Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










KARGIL by Sudeep Sen

Ten years on, I came searching for
                war signs of the past
expecting remnants — magazine debris,
unexploded shells,
        shrapnel
                that mark bomb wounds.

I came looking for
                                        ghosts —
people past, skeletons charred,
abandoned
        brick-wood-cement
                        that once housed them.

I could only find whispers —
                whispers among the clamour
of a small town outpost
                        in full throttle —
everyday chores
                sketching outward signs
        of normality and life.

In that bustle
        I spot war-lines of a decade ago,
though the storylines
                are kept buried, wrapped
in old newsprint.

There is order amid uneasiness —
                        the muezzin’s cry,
the monk’s chant —
                baritones
                merging in their separateness.

At the bus station
                black coughs of exhaust
smoke-screens everything.
                        The roads meet
and after the crossroad ritual
                                diverge,
skating along the undotted lines
                        of control.
A porous garland
                with cracked beads
adorns Tiger Hill.
                Beyond the mountains
                        are dark memories,
and beyond them
                no one knows,
                                and beyond them
no one wants to know.

Even the flight of birds
                        that wing over their crests
don’t know which feathers to down.
        Chameleon-like
they fly, tracing perfect parabolas.

I look up
        and calculate their exact arc
and find instead,                a flawed theorem.