Lokhaitora : Manisha Goswami : Twilight of Poem
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| Lokhaitora : twilightofpoem.in |
LOKHAITORA
-Manisha Goswami
In the afternoon of the sizzling summer of Bordekpar ,
With drenched feet in watery mud,
When the country- man arrives to take his nap;
Done away with household chores,
When the village women would squat under the Rabab tree
In the backyard,
And ploughed their heads for lice;
When the affluent Mahajan in his eazy chair snores,
With every blow of a villager’s bamboo fan;
When Rajani, the school chowkider rings the bell aloud
For an afternoon break;
It is then the time, when at the bank of the river,
Appears Lokhaitora for her bath.
The pitiless summer sun
Clobbered the sands,
Beating down on her soft exposed sole.
Standing on the gleamy sands,
Her soft sole aches.
Holding one free end of her Riha,
Lokhaitora ceases for a moment in heed.
If somehow, somewhere, somebody notices her!
Unwrapping the floral riha from her small waist,
She set it apart her chest.
With pursed lips holding the safety pin,
When she unties her koldiliya khopa,
Her glossy hair under the sun cascades down.
With not a soul by her sight,
Part by part,
She let her garments fall apart.
With a methoni on her chest,
She deeps into the river back.
If the flagrant river- prince gazes at her protruded chest,
Lokhaitora never knows that.
Between the two pillars of the
wooden plank,
She looks beyond the sands,
To see if her Dhonbor appears to
water his cattles.
What would happen if he truly arrives,
If she, then and there, is caught in his eyes?
With shame in her eyes, her rosy cheeks turn more red.
In her lips a curve of an alluring smile glistens.
She herself laughs out loud with nobody around.
If Dhonbor surely comes everyday
To see her bath under the stream,
Ohh! Why does she think of him this way?
To think about him is a thrilling sensation,
To listen to her friends talking about him,
She turns red in shyful remembrance.
Is it love or patgabhoru’s blush?
Lokhaitora does not know.
The one to whom, she bestows her passionate heart,
For the same, she possess a bouquet with flowers
Of shame and blush.
She understands.
Ahh! What thoughts have enveloped her!
With her hands cupping, she draws water to splash at her face.
Like the red petals of a blooming lotus,
The Charry river blushes more to embrace Lokhaitora.
With the gelatinous pulp of Ou Tenga in her hands,
That her mother sends for her,
She massages her beautiful black hairs.
Under the sun, her shinny black hairs sparkle,
As if, the far away dancing butterflies flutter.
To bring the paste of maah-halodhi,
She mounts to the river bank.
For a moment in the radiance of the golden sands,
She glows like sprinkles of silvery gold.
She blushes out red at her own beauty.
She tightens her methoni ,
Clogged to her chest,
She jumps and drives down into the river again.
Men want to embrace her hourglass posture,
The river prince desires to cuddle Lokhaitora out of amour.
The whole of the afternoon is spent in her bath or
Her playing with the water.
With blushes of red, she looks beyond the bank.
Why?
Nobody from Bordekpar understands.
In the dusky evenings of Bordekpar,
In the gossips under the Bokul tree,
Amidst teenager girls going out with face coated in snow- powder,
Even the young lads with their grazing cattles rest a while,
Everywhere, people talk of the charm of her soaked body.
In the hearts of the young lads of Bordekpar,
The pleasure of her alluring body
Arouse the first thrilling sensation of love.
The lovers of Bordekpar
Compose letters for their lady loves, saying
That they are as angelic as Lokhaitora.
Lokhaitora remains the same.
Every afternoon, with a methoni wrapped on her chest,
She immerses down.
Between the two pillars of the wooden plank,
She looks beyond the bank.
One gaze at her soaked body,
And the next beyond the bank.
For a moment she pauses, then laughs out loud.
Dhonbor does not come.
Once,
Out of anger or anguish, the two leaves of her nose shivers.
She becomes mad.
A fire rising in her eyes as if to say,
“I will burn whole of Bordekpar into ground.”
The fire of revenge engulfs her.
Nobody in Bordekpar has ever seen this
Calamitous nature of her.
In the gossips under the Bokul tree,
The envy of the young ladies towards her beauty,
Men folk talking about her angelic charm,
All these sink and submerge in her agony.
Lokhaitora runs helter and skelter in search of her
Dearest Dhonbor.
It is as if the people of Bordekpar weeps out in her agony.
Her Dhonbor runs far away making her heart
Fall apart.
Her state of mind remains the same.
But, to see the entire Bordekpar in pain,
Her soft heart starts to melt.
Topsy- turvy Lokhaitora learns to bear the pain,
For the people of Bordekpar.
It is for these people, that even when a thousand Dhonbor would leave,
She has, but to live, She realizes.
While with the advent of every Bohag,
Lokhaitora dreams of Dhonbor.
In the afternoon, with her methoni tied around,
She goes for her bath.
Dhonbor would appear to stop and stare at her soaked body,
Thinking this, she laughs aloud.
Dhonbor does not come,
Lokhaitora’s heart sinks down again.
To take a revenge out of anger or anguish, she cries again.
In the afternoon of the sizzling summer, no one has seen
Lokhaitora taking her bath.
No one knows if a man by Dhonbor, as name, ever existed.
Yet,
In the dusky evenings of Bordekpar,
In the gossips under the Bokul tree,
Amidst the teenage girls going out with face coated in snow powder,
Even when young lads with their grazing cattles rest down a while,
Everywhere, people talk of the angelic charm of her soaked body.
Time passes away,
Footprints of Lokhaitora in the sands are washed away.
But, the story rolls over
From then to now.
Sometimes, I feel as if a story of the old Puran!
Note: Bordekpar: Bordekpar is a small village situated at about ten kilometres away from Baihata Chariali in the Kamrup district in Assam.
Lokhaitora: Lokhaitora is a name of river flows by the heart of Bordekpar.
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