Girmitiya BY AMRITENDU GHOSAL VISIONS | FALL 2011
An old Maithili poet friend Had told me once that At Mahendru Ghat on Ganga There used to be a coffee house, Where all the poets of the land met and talked. I stand on the steps and feel warm In borrowed nostalgia. Now they’ve turned it into a government office. The steps of the Ghat, Where I had lit my first cigarette, Where I saw my friend break down Because a girl wouldn’t love him, Where my engineer brother lamented and told me That all his education was in vain Because he couldn’t see the schools of dolphins swimming with the current And was merely one of the infinitesimal beings In the fascism of our gigantic dreams And cried, he didn’t know where to go. In the chill of this January afternoon I stare at the red letters Painted against the yellow background— “Mahendru Ghat”, on the barbed wall of the office. Until today I had never noticed the peepal tree And the tin thatched hut over there. I absorb them now and wonder How the memories of these days will Keep the human Amrit alive When I’ll be away, working in distant lands. I see Ganga and think of Lethe. Will my memories dissolve in the stream When I cross it and reach the other side? Or in my cubicle, across the waters Will I still long to spend a winter night In that tin thatched hut Sitting and gazing at the fog Steady over the river Like I do now?
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Amritendu Ghosal, FULBRIGHT FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING ASSISTANT 2011-2012, IS LOOKING OUT OF THE TENEMENT WINDOW AT THE FREEZE WITH A DRY FLOWER OF SPRING.