(If you want to know)

He plays this Hemanta

Song and asks me

If I want to know

How much pain he has

I should go and ask

A caged bird,

To gauge the depth of his tears,

I should go and ask

The submerged lotus.

Little does he know

That I don’t want to know

Anything at all.

There was a time

When I wished to know it all.

But then he told me

Friendship is all about forwards.

No queries, no replies.

That’s what all his friends do.

Why don’t I too?

Now, even if he wishes

That I ask him,

Or I would like to know him…

The depth of his pain and tears,

I now know that

I don’t want to know anything.

Yes, Hemanta sings well.

The words are nice…

The song is nostalgic.

But it fails to melt me.

There was a time,

Every word and every song

I heard with him,

It touched me somewhere

Deep down there,

Just because he played it for me.

Now, even if he tries

Or I try,

Those feelings have just gone away

Our friendship has ebbed away

And given way

To some sort of

Animosity that

Has caged us like that bird

Has submerged us like that lotus

And we cannot fly away,

Nor can we breathe easy

In these murky waters…

Of our stale relationship.

______________________

You can hear the song here .

Copyright © Aparna Chatterjee 2010

Image Source: Bawaal dot Com

Anjuman's Other Poems

Jodi Jante Chao Tumi - A Sequel