Subhankar Dutta is a native of Mohanpur, West Bengal, and presently working as a Teaching Assistant and Research Scholar in HSS Department, IIT Bombay. Though he uses Bengali as a preferable creative medium, he also tries to express the same in English and Hindi as well. Apart from publishing his poems in college and university magazines, he also contributed to the several little magazines and journals namely, Aalokon (The Enlightening), Sebanjali, The LangLit, and others. Being a theatre enthusiast, he is also part of “Qissa Kothi”, a Mumbai based theatre group, and serves as a PG Convener of Fourthwall, the Dramatics Club of IIT Bombay. He has directed and written plays for the club as well as for IIT Bombay for ‘Justice’ (a non-profit organization). He can be reached at subhankardutta1996@gmail.com
Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>
I am never at Home
I’m never at Home!
My steps roamed around from Kashmir to Kanyakumari,
But they never met each other.
The smile, the face, the fence, the gate,
The sorry in the damasked eye,
Kisses the horizon too early.
My TV remote shuddering like a bullet gun
Thrushes the window fence and
I never came back.
Yes, they do promise of a promised land.
Yes, they promise of an easy walk!
Yes, they promise of a better life,
Yes, they promise like the birthmark!
Been there for years!
I beg, I cry, I try at each opened door,
For home, for domesticity, for belongingness!
But they pass an alien eye,
With half baked smile!
I roar, I fight, I protest at every street corner,
For shelter, for shade, for suggestions!
They cut my tongue, calling it too long to speak!
Now standing on the empty street
I look up, look down, and look left and right!
I look for faces where I belong,
I look for faces where I reside,
I look for places to rest!
I look for hope and to decide!
Yes, they promised a lot!
As if promises are hardly been kept!
Now, as the street are emptied of hope,
As the faces are getting blank,
As the tongue ceases to speak,
And the path ceases to end,
I will find my home at every coming bend!
My home will be on each unknown land!
I will find my home at every coming bend!
The old clock
The old clock tinkling like the evening dusk,
Half dark, half lightened, but still going.
It has witnessed the long past,
The Plague, the drought, the reddened sky,
The sobbing nights and drenching eye!
The tick tick tick at the deep dark night,
The housewife’s many unsaid plights!
The father who ceases to be broken,
Holding the last hope of the night, the last token!
It has heard the unfed belly crying aloud,
The uncertainty of dawn looming around!
It has witnessed the second-last,
It has witnessed a long past.
Published on May 25, 2020. © Author