Sunday Feature Poem By Ketaki Datta
No veils, please!
( written in commemoration of the women killed ruthlessly, when the Talibans catapulted to power in Afghanistan )
She is a lady in veil now,
But last month she hated
to conceal the flame of
her beauty behind the
Porous linen,
Her eyes were aglow
With avid queries,
She was all agog
To unearth the mysteries
Of the milky way,the blinking
stars, the orbit of the celestial
body,the parabolic trajectory
of all the stars and planets!
But after a sudden upheaval
When she feels like
bombarding the terrorists
feigning to be statesmen,
Who parade the crooked shenanigans
Leaving the society in a trepidation!
She would like to topple their reign
Which has just begun by hook
Or by crook and usher in whiffs
Of fresh air, filled with a promise
Of liberty ,of ‘unveiled’ freedom!
But downtown quite a few bravehearts
like her, got killed for a blatant protest!
Lost Classrooms
(Last year, when uncertainties still kept us in a tizzy , thinking what next?)
A year and a half has sped by
With a slew of online classes,
Online counselling of weak
aspirants,
Who flounder in the sea
Of uncertainties, in the
Quagmire of false hopes!
Days speed by,months run,
The tutors stay veiled
Behind a screen,turned-off,
Segregating themselves in
The cool assurance of comfort–
Of home,of a seemingly secured job
That would help them wade through
The unseen future,concealed
Behind an unpredictable threat!
The students brave ‘net glitches,
Try to discern the mammoth tomes
made easy by the mentors,
Some of which are hard to chew
let alone to be digested!
Come O , Virus -free days,
Come exchange of intellectual gaze,
Of the teacher and the student —
Free us of this deplorable predicament!!
BIO
Ketaki Datta is an academic,novelist,poet,reviewer,translator with a couple of poetry collections to her credit.She has a number of academic volumes and two novels along with three translated novels(from Bengali to English) .She is a regular reviewer with Compulsive Reader and Muse India.
