Bandoghat-The village of Bandyopadhyays
by Subhadeep Bandyopadhyay
(Kolkata, India)
I had a hut in my ancestral village,
Where I chased the kites in the sky,
The morning came,then evening and dusk,
But the birds chirping continued all day long,
I had a temple in my ancestral village,
Where I found the goddess in mist, tears and pain,
I had a granary there too,
With grains just enough to feed few hungry souls,
I had a rainbow and the drifting clouds,
I rode the bullock cart and played in mud,
I played in pools of rain and made paper boats,
I had a school too where the learned old man
Told us stories of the good bad and ugly,
I had a village for sure,
For it comes often in my dreams,
With faces of people without clothes naked in the scorching heat,
And then comes the ferries who takes them beyond the sky,
They shine as stars in the heaven but never come back,
In the morning I find my village dying under cement,bulldozer and slogans,
Somewhere Bandoghat lies as insignia of past,
And I remain a member of the cult of brahmins whose roots its bears,
The village of Bandyopadhyays!
***