How to tell seasons and other poems by Srabani Bhattacharya

The dog of the hay
sleeps her day away.
Yellow as ripe paddy
Quick to fear
but sharp to hear,
Her mammary glands
still hang with the undrunk
milk of the puppies that
passed under tired
wheels of tractors that
rumble through the night
In mornings, she knows
the stir of the spoon in the cups
and she peeps through windows
for biscuit crumbs
Her ears snap up when
pots and pans clang
in the courtyard
She is prompt to trot up
and watch for leftovers
from the plates mashi cleans.
Her hind legs are poised
to sprint at the jerk of
mashi’s hands, or a strike
of her chappal
In evenings, she knows
the rhythmic thudding
of the rolling pin
and waits patiently
for the one hot roti
thrown at her
from the kitchen
In the hierarchy,
she is lowest
just above rats
but below the farmers
whose legs and heads
are all bent
before the babus
While the farmers get a seat
on the cold cement
and a separate plate and cup
(that they wash themselves),
the dog of the hay
gets no place inside the door
She eats her food
from the ground
If you asked her, she’d say,
The hay is a warmer bed
than the floor
Invoking all her names
The bells of the old Kali temple
chime with an ancestral pull,
The half-made idol on the altar
wears a hibiscus rope
and her hay stare still glare
at my sins, at my giving in
The dogs at the front
are fat with the bones
of 33 goats sacrificed
for an oath over the square
caked with mud
to hide the blood
of spirits quivering
in the shrine
The drums, the kashor
chanting loud and louder
reach their crescendo
when the pandit in trance
taps his rhythmic dance
coconut embers burn
and devout eyes roll up
and knees fall down
in obeisance and I see
blood trickling
in mazy motion down to
the drains designed for it
to nourish the weeds
growing below
Her ten avatars gawk
with conceited pleasure
lip-smacking at our waists bent
hands folded with gifts
Her incense eaters
swoop down to take their cut
of the smoke spiraling above
and devour all that
gives her power and makes
sacred the temple–
the communal clash,
crooked priests and families
whose riches recite her names
For blood must flow
so she can thrive,
and stare down
from her shaky abode
with fiery eyes
held up by the hymns
to divide ritual flowers
among open palms
clapping to the beat
of suppliance

Facing the music
Let us eavesdrop on the
minstreling vendor who
promises aloud he’ll buy
the bundles of newspaper
piling high in the veranda,
Let us look up at rickshaw
horns that cut through
drudging afternoon sun
Let us tap our feet to
hawker calls from vans
overladen with pots and pans
Let us hum the ice cream
man’s bell ringing along
privileged lanes in hope
for faces on window panes
and the running feet of
children on the staircase
with coins trinkling in pockets
Let us croon to the chords
of the dosawala clanking his
ladle on the dosa pan out
in the evenings after
this long sabbatical break
waiting for curtains to part
and shouts behind his back
asking him to wait and name
his price. Let us revel in
the noise of return, in
hollers of vegetable sellers
showing off their goods, in
the cries of the kabadiwala
who clears out the used
bottles and jars of pickles,
oil, sauce and spice that
spill in corners of the house.
Let us drown in sounds
unfamiliarised by dearth
and disease and listen again
for forgotten blues of city.
A page from Maa’s recipe book
Bring the lentils to a boil
Lullaby for Monday blues is
to drown in a red hot pool
Soft cook the vegetables
Coriander and mustard seeds
floating like boats with tomatoes
bathing in a rust-pale stew
Stir in the masala
Mornings jingling with maa’s
bangles, the chopped drumsticks,
peeled onions and slit chillies
Squeeze out tamarind water
The sabziwala’s smile (as he tucks
a sprig of curry leaves in the bag
with the Friday market) flavours
the hearty brew we pour to
soothe sultry summer sores
Use fresh curry leaves
Oh to sink in that tender scent!
Cumin playing pop in the pan
with red chilies till the leaves
curl and crisp and saliva seeps
with wholesome warmth
Add tempering and simmer
What’s sambar without the taste
of home lingering on yellowed fingers?
How to tell seasons
Mother, my book is all wrong.
It says there are only five seasons!
How can that be? What about
The season when the storms
Knock on the windows? What about
The season when the doves
bicker louder than the bulbuls
And the one when the crows disappear?
There’s that season when
The mango buds come on the tree;
The one when they turn yellow;
And when they grow fat and fall down
Of course there’s the season when
I pick up a basket of shiuli in the morning;
Then the one when Grandma has
no flower from the garden for puja.
They completely missed that season
when baba brings home the syrupy jaggery
which you and grandma turn
into pithe and puli and payesh.
That’s close to the one when little
shops plop up in corners selling
sweets and chikis and lumps of dogs
are curled up in corners instead of
lying flat with their tongues out.
What about lichi season and jackfruit season
And the one when baba’s bazaar must
Have a bag of guavas? They didn’t
Even count the one when cuckoos
Call non-stop and I can never find
Where they are hiding. They’ve
Only written about when the stairs
turn into a pond and baba puts
bricks for us to step on. This book
is a bore. It can’t tell seasons at all.
Why, they missed about twenty more.
Srabani Bhattacharya is a poet, editor, and copywriter who finds solace in the art of writing, engaging in a perpetual dialogue with the world that surrounds her. Her poems have previously appeared in esteemed literary spaces.