Sabyasachi Sanyal

Only if you tilled the silence…

(What is silence, but a clamorous search for meaning? –Steven Erikson)

1

What you want to say and what you end up saying--that gap makes you a poet, at least in the language of men. In that fog-drenched middle ground, you lose yourself: voice thick with mist, mimicking the calls of fields and riverbanks. The sharp light of Chinese lanterns begins to blur--like stargazing through a beloved’s tears.

That’s where abstraction begins. Not in desire, but as the last resort of the helpless. And of ambition:

You want every word to soothe a raw nerve--like an extended index finger. But it’s always the middle one that trembles in public.

2

Who owns the land, and what of man? Deeds, titles? Even “This land owns me” sounds theatrical. In the end: tide, ebb, erasure. One door shatters to unlatch another.

I’d argue further, but this immature cauliflower--first of the winter days--tells another story. Its tender stalk, tempered with fenugreek and split chickpeas--

my parents’ flesh. Their history.

A different matter altogether…

3

When the land dies, magic is born.

The root--blind behind its eyes--knows no sin, no virtue. It drinks from every stone. The stone fractures, and inscriptions form: cracks and scrawls that, two thousand years later, will whisper Dhamma to me.

Only the weak wear color. The strong want the future to resemble the past.

Fragile humans are magic--burned to ash-gray inside, their faces still smolder.

The antlion waits beneath the crumbling earth--eager, patient. All life weighs the same. And yet: to make art is to kill the subject.

Murder needs a sliver of hatred, lightning-fast--but before and after the act, only compassion: to look at things as they are.

Note: “Dhamma" refers to the Buddhist principles of ethics and morality aimed at fostering societal harmony and individual well-being. These ideals were prominently propagated in the stone edicts of Emperor Ashoka. The term also shares roots with the Hindu concept of "Dharma," encompassing duty, righteousness, and the natural order.

4

A perfect equality lives only in darkness.

But what mischief hides there? When the eyes see nothing,

they focus on memory--

and bite their own veins, deep.

The painter paints beauty. The writer writes beauty.

And beauty must be slaughtered to preserve it.

This is murder. This is repetition.

There is no escape.

Why should decay pain us?

Is it because we crave wholeness?

To be complete, we cling to everything--

even garbage--with broken, desperate nails.

But decay--

decay alone reaches the heart,

where the rogue one sleeps,

deep in a jungle of wild peppers.

{With gratitude to the lines of  Kamal Chakrabarty (1946-2025)

-- ‘I could show you in the wild pepper forest, the Thagi sleeps’}

Note: Thagi/Thuggee were groups of robbers active in India between the 13th and 19th centuries.

5

“Life itself is art”--I cannot accept this.

Not for any profound reason--only out of self-interest.

If life is accepted as art,

then the artist’s only task is to build mausoleums.

And a mausoleum can only be built after the subject is dead.

Civilization, at its core, is just an argument:

the inventor on one side, the philosopher on the other.

To slow decay,

we must also slow the momentum of civilization.

So many words--to extend a single sentence.

In truth, civilization is born from conflict:

between the thinker and the doer.

This writing has nothing to do with flowers blooming.

I write it in the grip of bitter winter.

Let spring’s quarrels arrive in spring.

Note:  A Complete Treatise on Civilization: 

What if

           But, then

                         Therefore                           {yet….

(To Paul Dirac)

6

You wrote of dark, gathering clouds--

and of dusk, and the vines clutching the hills--

all of it, a kind of surrender.

Nature-writing, to me, at its core,

is an act of yielding:

to accept, in bone and blood,

the order of things--

just as we, inevitably,

submit to some form of servitude:

to tradition, to authority, to the marketplace,

to gods, to scripture, to impractical philosophers...

I think of responsibility--

and find myself forced to accept my own writing,

even if it means denying myself.

That too is part of the context.

And within that context--

the gardener arrives today.

He digs into the soil of pots,

pulling out weeds--

for just two hundred rupees,

he pries open the wounds of civilization,

and with them, the futility

of both existence and language.

7

She is beautiful--

the one who sobs quietly in a public restroom.

And so is he,

who tugs at his shirt sleeve to hide the bruise.

The beauty of the lords is different:

they are vast like mountains,

eternal like the sea,

deep like the underworld.

Their grandeur depends on crushing

the small, occasional beauty beneath the heel of a shoe.

Otherwise, how would we aspire?

This is a room of one afternoon.

The persistent cooing of doves gives it length;

in a few minutes,

the cooker’s whistle will give it breadth.

Its height rises and falls with breath.

In the half-built room next door--

was that a moan, two lines long, at the window?

8

The bars are either outside--or within.

The will to kill, or be killed--suppressed.

This world, in truth, is small, walled-in.

Every act grazes denial.

The ones without bars--they keep white rabbits.

When dusk thickens, and the conch sounds across the colony,

they feed them last night’s bones,

train them to sit still through blackouts.

The ones without bars--

their parents read Borges by bedside bulbs,

while the city sputters like faulty wiring.

At dawn, they uproot saplings from the garden

and hurl them skyward, roots and all.

9

What happens--

each instance bears meaning,

and every meaning is false.

Truth belongs only to the beast of burden,

who carries it unknowingly,

unconcerned with what it means.

And the artist--

the one swimming against the current,

held in a poise--

from which neither advance nor return is possible

What drifts with the tide is already absorbed--

inert.

Even truth--like death--has overrun it.

10

The space you cross to reach another--

that’s loneliness.

There’s no one on the other side.

The one who was there

is already gone. To someone else.

11

And emptiness! Why must emptiness be a bad thing?

Seat it beside your inattentiveness, serve it tea in a brass tumbler.

There is no returning.

The weave Ranga-pishi spun around your absence--its shape has changed.

Can you really slip back into it, just like that?

Why should emptiness be bad?

To displace it, you'd need another emptiness.

Invent a new relative, make space for them…

But who has the time, in this tangled everyday?

Look--

the sponge gourd’s skin has caught a bruise of gold.

Its leaves have begun to wither.

Note: Ranga-pishi refers to the most beloved paternal aunt, often the fairest or the most affectionate among the aunts.

12

If the person turns transparent,

you’ll glimpse the locked cabinet inside.

And if the cabinet turns transparent,

you’ll find another person within--

whose face bears no likeness

to the one outside.

Only in fever

do both foreheads--waxen--flush crimson,

as if the entire room

might ignite

at the strike of a single spark.

13

Let peace and order prevail.

That is the only demand--

let order be born after peace.

Else it sits in the square

like an iron grille.

Who now feeds biscuits

to the quiet dog of dawn?

Today, it is order

that pours concrete

into the dog’s open mouth.

Its disoriented whimper--

strayed from morning play--

grinds against the spoon’s handle,

sharpening it

into a chiv.

14

What limbs does love have, that it could walk away?

It’s a disheveled bundle,

gazing helplessly--at the crow’s beak,

at the mongrel too.

Still, man ties it with rope,

the other end looped round his own neck,

and drags it across Rabindra Sarani.

That’s when it grows heavy,

tugs at the weave of the world.

And when the earth splits in doubt,

love grows weighty--like a golden urn...

Gold that reflects no light--

what folly, to flaunt its gleam.

It bears only weight.

And descent.

Note: Rabindra Sarani: an avenue in Kolkata, named after Tagore

15

Both hands are needed--

one to draw near,

one to push away.

Without the hand that repels,

how would you witness

the extravagance of that face,

its thunder lodged in sky,

its humble soap

melting from regret?



Chains

Setting the restless dog free from the chain,

think of the persistence of “touch”/tactility,

forget its perimeter--forget: the chain is but an opaque concept

that has always wished to remain transparent to the dog, and

kept the dog from Dog.

---

Don’t worry; at most, you’ll be

absorbed into invisibility! 

You won’t become absent;

Descent is everywhere, inherent in all things--

even knowing this, one wakes up

at the sound of something crashing outside.

And plea, only an invisible plea

catches us mid-air, while drowning itself

within the echo, In the midst of all this silence.

---

The weather that was acceptable

before the collision

was safe enough for our astute loneliness;

complaints and desires…

Denying their source, amidst changing wavelengths,

A/The light is now descending.

This is how we descend

inside a chain

A neck --sweating in its urge to remain

indebted to the chain.

There was no time to think

about the visibility

of this shattering wind.

---

At the mention of sight (drishta),

I remember fate (adrishta).

The believers say: fate is written on your forehead.

The forehead-- right in its center, a tiny perfect hole;

a cylindrical absence carved by a small caliber pistol.

The killer left long ago;

now, the atmosphere returns.

---

Inertia claims both Moving or the Unmoved

If inertia is truly a situation,

then its claim to fluidity also becomes undeniable.

Oh! This glorious fucking life.

Oh! Our glorious fucking  limitations.

---

Some of us are found in associations,

Some are usurped by seclusion;

A water glass slips from the hand--

the sound rings somewhere;

somewhere, it does not.

I met Ms. Anxiety this evening, exchanged pleasantries

And waving hands, we each entered

our own nuances, our own feelings.

---

Why am I awake in the bed?

The core facts stay awake.

A quiet sleep lurks, nearby--

afraid to manifest.

The chain lies forlorn, outside this night’s threshold.

Forlorn. I fear--what if it snows?

What if a thief comes with unrecognizable footsteps?

A light chill sets inside.

No one stays awake without faith.

No one stays awake without uncertainty.

---

If belief is static,

then inertia, too, is a kind of belief.

I discuss these with the chain.

The whistle blows on the samovar, steam rises;

Some of it shrouds me, some the chain.

Beyond the veil

Our embedded fables glitter.

---

For a while, Death sits in the easy chair by the bed.

Its crossed legs entwining grapevines,

a forest of a thousand thorns adorn his head.

For a while, perhaps before dying one day,

it can be seen by some; many.*

---

An association is our due,

Which in the end might become solitude, or

perhaps an emergency room,

perhaps the childhood home, the lifelong home,

cracks in the living room wall. A kitchen:

[Only with ashes one can hold, a slimy perch still

Expose its gills... to a pair of scissors]

familiar vulnerabilities,

A somewhat illuminated state

A blinding pain: stung by the perch’s dorsal thorn…

Even after all this, darkness remains.

The true nature of words

The keepers of that nature

lie in the ruthless fields that never knew rain-- nor drought.

---

A consolation becomes our due--

A heart that learnt how to forget

The error of thinking of death as a mere passive stance,

in the nature of things.

---

One mistake points out the next;

Therefore, errors also are sensory organs

that wish to understand discipline

through laughter, through copious hints of regret,

they reach out toward visible and analogous identities,

always on fire--

Ignoring the possibility of a burn.

---

Is error, then, a kind of belief?

Or is belief a kind of error?

We exist because "it" is

Or we don’t because "it" is?

Our solitudes gaze toward a white

and rugged world

that has no covering,

Not a trace of a shroud…

---

Our thoughts are withdrawing from their forms,

Entering into a bottomless doubt

Where there is no direction, no vector,

No measurable silence:

only a mute dog digging the earth

to prove the non-existence of a lost femur bone.

---

Our will for well-being has become so

thick and abundant…

In these days, pain is remembered--

the way a foot severed by a train still itches.

In the memory of the chain,

no matter how transparent the dog's neck is,

nowhere does anything called doubt-- remain.

---

Now think of wholeness,

which only wants to lose itself within existence.

It leaps with all its weight

and only succumbs to gravity.

Think of its emptiness.

Think of its utter faithlessness

in memory of each and every failure

Its doubt-free incredibility…

Yet, memory too is a denial,

or a rehearsal of denial.

From within our shadows,

it changes the hint of the returning chain,

shifting the edge and position of the collar,

slowly entering an apparent fulfilment.

and

The weight upon the neck Descends to the wrist.

---

As one goes to a question paper,

So one goes to memory.

Coming and going lingers on the ever-pressed doorbell,

To all planned hints, in full measure.

---

Even after this,

must one remain indebted to the system?

For proof?

For a few moments of silence?

Must one sleep within the construction of truth?

Where do our errors go?

Where do they find their erroneous playthings?

---

What was unthinkable

has already happened

All the achievements, now settled?

Come, sit by my inattention;

Let us remain indebted to ourselves for a while.

---

Where there is sound,

there is language,

and some seclusion too.

Movement often happens from one hideout to another.

A bit of oblivion holds onto comfort.

Those we remember when it rains incessantly are the Sun!

Those we remember in their absence--

becomes one's own face.

This, too, is an event. Take note.

---

But emptiness? That acceptable pain

pressing its face against the glass windows of a nursing home.

When we wander out and

return to ourselves after

becoming a bit more complex--

is that not emptiness too? Between the apparent selves?

A little restlessness,

a little proof of being restless

becomes an essential in the sequence of natural healing.

---

That is to say, flesh is also an un-direction.

Just as one needs clarity even to think of abstraction,

A fragmented infinity, while sewing itself,

Vomits out the possibilities of exhaustion.

Concentrated thought is no longer enough then.

Coming into contact with ourselves then, we open our fists.

The hints of punishment meted out on lacerated skin--

no distressed wonder remains active anywhere.

In no monsoon do we feel the need for the sun anymore.

---

Suddenly, like a wild animal,

the Self comes charging--

and loudly thrusts its head into sleep.

There is no way but to remain latent,

to remain slow and prevalent.

The chain and the dog both become essential habits.

---

I exile myself to a thick and murky island,

against limitations.

Simplicity remains only a settlement.

I laugh; surprising myself.

I sing; I talk about the color of the walls.

And I supervise the wounds,

the blood, the scabs, the anxiety.

Long inspirations learn to walk on their tiny feet.

This is the tale of motion,

Whose blindness forever amazes me,

extracts me from data.

And this is the tale of stasis,

Whose visibility lures me toward data.

And this is the tale of transparency--

Which, between motion and stasis,

plays with my insignificance.

---

All these are still-life;

all these stories of pitying oneself.

The world beyond this world,

in flow, in stagnancy--

its shadow repeatedly strikes my being,

and words and mercy grow heavy, sluggish--

the machinery we use to communicate,

the fears, the fluent enclosures of grounded images…

Consequently, what remains

is a journey from one error to another.

Balance finds us there too

That dark and primordial balance.

And in the infinite, the dog's bark rings

 like a promiseless departure.

---

Thereafter, I rush from the interior,

And another interior stands before me--

intact, shallow.

Another fear strikes me down.

Existence truly is vivid

 in the days of learning to walk,

 in the days of rolling from one balance to another.

---

That which pulls you away from analysis

And spreads you out in the dark,

in the graveyards, the lobbies, the streets,

in new-found vulnerabilities--

 that (too) is hesitation.

Peel back the layers of

hesitation and you’ll see: you are not there.

No one is there.

---

When a sense of wonder condenses

and silently follows our problems, our anxieties,

while standing before the mirror,

I see my defeat imitating…defeat.

Nothing but the soft clinks of the chain reaches the ear.

Not even stasis-- which they say: is unbearably loud.

---

Light and darkness are both actions.

They have no headache regarding methods or decisions.

They have no task other than making each other manifest…

[Or making each other dim]

Hesitation and belief create

the backdrop; They act themselves,

exchanging the roles of the dog and the chain.

This is the tale of a world of flesh:

which has no existence without doubt and conflict.

---

When the light goes out,

touch becomes simple.

It paces from moment to moment.

Neither the wall nor the window Is remembered anymore.

When hesitation is the only sensory organ,

No God is remembered.

---

Even after this, how indifferent

will I remain, O god?

How many times will I seek to heal

within prayer, within nature?

To become a straight arrow,

like the repayment of a debt?

I find no more symbols within my gaze,

Nor myself within the events.

Layer by layer, the sun rises;

Layer by layer, the summer holidays…

---

Existence is a confused state.

One that leaps from the middle of the road;

into the abyss, the trench.

wants to coil itself

into something denser--

yet wants to spread out,

to free itself from the symbols.

---

My symbol is resting upon yours,

between the blooming and withering of flowers--

the graveyard gate has closed.

In this closed room, whichever way I turn,

my hands graze against denial.

All that was said against the symbols

become symbols.

In the process, our stories of fingers tracing

cave paintings grow blurred;

our motives, wins, truces, defeats, dull water-colors--all.

---

Just as emptiness is a flow

that breaks upon reaching visibility,

and suddenly every particle seems fitting in this torrid world…

Against stasis, against motion,

We have nothing more to say.

Even the hints of a groan

emerging from the bolted blue door

no longer seem believable.

---

Stopping is a process that, refines itself

within continuous motion.

With stiff shoulders, it warms itself by the fire.

While thinking of fullness,

it withdraws itself from fullness,

Dragging itself forward

toward a void.

---

The concepts you are subject to--

close your eyes, see: they are following the

red prints of your feet on the ground.

Yet you never believed the wounds

on your feet are real.

Today, in this provocative moment,

within this solid and bewildered moment,

if their true natures are reflected

 in this delayed painscape,

the crunching of a pair of feet

stops in this sandland,

within the idea of snow.

Which belief will you choose?

*With gratitude to Aryanil Mukhopadhyay: “KichukShaN Mrityu ese bose royechhe easy-chair-e…” (Hawa-morog-er mon/The weather-cock mind: Kaurab, 2003)