Five Poems: A Hill Town's Coming of Age, In Between, The Prayer Flag's Song, Vortex and Alibi in North Sikkim

ABOUT THE POEMS These poems record the transformation of a hill town upon a river in north-east India. Relatively anonymous in the past, “a world unto itself”, the town is now the site of bustling new energies—land acquisition, construction, the damming of the river—and a shift in the moral terrain.

Inventively, the poems speak from a multiplicity of points above, below, and within the scene, memorialising what must pass away for ever, and walking on tiptoe around secrets and compromises furtively reached. Like the river that is seen, in an acute defamiliarisation, to be “stealthily creating ways/ through fish and algae”, the poet’s lyric voice cuts out paths through the tumult, seeking to establish a perspective on a world which is being ripped up “piece by piece”. A physical landscape, a poem like 'The Prayer Flag’s Song' seems to suggest, is intimately connected to a people’s myths; when every grain of its sand is suddenly churned, then it is not just mountains and rivers that fade from view, but gods and spirits.

A Hill Town’s Coming of Age

Every small town has a place in the sun

once in its lifetime;

at least the lucky ones like me do

They enter quietly,

make place for themselves,

like dust that looks for home

They come and go, riding me,

the faint explosion, the odd clap of dynamite,

I’m happy to be of use

I am a dream world unto myself,

turning my lungs into stone,

locked, perhaps content.

Come, try your luck,

sift like your fathers did elsewhere,

look for your future in every grain of my sand.

In Between

You would not have gone away when you did,

but you went, leaving a few things behind.

A few squares of earth turned outwards

now tempt you.

You smile gleefully,

even though you have forgotten what once grew here.

You return when roots reach for the sky.

Today I have come to take what is not mine,

you run to a fate which was never yours.

The Prayer Flag’s Song

Once upon a time

I prayed the hail would melt into gentle rain

and come to wash my colours every morning;

for strong wind to fill me with awe for the mountains where they were born;

for Rangyong waters to carry my soul back to the Kanchenjunga.

I prayed for the spirit that hid behind a rock

who came to me in a dream one night after twelve weeks of silence.

Deep inside

you are afraid of the hail,

so afraid the river will swallow you one day

that you must tame it.

Your fear has entered me,

every morning I dream of a swollen river,

of a wind that destroys.

I mumble a forgotten prayer for today’s departed.

Vortex

Under water

it glided through the darkness

stealthily creating ways

through fish and algae.

Only a few nights I remember,

the river would roar

and our house would shake

like a leaf.

I have sold it now

piece by piece—

my friends and I

and we’re happy.

But the current’s on the surface now

hissing, seething,

frothing at the head

torn asunder by my betrayal

Alibi in North Sikkim

The window is shut,

nothing must leak out from my room.

The brazen wind is known to misbehave.

Objects stand

still.

Inside, it is calm.

You are a guest, you are welcome.

Inside my closed room,

I will give you a few words

which you must forget.

Remember them when you have gone far away

and if you write about me,

remember to change my name.