The Windswept Remembrance of Youth

The Windswept Remembrance of Youth

The windswept remembrance of youth

Came back like a splash

As I walk through rain, the July rain

Of Calcutta like a character out from a novel

I walk with the air of a free man

Yet I pause at places

The raindrops they smell the same they never become old

The tea shops the pouring of tea from the kettle on the mud cups

The expressionless faces at the bus stop

The woman in saree with sweat glittering on her face like pearls

The fragrance of bookstalls at the Gariahat

The shout the twenty steps and then ten more before I reach Ekdalia

And then the old lift to the house of Sunilda

Everything remained the same

But not me

The rain-soaked wind came and whispered the truth

With a dance of flirting laughter

You have in you the evenings of Grand Place of Brussels

You have in you the touch of Vermeer and Van Gogh

You have in you the eyes for Rembrandt

You have in you the nights of opera at Vienna

You have in you the mesmeric unforgettable beauty of Prague

You have with you now the woman of Frankfurt crossing a snow frozen road

You have with you now the bright warm sun washing the Colosseum in Rome

You have in you now the footsteps of Michael Angelo

You have in you the song of the Gondola boat man written in your notebook for pages

You have in you..all over you..in every breath of you...Paris

Do you remember the old dark dusted winds of Calcutta anymore?

And someone else?

A silhouette..erased in time through the calendar of days and nights and of full moon and nights of storm

I stand and smile

My eyes again stuck on a woman crossing the tramlines at Gariahat

Is it her? Is it you?

My woman?

A woman created like a Ulysses by the old charming scented poetic Calcutta winds that created me created her

And our first love

Our youth!

I walk and stand again in the middle of the tram lines.

Subhadip Majumdar

Subhadip Majumdar is a writer and poet from India. He is certified in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. He was also a long-time editor for a reputed Bengali poetry journal. Subhadip has also written a short novel as a Tumbleweed writer in Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France. Two poetry books have been published and one novel is in the process of publication.

Published Books includes :

1.The Resurrection of Sunflower: Anthology on Van Gogh published from New York

2.The Paris Walk: 14 Stories from Europe

3. The Shapeless Dance of Lovers: Twenty One Poems from a Bohemian Heart

4. The East of My Youth: Five Novellas from the Road

5. Beneath the Rainbow: Selected Short Stories published from New York (story compiled in a collection of best short stories)

All his books are available in ebook/kindle as well as paperback in Amazon.com