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Jhilam Chattaraj


 Off white chalk after
Khajaguda Hills, Hyderabad

Stones 
on Khajaguda Hills
release April heat.
 
Bulldozed skies                                                                        
turn to grey thunder — 
strangers become lovers.
 
They grow bird wings,
explore every rock,
seek safe routes 

​for interrupted hearts.
Far, in the blur, 
Golkonda listens 
 
to the familiar dirge
of rain-fragrant stones.
Gneissic, granite — 
 
very hard and very old,
melt into a pool
of real estate gamble.
 
Opulence — brims, spills.
Each boulder is stamped
with man’s image of God. 
 
Twilight’s azaan fills the sky.
Dim lights of the dargah 
embrace wet, weary pilgrims.
 
Elephant-skinned stones
bend and pray, hoping
to halt the constant breakage,
 
but fail. Rocks shatter 
rubble to lucre — 
wounds erase history.


Ananda Buddha Vihara, Mahendra Hills, Hyderabad

Detachment descends 
from Buddha’s Peepal — 
 
a lime-and-stone Bodh Gaya 
on the summit of Mahendra hills.  
 
A monastery of marbled stairs, 
quaint gardens, fluttering prayer flags, 
 
and bony mongrels 
behind boyish monks.  
 
Cymbals claim the hectic air — 
‘buddham, saranam, gacchami.’
 
At the end of the arched hallway,
gilded Buddha blooms into a lotus. 
 
His eyes etched in white, 
pacify tearful galaxies — 
 
an attempt to receive
the radiance of our being. 
 
Below, lies the city of carbon — ​
digital nirvana. 
 
Poets and pilgrims
arrive with broken toes.
 
Ripples of ache 
dissolve into satin sleep,
 
and slowly, very slowly
breath becomes the light of stars.
​​
​

​Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic and poet based in Hyderabad. Her works have appeared in Ariel, Calyx, World Literature Today and Colorado Review. 'Noise Cancellation' is her latest collection of poems.

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