Oh, Calcutta! (2)

This poem describes, but endearingly my my regards for the great city.

My Vermilion Spittled Calcutta, Green

Urinous pavements rise at every step
That clangs and clangs a most clamorous din;
Lewd and lushly lavish, bacchanal cries
Merge with sibilant sighs of silken sin;
Triumphs sexual and capitulations
Fully throated, or in breaths mumbled, brim
Slither and spread on your polluted air,
My vermilion spittled Calcutta, green!
But you are still the land of Bangla songs,
Where the great Ganges brings its richly flow,
Where the gentle hands of Teresa touched
The souls neglected by the city's throw;
Theatre Road’s now Shakespeare Sarani,
The great English bard commemorating,
The name of Satyajit Ray, by any
Measure brings movies worth remembering;
New Market, the Races and Bengal Club,
Salt Lake, the Sunderbans and Chowringhee,
The sacrificial goats at Kali Ghat -
A mix of Anglo-India history;
O! The majesty of encrustations,
In the great corner cut of Indian soil,
Once, a jewel in an imperial crown
And the pride of Tagore-Ananda toil,
Now gaunt and forlorn with clothes in tatters
You stand no less the Lady you had been,
Your graciousness untouched by unkind time,
My vermilion spittled Calcutta, green!

From The Unsung Log by Ronnie Patel (Bookworth & Patroy)
Copyright Ronnie Patel 2006 (in continuum)

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Oh, Calcutta! (1)

The following poem is dedicated to Calcutta, the amazing city of rare wealth of talent and hospitality; and to my (late) friend Vimal Bhagat.

The poem was written in 1987, when I was guest of the well known thespian Vimal Bahagat for nearly two months, rehearsing the Pavel Kohut's play: POOR MURDERER. In 1993, on hearing the news of Vimal's death, on the first evening of my own production of D. L. Coburn's: THE GIN GAME with Pauline Hahn (ex Hollywood), as supper theatre at the Taj Coromandel Hotel, Madras, I had dedicated the performance to his memory with a brief announcement. And today I think of him, again!


Calcutta: The Dark Hour Of The Night

The dark hour of the night descends,
The hour of the cat and the assassin,
Of the silent lurkers hop-scotching
Over piss-runs from abused walls,
Ginger footing on jagged pavements;
It is the hour of fiendish screams
Of feline copulation on roof tops,
Of human sighs in sexual relief,
Or of semen trickling on silken thighs:
Coitus interreptus, clandestine; it is
The hour when motion thieves on stillness,
And stillness is death, or sleep.

(From The Unsung Log: Copyright Ronnie Patel)

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