Flash flood

“The flood brings down corruption-fed bridges,”
the panchayat* officer told me in Jogbani*
one August day when the rice farmer
toiled in the field all day and
nothing about life was august or bright.
Next morning, perched in the thatches
of his hut swimming in water,
the farmer looked on calmly,
and the officer had left.
Like the demanding baraatis* in marriages,
the river had arrived, like a banished apsara*
swallowing ripe harvests, huts, chai stalls
along the Biratnagar* border,
but the farmer told me,
rains were nice for paddy fields.
Between the night and the morning,
darzanon* died in Jogbani,
tied to charpais sailing with carcasses,
corpses entwined in fences, trees, canals,
a measure of life’s smallness in the face of death,
of eternal embraces in fatalistic unions of couples,
children and parents, livestock and masters,
old and young, dead and defeated.
Jogbani is now a map,
a giant purple patch on NASA imagery,
but the rice farmer agreed,
this flash flood is not
colorful enough for news flash.

Note:
chai: tea
Jogbani – a flood prone village in the Indian state of Bihar
Darzanon दर्जन ों – dozens
Charpai चारपाई – cot
Apsara अप्सरा – danseuse in heaven
Baraatis बाराती – members of a wedding party/procession
Panchayat पोंचायत – village council
Biratnagar: A border town between Bihar and Nepal