Jholu Ram Came

The Angry bird Jholu Ram Padharey

Deep and Watchful

Deep and Watchful
Were his eyes
Before being selected 
to play his role
In Annual Bengali Pride.

The Eyes

prakritis tvam ca sarvasya gunatraya-vibhāvini
kāla-rātrir mahā rātrir mohā-rātris ca dārunā. 


You are the primordial cause of everything
Bringing into force the three qualities (sattva, rajas and tamas)
You are the dark might of periodic dissolution
You are the great night of final dissolution and the terrible night of
delusion

The Bench

The Bench

The bench

On the old road

Within old Fort

Waited for its occupants

Who came their

With their little stories

With lot of love

And affection

Little nitty gritties of life,

Shared and declared.

Small fistfights,

Fought and Forgot.

And Remained was smile

And a cool embrace

From the good ol’days.

Now it waited

For them to come again

For their chitchats

For their fist fights

For that steal speck

In her cheek

Or that of her flying kiss

It waited, in spite of

Night or day

Hot or cold.

For the stories untold.

No one came again then

Only the birds sang

And people changed

Road was redone

And benches painted

It waited for its old occupants

But no one came again.

© Tarun Mitra

The Butterfly

Neither can’t you judge me from my present
Nor can you judge from my past.
Before I’d spread my wings,
And amazed you with my splendid colors.
I was just an ugly moth,
Amongst millions, doting the face of earth.

I am not what you see
I was not what you saw
Change is the nature’s law
I practice it without flaw.

My past speaks nothing of my present
My present doesn’t represent my past.
If I am flying today with color
I shall never forget the day I was pupa.

© Tarun Mitra