The seasons of Assam

February’s Assamese heart is conflicted

like the bride’s

who is about to be a wife

where its neither summer nor winter

Leaving the trees confused

Who are neither grey nor green

The lazy sun unsure

Whether to show up or not

 

It was a February when we didn’t meet

 

March, cursed forever to be in the shadow of April,

Is dusty and parched, no poet to sing paeans

Existing only to make way for bohag

Yet, some defiant flowers bloom

Like the ill-fated precocious child

Violated by hungry bees, birds and bats

As the disturbed, sad visitors bade goodbye

to the unruly backwaters of Luit, when I too paid a visit

 

It was a March when we didn’t meet.

 

The first rains greening everything

Cacophony of rambling colours all over

Nasonis busy brushing the dust off

their muga mekhela, gam kharu and madoli

Dhoolias polishing their leather and blowing their pepah

As the all-welcoming April ushered in the deadly guest once again

As I glided down the broader, grim Luit

And rolled along the black wet roads, damp leafy air and reckless men

 

It was an April when we didn’t meet.

The hot month of May was not hot yet

It was already July when I realised that

Luit was now a sea

Grim, calm and meditative

Shorn of their floral adornments

Trees turned greener and less cocky

And nothing left dry and light

Even the nests turned verdant

 

It was a May when we didn’t meet.

 

 

June is wet when it rained

Wetter when it didn’t

The nights were noisier, dark and shorter

Lesu and kordoi falling all around

As the freshly blossomed jolpai swayed lazily

The nests turned noisy and hungry

Mildewed mossy and ferny Sootal,

Bhedeli-lota, kosu and mejenga

 

It was a June when we didn’t meet.

 

July means abundance

Of misery and joy, drought and water

Dark and bright, life and death

The short, sultry July nights

evaporated merely between the hi and goodbyes

As the magpie robins, the rainy splashes and the twilight skies

quickly announced the dawn

And made good mornings our wet goodnights

 

It was a July when we didn’t meet.

Whatever the months, or the seasons,

The violence of existence & life unleashes every dawn

Ceasing only during the dark, ghostly, and damp nights?

For ephemeral peace and insurmountable love to thrive?

Even the Mahabharata paused during the nights

When enemies would become brothers, uncles, and lovers again

And yet the flares and flames of separation haunted during the day

Splitting the two hearts like the violent ruins

of one village drawn into two warring nations

Two hearts, merely in love, are not enough 

 

It was a life, split between days and nights and rains and sun, when we never met.