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Scent Of Paddy Flower

                                   By Goutam Hazra

           1
Reminiscence

My father told me 
first time 
I was just a boy then,
“Follow the scent of paddy flower
move with the wind it carries,
surely you will go to heaven.”

I remember
he would catch 
fistful of wind
bring near to my face
and wonder,
“Isn’t it godly!”

Magically, opened his hand
but I never felt
what scent he meant.
            
             2
Days of kind rain

“Son, see the misty wind
rushing all over the paddy field
comes every year
to drink the scent of paddy flower.”

Mere as a boy
I could see only
tides of a green plane
touching my little finger
and racing far… too far.
I would ask  
“Where have they gone?”
Smiled my father 
and said
“Did not you listen,
they are going to heaven,
call the goddess then,
‘come goddess dear’
we all are ready with paddy flower.”




Curious was my face,
“Papa, then?”

“Goddess will arrive smiling
her feet will be here
there
everywhere.
Seeing a pot in her hand
all those paddy flowers
delighted, will open their mouth more wider
and life will be poured…”

“Where these flowers come from?”

Remained my father smiling
speaking all his mind
looking high at sky
asked me to see there
spoke he again.

“Rain, rain, kind monsoon rain
on the first day of its shower
kind rain would ask me to come here
with bagful of paddy seeds,
‘let seeds be spread all over,
let its eternal relation with soil
be the fertilizer’
when all said is done
waiting rain 
starts showering its kind
make visible hiding life in the abyss of seed.
Happy wind changes color
being green all around
waits for the day
when the wind would smell the scent of paddy flower.”

Days passed by,
kind rain was still in waiting
sometimes hidden beyond horizon
or simply making sun blind with its smoky face
and whenever wind said,
‘Dry I’m now’
quenched the thirst.

Someday wind played naughty with sun
asked kind rain to make it misty
and with brushes of sun rays 
painted a rainbow on the face of east sky.


Wait was over
green field blossomed with flowers
and wind said,
“Fill in my heart
with scent of flower
I shall bring life…”

Happy was my father’s voice
“Rain, rain, kind monsoon rain
said so
green wind brining life 
did so
scent of paddy flower
is made so.
Bare footed be here
print your soul
in the dust of this soil
kind rain will come
green wind being there
life will be yours 
beautiful
simple
with the scent of paddy flower.”
           
             3
Cruel entropy

How old was I then
nine or ten
my father looked up
up to the sky
again and again
for a month long
only to see 
change of sky’s color
from the color of a summer day to a long humid night.
Dry wind cried at last
over my father’s sweating body
“Rain, rain O kind rain, where have you gone.”

One day sudden
kind rain came again.
Cried to my father
“Why no green wind came this year
from ocean 
to bring me here.
Desert wind why
dry my breath
seeds you have sown
how could I then
enliven with my rain.”

Question 
many question
my father had asked the rain.

Short-lived, hurried rain could spell its last breath,
“I am not that rain 
as was your friend,
I am the curse of dying forest
I am the ghost of all pollution
I am born out of acid weather…”

Who knew, it left for where?

My father cried 
As kind rain left him alone
hiding in a dry wind’s bone.

My father was still
going every morning
asking the soil
in vain
if soil could alone
make the paddy flowers to be born.

Year passed by,
came back the time, 
for green wind to bring kind rain.

Rain came one day.

But why
as a cloudburst
treacherous
roaring always
pouring unwanted
like an unkind monster
flooded misery
in the life of a simple farmer?
           
            4
Relinquishment

Dumb remained my father
for days together
sad was his voice at last,
“Run away, son, run away from here,
sky rain wind
river village land;
thread of this garland
who cuts it
go, stop now there hand.”

Draught and flood,
uncertainty of life 
changed my mind 
as of a farmer’s son.
Books, studies and education
reasons, truth and compassion
might have had fulfilled my father’s mission.

But… 
Does not this civilization
converts us 
as the products to do more production.
Run, run and run 
run ahead of time
let be it, at the cost of inhaling killer tension,
stress taking  over your life.
Insomnia, cholesterol or cynicism
is our success’s companion? 
‘A’ is shaped as ‘B’
and ‘B’ is sold as ‘C’.
Modification
innovation
sophistication
but I found the basic
what it remain
as life’s supreme conviction 
‘simply a fist full of paddy
and its grain’.

             5
Scent of life

So here, I am again
standing in front of this green plane
searching for the shadow of my father.
Green wind surrounds my existence
I can see the dance of those bunches.
My mind whispers to my ear
echoes those words of my father, 
“Bare footed be here
print your soul
in the dust of this soil
rain will come
green wind being there
life will be yours 
beautiful
simple
with the scent of paddy flower.”

I never felt so,
what I smell now 
is the scent of paddy flower.
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