Ketaki Datta’s Two Poems

Ketaki Datta is a mature poet. Her verses connect the trivial to the profound! She speaks of the deep truths of life! Connecting the shadows cast by trees, cliffs, to shadows cast by huge buildings, tables and chairs …creating an image of large shadows shrinking to become dots and then vanishing into nothingness! Shadows become a trope to symbolize the nothingness of life!  Again, wishing the famous shayar Ghalib on his birthday Ketaki imagines the poet writing for hours on love against the backdrop of the setting sun! Lamenting the’ internecine war’ man has been engaged in …. leaving him utterly alone…she makes an earnest appeal to Ghalib to make a comeback and read his verses!

1. Shadows to Nothingness

The trees with their shadows

                      Receding further,

The tall shadows

Of tall chateaux

slipping by,

Called for a daring contrast.

When the Sun lost its prime,

Its ruddy effulgence,

And kept inching towards

the West,

Hauling shadows of all things,

Animate or inanimate—

Right from tall trees, chairs, tables,

Cliffs, knolls to men

To a questionable destination,

Where shadows got attenuated,

Reduced to dots,

From dots again to an

Invisible nullity!

2. On your Birthday, Ghalib Saab!

Days seemed long on the dilapidated towers,

One or two pigeons cooed into your ears,

Drawing sepia patterns of bygone days!

Tears got drenched with memories of yore,

You used to scribble on pages for hours,

“Woh jo hum me tum me karar tha …”

With a flagon of red wine on your right

And the dying crimson rays on your left!

Days have glided down the steep Wall of Time

Leaving ochre blotches of blood and spit,

Casting the images of unbearable loneliness,

And dire straits,

And etchings of the internecine war

Of Time with Eternity,

Of Ephemeral with Transcendental,

Of Long Shadows with Blurred Imaginings!

On this birthday, could you come and stand on the rooftop,

Singing of love, longing, desire and shocking truths nonstop?

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