May 2021
Bio Note: I have four poetry collections and a monograph on an Indo-Nepal border tribe to my credit.
My works have been published in Indian Literature, The Bitter Oleander, Ink Sweat and Tears and elsewhere.
I love remote places, tea and mobile photography. I live in Kolkata, India.
Kangra School of Art
Public domain - Krishna with Flute
Now the old clock in my room has ten hands
like ten hands of a Hindu goddess
in search of, as though, stars, sky, soaps, forests,
metal, gunpowder,
masks, fire, death and water
All over my room, people move in and move out
in slow motion
with water clocks on their palms
At night I sleep inside a Kangra painting
replete with pink hills, white brooks
and a green forest clearing
I know I need to learn more
about the Kangra school of art
and squeeze everything –
the meadows with bowers, towns, rivers,
flowers, friends,
house clusters, peacocks and serpents
into the painting and ponder over Shringar –
the erotic sentiment
before I put you inside another Kangra painting
of forests, sky and longing
and hang it on my white wall
©2021 Sekhar Banerjee
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