Poetry 2011 First Prize, Amit Shankar Saha

Dream College

Dearest love - we did not
Go to Presidency
But who were those,
Who sat in our places,
Waited for each other,
Took notes, argued,
Appeared in the exams,
And then passed out?
Did they feel our absence?
The things we did not do.
The enormity of it all!

Weren't we intensely absent
That the intensity of it
Made us present,
Just as an absent lover is
Present inside the heart.
Otherwise, in that other place,
Why ghostly we did walk?

Other place: Once a mate,
Cleared the dust from a bench,
So that I may sit beside her.
And I sat, leaving the
Dusted space, in between,
Vacant for you.
And I believe,
You did the same for me.
Two vacant seats!
But where were the truant duo,
If not in dream college.