SUMITA DUTTA SHOAM

SUMITA DUTTA SHOAM

Striving For Survival

A Body Remains at Rest

A body remains at rest

Until acted upon by an external force/

Or was it an unbalanced force?

What makes a woman sit next to shit?

For years?

Inertia!

There’s a fan overhead, the mind justifies…

Don’t rock the boat, she silently refrains…

For years!

I’m in a ladies’ compartment.

It must have been a woman who soiled…

Must have been her child.

Wrapped, covered in paper…

Why didn’t she dispose of it?

Swach Bharat!

Never mind, the actions of others—beyond comprehension.

And yours? How can you sit here? For how long?

It doesn’t smell, maybe it isn’t shit…

But that girl who almost stepped on it and moved away

Said it stank!

Something wrong with my olfactory glands?

Or my brain doesn’t want to accept?

How long am I going to sit here?

I could go to another compartment…

Stations came and the MRTS stopped

But I didn't move

Until I was moving

To stand at the door

Clinging to the swinging handholds overhead

Smiling at the breeze that rushed in

Frowning at a quick glimpse of a men’s room through its open doorway

As the train picked up speed out a station

Then below, a man zips up his pants after urinating in the open…

I study the concrete railing edging the railway tracks

Wasn’t dirty, just ugly…

The ladies’ compartment was filling up

All the seats occupied, even next to the shit.

They sat comfortably on the floor.

There were empty compartments in front and behind.

But they preferred the ladies’ compartment

It had a police man watching over it from the compartment in front

It also had the shit.

I’ll avoid the ladies’ compartment next time

Doesn’t matter now, this journey’s done.

Maybe I’ll drive and avoid the whole train next time

I have to go to the divorce court.

©Sumita Dutta Shoam, 2016

Path in Darkness Found

In darkness I set out,

The road was pitch-black.

Strode forward Feet resolute,

Senses adjusted to the lack.

God provides enough I found,

My path ahead now a clear track.

©Sumita Dutta Shoam, 2013

Purpose

I am a bird today.

A wader,

Dredging the shallows

With my talons

(Wrinkled, scaly and razor sharp)

Disturbing tadpoles,

Insects, larvae and yummy plantae.

Neck snaking with speed and grace.

Hooked spoon that nature carved

With an artists’ eye to colour and shape—

Beak, scooping with precision.

I stretch my wings on a whim;

Wind flirts through my waxed feathers.

On a sigh I fly,

A hop and a skip,

I wade slush once more.

Swooping on my food,

Eating, gulping, defecating.

My flock mingling with others

Living life on instinct alone.

No judgement,

No aspirations.

Created in all its glory,

My body

Purpose

Ingest and egest.

©Sumita Dutta Shoam, 2019

 

Chennai Floods 2015

Overcast skies dumped rain unceasingly as never before water levels rose

While I mourned flooded shanties… the water crept into my villa home.

I watched paralysed, by evening—four feet deep inside, outside:

Two cars drowned, water two inches to the roof. Inside:

Heavy furniture rose aslant, afloat in murky coffee.

Dragged water logged inverter over the threshold, panting,

Sparking and fuming, shrieking a long drawn-out death.

Hugged my large refrigerator as it tilted, murmuring

Involuntary prayers, it insisted on floating on its back.

We retreated to the first floor with the kitchen we could.

Cooked, ate, and slept, wondering if flood would find us by morning…

But the water receded—three days of tackling snakes and centipedes.

Sending cars for service—and ending up disposing them …

Called the cleaners and relaxed that eve. It rained through that night…

Next morning, water rushed in though the drains, seeped between marble slabs.

Rose a few inches, receded, leaving tadpoles and fish in slimy dregs again.

I cleaned but the rain gods weren’t content; deluge continued and water rose to five feet inside

Outside, six feet tall gates—submerged.

Elsewhere, two floors of buildings drowned.

For three weeks four of us lived

and cooked in bedrooms on the first floor.

No power, no telephone network,

nights roaring with motorboats ferrying

To and from the hospital nearby;

the days broke peace to the beat of ’copter blades—

Crisscrossing overhead with the Press or a VIP.

Army rowed in to rescue marooned people,

We opted to stay, with stocked food and drinking water,

cooked, rolled out chapatis,

sitting next to the stove, on the floor.

Overhead tank ran out, we caught rain water in buckets

For our needs, every captured drop carefully strained for use.

Adventures with snakes were a plenty:

a Russell’s Viper chose a tree in our yard to sun itself

The first flush of flood water had left it behind,

the forest officers took it away.

There were many more.

One crawled up the coconut palm to our sloping tiled roof section

And almost landed on my dad’s head,

as I lowered a drips filled bucket from the roof above.

Some wound themselves on our window grills,

some nestled in our shoes’ closet,

One crawled away between my legs

as I stood talking to a service man in calf high water.

When the water receded, we stocked up on grocery,

sent my son for tuitions,

When the water was thigh high,

we beat the water surface

with a stick to keep snakes away,

And pushed our cycles through the water

to reach dry land before cycling to the bus stand.

After tuition we beat the water again to reach home after dark…

No more money for cleaners, losses were too many.

I scrubbed—the walls, the furniture, the floors.

We survived where many didn’t.

With power and network restored we heard of deaths

Inside locked housed, and swept away by flood water outside.

© Sumita Dutta Shoam, 2020

 

The Old Woman’s Tale

“The Old Woman’s escaping!” reported my sons.

The flood water rising high, had vanquished

Six feet tall gates and barbed wire crowned compound walls,

A serene brown sea rippled to the horizon from my terrace.

No walls, boundaries demarcated ownership,

Houses kneeled dismal in lintel high water,

Trees and decorative crotons drooped, helplessly

Met, caught dazed wanderers on eddying streams,

A nudge, a scrape, not a word exchanged,

Too shocked to complain of their plight, they parted again.

“The Old Woman disappeared towards the lake,” said Dad

Ready to discard his clothes and swim after her.

I wouldn’t let him; three floods in as many weeks

I was used to losses: two cars, an inverter, a water pump,

The woodwork in the house bloated…

The Old Man lay entangled in a watering hose

Floating next to a couple of drunken buckets -

Dustbin and a gardening pail, solemn shiny plastic

Bobbing gently in mutual sympathy,

Silent disbelief in their defenceless indignity.

Water receded leaving behind tales of drownings,

Beaches lined with dead strays,

And apartments sunk two floors deep.

At home, I only dealt with thick slimy sludge,

Wriggling creatures on floors and in jammed drawers,

Peeling walls and warped doors with curling layers

Flourishing powdery fungus and cute button mushrooms;

Arguments for car services, dealings with insurance agents,

The professional cleaners, the plumber, and the electricians.

The Old Woman’s fate was latent regret.

I hopelessly checked the lake on a breather,

Found she hadn’t travelled far, just two plots down

My neighbour kindly hauled her back on his scooter.

A dead weight with absorbed water,

Smiling gamely as the sun dried her.

Someone had scooped out a hollow on her top…

’Twas Nature: she had grown, but not her central ring,

For they were statues carved out of Palm trunks.

In my garden again they pose graciously together;

Changed. Apart from her caved-in top,

Taller, and the Old Man leans towards her.

©Sumita Dutta Shoam, 2018

SUMITA DUTTA SHOAM

 

SUMITA DUTTA SHOAM is the founder of Adisakrit, a publishing house that takes pride in publishing books in a variety of genres. She enjoys most creative mediums of expressions. She has a degree in Fine Arts and loves photography. She is multilingual and fluent in English, Hindi, spoken Bengali, and has learnt rudimentary French. She loves to explore places and cultures, and has been lucky enough to travel to twenty-two countries across the globe. She has grabbed opportunities to work in different fields apart from publishing, designing, and editing, including teaching O and AS level English in an IGCSE school, and jobs in marketing and PR. All her experiences are fodder for her writing. Writing has been a passion from her teens, growing out of her obsession with reading all sorts of books. She believes that there are three necessities that enrich this world and her writing is liberally tossed with these ingredients—compassion, beauty, and humour. Her work can be found on several websites and some of her poems have been published in print anthologies. The Heart of Donna Rai is her debut novel.

Blog: https//zippythoughts.wordpress.com, Email: sumid18@gmail.com