Poetry : Le Fil d’Azur

 

Le Fil d’Azur

(The Azure Thread)

One year ends, another chapter begins—

A year of lessons, losses, and wins.

It started with the fiscal clock,

The numbers changed, the doors did lock,

But though the financial year is through,

The era of learning stays ever new.

A year of moments, crowded and fast,

Of fights and trials that didn’t last,

Through hard negotiations and the grind,

A softer thread began to wind.

Amidst the storms, a sudden light—

A warmth that felt exactly right.

An unknown bond, a silent hue,

Between the lady dressed in blue

And me—a connection deep and rare,

A year defined by growth and care.

- Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

31.03.2026

Story : Biddo

 

                                        Biddo

 ( The following is a true account from my hometown in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. It took place in my paternal ancestral home, a house I remember vividly from the vacations spent there with my grandparents. It is a story of tradition, fear, and the unyielding nature of life in the mountains. The picture here is of my ancestral house)

Biddo was a child hood widow, a curse in those days for a Pahari, Brahmin family. She was married at age of eight. Her father had carried her on his shoulders to her masters place ( Feminist will scowl at me for calling husband : master! Well ladies Ashapurna Devi was no less a feminist when she wrote Pratham Pratishruti). Back to my character , Biddo , while on her route to her in  laws home, on seeing a tree laden with raw mangoes she stood on her fathers shoulders and caught hold of the branch and jumped on it. Her father realized this only when he had moved few steps ahead. Leaving her in the custody of her in laws her father left the house wiping his tears only to shed them again after a few days to attend Biddo’s husband’s funeral who died due to epidemic cholera. Unaware of the tragedy that struck her, Biddo was plying marbles when the funeral pyre lit her husbands body. The older women caught hold of her hair, dragged her inside the house, washed her sindoor, took her “koka” Nosepin, a sign of married women in hills ), broke her red bangles changed her red ghaghri to a white ensemble and a white thick cotton duppatta draped over head, shoulders and her upper body.

A widow of a strict Brahmin Pahari Brahmin family had strict laws to be followed. Days and nights passed on, seasons changed. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling” ( The origin of Creation). Biddo jumped  directly to adulthood from childhood under strict rules of her in laws house. . She bypassed the "bubbly housewife" years entirely, jumping from the mango branch of childhood straight into the frozen winter of a Pahari Brahmin widow .Her skin was dry, her hands were dull and lifeless, her face was stiff and expressionless. She had never stitched a button on her husbands shirt to feel ( or listen to ) his heart beat when trying to cut the thread with her teeth. She had  never felt the  warmth of nestling her face on a man’s shoulders. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”

Biddo had a Younger Sister who died  leaving one year old Child. Biddo brought him up, nourished him, filling her bosom with motherhood. She married him to a beautiful girl Tara, from the neighbourhood village, in order to preserve the societal norms..  The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”

           After  the marriage ceremony was over , till the relatives were present , Biddo on some pretext or other did not allow the husband and wife to meet. After the house was vacant she called her daughter in law Tara and warned her that she should not meet her husband as there was a curse in the family and that she will become the victim and her husband will die. The poor girl agreed. Biddo made Tara sleep next to her , caught hold of her hand through out the night. If Tara had to go to toilet at night, Biddo followed her  and accompanied her back. She made Tara  wear  a lot of Bangels  so that on slightest of her movement she would get the alarm signal. Days months and time rolled by. The family Purohit came and performed Puja and offered daily “Belpatra “ to the “Shivling”. Biddo was assured that she was successful in her endeavor, till she noticed absence of strain washed clothes on  the cloths line tied in the innermost room of the house, devoid of sunlight day after day.

The realization hit her like a physical blow. She wept in the dark, a silent, bitter mourning for her failed coup against nature. She had tried to hold back a volcano with her bare hands; she had tried to stop the earth from trembling. She looked at the Shivling and finally understood why it was worshipped—not as a static stone, but as an eruptive force that no human law or heavy cotton shroud could ever truly suppress.

This was the truth she realized when she held her chubby little grandson, Golu, in her bosom and accepted the worship of Shivling in reality.

                                                                                                                - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

Poetry : Il Fait la Pluie

 

                           Il Fait la Pluie

( It is raining) 

She sat in blue by the window sill,

Watching the rain, quiet and still.

She sipped hot tea to stay warm,

Safe inside from the silver storm.

The room was quiet with a digital glow,

A silent place for her thoughts to grow.

Alone, but happy in her own way,

Keeping her secrets tucked away.

But in the corner, green and bright,

A living plant caught the light.

It brought some life to the cold room,

And chased away the lonely gloom.

As the day turned soft and grey,

The sunlight started to fade away.

A mystery she choses  to remain to  be,

Yet   her  distant warmth touches me. 

 

                                                                                                                  - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

Story- Ghonchu and Bhonduram

 

 

Ghonchu and BhonduRam

 (Existence is a tapestry of "Gaudhuli Lagna"—fleeting moments where opposites are meant to merge, yet often only collide. Ghonchu and BhonduRam captures the universal tragedy of the human spirit: the capacity to find a soul’s perfect complement, yet the stubborn refusal to surrender the "I" for the "We." It is a reflection on how we often choose the desolation of our own truths over the magic of a shared compromise.)

I met them both on a Wednesday in April—the “cruellest month,” as T.S. Eliot famously declared in the opening of The Waste Land. They were as disparate as the Sufi mystic Bulleh Shah and his master Shah Inayat, yet they existed as perfect complements. One embodied presence, the other absence; one offered steady care, while the other radiated a fierce warmth. One was an open book, the other an enigma.

Their desires often clashed in impossible ways: one longed to merge day and night, a union the other deemed a fantasy. Yet, I often wondered if they forgot the Gaudhuli Lagna—that sacred twilight hour when day and night meet in a silent, fleeting embrace before parting.

Their philosophies were a study in friction. One walked the middle path; the other lived in extremes. One refused to yield to desire, while the other could not take a single step unless the heart was fully committed. As their confidant and mediator, I stood in the crossfire, trying to soothe the storms. I always believed that if they had simply ceased their internal warfare, they would have created a magic that would leave the world in awe.

Instead, despite the depth of their bond, they collided and shattered. They parted with a violent resonance that still echoes. Now, from a distance, I am left to wonder how two people who cared so deeply could inflict such profound pain, decided by one and leaving the other stranded without the grace of an explanation. It is a stark reminder that the world can be a cold, unforgiving place.

                                                              -Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

                                                               11.03.2026

 Grandpa’s Lesson

This morning, while standing on my balcony in D2 Block, Kendriya Vihar (Greater Noida), I witnessed a small scene that left a deep impression on me.

A beautiful little girl came running toward a flowering bush in the common area below. Just as she reached out to pluck a bloom, I called out gently from my balcony, explaining that she shouldn't do it. She listened obediently, nodded, and skipped away, leaving the flowers intact. I felt a small sense of satisfaction, thinking I had managed to impart a tiny lesson on the value of community spaces and protecting our local ecosystem. 

However, the "lesson" was short-lived. 

A few minutes later, the girl returned with her grandfather. Without a second thought, he reached into the bush, plucked a few flowers, and handed them to her, saying, "Lo beti, khelo" (Here, daughter, play).

The little girl looked up at my balcony with a triumphant "winner’s" gaze. As they walked away, she carelessly dropped one of the blossoms on the pavement—a discarded remnant of a lesson undone. It made me wonder: in that one simple gesture, what exactly did the grandfather teach his granddaughter about respect for nature and the rules of the world we share?

Poetry : La Demeure

 

        La Demeure

("The Dwelling" or "The Abode.")

He built a mansion with all his might,

Regardless of the poor man's plight.

The soul then left the body’s cage,

To its heavenly abode,

In peace with itself,

To its  final place

The man lay there, a lifeless form,

While round him grieving kin did swarm.

Within his palatial house,

On his own grand premises.

His wife was weeping,

And so was his daughter,

Tears trickling down

Their anguished faces.

They waited  eagerly for the  final funeral rites,

As the son was coming from  far of land

The body started smelling,

They were worried for the cremation;

As his flesh was decaying,

Polluting the mansion

Which he had built.

                        - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

Poetry : : The Nature's Fury

 

                         The Nature’s fury

(This verse is based on a true life incidence. On 29^th October 1999, a Super Cyclone devastated the Odisha coast, claiming thousands of lives. The Telegraph news paper, Kolkata edition  reported a haunting scene: a little girl found alive on a rock four days later, clinging to a doll. While her family was swept away, this "lifeless" object became her sole companion and a symbol of survival.)

 
The Gigantic waves swept o’er the shore,
As Odisha sank beneath the roar.
A little girl stood on the stone,
Amidst the roaring waters, all alone.
No signs of life within her sight,
Shadows of dead  floating through the night.
For four long days she braved the storm,
Too numb to weep, too cold and worn.
Her parents, sisters—all she cherished—
In the raging depths had perished.
While living souls were washed away,
She held her doll and knelt to pray.
A man-made thing of cloth and thread,
Endured while all the rest had fled.
The doll was still,  when its life began,
It outlasted every breath of man.
Yet in girls arms, it fanned the spark,
A flicker in the drowning dark.
A hovering plane then dropped its store,
A gift of bread upon the shore.
She clings to life, a fragile breath,
A miracle in the face of death.

                                - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya