The Other Revolutionary

She took up Irabot’s sickle
To chop off the overgrown beard
On her mother’s chin
She too is a revolutionary

The wicked wind licks lecherously
Her thighs along which the phanek slithers
Yielding to the wanton wind
The phanek prostrate on the wayside cried
‘hey lady! you have dropped me’
She knowingly did not look back
She too is a revolutionary

The evening prayer to Sanamahi was offered
Forgetting her crimson lunar cycle
Only to remember when her man tucked her phanek
From her waist in that drunken night
As the faint scent of haeme whiffs along
She too is a revolutionary

She rode away in the air
Screamed with the muffled mouth
Forgot when ought to remember
Swam in the cloud
She too thinks a thought
She too is a revolutionary

That night in that bloody war
A seed of revolution was sown
In her ravaged womb
Against law against time; against all dimensions of life
A revolution grows in her belly
She is a revolutionary through the ages

Rainbow

Violet leibaklei pierces the earth
Many a summer ago when she once walked on this vale
Its faint scent opens its eyes whenever I close mine
Her dim soul glows whenever I look at a lazy distance
On the way back I saw her soul slowly descending and rising
With the waves of the archaic wind
In the autumn air I saw it nestled in the cradle of a weightless leaf

Indigo sky mocked at me
As I once tried to play with the clouds
At last I played with pebbles and marbles
As if there will never be a game after
It was the morning that went and never came
Although I waited for the final game
On the way back I saw it between the human bulls
In the muddy battlefield I saw them rolling like buffaloes in the mud

Blue ribbons with which I bound my hair
Fell and trampled in the dust and foot
That day when I first came out of my home
Seeking a strange freedom in that seized street
On the way back I saw freedom curled asleep like a street dog
In the garden I saw it playing hide and seek in the folds of the foliage

Green moors of this valley beckoned me
Whenever I am exiled from this land
Like calling me for the last truce
‘As you killed my son give me your daughter’
And I shrugged and said so as you say
On the way back I saw her son making love to my daughter
From dreamy mountain I saw their love melting down in ravines

Yellow November fields opened itself for her visitors
Who were never ever inheritors
Wild herbs; shrubs; half sun baked cow-dung and snails
Their sole heritage from this soil red with their kin’s blood
On way back I saw the visitors performing their daily rites
In the field I saw their dreams opening pearl-less oysters


Orange suns deliciously drooped on my courtyard
I plucked them one by one
One for me; one for the unknown; and one for the unnamed
I put them in the jar of my anguish
On the way back I saw suns getting burnt
In the jar I saw them melting into warm rays

Red cheeks of that summer beauty
Blushed by the unruly highland wind and Orion’s luring gaze
At last they fled with her beauty
And the lovelorn searched for the stolen
On the way back I saw her beauty kneeling at the tomb of the slain
In the grave I saw it walking every evening like a lost ghost

Leishat Tamba (Blooming)

Chumbhrei mapaal shaare
Angaobagi yug oire
Shamu mamei tatle
Noknabagi matam oire
Shangbrei mapaal shaare
Lairembi haraobagi matam oire
Shamji nachom leishatle
Kenbagi matam oire
Thamoigi chingchepta lammei chaakle
Laaklaroidaba maabu ngaibagi matam oire

Blooming

The peach blooms
It’s the age of doom
Gone is the elephant’s tail
It’s time for disdain
Shangbrei blooms
It’s time for carnival
The bunch in the bun blooms
It’s time for fallen flowers
The wildfire blooms in the slopes of hearts
It’s time to wait
For the one who will never come

The Last Exchange

Do not go away so soon
Share with me your last secret
Before the evening bell rings
In the temple of this hazy hamlet
Come let us have our last exchange

Do not go away so soon
Share with me this last slice of green mango
Let me feel the shiver of sourness in your chin
In this dense orchard of illicit vine
Come let have our last exchange

Do not go away so soon
Share with me this warm hay-fire
Before the last winter ends
Let us talk at last of you and me
Come let us have our last exchange

In Red

I shall recall once before the everlasting sunset
How beautiful it was to be red
Myself red and
The red sky of dusk
And I shall recall what I whispered
That evening in red
In the ears of the hill-echoes
‘Where shall you take me morrow?’
Far away from that furry thing
I touched beside my bed in my nightmare
Far away from that unknown that stalk me
When my sleep bound my limbs

I shall recall what I whispered
That evening in red
In the ears of the ripe sun
‘Whom shall you take me to?’
The one who will give me answers to all my queries
Like ‘why have I come here?’
To tell me what I do not know
When I say ‘I don’t know’
Like why some are forsaken
While other shake the bars of prison

I shall recall what I whispered
That evening in red
To the smoke of fresh burnt hay
‘Where shall I go back now?’
And how much I wanted to say
‘I do not want to go back
Let me stay right here in the midst of this meadow
Forever and ever
As long as I am red’
Until the green grass turned red and said
‘No, you must go before the night turns red’

Your Coming

Every ladder I climbed so arduously
And you with your sly smile
Came so gaily
Just to put another…
Another endless rung on it

Every sky I flew so painstakingly
And you with your generous stroke
Came so nonchalantly
Just to paint another….
Another vast blue on it

Every road I took so eagerly
And you with your willful intent
Came so scornfully
Just to elongate another…
Another infinite mile upon it

Every wrecked dream I shorn of
And you with your malicious heart
Came so silently
Just to give me another...
Another unfulfilled wish upon it

August Night

The bamboo silhouette against the evening sky
Like a spiky haired ghost
The nimbus sulky in the sky
Of unfallen tears and unaccepted pleas
In one such august evening
The doors of my heart shut itself
Unasked uninformed
The prick of the pebble under my feet
I have loved that day
In evening like this, secretly
I left him behind in an unknown place
I came back to my kitchen
The flaming butane in my palm
I have loved it that night
The tears shed, the pleas accepted
The nimbus roared in exult
Through the fissure of the thatched hut
I felt the rain drops nudging
On my cheeks
And I have loved it that night