Festival

It was the ninth day of the festival,

A little too much sequin on people

And everyone seems to have taken a day off!

It was exceptionally hot,

The pitch on the roads were undone

Heaps of that horrid asphalt

Seems to have been scraped off

Like unwanted pizza toppings

And discarded on the sides

Electric wires streaming out

Like a fountain.

On such a sultry day,

We found our lost pooch,

Licking at the scabs on his haunches

Lest the flies fester again.

Not a spot of shade to bury his head in.

The fellow who sells coconut,

Tirelessly hacking

At those tender green fruits,

Was not here today.

The solitary shade from the flying plastic missing.

What is the mongrel to do,

But hide his muzzle

In the mound of garbage.

After all, the cleaner took the day off too. 

Summer

Summer reminds me of home

Of glorious Calcutta summers

of mangoes, of holidays

and sweaty afternoon siestas.

When Shakespeare was comparing 

someone to a summer's day, 

my teacher in school joked about him

not knowing the wrath of a Calcutta summer

Maybe not, more poor he for it.

Nothing goes past the summer,

She watches with her endearing grandmother smile,

as children graduate to new classes

make new friends, and foes. 

Mothers find a patch of shade

and sit and enjoy a cup of tea

while cutting thin slices of gooseberries 

to be neatly arranged out to dry in the sun.

The sun is a raging rebel

taming everyone with his iron will

but evening brings the kalboishakhi,

and no rebel stands a chance before a storm.

All rage washed down with

some cucumber water with mint