Tag Archives: endless night

The Ghats of Varanasi

Posted on by akanksha gupta

Dip into History

Etched onto every crenulation
On either side of Ganga’s might,
A relic of truth - a piece of history
Mired in faith and legend and mystery
Resides; quietly, contently, reverently
Burning day and night fervently

Cremation

Waters brim with the black of night
Still with the cold of death
Weep endless ashes and dust, and yet
Echo the warmth of undying embers 
All reflective, quiet, solemn faced 
Sailing past Harishchandra, Manikarnika Ghats
Reverent and disquieted in equal parts

Sandhya Aarti

Melted drops of a long-gone sun
Burn the wick of every prayer
On the ghats
On the boats swarming the ghats
Mesmerising chants of song and dance
Fill the air

Breath mingles with oil and incense
Headiness of lights and sounds and scents
Harmony of Dasashwamedh and Ganga
Symphony of souls swept into an orchestra
Of carefree precision, of piety
Intoxicated with sobriety

As time crescendoes;
Halts to a moment,
Ensnares,
Dusk darkening, night lightening,
Heart tightening,
I wonder how aarti at dawn compares

– Akanksha Gupta

The Fault in the Alteration

Posted on by akanksha gupta

The day
Like embroidery
Is fine

It scrapes across the fingertips
And digs ‘neath the roughshod nails
Before it eases into night
And the hardships gently wane
And ebb and flow with tendresse
Of each, now habitual, caress
That kneads the creases and furrows away

The day
Like embroidery
Is fine

It scrapes across the fingertips
It digs ‘neath the roughshod nails
Benign, as a child’s gaze,
It draws blood –
It plucks each drop
And hurls into the design
Of Drowning suns
And Ruby skies

The drops pool
The wounds cool
The day rests into night
The rains glaze over the reds
That macabrely coalesce
Along the hardened lines

But if the fault
Were upturned
The rains would gently graze the reds
And ebb and flow with tendresse
Of each, now habitual, caress
That kneads the creases and furrows away

Then the day
Unbeguiled
Like embroidery
Would also smile

– Akanksha Gupta

FOR SOME ARE BORN TO ENDLESS NIGHT

Posted on by akanksha gupta

It’s those some times

When in the quintessential hush

You whisper

From a broken raspy throat

Crackling through the silence

As though parched and raked over

Burning coals, over

Scorching summer sands

And into those silences of the desert

Your agonizing cracked voice

That has been silenced

By fate perchance

For so long

It has so much to say

It longs to, but nay

The silence of the desert

Offers no solace, no oasis

Yet you whisper

It speaks of strength

That you’re so hardened

That only you know, it’s an illusion;

Where they see courage

I see the desperation

I see you’re broken

Because I’ve been there too

The ageless quietude

Of whispering

Of wetting the throat with emotions

Buried somewhere far but not forgotten

Of wetting chapped lips with blood

That you wished was not a figment

Of your imagination

You bleed within and wonder

Why it all never bleeds out

But like a rot on the inside

It gnaws at you, it clings on, it clots

And you scrape it out

With harsh rasping sounds

And guttural cries and howls

Your throat is hoarse

Because you have so much to say

But no one to tell

So you tell the silent air

The forbidden secrets you hope

It will share

You hope that one day

You’ll get there

I won’t lie and say it’ll be fine

But it will get better with time

Your lies, your self-deception

Your ability to hide the pain

To hide yourself

From not just the world

But from yourself

– Akanksha Gupta