Bibaswan Maharana

T he book slept... The smell rose... He abruptly shut the chattering pages down. All silence, all calm. His fingerprints registered themselves on the rim of his window while he allowed the entry of an arcane. Someone, too far from the knowledge of existence had been trying hard to reach him.    Pivoting his body on the stiff arms anchored to the cold Steel of the railing, he successfully attempted to get the weight off his feet. He raised his eyes amidst the immediate darkness to find some distant lights. Lights that twinkled on some floor of that city building were at least a few kilometers away. That mere twinkle, with a sign of someone knowingly breathing through the night, made him look over there, alluring him to search for some life. The rays of someone's sleepless bulbs managed to pull up glitter in his dry eyes, which were now harvesting moisture from the air!   It took a few hours and many minutes for the number of distant lights to go off one by one. Working the...

Everything fell into the deepening dead-end for every possible question thrown at him and manifested as “Orphic” at the doomed entrance of the start. Each reason that remained ferly for people had dressed up as an expergefactor for the tired desires of life this noceur was leading. Gathering the remains of his now-dead emotions, he took the funeral stage to the city of lost voices and few chosen absquatulate(s). The ashes of his living-dead love were knotted to his dried pupils and the last-breathing desires were stuck to his mapping feet, which said goodbye to the downhill a long time ago.    Searching his way through the constantly distracting burble of the Koshi river his uncombed hairs and unsettled heartbeats finally found their respective existences on the peak of Kanchenjunga. The reveries he had cultivated on the barren dark soil of his infertile love and the quench misspelled as hiraeth got their rooms on the freezing altitude of the mountain that had aggressively agr...

  Not all the doors open to rooms full of lights; some just end up leading you to a dimly lit little space, cozier than any known limits of comfort, a corner of the house that I call my home. It had things magically crafted into my shape as if all those pens, pillows, curtains, small lights, quills, papers, windows, and the little gap which graced the allowed interruption of zephyr during the sleepless nights and sunlight during the lazy mornings were made for me… as if the personified leftovers of my last love have customized everything for the longing needs of my unconscious-self to feel lovelorn! Stepping on the cold marbles of the cimmerian graveyard of my eternal secrets, I mailed a xeric look that asked forgiveness from all those inky souls and bamboo extracts which were my oxygen till lately when I stopped breathing words. All my blank pages were left twattling with the wind gushing in from the half-closed window and there sat my spine hugging the painted sand atoms of the c...

      “ROYAL ENFIELD THEORY OF LIFE”  Dust clouds hugged us as we pulled the cover off that old Royal Enfield. Some of its parts succumbing to the wrath of time and some others to the nefarious human tendencies. Undoubtedly it had ruled an epoch roaring and soaring through the roads. Ah! A bike, so potent to rule again, so capable of roaring again yet now ailing. Dents, damages, flat tires, broken breaks, rusted body, and of course an engine with a whole lot of problems. Yeah! These are the gifts time, people, and ignorance has given it. All this Enfield had was a body and problems… all we had was a tool kit and the determination to make it breathe. I took off my jacket and hung it on a nail beside the calendar, you too put on the gloves. 28th December, the date, the point we started from, having issues to deal with, having repairs to be done, having a plan to be implemented, and most importantly having each others’ back. Yes, it was tough, repairing the old beast an...

Art by: Subash Chandra Maharana He had left the windows open that night. It wasn’t normal as the calendar read “12 December” in bold red, studded on a picture of a snow bed in some far off place he already had a Saudade for. Supine was he on his ages-old bed that squeaks every time he tries to find some comfort. Motionlessly, there he was lying, almost like a carcass but having a pulse still strolling in some vein of his body. The body named Akshit and that feeble pulse, named, Ziva. Turning around he spotted some stars through the gap his window provided him, a gap that allowed him to keep a track of a syzygy, hoping that would justify his love. Just then, that happened, suddenly, abruptly, and in a trice! Yeah, that epoch slid down the path from maybe a star he stalked each night and hugged him. A past, a name, a soul. In those dark memory lanes that his brain had, a street graced incandescence. That pulse got a bit stronger and with a throb reached his heart. He could no more find t...

  It never happened before. Its occurrence gave me many thoughts. Thoughts that worried me. Worry about losing what I loved the most. I had been trying to write a poem. A poem which was more of an elflock decorated in some corner of my messed up life, a corner which had him, a corner that sheltered him. Yes, the poem was for him. Annoyed and irritated on my inability to complete that poem, I made my self some tea and dragged my body to the balcony. My lips kissed the hot rim of the cup and then with that one sip which wasn't only a sip but satisfaction that hugged my soul. My eyebrows gently relaxed and uncurled. A psithurism gently brushed my tangled hairs and my eyes were still shut. This ethereal feeling just threw to a place, far off. I was so lost that I couldn't even sync my hand which had the cup with the lips that waited for yet another sip. Eyes opened, and opening them wasn't a choice but a necessity. My eyes then helped   my lips to reach the cup yet again. I t...

मेरी   नग्म आधी सोइ सी   मेरी   नग्म आधी   खोई सी ... रूठ   गयी   है आज मुझसे ... यूँ   जो   मेने   उसे   इतना डांटा ...   मगर   क्या   करता .. वो आधी रात को टहलने   निकलती   है   जहाँ   जाने   से   मना   किया   है .. जिंदगी   ने .. वो   उसी   कमरे   को   खोल   देती   है .. वहां   पड़े   टूटे   खिलौनो पर   से   धुल   हटा   कर   देर तक खेलती है .... हर   रोज   सजाने की कोशिस   की   है उसे ... . हर   बार   एक नया   रंग दे कर .... और रोज   वो कपडे गंदे   कर अति है ..   टुकड़ा टुकड़ा कर बिखरा है मेरे   पुराने   गीतों   का   एक शीशा ... अजीब   है .. . मेरी नग्म उसी मे जा सजती है ... .                       ...