Portrait with Saraswati Puja and interrogations about Mantras
A Poem by S. Rupsha Mitra
Saraswati Puja envelops the city
in Vasant jewels – Shringaar spring,
lush lavender days
snake through vessels,
- slits and netsukes,
paragon palettes, pulping past.
Morn splits ochre light pricks into succinct perforations,
travelling morass, in devotion
ribboned with ditsy deliberations, anamnesis glimpse.
I turn the mantra chanter today,
traversing Vedantas, Ved,
divined yantras
My unadulterated bhakti is never peripheral,
I hope
At least the keeping of faith, it appears for me,
Is indeed secrecy –
the Padma eyes of Bishalakhhi,
glistening in front of me,
Her mantle, her world – the conscious,
the jnana residing in the soothing, marble calm
flare surrounding her –
She must recognise her bhaktas, and their endless demands,
Knowledge, the shakti to believe in that chaitanya
is what I conjecture,
I demand
in this grid,
this moment,
As I am muttering Mantras – sharp edged, flowered, offerings, Anjali,
And I question the integrity,
within and externally, suddenly –
wavering around the conflicting arousal
a wandering scurry,
I question the summoning of Vishnu in the mantra medley,
it might be desperate to ask so in the Puja session,
Father pretends complete avoidance,
sister reciprocates,
I know not what mother and grandmother
would respond to this sudden euphoric assailing query,
But once I perceive,
internally swallowing –
submission,
examination
as syrup, juice, stern walled city
inside,
Bhakti, Atman, vidya
An in – sight
Do I percolate, in the rock bottom soil –
the rooted rigidity scattering, rained essence,
Bhakti saying submission is integral, quintessentially mutual
testimony, epiphany,
a perimeter protecting the personal Goddesses beyond
the concentric concurrence,
asteroids, sediments, floating spirit, sundry coils.
Sorted fumigate.
Do I visit the temple – Town, the meditating dawn.
Of silence listening to the silence that originates from this brine.
This samudra. Roaring, revealing, salmagundi -as sort.
Meet the Writer
S. Rupsha Mitra is a student from India with a penchant for everything creative. Her writing can be found in literary magazines like Birmingham Arts Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, and Mekong Review.
