Upasana Mitter (West Bengal, India)
I — born as a woman and raised as a lamb — in the land of vermillion earth richened by alluvium and bloodshed — where a walk through the slopes stains my soles with this crimson rust that has had ballads laid to its feet — centuries of home-grown and war-torn love held precious for this ranga maatir desh — land of the red hillocks, that is, where their hands have spent centuries crafting men, women, horses, dogs, elephants out of the soil where their houses stand — and here, I who run through the hillforest like the lamb, and March who chases right after me like the lion — its wind lashing at my back, tangling up my hair, stabbing my small brown face with rain needles.
I — of the land of the loud and thunderous festival — on a quiet, dull evening where summer beats down on your scalp — it rashes pink on your fragile skin and you have to drag your body to work and back as if locked up by a fever, hot and sweaty, grilled meat on charcoal — where the bright white morning and yellow afternoons make you weary and grizzled — it roughs you up, under the direct fire of weather, with locusts kissing your cheek and ants crawling up the hair of your legs — I lie, it is me that it roughs up, and it is I who hear the first crack of the sky — or so I like to think, do not disillusion me, let the child feel like a king.
I — see it clearly, the evening sky cracking open — like a massive black egg and through its fine lines it splits and lets the yolk of rain fall through — and washes away the sins of the heat wave past — it falls, it falls, on the dried terracotta earth and the open palms of those who want to clean them off it — the viola indica bows its head to the breeze in soft dark sorrow — the damp grass is stepped on by the delicately clattering hooves of cattle — the rocks soak up the abrupt barrage of water, it knows it’s going to be a while before this sudden love bombing ends — it soaks up like it has soaked up years of dust, floods, droughts, tobacco spits, acids, fumes, indigofera tinctoria, red and blue, blood and flowers.
And now — the storm is a scream through the air — it is multiple screams and sobs and starvations ringing with the sharp sound of howls that belong to me — to us, the land of bleating, squabbling lamb people — it carries soda cans and dirt within its waft, it carries packets of chips and dandelion rays and drops them into flooding streams, it carries a punch and a laugh, it carries the redolence of burnt ozonic remains and smoke and geosmin — and it happens every year, this harbinger of spring — it is the muse of songstresses and the climber of myths — it is the herald of insect and reptilian season — of violently coloured marigolds and hyacinths and jasmine — kaal baisakhi marches, its music a lion’s roar, here, now, for us.
A poet, writer and acrylic/oils/mixed-media artist, Upasana Mitter pursues a degree in Sociology from Calcutta University and resides in West Bengal, India. She occasionally sits down at a keyboard and lets herself go for a little too long. You can find her painting away her graceless inner turmoils on Instagram @rumpelstilskin1693. Her writing has previously appeared in The Ekphrastic Review.