Memories Of Santiniketan

1.
Yes, I was fourteen,
and I moved through the fair,
barefoot, with a bamboo stick,
as was the fashion,
laughing and giddy
on the merry-go-round;
bought a silver trinket,
a rupee its price,
and a dozen pale blue bangles –
water-bangles they are called –
thin, tinkling, flimsy,
as glass alone can be,
which you always buy
a dozen at a time –
and the seller herself
puts them on your wrist,
coaxing and flattering you
with artful service:

“Sister, who says you need a lather
to glide these the smoother?
Your hands aren’t hard and bony –
indeed, they are soft –
and all you need for water-bangles
is a skilful fitter
who knows how to gently
but firmly slide them on!”

“Sister, you are right,
but very well you know –
once they are put on,
it’s better to leave them on!
For who can bear the risk,
the bother, and the lather,
for the putting on, and taking off,
of such brittle arts!
And how long will they last,
such pretty rounded rills,
the shocks and knocks and laughing fits,
the loving hits of time?”

Yes, I was fourteen,
and I moved through the fair,
in a red shawl – or a black one –
I cannot now remember,
laughing, and eating
at the pastry stalls;
and after nineteen years
I still have the trinket,
and three lovely water-bangles
wrapped in cotton-wool,

which I rescued in pity,
for they were so fragile –
the only way to save them
was by not wearing them –
I could not bear to see them all
broken one by one.

2.
Bougainvillea
in the burning sun.

It lives within the brain,
and in lone beauty,
unknown to others,
burns.

In silence, too,
for it makes no sound
inside the brain,
in the eyes,
in the burning plains.

Beauty
you have to see
to understand,
provided, of course,
you can withstand
such burning.


Written in English. An earlier version of this poem was published in my collection Sap-Wood, Writers’ Workshop, Calcutta, 1978. It has been slightly revised since then.