Here is the first poem from A GREAT POET TO BE Sagnik Patra. His mother was (as usual) screaming at the top of her voice while I was (being unnerved - as usual) watching a movie on my laptop. In the end the revelation was much more than pleasing - 'Sagnik has wrote a poem' - Sutanu said and she handed me over a colorful piece of paper. I did not know how to express my feelings - another Bengali poet is born - but he writes in English! One thing I can tell you - the following might not be anything near to a perfect poem but he wrote from his heart.

From the very first day in Kolkata I was disturbed to the maximum extent. Being a Bengali I always thought that it was our home city. I do not know why but it is not suiting us. When I say us I mean me and my wife. To be very frank with my friends we were much much happier in Delhi. Something happened today which has not only disturbed me but the whole family. We belong to a very poor family from East Medinipur. Somehow completed our education as our parents were sure that we could complete our education even with empty stomach.

No. I am too small a person to make such statement but thought I would quote M K Gandhi to reiterate an argument made by Gandhi way back in 1938 (Harijan, 26 November, 1938). Gandhi wrote “… Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs….. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred….. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts.