This is Mamata Banerjee's second poem in two days
Mamata Banerjee is certainly in the thrall of a poetic muse and has not been watching the finance minister trying to put the economy back on track.
At 8 pm, her second poem in two days hit her Twitter handle. On Thursday, she had penned a blank verse titled 'Thikana' or address. Today, 'Ak Din' or 'One Day'.
The poet's frame of mind is clearly dreary, worrying about war, hate, arrogance and boast but at the end of a tunnel, eventually optimistic about new beginnings.
Yesterday's poem was clearly prompted by the P Chidambaram episode. But the new poem? Politically, it has been a quiet day for the West Bengal chief minister though it did begin with a Janmashtami tragedy - an overnight stampede at a temple 50 km from Kolkata where at least 3 people were killed.
Mamata Banerjee did rush around the hospitals visiting the injured, something BJP's Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh, ticked her off for, saying she was sympathy hunting. Later in the day, her minister visiting the site of the tragedy ran into "Jai Sri Ram" slogans. But a BJP leader on location was also greeted with "go back".
And yet, this poem full of foreboding and longing for light at the end of a tunnel. She wrote the poem in Bengali which roughly translates to the following:
One Day
A day will surely come
A day without war
That day there will be no hate
A day will surely come
When the world will awake
A day must come
When your breath is not choked
It will surely come, a day
When the debt of hate is erased
It will come, a day
Of new beginnings
Terror will take leave
So will arrogance and boast
Perhaps I won't be there
But I will be thinking
I will be worrying
I will be alert
Or perhaps sleep in peace
'One Day', however, is not a very original title for a poem. There is One Day by Mary Howe, a 1950-born reporter who is now the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in New York. Then there is another one by Joseph Millar, also well-known with an MA in poetry writing from John Hopkins University.
There is also "One Day" by celebrated American poet Robert Creeley who died in 2005.
In the evening, news that her party colleague, former MP and Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi will be traveling to Srinagar with Rahul Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury. That decision, too, may have prompted the poem.
Mamata Banerjee is clearly in contemplative mode. More poems could be in the offing.