Two Poems by Aritrik Dutta Chowdhury

Aritrik Dutta Chowdhury is a bilingual poet with an awareness and sensitivity for the pains, joys, hitches, expectations and betrayals of the times. He ruminates on the uncertainty, precariousness and impermanence of life in a human world that lives as though there is no end! The poet warns, there is no time, to delay ….so act NOW, express your dreams, desires, love, regrets, for ‘time is fleeting’. No one knows when the end will arrive, unannounced, and you will be left with no time! The poet laments the anguish of being ‘used’ in the guise of helping, guiding and being available all the time, when the other person communicates only in need. The poet makes a plea for a humane response…to also be there…just be there, not for any need but as a human being!

1. A Little More Time

The powerless being attacked

By those in power,

Students stampeding

Dreams and hopes

Like foot soldiers

Walking over craters

Full of carcass;

To walk back home,

To hoist the flag

They used less as pride

More for redemption

Tell me

How apocalypse sets in

Not with a whimper,

But a thud.

Ignorant buffoons;

Who have still not got rid

Of their ego,

Or confessed how they regretted

Not being able to say how much they cared:

Go for it!

Go for it –

Before the clarion becomes a knell,

Before the tears admonish

For lack of reason

Or certitude.

Annihilated lovers,

Irresponsible sons,

Friends turned acquaintances,

Or strangers who sought a name

This is the time,

To water your distempered cause,

And let the one know how you feel.

For time is fleeting by.

And we never know

When is the last goodbye.

For days are getting numbered,

And we do not know

If there’s time enough

To ask for a little more time.

2. Thank you for your call

Thank you for your call

Early morning

As I brush my teeth.

With an eagerness of the kawariwallah

Whistling for your domestic dustbins.

Thank you for calling to ask for help,

Or pinging up to find if I am awake

to either send you a note,

Or guide you with an anecdote;

Or better still, be a patient listener

As you dote.

Care to make a call some day

When I sit in utter dismay

And try to feel the pulse run low,

And try to validate the constricted blood flow.

Care to take a humane call,

I don’t need you to save my fall;

Just stand there with a wink in the eye

And don’t laugh at me when I blush or sigh,

And ponder once if you ever spoke

When you were either not broken or simply broke!

When you make your next call, please see:

My True caller ID doesn’t show “Use Me”!

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