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"I have known music to be her timeless reverberation in a forlorn corner of my soul; just when life was closing down upon me with its pangs of haunting silence."
"Hope is the point the 'world within' comes to an equilibrium with the 'world around'."
"The cold that my body feels can be comforted by pullovers of our choices. It is the winter that comes back each year, inevitably; is how we are connected on the face of time. A sweet suffering of forever..."
"My poverty, I know, was glamorous because trading you, my love, for a better life is outright heinous."
"Love was the day when she drank and I felt quenched."
"Life, ever since, had been one gripping tale. Your happening gave it a genre."
"Want is the soul's desire. Need, the mind's crave. Love, thus, I believe, is a bit of both."
"Art is how you lie to the world without ever feeling sinned."
"Sorrow is true and beyond the powers of healing, when you can taste the oceans on your lips."

going away: a night left behind

going away: a night left behind
~ Sobhan Pramanik | Monday, September 11, 2017 |

you wouldn’t know
this day coming.
the 3 AM alarm
buzzing by the pillow,
and my dismissing it
instantly, as if waiting,
which I were in an
acidic insomnia;
before staggering through
the dark hallway to your room.
with a soft tap, i wait with
my knuckles on the door’s
shiny timber
hearing you wake:
the rustle of your
clothes, your bare heels
lowered to the marble.
it’s always the same.
platform number 2.
sparing its somnambulist
travellers the ardour of wandering.
from the parallel of
of the foot-over-bridge,
i glimpse at the idle
column of coaches beneath –
freshly washed with water
splashed on glass windows
of AC cabins, its tail
vanishing beyond the bright
signal poles in night’s translucent
mist.
an IRCTC kiosk, half-opened,
hosts a ring of travellers at its
façade. sweet aroma of hard boiled
tea wraps around the complex
like gauge tightened over a wound.
i purchase packaged water and tea
through the crowd of tea-sipping,
news-reading travellers,
and head back to the coach.
you’re on the lower berth. the VIP
suitcase chained to a ring under
the seat. the adjacent ones to
be occupied from distant stations.
in the cold hum of air-condition
we drink tea, partly veiled from
footsteps milling the aisle.
only a fluttering blue drape of curtain
to our humble guard of privacy.
it’s 30 minutes to departure
when i leave, ascending the same
bridge out to the exit, feeling the
moist tip of your fingers on my chin,
and your lips on my forehead.
back home, it’s still too early.
close to 5, the air quiet. cold.
the horizon ablush and trees dewy.
i lay to bed and immediately fall asleep.
when you call to wish
morning, I squint my eyes
at the window looking down
at me spilling hot light.
you tell me about the
station you just passed.
i imagine of the sun risen
on your back, of meadows
rolling by bathed in day.
may be joined by another traveler
on the next seat. but you sure
have missed this day. one that’s
on my city. in my eyes. feeling like
an abandoned night in the wake
of your absence.
nights
that the leaving
shall never know of.

© Sobhan

going away: the day before

going away: the day before
~ Sobhan Pramanik | Monday, September 11, 2017 |

the kitchen’s
unusually quiet
this morning.
no clanking
of pots or of
water running
down the sink.
the counters
too are clean;
untouched.
there’s no marinated
meat glowing
saffron in turmeric
awaiting by the flame.
only a pot of rice
steams quietly
on the oven,
boiling starch
bubbling to its neck.
and next to it
in a deep bowl,
shimmers the last
supper’s remains.
i cut out the rice’s
flame, looking for her.
she is in the adjacent
room, hauling from
under the bed her
maroon VIP suitcase.
she racks messily
folded sarees – Bengal Taant
and South Indian silk –
in its dusty hollow.
a pharmacy envelope
with her hypertension and
B-Complex pills, ticked on
its back: Morning-Night;
is zipped to the side.
an old Eveready torch
rests between the clothes,
and in a cotton pouch
held by a drawstring,
is her gold bangles,
that she didn’t
prefer wearing in travels.
an elastic strap buckles
over in a cross to hold things in place,
before the lid comes down.
click.
i keep the ticket
in her purse. with your Boroline
and comb, letting her know.
at lunch, we do not
look at each other.
silence stealthily
crawling up my spine:
like a damp millipede
treading monsoon-earth
as our toes brush under
the table, mistakenly,
and recede. i raise my fingers
to forehead and lower it to
the base of my neck; impulsively.
she gets up from the table,
looking away and i lower the
full plates in the sink.
it’s not just
the person that
departures steal
from you. you lose
your light too,
caught in the gap
they leave in your soul.

© Sobhan
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