KIRITI SENGUPTA: I will bequeath my assets to my son

Photograph Bitan Chakraborty

---

Kiriti Sengupta is a practising dentist and a poet, and the two roles inform each other: clinical precision meets a meditative attention to everyday life. He divides his time between New Delhi and Santiniketan, the university town Rabindranath Tagore founded as a centre for learning and the arts, and this dual base anchors his writing in both contemporary Indian life and Bengal’s literary heritage. As a translator of Tagore and other Bengali poets, Sengupta has a hands-on connection to that tradition; his collection The Earthen Flute won the inaugural Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2018, and he received the Nilim Kumar National Honour in 2024.

Alongside his own writing, Sengupta plays an active role in independent Indian publishing. He is chief editor of Ethos Literary Journal and heads the English division at Hawakal Publishers, where he has helped develop new voices across poetry and prose. His Selected Poems, published by Transcendent Zero Press (Houston) in 2025, offers a representative view of a career that spans fourteen books of poetry and prose, two volumes of translations, and nine edited anthologies. Here four of Sengupta’s poems are accompanied by some of the photographs of the photographer and writer, Bitan Chakraborty.

Ars Notoria

---

Legacy 1

I will bequeath my assets to my son.
They will supplement the resources
he will earn. Belongings offer glory
but require maintenance. I will also share

a lesson I have learned: Keep your

trust in yourself.

 
Faith is the only doctrine
one acquires in a lifetime.

---

Legacy 2

Are marriages solely intended

as family arrangements?
They are sacred moments,
celebrating communion.
A hint of turmeric —
on the groom, the bride, and the invite —
enhances the tradition.

Modern invitations don’t retain the fragrance.
Can they bring blessings for the wedding?

---

Legacy 3

My son wonders —

Is this humanly possible?
I assure him — Tagore’s talent

remains boundless.

Social media hosts umpteen poets.
A new verse surfaces every moment.
How can anyone read them all in time?

In hindsight, I feel terrible:
I’m uncertain when
a poem will descend.
Will I recognise it when it does?

It is often overlooked —
not every piece of inditing
qualifies as a poem.

---

Legacy 4

From Siliguri to Darjeeling,
the road snakes through the hills,
dotted with signs of interrogation.
As I traverse, I ponder these marks —

The traveller asks the mountain:
How many bends must I unravel
to reach your summit?
Embraced in green, the hill answers:
As many as you ascend.