Sonnet Mondal's Official Website

The Tea Stall outside the University 11/05/2011

Everyday student gatherings;
as if party meetings in front
of the messy tea shop.

Stories of sorrow and happiness
hot as the tea,
vaporize
like the hot fumes from the cups.

Boys bunking classes,
Those depressed in love,
Those waiting for campus jobs,
roll their tongues and sip tea
to wait for another day in life...

I was no different from the crowd.
Perhaps like everyone,
I took a peek at the lass
whose face had the magic
to hypnotize the poet within me,
make my mind dance like the
leaves of the mahogany tress
lining the roads of the university.

Her curly locks were unkind
to pull me towards her ears
to let me utter the three words
while I hung sublimely in her curls.

Of course she had a hundred curls
and a hundred handsome guys
striving to be the hero of her life.

She was a Marathi,
much away from Bengal and Bengalis
and she preferred a husband of her language.

Just on the final day of the college,
I smelled her fragrance while sipping tea
in our branded shop!

I offered a cup of Bengali tea to her
and she her language to me...

The story like a biscuit
in the bottles of the tea shop
is just for the one who tasted it.

The Marathi girl, my Bengali background
and the fumes from the cups filled
with hot tea,
will be lying in the archives
of the tea stall along with old broken cups
even after we think of loving each other
in a new place called heaven
speaking in the new language of silence.

Notes:-
Marathi:- Language spoken by people residing in the state of Maharashtra in South West India.
Bengali:- Language spoken by people residing in the state of West Bengal in India.

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