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A Series of Poems On My Visit to Delhi by Moumita Alam


Photograph Courtesy: Nawal Keshri
Photograph Courtesy: Nawal Keshri

1

Chawri Bazaar, Delhi


Delicious

Mouth-watering street foods.

Biryani in kilograms.

Two teenage boys was dipping the perfectly rolled moons

in the choolaah one by one.

A man at the next table licking out

every drop of butter masala with

the last shred of nun rotis.


At the end of an overpopulated bylane

A barber was shaving off the moustache of

a rickshaw puller - both talking in Bangla.


I asked all their names.

They told me-

Shromik…labourer…migrant.

I asked for more names.

They replied -

Hunger.


2

Empire Must Fall


Here in the Red Fort

the zealot guide

was describing the hall

where Aurangzeb imprisoned his father

and behind the jaalis the Taj

was brimming in the mellowing Sun.


I handed him three hundred rupees

and said Namaste

He replied, Jay Shri Ram…

I became cautious of my name.


I saw a pigeon fluttered away

dropping his shit on the broken throne

of the emperor in Dewan-e- khas.

I found relief.


Three hundred or fifteen years-

all are numbers.

Every throne can be shat upon


3


Agra


A city sleeps within a city.

An imprisoned emperor still laments

on the bank of Yamuna.

No one here is to celebrate the ruins of

an empire

but to celebrate the love that never ages.

Do you still need any more proof to learn that

LOVE always wins defeating ruins?


4

The Song of Love


I don't want to be a princess

To fit into the chest of the Taj.


I want to be a miner or a reaper or a loved wife

Of the painter or the sculptor


who hold their breath and go blind

to make every inch of the Taj.


I don't want to be buried there motionless

rather I want to sit by those artists

who has defeated the time

and made for the emperor

The Song of Love - The Taj.



5

Tajmahal

What's love, Janam?

Is it the Taj?


Aren't the white marbles witness

of the restless hours

that pass into the emptiness of the

unknown queen of heart in the harem

who has been touched by many

but felt by none?


Don't call me your queen

rather let you be my touch-

Deep. All-encompassing.


What's love, Janam?

If it's not your eyes

melting into my lips

and breaking the oceans into

a rapturous storm.

 

Moumita Alam

Moumita Alam is a bilingual poet from West Bengal who writes poetry in Bengali and English.


A Series of Poems On My Visit to Delhi

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