Phone call at night

Every phone call that comes at night,

fills my heart with fright,

who is next, who is next,

this is what life has become,

with sadness, I wait for my flight,

till then life goes on,

I keep rowing my boat,

every morning I get up,

I send a thank you note,

and try to stay upright,

every night I go to bed,

I say, if this be my last,

let me dream, let me dream,

so that when I go,

the journey be funny and bright.

A small price to pay

A tongue in cheek look at the fear spread by COVID-19. No intention of hurting anyone’s sensitivity.,🙏

My nose twist and tinge

But I am afraid

To sneeze

What will people say

I squirm

Shift my weight

From one leg to the other

A dead silence

All around me

The circle of

Social distance enlarge

See few people with

Phones to their ears

Somewhere in the distance

Wails an ambulance siren

The thought of being

Quarantined

Races through my

Distressed mind

I try to shout

Guys, I am all right

But fear dries my throat

I feel a cough

Coming up my esophagus

Esophagus, is that right

But who cares

As I fight valiantly

To suppress my cough

My body reacts

A bodily function

So innocuous

Comes to my rescue

With a sound thunderous

An act performed in public

That would have mortified

Even the bravest soul

Brought a sigh of relief

To everyone all around

And I moved on

Thankful to the

Fabulous Air Recirculating Technique

That my body performed

Banishing the fear

Of imminent infection

Of Corona virus

From one and all

Relieved, everyone on

His or her way

The malodorous smell

A small price to pay

You Are Old

You are old when your call is answered
And you are trying to remember who you called
You are old when your call is answered
And you ask why are you being called
You are old when your call is met with silence
And you hold the phone to your ear wondering why
You are old when your phone lies dead by your side
And you don’t remember a single number to call
So when you are still young, pick up the phone and call
Some one young at heart may respond and you have a ball
Before the fingers become stiff, ears go deaf
Eyes go blurry, memories fade and voice gets weak
Wake up, reach out, make a call and hug your near and dear ones

Today I have time aplenty

I wrote this poem in my mother tongue, Assamese (pronounced Axomiya – অসমীয়া) yesterday and then translated to Bengali and shared with my friends and family through Whatsapp.  I translated it to English today.  Below is the English version followed by the original Assamese and translated Bengali poem.

Phone is lying silently near me

Those would like to talk are gone now

Once lack of time was an excuse

Life Backward

Photo from Pixabay

A poem written in a lighter vein. No hidden messages.

Morning started with the aim to move forward,
Opened my cell phone and started whatsapp.
Floodgates opened with messages forwarded,
Everyone seems to be in a rush to share and educate,
What a treasure trove of repeats, must be weekend,
Decisions, decisions, to read or to be deleted.
Before I knew it hours passed reclining in bed,
Sore thumbs and nature’s call made me sad.
Oh, why did I open whatsapp, my bad.
Goal of moving forward, messages forwarded hijacked.

Wait and Waiting:Week Thirty Seven of My Fifty Two Weeks Journey with the Letter ” W”

Last few days I had to wait for many hours to get a call or text from my better half. She has been travelling with family in North India visiting the states of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Punjab  and Himachal Pradesh (HP).  Every day she had spent lots of hours on the road, travelling from one place to another.  With a twelve and half hours time difference between USA and India and the fact that she being on the road it was difficult to get a good phone connection, I had to wait for her to call me or text me to let me know where she was.  Yesterday ( or rather today morning Indian time) she had reached the hotel at 2:30 AM travelling 250 KM on hilly roads from one hill station to another.  Waiting  is difficult.

This made me think about wait and waiting and its many forms.  When I was in college doing my engineering degree, there was no cell phone.  There was no good telephone connection even. To get news from home, sometimes I had to wait for couple of weeks to get a letter from home. When I followed my sweetheart to USA for my graduate studies, I had no way to contact her before I left India to let her know when I was arriving.  She had to wait for my call from JFK on my arrival to let her know that I was in USA.  Unfortunately she was in class that time so I had to relay the message to her through circuitous way.  I had to wait till I met her at the airport to know if she had got my message or not.  I do not even want to mention about the tyranny of Ma Bell, waiting till the wee hours past mid night to get a cheaper rate to call India from USA.  In today’s technology driven world  of instant messaging, those type of wait may be history.  However, wait and waiting have many forms and all of us, sometime or other, have experienced wait and waiting in some form or other.  Many of us, for whatever reason, are waiting for the results of the coming November 8 presidential elections.  Everyday lots of people wait for the results of their job interviews.  Many wait for the results of their medical tests. For those who got good news, their wait is over.  For others, it is back to square one.

Last but not the least, if I do not mention about my wait for my $1 weekly investment to bear fruit, this story will be incomplete.  I am sure one day lady luck will smile on me and my wait will be over.  I will be a multi millionaire.  Will definitely win the lottery. Just wait.

Slowly and steadily I am coming towards the end of my journey with the letter W.  I am waiting anxiously for the next thirteen weeks to be over.  Thirteen more words starting with W and thirteen more poems, then I am done with this journey.  But today I wait. I wait to finish my poem starting with “Wait and Waiting” for week thirty seven of my fifty two weeks journey with the letter W.

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This post is in response to Write Anything Wednesday-Oct-12-2016 sponsored by Writerish Ramblings