बारहवीं की छात्रा लीशू ने कविता की कठिन परंतु गर्वीली राह पकड़ी है। मैने इनकी पहली कविता तब सुनी थी जब ये सातवीं मे थीं। हर्ष के साथ कहूँ कि यहॉ इनकी दो कवितायें Fan तथा afternoons पेश हैं। आइये, हम सब मिलकर इस नई कवियत्री का स्वागत करें :-
FAN
There is a circle inside a circle,
They call it eternal,
There is a circle inside a circle,
And there is a lot of science filled inside it.
There are lots of entangled wires of Physics,
And chords and hard and ugly metal,
Giving it its spherical shape.
The Physics inside it may be imperative,
But it certainly isn’t attractive,
It’s so pathetic, that it is completely hidden,
Almost invisible,
So invisible the toddlers don’t even see it.
Yet, it is a part of the sphere.
The sphere suspends three hands,
The hands resemble the clock,
But they don’t move time,
They move air.
Instigating comfort, convenience and all other words in the dictionary that mean the same,
The sphere is rightly placed at the top,
But perhaps, Science fails to provide beautiful faces to its expansions,
For not a single eye admires the eternal-mechanical sphere.
Probably, it’s the only thing that hangs from the height,
Where others strive to be,
And yet,
It’s the only thing,
That knows how secluded it feels,
To be on the lonely pole,
How lunatic it is,
To go on and on and on,
On the command of a miniscule finger,
And maybe,
It’s the only thing,
God shall never listen to-
For Science,
Denies God.
And maybe,
It’ll always hang there;
A circle within a circle.
Afternoons.
The biscuit sun exists.
I have seen it.
My son has chewed bits of it.
It’s so soft and humble.
It melts in the mouth.
But I see no sugar around.
Maybe his tongue plays tricks.
Or maybe he has learnt that gimmick from the black clown we had.
By the way he was our cook.
He made sumptuous turkey.
I am not like the other Feudal women.
I let him eat in the kitchen after dark.
Tim liked him.
By the way, Tim is my son.
I went for motion pictures.
They were also called black and white.
I am not a blonde.
The Brunette in me thinks, that they are not black and white.
They are black and grey.
Tim is four years old.
He has a bike.
Jim makes him ride it.
What a delight to watch him saddle his horse.
Thank God, he’s a boy.
Samantha said, Jim is a boy too.
I say shut up.
He is our cook.
Then I remember My nanny.
She told me the sun was orange.
But when I grew older, I discovered it was yellow.
Then one day I asked her.
Why she lied to me.
She said she didn’t.
It was orange and even red in the part she came from.
Then I told my teacher.
She spanked me.
Nanny was black.
I was baking cookies once.
They came out hard.
I refused to eat them.
Tim puked after he did.
I did the sensible thing after that.
I gave it to Jim.
My neighbour’s wife calls me so generous.
She says she keeps a bamboo stick with her.
You never know with servants.
Time runs so fast.
I was watching this song on Mtv.
I am 50 now.
A black boy surrounded by black and white skimpy girls.\
He’s topping the billboard.
But what a pity.
He doesn’t sing at all.
He just mutters breathlessly.
Rhythm and poetry I can write much better.
Then there is this girl.
Making songs on an umbrella.
But c’mon.
The flat noses can’t be pretty.
What ahs the world come too.
I look out of my window.
It’s not summer anymore.
The sun is like the moon.
Both pale, mellow.
It loses it’s luster.
But I still find the luster in my past.
When I recount Tim riding his bike.
But Tim never cared for a sunbath.
Or anything else.
He’s married a Blonde now.
It’s lucky to be the only brunette in the family.
And then the sun sets.
When I sleep,
I dream of it.
It doesn’t even come out orange.
It’s biscuit.
And Tim relishes it.
Then Tim’s face blurs.
I don’t see him at all.
Instead,
I get all my luster back.
I discover the biscuit sun exists.
And it’s prettier than anything I have ever seen.
It’s been a long time.
I see a man standing with open arms.
After all that has happened in the past.
He’s not violent.
He’s not grey and black.
He is full of sparkle.
He lives where the biscuit sun exits.
And I smile in my sleep.
The man is Jim.
