Sometimes I want to know how you are. When I go to sleep, when I wake up, when I drive at ninety miles an hour, when the weight of time suddenly drops after a few quick vodkas and brandies.
Dawn breaks, night falls; dawn again, night again. The same way, day after day. Sometimes it feels as though something will happen. Nothing does. Day after day.
Believe it or not, I look at myself in the mirror at times. When I shave? No, I think of other things then. But sometimes, alone in the room, after a bath, or before going to bed eventually, I stand face-to-face with myself, eyeball-to-eyeball. Just me, without adornment; a lump of flesh, flab and filth. Completely bald, blunt nose, bags under the eyes, a broad hairy chest, the spitting image of a powerful, aged baboon after removing the glittering false teeth. I enjoy taking off my dentures and making faces, balling up my fists—like two wild beasts poised for battle—when I open my mouth wide the darkness seems to be the road to hell.
How are you? But I don’t even know where you are.
And How Are You?
by Buddhadeva Bose
translated by Arunava Sinha
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- through the gap
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- father and son
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- behind bars
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- shrine
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- father and daughter
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- offering
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- Life is OK
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- hanging
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- street food
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- shawl
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- waiting for a ride
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- local produce
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- father and daughter in pink
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- peas and tomatoes
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- round the corner
Photos taken in Bawali, a village in Bengal, in January 2018.