On Time

Time Dies Slowly

Who the hell knocks
Continuously on the windows?

Who injects venom
In the veins of time-
Of this mighty time?

Time dies slowly
But nobody sees time dying

Time weeps behind the moons
Hides in the books
Mingles with the foods
Sleeps inside the boots
Changes with the moods
Time dies slowly

Time crawls beneath the houses
Burns with the cigarettes
Blossoms upon epitaphs
Lies on the streets
Jumps between the gaps
Time dies slowly

Time dies slowly
But you never know-
How slow is it?

You can never measure-
How long does it go?

Time reborn fast
How fast
You can never experience

It’s also true that
Time dies silently
Like sea gulls sailing in the sea
And I ask one question
To none other than me
Who injects venom
In the veins of time

Is it really a crime?
An hour slips unseen
Inside our vanity

It’s 1 ‘O’ Clock at night
A century dies of AIDS
In the bed of dirty history

It’s time to bid farewell
To the time fading slowly

Get up from the graveyard
Nightmares are madly crowding

Who the hell knocks
Continuously on the doors?


Timely Questions


1 O’ clock: What’s the time now?

2 O’ clock: Whose time is this?

3 O’ clock: Have your time come?

4 O’ clock: Can you hold this storm like time?

5 O’ clock: Time bends time- is it so?

6 O’ clock: Are you simply killing time by killing nothing?

7 O’ clock: Have you decided your time to go?

8 O’ clock: Do the time stops itself sometimes?

9 O’ clock: Which time shall you come back?

10 O’ clock: Aren’t you time?




-Time is asking
These
To you

Wake up dear
Its already 11 O’clock now
You are too late
Get up, stand up
And
Answer her-


Just now!

On Fear

Afraid

A wet man is not afraid of rain
But he may be feeling so

There are confusions
All around the hometown
All around the nation
All around the globe

And there is clarity, too

It’s just like this

Zigzags
Everywhere
In feelings
And ideas

This is only the clue

The road of life
Is like a rope
Either you fall down yourself
Or you may be the champion of the show

This is not the last time
That you are hoping for the fine
This is not the first time
That you are feeling worse

It’s still not too late
Realise own mistakes
Before the dawn begins

Before the dawn behaves a task
Start digging on the road you would walk

Start joining your broken wings
Before the scattered dreams
Go far away from one another

Look at the flowers blooming inside you
And inside others
Believe it or not
I’m not telling an ugly truth

Every strength has got
A limit of its own

You can’t guess
Everything every time
Anything may happen any time

A dead man is not afraid of death
But he may be feeling so

Poem on Siliguri

Siliguri is Changing

The Sunday sun
Steps down slowly
On the limbs of Siliguri

Some of the shops are closed
When I walk
On the sweat drenched streets of Siliguri

Peoples are gossiping in crowd
Smoking biri in a busy cha-dokan
Preparing themselves for a new challenge
Of a new morning

Crows crew on top of a garbage heap
Desperate hawkers, balloon sellers, cloth sellers
All and all shout –
“Lijiye lijiye sasta hai!”
But their lives might be cheaper than their goods

I can touch
The hunger
Almost all over the body
Of this juvenile city

A motorcycle wishes me a methane smile
And shows its hurry by its reckless speed: “Hurry!”
This slogan is dispersed with the smoke of bike
On the sky, quite densely

O old Siliguri
Catchword tagged to you now is-
“Siliguri is Changing”
You are assuming perhaps
A commercial maturity
But as you are growing
Your crisis also grows
Bit by bit!

Of course, you are changing-
-You are inviting communal riots
-You are uprooting tea gardens
To establish big apartments
-You are acquiring lands of farmers

Of course
Siliguri has seen so many new happenings
And has shown so much new difficulties

Do you know my 'changing' Siliguri?
That you live in streets
In the bare streets barely
Where urgent lives leave
The marks of struggles
Their urgent struggles

Some of shops are opened
When I walk
On the question drenched streets of Siliguri
And one question followed me like my shadow
-"Siliguri is changing"
But towards which way?