Ratan Bhattacharjee

01-12-1957 / Kolkata

Chant To Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Netaji Subhas
You are not dead,
You are alive
Alive for ever

Your name is all around
At the five point crossing
Or at the green brigade ground
As a simple statue
Under the shade of a tree
Now resting in peace

But you did not know rest
While you were alive
So you are still alive

You are alive now all around
Your name gives redness to posies
Sweetness to apple and grapes
Subhas shadows looms large
EVERYWHERE
When people donate blood
Earn their daily bread
Go to temples for saying prayers
Subhas is everywhere
In biscuit packets, tins of mustard oil
In daily bread

Your name is on the signboard
Of grocery shop, a poultry farm
A primary school in Jungle Mahal
A factory of Singur
A tea stall at Nandigram

Your name is on the City High Roads
On the streets of the Capital
People shout your name in a procession
We feel you should have been alive
When we against the heinous acts -
to see the police molesting a girl
or the students beaten rudely for calling strike
or the dock laborers hurl slogans at their bosses
or the girl child ravished and killed in a flat
The list continues unending….

You are alive in our familiar words
You are alive when have no words to utter.
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