Santosh talks about the many shades and hues of a woman.
Ah she comes, she comes, a song she hums Rising above the cacophony of war drums How she loves to change dresses and masks This fashionista deftly performing myriad tasks. She is the arrow plummeting through the forest. Hugging many an explosive secret to her breast The swish of the wind galloping through the trees Misty and mesmerizingly magical, at times a tease. She morphs into a rain cloud ready to burst Rearing to quench a parched throat’s thirst She dies as the last candle in the shepherd’s shack And then as the rustle of the leaves is again back. To take a soaring flight to the snow-sheathed peak Perhaps from its purity some solace to seek? At times precariously perched on a gypsy woman’s stove Sometimes pirouetting with a sunray on a chunk of fresh snow. Morphing into a verse, pricking sensibilities dodoesque She is the rhythmic linear pattern in a bewitching arabesque. Emerging from the shadows, in multi- hued dresses attired At times, on cat feet, she romps around, feisty and untired. Flying on wings of whimsicality, she comes, she goes. She is my imagination, embracing both friends and foes. Stealthily, she creeps inside a beggar woman’s sigh And then is all a quiver in a mother’s final goodbye.
Picture design Anumita Roy