Sudipta Mishra, Puri, 22 April 2023
What is there in the circle like bangles?
Sometimes they appear in green colour!
Maidens wear them by stealing hues of nature.
There are yellow-coloured bangles,
like sunshine they seem bright
A teen embraces them with growing delight
That tinkle with the hurried moves of the girls
Pinkish-white bangle dazzles like stars
A tiny girl exploits them with a playful desire
She saves it as a treasure trove of pleasure
Bluish-white bangles adorn the dark almirah like the moon in the sky
A girl in her mid-twenties solves many mysteries
With her lover, she weaves a love story
A bride demands red coloured bangles
To pleat and knit the thread of conjugal liaisons
Sometimes she is teased by the sight of broken red ones
Some unknown creatures snatch the same bangles
A widow stands near the threshold
She stares at the same red broken pieces
Exhausted to save her treasured sources
Nobody cares
Again arrives the much-awaited village fair
Girls run to collect the colourful desires
A cycle goes on
They wear, they flaunt, they hold
Of the dignity of the same bangles
From a girl to a mother
From a beloved to a widow
From a wife to a grandmother
Like a web of spider
An illuminated sphere
Like a circle
They stroll with the bangles
From the dark night
Towards a glorious morn
Their jovial spirit at last ceases
And they lose the battles
Of life
By death
With the fading
sounds of the clinking round ones!!!
