Siddharth Dasgupta, Poona, India
There are tattoos left on this earth, large enough to swallow
time, giant and monster-like from when continents drifted
apart—an amicable separation, they called it—or from when
lands came crashing against each other’s flora, filling the lacuna
that had widened over millions of years. Breakfast this morning
is artichokes and avocados, scooped and layered over bread
filled with whole grains, bought from a woman who bakes them
at home. A plate of bronze cups the intimacies of tasted loaves.
We lead such specific lives—a room, a home, a few friends, most
acquaintances really, the glamour of distant summers, the ache
of nights buried beneath the hunger of foreign skies, a homeland,
the Buddhism of family, of fragrance, books, lovers, and those
continents of desire that have marked themselves on our maps.
I’ve thought about getting a tattoo a few times. Something small,
something to roughen my smooth and quieten the jagged. Each
time I think of a rose, or swallows, a word, or a lyric, I remember
where I am—on this earth—and how the first tattoos remain
the only ones. A Sahara of sorrows, a Ganga of remembering,
to forget, the Amazons of our amnesias, lagoons and Novembers,
islands and driftwood, the Atacamas of our amazement,
the tenderness of the Thar… An Antarctica of believing in things,
and watching them dance into the ocean. Ours are epic lives,
if you come to think of it—love and its immensity. Bodies
and belief. I walk into a café and the assurances of coffee.
The day is rife with an unspoken promise. Beneath me, the soil
heaves. I feel my tattoo. And step into a richly-brewed day.
Siddharth Dasgupta is an Indian writer of poetry and fiction. He has written three books thus far, scattered across verse, fictional narratives, and that special somewhere in-between. His words have appeared in The Bosphorus Review, Lunch Ticket, Kyoto Journal, Mekong Review, Poetry at Sangam, Spittoon, Cha, Madras Courier, nether Quarterly, and elsewhere. Siddharth also dives into fragments of travel and culture for a gathering of publications—including Travel + Leisure, Harper’s Bazaar and National Geographic Traveller. He lives within the swirling nostalgias of the city of Poona, where he is currently finessing a novel and two collections of poetry.
Reach him at:
@citizen.bliss |https://citizenbliss.squarespace.com/
