Culture & Society

Poem: Void By Boudhayan Mukherjee

Poet Boudhayan Mukherjee writes a poem for Outlook.

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Poem: Void By Boudhayan Mukherjee
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door step, stairway, bannisters landings

railings, more steps, anti-gravitational 

upwards, dark corridors, alleys, rooms

without walls

windows shut forever, oblong fever of walls

termites, moss, dampness, Lord Clive

ceilings with holes shot by heroic Bagha Jatin Mukherjee

stairway leading to a star gazed heritage roof 

the one room attic where my forefather hid

and jumped to the next roof 

when the police surrounded 

that surreal house neighbours shunned

which will become a shopping mall soon

a marvellous sodomy of pent-up grief

the roof now lay like a forlorn graveyard

down below the bustling street

must have forgotten the valour of this house.

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(Boudhayan Mukherjee is a bilingual poet, essayist , and a translator, who has taught creative writing in English at Indira Gandhi National Open University and has authored five books of poetry and translations.)

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