Had Pablo Neruda walked through Madhubani, what ode would he have found?

(By Ashutosh Kumar Thakur)

I have always been fascinated by the places where poetry and visual art intersect. Where the ordinary, the everyday, and the overlooked is transformed and reframed. Into something that endures, something that continues to hum with life long after the moment has passed. Recently, I read Ashwani Kumar’s poem Pablo Neruda in Gaya , and it lodged itself in my mind like a persistent echo.

The image of Neruda, walking along the dusty streets of Bihar, performing Pinddan in Gaya, his head bowed, the wind carrying the dust of the riverbeds and the cries of crows, moved me. It moved me not because it was extraordinary, but because it was intimate, human, and quiet in its enormity. And it made me wonder: what if Neruda had wandered east, further into Bihar, into Madhub