Seema Speaks
“I am part of an Indian army, an invisible army,
a hidden force, an underground battalion,
an army of twenty million women construction workers.
I have stolen a few minutes from mixing cement
to have a few words with you. A few minutes away from the heat,
the dust, the pollution, the worry about my daughter
back in the village with my parents.
Today I’m helping Mona, her baby’s due next week,
she’s finding it hard to carry the bricks, she’s dizzy
and I’m scared she might fall.
Of course, we can’t earn more, we can’t be trained
for the skilled work of men.
I know I could do it.
I could cut wood or lay bricks.
I carved a doll out of an old scrap of wood.
The face was soft and delicate, the eyes were laughing too.
My daughter played with it, instead of sitting,
crawling in the dust and rubble.
Soon I have to break up stones. They’re often too hot to touch,
don’t look at my hands, they are rougher than the bricks.
Some of the women here are strong.
They earn enough to care for their children alone.
Yes, they’ve left abusive husbands.
Got their kids into school.
I still dream of that.
I came back to work, the day after my son died-
just four months he was-
‘I’m coming, no need to shout.’
Note: Over 20 million women work in the Indian construction industry.
They make up 49% of the work force.
———
The Arrival
Kolkata
Humid air, palm trees
like feather dusters
rising above the heat haze.
Aircraft shudders,
judders to a halt.
Myriad colours merge,
blur in blinding riot.
Faces, skin wrinkled,
parchment-thin, transparent.
Others smooth, soft
peachy-velvet.
Syllables, sounds, messages,
orders, phrases, comments-
a Tower of Babel.
Cases, boxes, rolls of carpet
crates of mangoes,
live fish swimming
in bags of plastic.
taxis in black and yellow
swarm waspishly.
Door slams,
moves off –
dodging, drunkenly
swooping gull-like
into unknown chaos!
———
Colonial Ghosts on the River Hooghly
Kolkata (Calcutta)
The ghosts of the past opium clippers,
with their array of masts and sails,
lie at anchor beside the great
East Indiamen. Bales of raw cotton,
hemp, jute, indigo lie piled on the quay
ready to plough round the Cape on
that long haul back to London.
To the offices of the East India Co.
Smart memsahibs in Britain wore silks
and calico which had sailed down river,
from Calcutta with seasoned pilots,
the elite of the Bengal Marine Service.
Guided expertly to the mud- banked estuary,
Ahead lay the hazards of the open sea!
Sarah Das Gupta is a poet from Cambridge, UK, who has taught English in India, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom. She began writing four years ago following a disabling accident that significantly affected her mobility. Her work has since appeared in magazines and anthologies across more than 25 countries, and she has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and the Dwarf Stars Award.
