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I keep staring into Eliza’s eyes,
keep rubbing my lips against her lips.
In this city, going to her
is the only way out.
At least for someone
as unemployed and jobless as me.
Eliza’s asking price is very low,
just twenty euros.
For twenty euros, a woman,
a woman’s body.
The condition with Eliza was,
no penetration of any kind,
only external touch, tongue and lips.
Or mutual churning.
And yet,
Eliza.
Lays herself bare,
entirely undressed.
Removing, one by one, all her undergarments.
And
stripping away everything of mine.
I am astonished, again and again.
Even prostitutes, once penetration happens,
do not kiss the lips.
And yet,
Eliza.
Kisses my lips,
draws me into an embrace,
as if I were the lover of her hundred lifetimes’ devotion.
I lose myself,
now a lover,
now a customer,
running my hand
over Eliza’s breast and her sex.
And yet,
Eliza.
Remains, to me, a streetwalker,
one who can be had
for twenty euros.
And yet,
Eliza.
Asks five euros more when leaving.
On condition
that next time, ten euros
will settle it.
I keep staring
into Eliza’s eyes.
With an ocean of longing in me
I see, there, only emptiness.
No.
There is no love there,
no desire there.
No love.
No lover, no
desire of a man.
I go back,
carrying the despair
of failing to be a lover, or a man.

The two of us,
on a night of getting to know each other,
suddenly, once, in a single glance,
I held Julia’s hand.
Exactly when, or why,
I held Julia’s hand that night,
I don’t remember.

I only remember
our night passed in stories,
the night of first meeting.

Alongside, we opened,
one by one, two
bottles of red wine.

Exactly when, or why,
I held Julia’s hand
that night.
I don’t remember.

I only remember
Julia was wearing
a white woollen frock.

I remember
in the soft light of her sitting room,
sitting before me was not a goddess,
nor was she flighty — just a girl.
Only a girl.

Her entranced eyes,
that’s what she wore that night.
The night of getting acquainted.
The night of our first meeting.

I don’t know when. Exactly when
the morning light came
and stood at the window.
Not a flash, but as if saying,
that’s enough for now,
let’s each go to our own rooms.

After that,
each of us told the other,
on what night again
will we sit like this, face to face! Tell me!

It’s not that
anyone has asked,
how are you.
And yet I feel like saying,
feel like telling her,
telling Anindita.
Her own taught phrase,
“It’s going fine.”
Yes,
it’s going fine.
Believe me,
believe me, Anindita.
It’s going fine.
Only, without two sleeping pills,
sleep doesn’t come anymore these days.

No.
Don’t come back.
Don’t make it come back.
Let it stay.
Let it stay, tucked away on the shelf.
Carefully kept, one small piece
of heartbreak.
What need is there anymore
to bind ourselves in promises
of romance or love
and carry the burden
of staying chained!
Rather, never
go looking for it,
nor will I
go looking anymore
for the crossing of our messages.
Just let it be known.
We were something to each other, once,
once, of love.

Or
that hand of Suhana’s,
quietly, like Rakhi’s hand,
had held mine in the silent study-room,
drawn by forbidden love’s fruit.
Or
Popi, Rakhi, Bonna, or Ananya.
One by one, all my beloveds, or
lovers with dream-showing eyes
drawn in the grief of their beloveds’ gaze,
today come knocking
at memory’s enchanted harbour.
Like a rudderless ship.
Or
Anindita’s hand, drawn in imagination’s paper lantern.
It comes back even now, even now, as real
as reality itself.
Or
Susmita’s hand comes back to me.
Saying I would hold it
one day, in a poem.
In poems have passed
countless sleepless nights.
Or
I keep staring, unblinking, at a photograph,
believing that one day it will come true —
your hand, held in mine.

That hand of Rakhi’s, from so long ago,
slipped from my hand, and yet,
it comes back to me. Comes back, recalling
how many, how many moonless nights have passed.

Let a thousand years flow on, after this.
Let the Jamuna flow on,
let there be an ocean of lotuses.
Carrying the lost basket of wonder,
let another thousand years pass,
let forbidden love and pure love
flow on across the earth.
Let it flow.
Let it flow, a thousand years’
machine, a pool of anguish.
Let the fathers die,
the grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
Into their world of wonder let flow
sorrow, or hideous stars.

And yet
when evening comes,
I remember.
I remember.
Of Anindita.
Anindita.
Because she never wanted a share of the blame,
all her fondness,
her love,
her secret romance,
her secret rendezvous —
she carefully avoided.
And yet
when evening comes,
I remember
of Anindita.
Anindita.
Who was my beloved.
Never was.
Or
I too was never
her beloved.
And yet
when evening comes,
I remember
of Anindita.
Anindita.
Who worried about my children, my wife and family,
or my past and future —
worried about everything.
Worried
more than I did myself.
And yet.
Day after day,
many days have passed.
Anindita and I no longer speak,
we no longer know each other.
We don’t know
how the other is doing!
And yet
when evening comes,
I remember
of Anindita.
Of my unattained
love.

You —
because you live in a forbidden city —

I
took my first lesson in being made whole
from your hand.

I went
to open new doors and windows
of a fugitive life,
to open up life itself.

You —
because you live in a forbidden city —
I took an oath
in your name.

I swore
by those seven heavens
and by the hypocrite god
of this whole earthly sphere.

Yet
if you, and the touch of your body,
should swallow me
in sin carried from birth to birth,

a sin
written into me at birth itself,
become
a lifelong curse.

Yet
for the sake of this flowing life,
to purify this life,
I had gone to you.

Only
between us there was
the free coming and going of words.
And
perhaps there was some forbidden traffic too.

The hypocrite god
of the heavens —
was he watching,
I do not know.

I only
came to know
that we
had no god.

And
I —

even today
am not made whole.

Not purified either.

I only
stand
at the door of your forbidden city,
rooted.
Still.

The door
does not open.
The window
does not open.

Never fulfilled
is my lifelong longing
to be purified.