The Old Art of Handwriting by Kushal Poddar

 

Image / Katya Wolf

The Old Art of Handwriting 

         To Mitarik 

The old art you practice neither 

in a lit-up room nor on a Burmese 

teak writing desk, as if 

you nurse the golden shyness 

on the rocks in a virgin glass heart, 

but sometimes, in the moonlight, 

in the cold of the river, on 

a rectangle of paper kept on the knees 

balanced between the front and the back seats 

of the very autorickshaw that passed 

your old neighbourhood on its way 

to the water. You try the old art 

and handwrite your name. 

Sometimes it brings back the endless 

number of letters, unsigned, grenaded 

through the windows of the Girls' School, 

and some nights it sniffs out 

the scent of your silhouette 

lost in the undergrowth. 

© Kushal Poddar

Kushal Poddar

Kushal Poddar has authored ten books, the latest being A White Can For The Blind Lane, and his works have been translated into twelve languages. He is a co-editor for Outlook Magazine and the editor of Words Surfacing. He does illustrations and sketches for various magazines.

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