SARAH DAS GUPTA

Kolkata Cameos

Trams clang along the tracks,
cows wander back across the lines.
Carriages burst with half the city:
babies, old men, holy men, clerks,
school pupils, all leave their marks.
Fish in plastic bags of water
swim goggle-eyed, gasping.
Bunches of drooping spinach,
sacks of juicy, green bhindi,
lively chats in Bengali or Hindi.
Incense from a roadside shrine
wafts through an open window.
From a mosque the Iman
calls the faithful.

In the market hordes of mangos
piled high in scented pyramids,
tempt the noses of passing shoppers.
Like flocks of brightly coloured birds,
they descend on this palace of plenty.
In the narrow jewellery aisles
piles of gold glitter seductively:
necklaces, earrings, bangles,
blaze, bright under the neon light.
Metres of silken sarees,
colourful swathes of cotton
hang in rainbow waterfalls of brilliance.
Fish swim languid, weary
awaiting the customer’s decision.

The whiff of spices, drifts and shifts,
through the warren of narrow alleys.
Sacks of pulses, orange, yellow, ochre,
form a treasure trove of eastern splendour.

The smoke from funeral pyres, rises
in misty columns, drifting towards the river.
As the fires burn out,
the ashes of the dead are gathered
to be later scattered, at Varanasi
most sacred of cities.
In early morning, the poor appear,
drying their washing by the dying embers.
The sun’s strengthening beams,
fall on a city of nightmares,
but, also a city of dreams!

Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher living near Cambridge, UK. Her work has been published in over forty magazines in US, UK, Canada, India,  Nigeria, Croatia, and Mauritius.