A Boat Returning Home | Udita Banerjee

I walk on the brown tiles of my terrace. 
The mind dwindles between the mundaneness of life and the deliciousness of the moon in its transient glory.
How far is the sky from the ground where we stand?
I contemplate and calculate.

Young Razia takes a stroll around,
The mirth of the night sky shines bright on her white kurta.
Hushed laughter on video calls, faces merging into illuminated screens.
A translucent joy writes itself on the wind.

In a distance stands Shiuli with a cup.
Fresh melancholia wrapped inside the kunchis of her green silk saree.
Fireflies adorning her paraphernalia,
She gazes at the sky.
The memories of her estranged father resurrect through the cathartic aroma of cardamom tea.

Dementia has scarred and pushed Mridul Babu into a disguise.
A disguise from his earlier formidable self.
The exasperating stillness of his eyes stare at me.
The soggy paratha pieces on my plate stare at me.
They detest me for my apathy.
Like an old mango tree, ancient and yellow,
He ages with decay, smouldering in his bosom. 

My eyes look for them,
Like a boat returning home.
Sights as innocuous as newly washed bedsheets, but decrepit too.
And every day they dissolve in the vastness of the sky like bubbles in the air.

How far is the sky from the ground where we stand?
I contemplate and calculate.
The figures are blurred
They disappear
They are not real.

Udita Banerjee is a doctoral candidate in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. She has earlier published feature articles and creative pieces in digital platforms as Cafe Dissensus and Icche Dana.