Three Daughters

              By D Sangno

Long long ago, one after another,

His wife begotten him three daughters.

The villagers said he’d marry twice.

‘Get one son’ was all but their advice.

The first daughter was prettiest in the village.

The Second oozed wisdoms in her early age.

The third was pretty too, but bubbly, smarter

And her face resembled that of her father.

The father loved them all. Unlike other fathers,

He felt fortunate to have all three daughters,

With each one of them unique in her own right.

He said, ‘Daughters for bliss and sons for pride.’

The daughters vie to sit on the father’s lap,

Or to peck his cheeks and feel his nose’s shape.

The third would draw her forearm, lovely and fair,

Near her father’s sun-tanned forearm to compare.

He gave them best education in cities.

And his life insured for unseen adversities.

Father went hunting one day and returned never.

Still Daughters grew up bold, beautiful and clever.

They brought laurels to family and village.

Mother heart’s filled with pride and courage

To live a few years more with tears in her eyes.

Years later, father returned with relieving sighs.

Alas! Neither his wife nor his daughters would talk

To him or meet their eyes to his as they walk

To stop by  a 20-year old tomb with flowers in their hands.

“Here lies the world’s best father and a loving husband”

Reads the epitaph; then the teary soul of his soars to heaven.

Mother, My Mother

The noisy cicadas have done with their evening songs,

As night’s darkness befalls to rouse fireflies in throngs,

My mother hasn’t yet returned from her paddy field.

My bro and I gaze the desolate path which leads to the hill.

My little sister awaits too with the milk-feeder she emptied.

There rises sweet smell of boiling red-rice (a good feed)

From our brass pot, blistering and mundanely murmuring,

That I put on the grate. Our fowls now hungrily clamoring.

Our pig yawik and her six piglets are back in their cozy pen,

Readying for a good rest and wandering the next day again.

Still, my mother hasn’t returned from her paddy field.

My siblings gaze the moon-blanched path to the hill.

Missing my father too; but he’s away with his new bride,

Dallying, in his in-laws’ village- where the knot was tied.

My mother is toiling alone in her field, for our upkeep,

Braving hot sun or pelting rains all just for a good-reap.

Here she comes. Aha! Loaded with fresh corns

And cucumbers in the basket (on her back), bit torn.

My brother and I haste to pick the ones bigger;

I win. He is on the verge of crying; I surrender.

My sister is first to be fed and then rest of us all dine

On the gigantic family plate—rice, chilly, rice-wine

And salt in the dinner. Not complaining today,

For to have tasty meals, there always is another day.

My mother’s weather-beaten cloth is now faded

And tattered. It smells of toil but she’s unfazed.

Her hairs are pale and lifeless- dusts so rendered.

And her hands made coarse by scratching of earth.

Even the bitumen-filled cracks on her bare feet

Won’t deter her from climbing the hill. Her teeth

Were reddened by sweet tree barks she chewed.

Gaudy dresses and slippers are all she eschewed.

Caging her neck with my arms, this I promised:

“Amma, I’ll buy you betel-nut and get you dressed

With dear cloths when I become a man with a job.”

Then, smilingly she pads my back before her silent sob.

But I am not ordained to keep those promises of mine,

For she not lived long enough till the day I shine.

My father was on a trip to far a place when she died,

Whispering indistinctly to me. Helpless, I cried.

The ailment was lurking inside her, sans a choice,

Steadily killing, first her vitality then her voice

Turning her into a breathing ensemble of bones

And until life’s last jiffy--laid-up and pain prone.

Neither the mumbo-jumbo nor the medication

Could rid her of the belly’s fiendish affliction.

A quarter century after her passing, I realized this:

She died of an operable ailment called appendicitis.

My sweat’s modicum of worldly goods in hold

Are hollowed with her not around to behold

And share. Her poor and sign-less grave is now lost

To man’s greed for land; it’s to memories all I accost.

A strayed arrow

A Strayed Arrow

By D. Sangno

Youth be not wasted like an arrow.

Squander it, seldom it comes back.

O sons and daughters of tomorrow,

Frown not, for ‘tis for your sake.

Recall your day-one in kindergarten,

Your parents’ hearts throbbed,

As a fear of being disheartened

Crept on them as you sobbed.

“Become someone bigger,” pa said.

“Make a good name,” ma suggested.

“Do us proud,” together they said.
Thus, in your education they invested.

Now you’re a prisoner of all vices.

Blood toxic with drugs and virus

And chastity lost defying advices.

Breaths smell of spirit malodorous.

Initial delinquencies to pro felonies,

Hurting impudence to arrogance

You contracted from evil cronies.

And furthering with contrivance.

Childhood’s angelic innocence

Is long dead as sins sweep

Those wicked like foul incense.

Parents’ poignant souls weep.

Pa’s dreams shattered to ground,

Ma’s hope battered to pieces,

‘Tis time to make a turn-around.

Confess your sins to all’s whishes.

Blame no one for your failures,

For yourself not toiled hard;

And no one for misdemeanours,

For yourself not learned to regard.

Come on! Pull your socks up

And front life’s trials like a brave.

Future still holds to pick you up!

Go not as looser to your grave.

Let your failures adorn a success,

As enduring ones come by hard way.

Embrace all you get with politesse.

‘Tough yet noble’ must be your way.

With winning becoming a habit,

Progress shall make miseries gone,

You’ll have to perseverate, albeit,

And let your vexation blown.

Let not life tame you like a sheep;

Be the shepherd, tame it instead.

Remember, you’ve promises to keep-

To do your parents proud indeed.

Wait of Count Dracula

Wait of Count Dracula

-D Sangno

Waiting indefinitely for ages

Like one of meditating sages

For your rebirth, my love.

We’ll be reunited, I hope.

I am undead yet soulless.

I am nothing yet ageless.

I am dead to the world

Yet I rule the underworld.

Yes, I am walking again;

I feed on blood of human vein.

From Romania across seven seas,

I seek you like most willful of bees.

Wherever in this world you live

I’ll surely find you, just believe.

I’d caress you and sedate you

While I sap the salty blood in you.

Thereafter, you’ll have to drink mine

To be my inseparable valentine.

Memories of our romantic past,

Then, shall rewind vivid and fast.

If you become my wife,

I shall give you an eternal life,

Free of all human frailties:

Of death, of age, of liabilities.

Somewhere, hope you are born.

I must get you Mina, I am lot lorn.

As before, hope you’re as loving

And gorgeous for my longing

Your groom shall be bled to dead,

I’ll unleash carnage widespread

If you weren’t to be my bride.

From me nobody can hide.

You’re mine and mine alone.

Under this worn tombstone,

I’ll wait if you’re not born yet,

Even if for eternity, I won’t fret.

-D-

A Drongo’s Fable

                                                     -By Dahey Sangno

Solitarily forlorn in an arborous ravine,

A black racket-tailed drongo,

At last, meets another of his kind,

A female, some three sunless days ago.

Together they whistle or stay reticently muted,

When not playing, their lovelorn eyes coyly meet.

As a pair, they look perfectly suited;

Merrily they fly from thicket to thicket.

Their whistles draw a myriad of birds,

Mobbed, they mimic them to latter’s joy.

They feed on nectar, insects and lizards;

A fable bears with courtship they enjoy.

His wire-like tail feathers shaped as  rackets,

Are long and gloriously beautiful;

Even grander than those of parakeets.

While a covetous thrush glares on awful.  

Hers is glistening blue-black plumage,

Ruffles when frisky wind fondles it.  

She’s just about to sing the best one of her age

When her heart’s pierced by a couple of pellets.   .

Alas! She’s fallen, like ill-fated others, for tails

To make elegant a tribal man’s hat.

Helplessly witnessing from afar, he wails.

He’s rendered yet again lonely and sad.

An another shot is fired; he’s hit between his legs,

Flat on dewy grasses, dying, his beak snaps the tails

Before the gunman could reach it was too late.

This time, it was the hunter’s turn to wail.

[Epilogue: the Greater Racket-Tailed Drongos (dicrurus paradiseus), about aize of myna, are found in lesser-Himalaya, including in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. They are a rare sight; but if found they are killed for their coveted crested and longish feathers, curving backward, called ‘nini’, to adorn a Nyishi man’s headgear (hat) called ’bopia’. It is widely believed that a drongo must be killed in one shot lest it should turn its beak and snap the wire-like tail. I wish we find alternative to this feather] 

Song of Kameng

Song of Kameng

                                          --Dahey Sangno

Thick, low and cold mists shroud her narrow vale;

This moment- breezeless, leaves motionless on her dale.

Behold as she surges, from glaciers to plains,

 Praise her foaming ebbs, deep gorges and sharp bents.

In summer, inflated by rains, she’s flooded to her brim,

And her flow- grandiosely fast, roaring and grim.

As if she’s at war with her own shores,

With every dash of her riled wave come roars.

Her mid-current’s high, relentless and brute

And smell’s pungent with soils, shrubs and roots.

The rumbles of rolling and wearing stones on her bed

Grow louder by the night as all have gone quiet.

Logs and figs along her course, she carries with her,

When not cast out, to lands little known or far.

Such is the power of nature and ferocity of a river

That all mortals, unto their spines, must quiver.

By autumn, when monsoon clouds have fled,

The evening Sun’s now regularly pale-yellow-red.

The war seems over and peace restored

As her feeble waves sensually kiss the shores.

Placidly serene, dry leaves on her surface flow lazily,

 The silence is broken by barbs jumping up playfully. 

The rounded, polished stones and pebbles re-appear,

Like giant and tiny eggs, as water turns cold and clear.

Marks of fishes’ bites, like cascading crescents,

Show on wet stones, gathering algae- greenish lucent.

 Old shorelines make ways for silver narrow beaches,

On which children make sand-castles or screeches.

Oh! just forgot to tell, she is Ane* Kameng,

Daughter of the Himalayas, born near Gaurichen.
Upon whose valley, first descended the Sangno Abo

From Changam-Narba, the ancient lands of Tani Abo.

Many clans followed and today it is home to one and all.

And here, we learned to swim and fish as we were just small.

In this river many memories are immersed,

Folklores are woven and songs are versed.

She’ll continue to flow high and low,

So long does the Sun glow.

Even long after we all are gone,

She will flow from season to season.

[* Ane: Mother.   Sangno Abo: a Nyishi clan, descendent of Dolo (from Abo Tani).

Changam and Narba, places of resting, called ‘Doging’ in Nyishi, of migrating Tani tribes, believed to be somewhere in the bank of Tsangpo river in present day Tibet. Tani Abo: or Abo Tani, the mythical forefather of Tani tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.]