by Sutapa Chaudhuri (March 2016)
But phone calls to your world
need to pass through
mindless red-tapism and age-old
inertia; passports need to be fetched,
visas applied for, tickets booked—
and then, the crossing of endless
boundaries of bureaucratic protocols,
mindful of the innumerable
guards of honour and courtesy calls
in which heads of state discuss
in low, muted tones the terms
for signing a treaty of amicable
relations, necessary to negotiate
a successful foreign policy.
The distance between us too great
to warrant any lesser diplomacy.
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Sutapa Chaudhuri has two poetry collections — Broken Rhapsodies and Touching Nadir. My Lord, My Well-Beloved is a collection of her translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs.
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