Masks
When I write in Urdu
The words drag themselves from the right
Like children taken to school
Against their will.
The letters set up camp
Lighting a fire
With the remains of their discarded brothers.
In the evening, they sit by a stream
The surface of which is polished mercury.
And whisper sad songs to each other.
Halfway through the poem,
An unruly couplet wanders off
To a nearby village
And returns smelling of,
Grandmothers' shawls.
The others, having already reached the end
Exchange their masks
And prepare to walk again.
Sayan Aich Bhowmik
Sayan Aich Bhowmik is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Shirakole College, Kolkata. He is also the co-editor of the blog Plato's Caves, a semi-academic space for discussion on life, culture and literature.
About This Poem
The poem is on the one hand a meditation on the futility of writing and on the other an ode to nostalgia and the times gone by. Words sometimes act as masks, sometimes more potent in keeping things vague and opaque rather than transparent and palpable.