THE FOLLOWING POEM BY NEELIMA CHAKRABORTY FROM FARIDABAD WON THE FIRST PRIZE IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2024- SUMMER CYCLE.
My mother lives in a different time.
I in the present,
She, the past.
She smells of old books
that gathers dust
in the forgotten shelves.
I tuck the priceless tablet
away from the notebooks bare,
away from her death stare.
Her tongue unfolds
a mellifluous melody
popular sometime in the 60s.
I sink in the staccatos
of pop and metal,
The crash and burn
of the deranged ensemble.
We dwell in different times.
She and I.
She in the past,
I, the present.
Like a broken record player,
she plays the past on loop,
enmeshed in the tape
of distorted truth.
Clutching at straws,
she holds on to the yore.
The memories seem more real
than the real to her.
Her love warrants
no show of tactile affection.
She has learnt from the best-
her mother (my grandmother),
a strict disciplinarian.
But in the midst of the chores
and the whirring of machines
and the sputtering of seeds
melding with the sweating veggies,
she carefully watches
from behind the half-drawn curtains.
Everything:
what I do,
when I wrinkle my nose
or wring my wrists out of anger,
my swagger on hitting a new high,
my crumpled brow on the brink of low,
when I scrape into the jeans
that miraculously fits,
when the inner Shakespeare
conjures verses obscure.
A constant check:
did I get hurt?
did I take the meds?
did I do this or that
and that and that?!
As life speeds,
she slows down for me
to tie my laces
and cheer on with glee.
My needs, her universe—
encircles her existence.
When I grew my wings,
She was proud
for a moment,
She was baffled
next minute.
"Doesn't she need me anymore?
Will she drift apart? Is this it?"
My wings became her eyesore.
Her wrinkled fingers held onto the boat
until the day,
she let me go.
Our times, similar.
Yet never the same.
It intersected, briefly.
Till it bobbled away.
Since then,
she has despised the present.
A reminder
of the treacherous transient.
And the past?
It is safely tucked away
in the glass jars
in the fading scars
in the folds of albums
in the malfunctioning VCRs.
Sometimes, enraged,
she unleashes the hurt
in broken words
glued together with dirt.
"You are no better than I,
My modest well serves me well
unlike the princely pond
that runs you dry," she says.
Yet prays
for my succesful swim
in the same.
She frustrates me,
confuses me,
overwhelms me every day.
Then all of a sudden,
without any rhyme or reason,
she yells
and yells some more with passion.
Yet
prepares my favourite meals
for hours
with utter devotion.
My friends
become hers too.
My foe,
her sworn enemy.
My needs, her universe—
eats into her existence.
Every moment.
Her boon, her bane.
Our minds alike yet different,
rest...all the same.
ABOUT THE POET
Neelima Chakraborty is the second prIze winner of the 2024 Wingword Poetry Prize (summer cycle) for her poem ‘My Mother’, receiving a cash prize of INR 30,000. Basking in the beauty of Nature, Neelima draws inspiration from her surroundings for her creative work. Of late, she has been enamoured by the different hues that colour the horizon at odd hours of the day— a perfect contrast to the hullabaloo of the jaded lives dwelling within the cocoons of myriad expectations. An alumnus of the University of Calcutta, she enjoys exploring the world of Postmodern literature. She has taught English Language and Literature at esteemed schools in Kolkata. Currently nurturing young minds at Modern Delhi International School, Faridabad, she finds peace and tranquility in the rhythmic cadence of poems and reflective pieces, viewing them as a therapeutic medium. Her works have previously been published in Teesta Review (an online biannual journal of poetry) and Erothanatos (a peer-reviewed quarterly journal).