Forgotten

By Hiranya Mukherjee

It has been ages since the New Years

Stopped meaning anything to her

Days, weeks, months flow by—

The old woman breathes in….

Breathes out….

It’s as if time has forgotten her—

Abandoned her, ceased to bother

Her skin with more wrinkles, and her brain

With more faded memories

Even Death passes her by, every day

Least bothered to carry the weight of her meager corpse

To fill in the daily quota

She can wait…

Abandoned, by the ones she calls family

They know longer call her grandma

No longer ask her to make her signature “pithe puli” in the winters

It has been long since her old adept hands have prepared that “aam pora sharbat”

That she used to make buckets worth, and receive even more smiles in return

Where are those smiles?

The glasses are coated with dust— empty

The winters are cold, colder than she used to remember them

They no longer call her

Days roll in, days roll out

She sits in her chair

On that day when that chair goes vacant

For how long will an absence take her place

Before it is blotted out, with the boom

Of the bursting crackers

At the turn of another New Year?

By Hiranya Mukherjee