BASAB CHAUDHURI

If you belong to everyone,
You belong to no one.
That's the design.
That's how it's built.
...

Just one meeting —
and life transforms.

Thoughts shift,
...

Time stretches within time -
it stretches -
until an hour becomes a day,
and morning slowly unwinds into afternoon.
...

Everywhere, there is a shadow.
Shadow — everyone.

Who am I speaking to?
...

Moment,
then another—
and then thoughts,
like raindrops falling one by one,
...

You gave me space.
You gave me time.
I learned to move —
to make it mine.
...

You ask me why I write.
Listen: for myself.

It is unwinding—
...

Every journey is woven of quiet refusals.
When I turn to the right, the left still whispers my name;
when I follow the left, the right grows heavy with unshed tears.
...

I leave.
I return.
But I am never the same
when I come back.
...

I look up,
I look down,
I look up,
And I do frown.
...

As I stood by the sea
I saw the sky melting into the ocean,
Going into oblivion.
I looked at, gazed, saw, and then walked.
...

Eternal journey—
we appear as dots in the firmament,
and vanish without disturbing the sky.
Time flows on,
...

A saucer, a cup -
An equation, an idea.
A family, a trust -
Man, humanity.
...

The last sip—
light liquor,
yet fragrant.
Was it Darjeeling?
...

Every suicide ends up in a post mortem
Physical and emotional -
A bullet or a rope?
Why? What for?
...

Once I felt and I will tell
It was a dense evening
I was walking by the river
Alone, and it was near perfection.
...

'Conscience doth make cowards of us all.' - Shakespeare.
'Ambition doth make giants (!) of us all.' - This unknown poet.

Living in a skyscraper
...

Winter chill this year.
Between the sky and the ground
There is a whitish haze.
An opaque morning.
...

To remain present at the right time,
To remain silent when required,
To know what to speak about and when
Without knowing the subject-matter,
...

It's all about tightening the screw
Pressure builds up
Most die, just die,
Some sustain, sort of selection.
...