‘Between Wars and Borrowed Fights’ – Poems by Siddh Dutta
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘Her hours went into my becoming, / cruel it feels now / to realize how freedom can vanish without chains. / How may one choose a cage / and call it duty?’
My Mother Knows not the Taste of Meat
Let the hurdles fall apart,
if only my mother could claim
a portion of her life;
for a day.
Not that she complains,
yet her forearms continue their labour
quiet, practiced.
As though effort were the only language
she was given;
my mother knows not the taste of meat.
She bends over the soil,
with years of forfeiture
folded into her spine.
Her hours went into my becoming,
cruel it feels now
to realize how freedom can vanish without chains.
How may one choose a cage
and call it duty?
my mother knows not the taste of meat.
She nurtures life,
often without nurturing herself.
Barely honoured,
never resting.
Gentle in her vulnerability,
unfamiliar with indulgence;
if only my mother knew the taste of meat.
Under the relentless sun,
beside the river that skirts the field,
she imagines herself
a bird of her own will;
only so that I may learn
how to dream.
Through her eyes
my future takes shape.
I venture, I move, and so I sail,
carrying the thread.
She quietly narrates,
wherever the wind permits.
But my mother knows not
the taste of meat.
*
What Refuses to go Blind?
For the nights they’ve endured,
between wars and borrowed fights.
I believe love must persist,
even when truth is forced
to hide its face.
I have seen countless moths
never permitted to become butterflies of their wish,
Pressed beneath careless steps,
their spilled red mistaken for silence.
I have heard them talk of freedom
in hushed whispers.
I wonder how the sky appears
to those denied their rights
their eyes allowed to see
only what the veil permits.
Streets lined with abandoned chalk,
circles once drawn by children,
who believed in games.
Now they linger in twilight,
too young for darkness,
too tired to hope,
still waiting for a break in the night.
On a far-stretched deserted path,
a cactus barely survives at the edge.
Above me, the open sky
below, the ground that holds my weight.
And in between them
my faith stands:
untaught, unarmed, unafraid.
Take my sight if you must,
but spare the heart that remains.
It knows no forgiveness by forgetting,
no love without consequence,
nor belief without cost.
*
Roti and Them
I grow weary of hiding it,
age has taught me its ways.
Yet you ask me again
as always,
for another
round roti.
I remember my twenties,
carrying bags full of hope
My rotis were neither soft nor round
and the scars of those days,
followed me home.
Perhaps, I will not blame fate anymore,
nor promise the same effort again.
Within these four walls
grief has hardened and settled.
Yet, something in me remains;
untorn.
What if my roti never comes round?
And to you,
perhaps asking for nothing
is already a gift.
For at the end of the day,
all you want
is a perfect roti.
The dough yields,
soft and moist,
beneath my palms.
The tawa warms,
and the chulha breathes smoke
into the blackened beams above.
Yet, each evening,
one edge remains uneven.
I turn it once more,
dusting it with dry flour,
as though a little patience
could teach it
the shape of a circle.
But some rotis never come round.
They carry the weight of a life,
of hands
that are no longer there.
***
Siddh Dutta is poet from Kolkata, currently pursuing B. Com Honours from THK Jain College. An alumnus of St. Xavier's, Panihati and former intern at the prestigious Kolkata Literary Meet (2026), Siddh has worked with reputed literary magazines including Madras Courier. You can find him on Instagram: @sid_tta.
