A Glutton’s Gitanjali


 (inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali)

 

 

 

1   Thou hast made me a glutton, such is thy

pleasure. This frail stomach thou emptiest

again and again, and fillest ever

with fresh food.

 

This barrel of a stomach thou hast

carried over hotels and hotels and hast

stuffed with dishes eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy appetizing

hands my little stomach loses its limits

of decency,gives birth to growls anticipation.

 

Thy infinite gifts come to me only

on this very sensitive taste buds of mine.

Ages pass, and still thou pourest,

and still there is room to fill.

 

 

 

  1.          When thou commandest me to eat

    it seems my heart would break

    with joy.  I look at the onion and

    tears come to my eyes.

     

    All that is hard and dissonant in my

    stomach melts into one sweet anticipation

    and my appetite spreads wings like a glad

    bird on its flight across the sea to eat.

    I know thy takest pleasure in my eating.

    I know only as a Glutton

    I come before thy presence.

     

    I touch the edge of the far

    spreading wing of my belch song

    thy feet which I could never

    aspire to reach.

    Drunk with joy of eating I

    forget myself and call thee waiter

    who art my Lord.

     

     

          

     

    13. The food that I come to eat remains

    un eaten to this day.

    I have spent my days sucking in

    sucking out my saliva.

    The times have not come true, the menu

    cards have not been rightly set;only

    there is agony of hunger in

    my stomach.

     

    The hotel has not opened.Only

    the traffic is sighing by.

    I have not seen the food nor have I

    tasted it. Only I have inhaled its

    appetizing aroma from the window

    before my house.

    The living long day has passed in

    resting my seat on the pavement.But the

    doors are not open and I cannot ask

    them to do so.

    I live in the hope of tasting the

    food.But this tasting is not yet.

     

     

    31.   ‘Chef tell me,who was it that bound

    you (to this chair)?

    “it was my stomach’said the Chef.”I thought

    I could out do everybody in the hotel eating and

    over eating and I amassed in my own stomach

    the dishes due to my customers.When hunger overcame

    me, I sat upon the chair that was for my customer.

    On trying to get up I was a prisoner

    of my own (bulging)stomach.”

     

    “Chef tell me who wrought

    this unbreakable bread?”

    “ It was I” said the Chef “ who baked

    this bread very carefully.I thought my invincible culinary

    would hold the world tongue tied leaving me in

    happiness undisturbed.Thus night and day I

    worked at the flour with huge fires and cruel

    hard strokes. When at last the bread was done and

    trimmings were complete and unbreakable,

    I find that it leaves you tooth twisted”

     

      

    35.  Where the waiter is without fear and

    the door is held open;

    where the food is free;

    where the bread has not been broken

    up into fragments by clumsy dirty

    Nails.

    Where the aroma comes out from the

    depth of the pantry;

    Where tireless chef stretches his

    art towards perfection;

    Where the clean stream of

    coffee has not lost its way into

    the dreary desert sand and

    dead wood dust:

    Where the stomach is led

    forward by thee into ever

    filling plates and cups-

    into this heaven of a hotel, my

    father let me appetite awake! 

     

     

     

    ~  T.S. Gopal ~

     

     

     

     

    More Poems By Gopal


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