The sky is painted silvery grey -
I look at it, wondering where the birds went,
It feels loneliness crept in quickly,
Before I'd thought it would, ever.

The summer days are long gone,
The screams of freedom are doomed.
I'm horrified, the news shocks me.
The utter destruction everywhere,
kills me and my nostalgia, from within.

I reminisce, the swings I swang at dusk,
Alone, in the park, I built sand castles.
Flew kites on festivities, ran through the streets happily.
Now, it's all flooded.
The park is uprooted by a cyclone.
A calamity of nature, that shook me to pieces.

The fallen trees, the hardship -
All the people are in tears, in the City of Joy.
The clouds float vaguely,
No merry faces can, again, be seen.

I sit back on the old rocking chair,
The Gramma phone plays the same old "Rabindrasangeet";
Shrunk into the loose fit emotions, I hold back the tears.
Would the rays of light ever shine upon on the place of my eternal verses?
Will I'd be heard again, or would my sand castles be intact?

To Calcutta, hold on strong.
Don't you let go of the rope.
Your mesmerising beauty and people are your charm,
They adorn you with all your serene colours ;
You're the place I look for, deep down inside my heart, each moment, each day.

The kid in me, still greets people with a torn paper boat,
It still traces down the unerased carvings of the street art,
It still thinks of chasing the birds as they flew high.
It still cherishes the late night strolls through your lanes.

The clock strikes at noon,
The journalist speaks of the devastation;
Deep in my sleep, I re-imagine myself on Calcutta's pavements,
Now, all grown and battling with hurdles ;
Somebody calls to say that it's time for a siesta,
Lost in my dreams, I can hear
nothing -
Except an echo, telling me to run back to the streets, where I once lived the days.

                             - Anurima Mukherjee

P.S. - This is written especially for Calcutta, a place I adore with all my heart, that recently went through a super-cyclone's(Amphan's) destruction. I'm terribly saddened by the news of the problems of so many people there. This is a tribute to my feelings for the situation in my dear Calcutta.