those about to smile eyes,
the strand of hair misplaced
a sindurer tip, so cozy
(A famous still from Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar, starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore)
Nine years is a long time
some would say a life time
and yet Sharmila hasn’t aged.
Strange,
those about to smile eyes,
the strand of hair misplaced
a sindurer tip, so cozy.
My daughter rides her cycle
her new bell rings out loud,
louder than Apu’s train in fact
it hides the sudden tears
of a happy copulated screen,
suddenly gone Kafkaesque.
In the distance are scraps of little dreams
floating in
from another’s novel-
destroyed, stamped over
adrift, on a strange hillock.
Apu resides there,
I’m told
alone, voiceless, mindless.
I stare at my walls-
in the yellow of an evening light,
a pig is dead.
I put on a switch
Kajal lit eyes screech in happiness.
I have always hated the word ‘sansar’,
Did Apu smile at last?
I look twice, touch him on the screen
and smile back.
(Written on watching Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ again after nine years last week)
Hope you enjoyed reading...
... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting our creative, informative and analytical posts than ever before. And yes, we are firmly set on the path we chose when we started... our twin magazines Learning and Creativity and Silhouette Magazine (LnC-Silhouette) will be accessible to all, across the world.
We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.
When readers like you contribute, big or small, it goes directly into funding our initiative. Your support helps us to keep striving towards making our content better. And yes, we need to build on this year after year. Support LnC-Silhouette with a little amount - and it only takes a minute. Thank you
Support LnC-Silhouette
Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.
Apu is a tale of joy, a tale of dreams, a journey of trials and tears, of struggles and victories….
A beautiful poem Maitreyee, that finds the Apu within us…within all of us…
Lovely poem! Captures the essence of this Ray classic. Tugs at the heart stings like the movie did…