to do with it?

Your feet I touched that day in the public
Now in this silent night u kiss my feet
Tell me whose feet are pure and who’s impure.
Oh! What is this purity somebody tell me?

A dip in the ganges of ‘sin’
A silent confession in front of a sinner
A nikah that can end with three ‘talaqs’
A marriage solemnized by an illiterate priest
Purity made of all impurities.