Sudeep Sen
BHARATANATYAM DANCER
for Leela Samson
Spaces in the electric air divide themselves
in circular rhythms, as the slender
grace of your arms and bell-tied ankles
describe a geometric topography, real, cosmic,
one that once reverberated continually in
a prescribed courtyard of an ancient temple
in South India. As your eyelids flit and flirt, and
match the subtle abhinaya in a flutter
of eye-lashes, the pupils create an
unusual focus, a sight only ciliary muscles
blessed and cloaked in celestial kaajal
could possibly enact.
The raw brightness of kanjeevaram silk, of
your breath, and the nobility of antique silver
adorns you and your dance, reminding us of
the treasure chest that is only
half-exposed, disclosed just enough, barely -
for art in its purest form never reveals all.
Even after the arc-lights have long faded,
the audience, now invisible, have stayed over.
Here, I can still see your pirouettes, frozen
as time-lapse exposures, feel
the murmuring shadow of an accompanist's
intricate raag in this theatre of darkness,
a darkness where oblique memories of my
quiet Kalakshetra days filter,
matching your very own of another time,
where darkness itself is sleeping light,
light that merges, reshapes, and ignites,
dancing delicately in the half-light.
But it is this sacred darkness that endures,
melting light with desire, desire that simmers
and sparks the radiance of your
quiet femininity, as the female dancer
now illuminates everything visible: clear,
poetic, passionate, and ice-pure.
NOTE:
The line-end rhyme-scheme - a b a c c a ... d b d e e d ... f b f g g f ... - maps and mirrors the actual classical dance step-pattern and beat - ta dhin ta thaye thaye ta. Left-hand margin indentations match the same scheme and form.
KARGIL
Ten years on, I came searching for
war signs of the past
expecting remnants - magazine debris,
unexploded shells,
shrapnel
that mark bomb wounds.
I came looking for
ghosts -
people past, skeletons charred,
abandoned
brick-wood-cement
that once housed them.
I could only find whispers -
whispers among the clamour
of a small town outpost
in full throttle -
everyday chores
sketching outward signs
of normality and life.
In that bustle
I spot war-lines of a decade ago,
though the storylines
are kept buried, wrapped
in old newsprint.
There is order amid uneasiness -
the muezzin's cry,
the monk's chant -
baritones
merging in their separateness.
At the bus station
black coughs of exhaust
smoke-screens everything.
The roads meet
and after the crossroad ritual
diverge,
skating along the undotted lines
of control.
A porous garland
with cracked beads
adorns Tiger Hill.
Beyond the mountains
are dark memories,
and beyond them
no one knows,
and beyond them
no one wants to know.
Even the flight of birds
that wing over their crests
don't know which feathers to down.
Chameleon-like
they fly, tracing perfect parabolas.
I look up
and calculate their exact arc
and find instead, a flawed theorem.