Teesta, we named our daughter after you
Each year – both swell
One with child
And you with pride.
Teesta, you nurtured ours
With hilsa, rohu and chital.
Until she grew and grew into a
Fertile ground for her man’s seed.
Today as she tossed and turned in labour
Shrieking and screaming,
You chose to hit back.
Why? O Why Teesta?
Like Bakasur you swallowed
Trees, fields, animals, children,
young, old, able-bodied and infirm –
All in one go with great gusto.
The wind and you – howled and roared all night
in wild fury – in an insane harmony.
You danced to the beats of a deafening thunder.
The strobe lights flashed across the pitch-black sky.
My heart beat faster every minute,
No sign of relief for my Teesta –
While I made a safe bed on my attic;
for the mother and half-emerged baby head
You came like a maniacal mob
and swallowed them up.
How dare you! Take me! Take me!
Why leave me out?
I jump from my attic into your wide-stretched arms.
When satiated and calm a day later,
I know you’ll look like a reprimanded child
sulking in a corner.
But what do I do with neither man nor child?
Home nor grain?
Purpose nor zest?
Take me now, I beg you.
I am but a shell drained of its meat;
How do I fill it?
Teesta, you bypass me like a school bully.
Is there a design to it?
In one massive churning then, I tell you
Once again, go on producing
hilsa, rohu and chital
for another Teesta somewhere else.
Gita Viswanath is the author of two novels; Twice it Happened (2019) and A Journey Gone Wrong (2022), a non-fiction book, The ‘Nation’ in War: A Study of Military Literature and Hindi War Cinema (2014) and a children’s book, Chidiya (2016). She has also published poems, short stories, travelogues, and essays in journals and anthologies. She is the co-founder of an online film club called Talking Films Online.