Gwalior, living, loving, living
When I touched you I felt that
you still had your baby fat
And a little taste of baby's
breath
Makes me forget about death
--Goran
Bregovic
even as we spoke
on gravel corridors
dreams befell in
fragmented sun rays
voices in mirror
stored in
illogical effort
streets and galis too
rose in savage anger
in loves lonely
savagery
having dared
remembering
loving is the unforgotten
loving is unmeeting
loving is the crisscross
even as the morning dew
hastens to close the windshield
mirages just happen
and in days
such days
each word you spoke
each word I thought
each word building
those ramshackle years
plays the constancy
of a very dry season
gwalior cavorted in
such darkness
In shameless rivers
of betrothal
thinking of
you
is a single gunshot
resounding
in colorless skies
off herniated brain
in a cracked moon
and in lives
running
on suburban trains
and
each time i
wonder where you might be
the qawallis we basked
mamasnpapas vinyl blowing
karl marx overturned tea cups
mamta kalia bilateral
greykindasummer
interludes
terrains survive
another distant hour
"Fort, Gwalior" charcoal on paper
Amitabh Mitra claims that this "is a love poem connecting to my hometown, Gwalior," in Madya Pradesh, 319 km south of Delhi. Its most prominent feature is Gwalior Fort, "the Gibraltar of India," built by Man Singh Tomar on the site of an earlier structure. The earliest reference to a fort there dates to 525. It features Chinese dragons on the Indian-style pillars. The Mughal emperor Babur called it "the pearl in the necklace of the forts of Hind."
ReplyDeleteMamta Kalia is the niece of Bharat Bushan Agrawal, a prominent Progressive poet, and the wife of avant garde Hindi writer Ravindra Kalia. She began writing poems in English and published two volumes in the 1970s, but was informed that "No one reads your bastard English in India." So she began to write in Hindi instead. She is, according to Amitabh, one of "the very few in India who could write with great creativity both in English and Hindi."
A gali is a narrow pedestrian alleyway (or a mountain path); qawwalis are a form of Sufi devotional music dating back to the late 13th century, when Amir Khusro Dehlavi fused Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Indian musical traditions.
Many thanks Professor Vorhees, You have brought Gwalior to an international audience
ReplyDeleteWho is Duane Amitabh Mitra sahib
ReplyDeleteDear Duane 'Poetree' is a registered trademark
ReplyDelete