Ichamati…a river’s song.

The hour was close to a crescent moon’s midnight,
The darkness had engulfed Ichamati from my sight.
I lay awake listening to the splashing of the water beyond,
I was hearing a river’s story, I was struck by its magic wand.
Wearing the midnights cloak the river sang a forlorn song,
Of pain drenched waters, creating ripples, gently flowing along.
I listened to the silent river, I was under its magical spell,
The painful story of divide , a story the river herself could not tell. 

Her two banks were hurting with piercing barbed wires ,
She cried in pain as her bosom burned with seething fire.
Her shores had been divided and given different names,
To thus tear Ichamati apart , was a cruelty soaked in shame.
Ichamati wanted to flow free, gushing ahead with the tide,
Yet the boats floating on her waters chose to take a side.
Two countries claimed a river, the river was but one,
Divided into two, it no more knew which way to run.
The sun, the moon, the stars in the sky were still the same,
But Ichamati’s two banks were called by different names.
They called it the borders , Ichamati knew not what it meant,
Her water still flowed deep , not sure which way to bend.

Not far from there flowed another river, a silent meandering flow,
Kalindi was its name, tying two countries in a shimmering bow.
Kalindi did not sing as loud, for it had seen Ichamati’s fate,
Two rivers, two invisible lines, drawing boundaries on an invisible slate.
They kept running through the darkness of the night humming their tale,
For in the shimmering golden dawn, their unsung story would pale.
Ichamati and Kalindi would meet at the Mohona every day and night,
To meet for once and then again get drowned forever, in open sight.
Together they would give all their blues and their tides high and low,
To birth a new river and call it Vidya dhari, then gently set it free to flow.
Vidya dhari would be free and never have to tear its heart into two,
Vidya dhari would never know the pain which Kalindi and Ichamati knew.

Thus in the darkness of the midnight hour Ichamati had come to me,
To tell me of its journey from captivity till it had learnt to set itself free,
And thus through every night, for centuries, this story will continue,till eternity,
For the ones who will lay awake through the night to listen to the flowing Ichamati.
Ichamati’s tale of ever flowing deep waters holding glory, fear, shame and power,
A story Ichamati shares in whispers to the ones who listens at midnight’s wakeful hour.
At dawn Ichamati breaks the spell of night and flows like a soft and silent river,
At dawn Ichamati becomes the Goddess, Iccha mati,  the benevolent giver.