My poetic rambling and humble tribute to my favorite singer, Geeta Dutt on the auspicious occasion of her birthday, November 23
Geeta Dutt, the inimitable Queen of Bhaav Gayaki, scaled the peaks of fame and fan following… (This picture (R) of her signing autographs was published in Filmfare) Pics courtesy: The Magical Voice of Geeta Dutt Facebook Group
Iridescent, calm, those eyes shone with so much love
As you hummed along, the world seeped in your bird songs.
The cascade rippled, gushed, flowed along
Harmonious rhymes, tailor-made for us
Caught between the crossfire of love and pining.
That hummingbird, caged within your fragile body
So full of dreams, clutching the transient luster
Of a tinsel town, harsh, cold, camouflaging your desires.
Your songs, a cult trudging the serene paths of love
While the world relinquished in their balmy presence,
There was no remedy to the abysmal core
Where you kept drowning, worn out, famished
Tangled in the maze of Bollywood, a whirlpool
That had sucked all bounty you had to give,
All passion, all ecstasy, as you lay still, one day
Lingering, watching over, in wreaths of silence.
Dark is the night as I listen to your refrains of love
They swirl around the room, bleeding
In the crescendo of life, exploding,
As you have bled, and died in love,
Drifted away, lingering, living.
A very amateur sketch I had made in her memory, long back, probably in 2002 (Sketch by: Lopa Banerjee)
Lopamudra Banerjee is an acclaimed author, poet, translator, editor with nine solo books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has received the Journey Awards (First Place category winner) for her memoir Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey, the International Reuel Prize for Translation (2016) and also International Reuel Prize for Poetry (2017) and other honors. Her poetry has been published in renowned platforms including Life in Quarantine, the Digital Humanities Archive of Stanford University. Her collaborative poetry collection with Priscilla Rice titled We Are What We Are (Black Eagle Books, 2022) has been 1st Prize Winner at New York Book Festival 2024 and her translation of a famous Bengali historical/biographical novel titled The Bard and His Sister-in-Law (Black Eagle Books, 2023) has received Honorary Mention at Paris Book Festival and Hollywood Book Festival 2024. Recently, her debut Bengali collection of poetry Draupadi Theke Nijoswi—Amra has been launched in Kolkata and also in the Dallas Public Library, Texas, with a performance of a psychological drama ‘Mukhomukhi’, in which she has made her foray as a playwright.
All Posts of Lopamudra Banerjee
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