LiteraryVibes - 6th Edition - 08-Mar-2019
Welcome to LiteraryVibes,
Please contribute your poems, short stories, anecdotes, travelogues, memoirs and philosophical thoughts to LiteraryVibes at mrutyunjays@gmail.com. I will be happy to publish them in the Friday editions.
The childhood memory section is still open.
Regards,
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
BOARDED WINDOWS
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
The night wears a blackout veil,
cries shrill tears;
an unnerving siren,
leans against our boarded window
smelling icy,
smelling beastly,
smelling rotten eggs gun powder;
it’s an assassin’s stink,
a grenade-hand’s,
a mine’s, buried underfoot.
The sky ticks, a detonator.
I am brave, I am patriot,
I am human too.
Too pliant to stand up,
spine crushed to timid powder.
I know how to fast,
to choke my words,
to grovel at exalted feet,
(‘exalted feet’, my foot!)
stoop to servile obedience.
Bangs on the door, asking entry,
perhaps to take me in metals,
to make me disappear,
the minders’ voodoo act;
vanish as night vanishes in daylight.
Even the camp resisters,
my friends’ and relatives’ memory
would be purged of me, my parentage;
erased as never born, never lived;
perhaps, would be a figment of déjà vu.
But rub off the grubby grime
from the face of the registry,
scratch the fear,
or dig the soil of my land
deep with nails;
I may flip out, soaked with blood,
my own blood, thrashing -
your wounded night,
your terrorist, your patriot,
your martyr of tomorrow;
the son of an old mother,
her ‘Ah, the apple of my eye!
No water? Drink son, my hungry tears’;
heartthrob of a young woman,
a gaunt and grim lover, survivor
of the soil, a dreamer
of peace and repose;
never wanting to be a killer,
even spine be crushed,
eyes poked blind, labeled: assassin.
IDENTITY – I
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Not the fool who dons my name;
ask my bed, its joints and hinges,
how timidly I sleep and how I heave;
ask the silence under my skin.
Ask the sheet, its creases, and the smell,
the caved-in pillow where I leave
my uneasy thoughts without making it wiser.
Ask the chair rocking in the corner.
Ask the mask I wear as a patina on my pain
that contours my hurts away from me.
It has flattened thin under others’ weight,
I smile foolishly over its contortions.
I smile at the stake
where my destiny burns.
I do not unlock others’ doors.
Nor do I enter their forbidden forts.
My eyes have made room for others
who pushed me off, even my cheeks are not mine.
My peers busy themselves gathering driftwood,
my spaces lie empty and silent.
I demolish my walls, making trust my veil.
If it is breached, a sin shall be scored.
In the daylight, brooding and green,
a man crosses the road. Could that be me?
(‘Identity-I’ appeared in LITMUS, 2005, ISBN 81-7764-780-6)
Prabhanjan K. Mishra writes poems, stories, critiques and translates, works in two languages – English and Odia. Three of his collected poems in English have been published into books – VIGIL (1993), Lips of a Canyon (2000), and LITMUS (2005).His Odia poems have appeared in Odia literary journals. His English poems poems have been widely anthologized and published in literary journals. He has translated Bhakti poems (Odia) of Salabaga that have been anthologized into Eating God by Arundhathi Subramaniam and also translated Odia stories of the famous author Fakirmohan Senapati for the book FROM THE MASTER’s LOOM (VINTAGE STORIES OF FAKIRMOHAN SENAPATI). He has also edited the book. He has presided over the POETRY CIRCLE (Mumbai), a poets’ group, and was the editor (1986-96) of the group’s poetry magazine POIESIS. He has won Vineet Gupta Memorial Poetry Award and JIWE Poetry Award for his English poems.
TREES
Bibhu Padhi
Be still, my heart, these great
trees are prayers.
Anon
Since the time I began to remember,
they have been here, standing perfectly
still and erect, as angels do.
Shades of green come and go,
and perhaps the barks fall off
when no one sees.
During the day, under the tropic sun,
their leaves shine as emeralds do
on the goddess’s ancient body;
under the moon’s light, words move though
the distances, from one to the other,
until each one receives the message of the night.
As we walk down the road, hand in hand,
“I’m six,” my son says, “but how old
are these tree?”
I take time’s help, talk about how
a tree is born of a seed, how
the sapling grows and waits for the rain
to wash it clean, how freely
the leaves accept every small breeze.
“ Just like you,” I tell him. And, as he laughs
and we walk further down the road, I ask,
“Can you tell what colour are the leaves?” “Easy,
they are green. But tell me how old are the trees?”
He repeats his questions, but this time,
and I’m quick to answer, “They are six”
I thought the same when I walked
this road, holding my father’s hand
twenty-nine years ago, and was told,
“They are six.”. Perhaps I still think they are so.
Somewhere, at some unfrequented corner
of the mind, the trees are always six—
young and shining above us a angels do.
The barks will keep falling,
the leaves will take on shades of green
I might no know, the ancient messages
will continue to be transmitted
through the night. Perhaps, several years
from now, my son, holding his son’s hand
would walk down the same road and hear
the same old questions, “How old are
these trees?” and answer. “They are six.”
Bibhu Padhi has published twelve books of poetry. He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
LAVA
Geetha Nair G.
My mother said I was weaned with pain;
Kicked and bit and howled
For those creamy orbs I wished to gain.
How much more painfully I grew
From only child to one of two !
I watched it grow, swelling her so,
Till I could sit on her lap no more.
They spoke of it with bright smiles
But I could sense their wiles.
The day it came home on my mother’s breast
In the front seat, my special place,
I threw up all over my father’s face
As he held me against his chest.
I watched it cooed to, sung to;
Songs I knew but would not sing
Saw it drink where I no longer could
Saw it kissed; that puking thing.
I was an old toy, set apart;
Invisible, unwanted, sad;
I cried out loud in my seared heart,
“Pet me, Mama; kiss me, Dad.’
All I had lost spewed up in me:
I flung the Cerelac bowl at it
In a hatred haze
But it missed that pasty face.
Once, unseen, I tilted the pram,
Tumbled it to the ground-
There’s a big scar still
Where I tried to kill
My pretty little sister.
Hush! Not a word to anyone of that fall -
They’ll shut me up in Jackal Rock*
In the violent patients’ block
And that wouldn’t do at all.
*A translation of the name of the place in Thiruvananthpuram where the mental hospital is located.
LEGACIES
Geetha Nair G.
We had landed at Port Blair two days back for a much-awaited holiday. We were two families bonded not by blood but by love. There were six of us. They had a daughter. We had a son. Two children who were good friends.
Like their parents.
In the evening of the second day we queued up in front of the Cellular Jail. There was quite a crowd of tourists. The place was a must-see. The monstrous multi - tentacled prison that the British had built and used to confine Indian political prisoners. Notorious Kala Pani. One of the blackest marks in our history.
We walked around taking in the painful sights.Everywhere was evidence of past suffering.
By dusk everyone was seated waiting for the highpoint - the light and sound show. Next to us were a number of young dhoti-clad loud-speaker Indian tourists . Some voluble whites were speaking a guttural language behind us. And in front, all by himself, a tall, thin, dignified man who spoke into his mobile in clipped British English . "Be silent, please " he requested politely , turning around as the show began.
A dhoti-clad one retorted with "Dirty Brit!".
He seemed deaf to those words.
Lights. Reverberation of hoof beats. Cries. Shouts. Gruel forced down fasting throats, into windpipes. Men treated like animals.We were back in the past. Riveted. Pierced. The agonies of our forefathers became real. The India we had never known came alive. The slave nation we had been unfolded before our eyes.We sighed, we exclaimed, we wept. Feelings were at a high.
The young men uttered profanities now and then. The show ended and we rose. Suddenly, two of them fell on the lone man in front. Several choice epithets accompanied the blows.
Soon, he was rescued; the assaulters vanished and he too, looking dazed, melted into the darkness.
Back at the hotel, over a dinner of lobster, we pondered on the event without arriving at any aceptable conclusion .
We broke up early as there was a scuba session at 6 am the next day.
In the dim light we moved towards the beach which was a stone 's throw from our resort. The trainers were already there. Our two youngsters were raring to go. This was their second session.They had accompanied us on the holiday mainly for this novel sport. Soon they were bobbing up and down, their snorkels just visible. We, the parents sat on the sand, our eyes on the water. Our hearts too.
Our daughter and their son. Our treasures, these lovely, spirited children.
The minutes crawled by. There were a few other divers too. Divers from neighbouring resorts too used this stretch .Our duo was now visible. Now not. Now visible. Now not.
Now not? There was something wrong. A commotion far out . What could it be??
We watched helplessly. The bobbing heads turned into divers and their trainers. Everyone was moving back to land
A man was half -,carrying half - pushing our child to the shore.
He dragged her clear of the water. Her inert body lay on the beach. Very quickly first aid followed. She opened her eyes. Sat up slowly.
" Bad regulator ", whimpered the trainer. "He acted fast..., faster than me."
It was then that I turned to her rescuer.He had removed his diving mask.. He was wet, his yellow hair plastered to his skull. I recognised him. It was yesterday's victim. He too seemed to have recognised us."Good morning, " he said in that clipped accent. Before I could say a word, he had wheeled away.The cool breeze brought to us two little words- "Jai Hind ".
Ms. Geetha Nair G is a retired Professor of English, settled in Trivandrum, Kerala. She has been a teacher and critic of English literature for more than 30 years. Poetry is her first love and continues to be her passion. A collection of her poems, "SHORED FRAGMENTS " came out last month .
Model Story with the letters in names
Sreekumar K
As a practice exercise it is a great idea to take up writing stories with some constricting rules. Trying to write a story with each paragraph starting with each of the letters in a long word or even with the letters in your name is a good way of making your creative juices flow. Here is an example. The author's name is obvious.
Silence prevailed in the courtroom as the judge was about to pronounce the most important part of his verdict. Is the woman to be hanged or confined forever or let go free?
Really speaking, I didn’t care much about it. The court had a long session that day and I was in a hurry to go home.
Everywhere around me, I could hear subtle whispers and heavy sighs. Even the fans which usually made a droning noise were rather quiet today.
Every day, in the courtroom, someone is let go or kept in or even sent to the gallows. Witnessing all this for years had made me kind of insensitive. I was feeling hungry and I could already smell the hot meal in my kitchen a full thirty miles away. Lalitha wouldn’t have eaten but the kids couldn’t have waited.
Killing is not uncommon these days. When the state does it, it is called a war; when the public does it, it is called riot and when it is in the name of justice, it is even considered a good thing.
Usually, women don’t get hanged much these days. Their children or other encumbrances come to their rescue. This woman’s son had never come to the court to plead for her.
Many times I had pondered over the effect of punishments. It is one thing when you cane a child, but it is a totally different issue when an adult is sent to the gallows.
And then I heard it. Even the judge had a hard time pronouncing it. The woman was to be hanged till death. She didn’t scream or even weep. She only expressed her desire to see her son once before she was hanged.
Recalling the heinous nature of her crime, I had no doubt that she deserved it. But two years later, when fresh evidence of her innocence came to light and the real murderer was arrested, I felt really bad. I didn’t go to the court for two days. But then I resumed my work. To err is human, to forgive is not exactly just divine…it is God himself.
The Art of Story Telling
Sreekumar K
Story telling is an art dating back to the ancient days, may be a time soon after people learned to speak. The story teller may want to talk about an incident which he experienced first hand. It would have brought certain emotions to his mind and he wants to bring up the same emotions in his listeners. Now, that is a hard task and so, he resorts to all the tricks in his book (that is if he has one) and then supplements them with gestures, tones, facial expressions and actions. He may even mimic the voices of his characters.Well, a story teller can do it but a writer can't and so he has to make use of other methods. Adding details is one of them.
For example.....
This is not something that I know directly but something that I heard from Mr. Kulkarni, a friend of mine who was working as a supervisor in an orange farm in South Africa. Yes, of course they do have orange farms there. And apple farms, grape farms and extensive vegetable farms too. Even the Chinese government has taken a lot of land on lease to cultivate edible crops.
Now, where were we? Yes, the story told by Mr. Kulakarni. Yes, yes, he is a very interesting man. One of his daughters made it to the Harvard and that too in Astrophysics. Yes, right in Mr. Robert Sawyer's class. Wonderful fellow, this Robert Sawyer is. Heard him live on BBC once. He was talking about the afterlife of something.
OK, now this story. I will make it rather short. It is actually about a father and a son. The son's name was Herbert and they called him Herbie for short. His father's name was John Foulton. The boy had lost his wife in an accident while they were living in Nigeria. The father and his son had just gone out to the city when there occurred in their village a flash flood and a landslide. See, flash flood is bad enough and a landslide is even worse. The father and the son were in the city standing on a bridge watching this river swell up and a lot of muddy water, trees and debris getting washed downstream. The roads were blocked and there was no means of communication and they couldn't go back home the same day and had to stay in a hotel. They couldn't send a message to Herbie's mom. But there was no need. Their house and the houses of several people were washed away by the landslide and several people including Herbie's mother had gone missing. The father and son came to know about this only the next day when they reached the village.
They left the village in a week and came to another village in South Africa. Herbie had to join a new school there and he had to learn Swahili. It was was hard for him.
Herbie used to be a voracious reader and he had finished his home library before he was fourteen. Reading took him to new thoughts and ideas quite different from those of his father and some of his classmates'. When he was thirteen, he and his father moved to a new house near Herbie's school. Now, the father had to take two buses to reach the mine where he worked as the supervisor but his son could just walk to school. This gave the boy quite a lot of time to pursue his hobby which was reading. When he wasn't reading, he would still wander in the garden with a book in his hand.
Their garden was a large one and part of it was wooded and the woods continued to the neighbour's property which was totally wooded. It was an impenetrable forest with tall trees, creepers and all that. Snakes too.
Herbie's father had asked him not to venture into the thick forest beyond their own property and Herbie too was afraid of those creeping things hiding in the grass and among the dry leaves.
Their house and the neighbouring house once belonged to a carpenter who had sold it to a local merchant who worked at a local department store. He went back to Florida where he got involved in Oyster farming. The last thing the present owner heard about him was that his farm was prospering and he had a shop near the Kilpatric National Museum of Fine Arts.
Wagabe, the present owner of the house had rented it to Herbie's father for a small rent on condition that he would take good care of the garden. Mr. Foulton loved gardening and he took special care of the garden and it was a sight to see. Two years after they occupied it, the garden had become famous among the villagers there. It had the look of a picture postcard. Shrubs, flowers and some very tall trees. There was even a Venus Fly Trap which gave such pride to Herbert that he invited his whole class to see it one day. But when his classmates came, the plant had no intention to eat, much to Herbie's disappointment. But his classmates still liked his big house and they played hide and seek there till Herbert's father came back.
Apart from the Venus Fly Trap, there were two more trees which interested Herbert so much. These were two tall palm trees which always confused him. Only one of them bore fruits since the other one was a male tree. He used to bump into them when he was young and he used to tell his father that those trees always got on his way. His father only gave him an enigmatic smile as a response. Of course, as he grew up he knew what a foolish ideas it was to accuse a tree of getting in you way. You get in their way since you are the one who moves, right? But, wait a minute. How can you get in their way? Their way? Silly, where are they going? They simply don't have a way for you to get in.
These palms were the most precious ones in the garden. They were planted by the house owner's grand aunt who had been excommunicated from the church when they found that she had learned witchcraft from a local medicine man. This medicine man was arrested for the death of two of his rich neighbours. He was hanged to death. The fact that this lady had learned witchcraft from him came out only after his death when his house was sold and his personal diary was made public by the man who bought his house.
This old lady also died in an accident. People say that it was not an accident but a suicide. Anyway, for some strange reason, the owner of the house had asked Mr. Foulton to take good care of the trees. He had once put a hedge around them and the house owner didn't like it and he had to remove it.
The tree was on the northern part of their house and it was close to the study room on the first floor. From there, the palm trees could be seen.
Only if they were allowed to use the study! That room was under lock and key. Herbert had the desire to look into it several times, but his father told him on all those occasions that he had given his word to the house owner and he was bound to keep it.
Herbert had shared his interest in those trees with a friend of his who was studying in the fourth grade.This boy was four years younger to Herbert and he had missed one year at school since he had whooping cough for almost a year. Even now he looked lean and weak. His name was Hussein and he was a Moslem.
Herbert had asked Hussein to keep it a secret whatever he had told him about the palms. There was no need since what Herbert had told him was not believable anyway.
He had told him that the trees did move. He said that there were days when both of them would change places. He had not noticed this at first since it was hard to tell between them. So, he marked them with a piece of chalk and they didn't move about for a few days. They resumed their movements only after it rained and the chalk marks were washed away.
Herbert tried other ways of marking them like tying strings around one and this too prevented them from moving about. So, he watched them from behind the bushes but never saw them actually moving. But he was sure that they do change places now and then when he was not around.
The first time when Herbert told his father about this was when he was too young and naturally his father didn't take him seriously. But later, years later, Herbert brought it up again when he returned from the city after finishing his Master Degree in Applied Mathematics at the Membua College.
This time his father couldn't deny his request to allow him to open the study room and watch the palms from there on a full moon night.
It was a really bright full moon and Herbert and his father were in the study room waiting to see any movement in the garden. The moon light shone brighly over every shrub and plant in the garden giving them an eerie look.
They didn't see anything for a long time. And then they saw something. The movement was not a subtle one. May be that is why they didn't notice it at first..
However after the initial confusion, they saw the palm trees sliding towards one another and with their palm fronds almost going around each other and slowly but rhythmically engaging themselves in a dance.
Two days later a botanist came and took a good look at the date palms in their garden.
See, that is what a story does to you. It is nothing but pure magic. It is the craft of the story teller or rather his witchcraft.
(What else do you expect DATE PALMS to do?)
Sreekumar K, known to his students and friends more as SK, was born in Punalur, a small town in south India, and has been teaching and writing for three decades. He has tried his hand at various genres, from poems to novels, both in English and in Malayalam, his mother tongue. He also translates books into and from these two languages. At present he is a facilitator in English literature at L’ école Chempaka, an international school in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He is married to Sreekala and has a daughter, Lekshmi S K. He is one of the partners of Fifth Element Films, a production house for art movies.
He writes regularly and considers writing mainly as a livelihood within the compass of social responsibility. Teaching apart, art has the highest potential to bring in social changes as well as to ennoble the individual, he argues. He says he is blessed with many students who eventually became writers. Asked to suggest his favourite quote, he quickly came up with one from Hamlet: What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba/That he should weep for her?
Tribute to our soldiers
Dr. Samrat Shah
Warriors eye popper is their battlefield
Where courage is the only shield
motto is to fight
Till the enemy sees itself in a plight
Survival for them is to defeat ones own death
Aim to combat till the last breath
As they fall on the sand
Failing heart , still beating for the motherland
You live , see the dawn and the sun glow
Thousands of martyrs sacrifice their lives in a row
They sleep in silent dust
Medals and badges achieved gets rust
To finally get your trust
As the countrymen and politicians only know to voice
They continue their sacrifice by choice
Greed and need increasing the insanity
End result war , comprising hatred and cruelty
Making mockery of GODs created HUMANITY
Dr Samrat Shah, MD internal medicine, consultant metabolic specialist and internist.... affiliated with Jaslok, reliance foundation hospital, saifee, bhatia, elizabeth hospital.
He is a consultant internist to the Governor of Maharashtra and writes poems on social aspects as a hobby.
*LUNGI AMMA*
Ananya Priyadarshini
"I need to fix the boundary of my house. It'll take hardly half a day. What makes you charge so much?"
"That we won't get any other engagement for the other half. No matter how long the job takes, you have to pay us for a complete day."
"Listen just because I'm new here, I'm being polite. Else, I too know how to deal with people like you!"
"Fair enough. Go and be rude to another group. Amma and her women won't go to sleep with a hungry stomach if they decline your offer. Now, move."
I turned red- with shame, anger and sadness (don't ask what's there to sad about it, please.) I was about to turn and leave when I recalled Shaila Aunty's advice- "Only Lungi Amma, nobody else. You're a lone, young lady staying alone in a new city. Why allow random men into your campus? What if they find access to your gateways and trespass at night?" I'd also heard stories of plumbers and electricians by the day, breaking into houses with vulnerable residents at night and commit loots, murders, also rapes.
I got control over my surge of emotions and told- "Alright, just do the work. I want no glitch."
"Amma has built houses that have withstood earthquakes and you think a boundary wall will have a loop?", Amma laughed as she and 'her women' boarded an auto for my house.
The auto followed my scooter as we reached my quarter from the 'man market'. Every city has it- a man market. Where you find daily wage labourers waiting to be hired. But Amma was a woman 'Mistry' of this 'Man market' and was totally nailing what you call a man's job. Her helpers were all women. But she had her 'dhaak'(impact) in the town. Everyone wanted Amma to build their house. Shaila aunty was all praises for her because she had built their extended drawing space and the extra washroom. "The renovation is even better than the original house! She's so honest and responsible...."
".... But damn rude. She talks like she holds a B.Tech degree for civil engineering. Meh! The boundary wall is broken at a few places and I want to get it covered so stray dogs (more than thieves!) don't enter into my campus, spoil my scooter, morning newspaper freshly delivered at my doorstep and give me an adrenaline rush while running after me. She wants a full day pay! Such a greedy lady." I was thinking to myself as I looked at Lungi Amma busy stirring the cement mix. A Lungi folded upto knee and a half-sleeved cotton shirt! She's looked like a joker but I envied those biceps. Like for a woman like me who hits the gym on Sundays and remains tired throughout the week, those biceps were something to drool over!
"Madam, get us some tea." Amma 'ordered'.
"And biscuits too. I don't drink tea alone", shouted one of her three helpers. I completely lost it.
"Do I look like a pantry car to you?", Before I could shout, Shaila Aunty almost jumped from her threshold with a tray in hand and said- "Here you go, Amma! Your lemon tea and thin arrowroot biscuits! I'd only told Bani to get you to do her work. I had anticipated...."
"What is SO damn special about this arrogant Mistry that Shaila aunty is treating her like some Governor?", Now, Shaila aunty had also got some right to my anger.
I decided to overhear their conversation.
"She's doing well in her career, Shaila Didi. I don't want to think of her marriage right now. Let her flourish and fly.", Amma was proudly answering Shaila Aunty's query about her daughter's marriage.
I stopped there. I had promised not to do it again but I time-traveled to a Friday some 2 months ago when I was 'dumped' by my rich, settled and handsome husband a year after my marriage because I wasn't earning and was a burden to him. He was head over heels in love with one of his colleagues who was ambitious, talented and intelligent. That day, I stopped mourning over my B.Com degree from one of the top Colleges, over my ambition to pursue M. Com, clear CA and open my own farm. I revived them all, one by one.
I went against the decision of parents who wanted to file a case against him, denied accepting any form of alimony from my 'ex-husband' and signed the divorce papers with all courage I had.
" You've done enough with my life, Dad and Mom. Thank you for everything. But now, let me live mine.", I declared the ultimatum in a house that had married me off to my dad's affluent friend's son within a week of getting a proposal from their side, before they could find another match, or say victim.
Hearing Amma's statement for her daughter, I could recall my dad's logic- "You can study later but you can't find a suitor like this. Better get married off now. Luck doesn't come knocking at your doorstep everyday!". I laughed. I laughed and laughed till I cried. I laughed and cried till Shaila aunty asked "Bani, all well with you?".
"Yeah yeah totally! Just an old joke flashed in my mind.", I stopped my overflowing emotions with jerks as my (ex)in-laws' Oscar winning dialogue- "We want a homely girl who can run the house smoothly since our son stays away from home for work most of the time.", echoed in my ears. "Get a life, Bani", were their son's last words for me. Oh, irony!
However, I decided to 'get a life' anyway. So, I packed my bags, moved out of my father's house (not my house anymore), came to this city, joined the job of an accountant (I've a distinction during graduation but that's the job I could find in a month's time) in a boutique and enrolled in a DLP course for M.Com. My life is taking shape, making sense because I'm happy and secured!
I didn't let the four women go to have a lunch at some hotel but cooked them a fish meal myself. They fixed few of the broken windows and stairs of my newly rented house whose owner visits monthly, only to collect rent.
Meanwhile, I'd chatted enough with Amma. "Amma, will you mind if I ask you a personal question."
"I've answered this everytime I've worked for someone for the first time, Didi (after lunch, she'd started calling me Didi instead of madam). I used to work for a Mistry, back when I was young and beautiful. He used to keep eyeing my cleavage that looked through the neck of my blouse. I enjoyed his attention and let him succeed at his mission. He impregnated me, like many other women he had before. He denied marrying me because he didn't believe that the child was his. A girl like me who could sleep with him without marriage, could sleep with anyone who offered her money- he argued. He bribed me with money to abort the unborn. But I was no prostitute."
"So you gave birth to that traitor's child?", I was furious!
Amma laughed the loudest laugh till now. "No, Didi! I gave birth to MY child, built up my group of women who share same stories as mine, I earned and help them do the same. And I wear shirt so my cleavage doesn't show up any other time, so my daughter never has to wear a Lungi and a shirt to hide the body God has blessed her with!"
Amma took her payment and went off by late afternoon. I'd given her a little bonus as well. I called up my gynecologist and said- "Doctor, I want to keep the baby and that's my final decision."
"Are you sure you want to mother the child of....", it was her duty to counsel me, though.
"No, I just want to mother MY child." And I thanked Lungi Amma in my mind.
Ananya Priyadarshini, Final year student, MBBS, SCB Medical College, Cuttack. Passionate about writing in English, Hindi and especially, Odia (her mother tongue).
Beginner, been recognised by Kadambini, reputed Odia magazibe. Awarded its 'Galpa Unmesha' prize for 2017.
IN MY GRANDMA’S BACKYARD
Dr. Nikhil M Kurien (*NMK)
In my Grandma’s backyard
Quite near the boundary hedge
Stood a huge tamarind
A resort to many kinds.
On the branch that leaned
Beyond the hedge, dwelled
The melodious quails, inciting
Envy in the crows so hoarse
That bickering were often
Over a seeming boundary
Attributed to a hedge so low.
Over the crooked branch
That had the greenest leaves
Dashed the naughty squirrels
Dropping the seeds from the pods
On the saint of snakes,
A lousy rat snake , lodging
In the field mice’s hole.
On the fat big trunk
At a height so dizzying
Worked the busy woodpecker
Making rooms for settlers new.
At noon came the Heron to chat
After a long standstill in the pool
With a fish in its beak to share.
In a hole somewhere
On this huge spreading tree
Lived a demon from myths
To frighten the neighbours brats.
And on nights of a moon full
Those bats are seen hovering
To rouse one’s fear of spirits.
On a dried old twig
Yet strong not to fall
Sat the old owl sleeping
After a keen watch of night
Whom none dared disturb.
Not the quails nor the squirrels.
Not the pecker nor the demon.
This huge tamarind, a resort,
Is no more now , only remain its stump.
For when my Grandma passed
The tree was felled
To char her remains,
Leaving many homeless
And the world shadeless.
Dr. Nikhil M Kurien is a professor in maxillofacial surgery working in a reputed dental college in Trivandrum. He has published 2 books. A novel , "the scarecrow" in 2002 and "miracle mix - a repository of poems" in 2016 under the pen name of nmk.
Marigolds
Parvathy Salil
Quaver all around, lambent
marigolds from nowhere.
Haven’t seen them yesterday
Or, ever before.
Uprooted when in flowers
to be ‘planted’ ?!
Pass not a day
once sans flowers,
severed marigolds sleep
scattered everywhere.
I’ll not see them tomorrow
Or, ever more...
Parvathy Salil is the author of : The One I Never Knew (2019), which features a blurb by Dr.Shashi Tharoor, MP), and Rhapsody (Self-published,2016). Her poems have been published in the Kendra Sahitya Akademi journal, Indian Literature; Deccan Chronicle etc. Currently, a (22-year-old) student of Liberal Arts at Ashoka University (Young India Fellowship Class of 2019); she has also recited poems for the All India Radio’s Yuva Vani. She has presented her poems at the : South India Poetry Festival 2017, Krithi International Literature Festival 2018, Mathrubhumi International Festival Of Letters 2019 etc. The winner of several literary competitions including the Poetry competition held during Darshana International Book Fair 2016, she was also a national-level finalist for the MaRRS Spelling Bee Championship (2014), and had secured the second rank in the state-level championship.
Crows Calling in Chickweeds
Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura
In the neglected corner of the park,
As the day is getting little dark,
There are chickweed blossoms in the ditches
Away from the manicured roses
Look so very familiar
Almost quite similar
To that of my village wild flowers
Dancing with the shrubs in the rustic nature.
The crow calling in the hoarse tuner
From the top of the concrete city jungle
Reminding me of the afternoon summer
In my village after many years.
It is always the peacocks, parrots and pigeons
Who often ruled my imaginations
But now the crows and chickweeds
Planting in me the new thought-seeds.
I understand as I realize
Crows and wild flowers truly symbolize
The leftover soul of my life.
They may evade the attention of the passer-by
But they keep surviving
Through the test of time
Declaring, life is never
About flamingos or roses .
All on a sudden,
As the crow flies
and the chickweed smiles
I wake up to a new refreshing sunshine.
"Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura passed out from BITS, Pilani as a Mechanical Engineer and is serving in a PSU, Oil Marketing Company for last 3 decades. He has done his MBA in Marketing from IGNOU and subsequently the PhD from Sagaur Central University in Marketing. In spite of his official engagements, he writes both in Odia and English and follows his passion in singing and music. He has already published two books on collections of poems in Odia i.e. “Ananta Sparsa” & “Lagna Deha” , and a collection of English poems titled “The Mystic in the Land of Love”. His poems have been published in many national/ international magazines and in on-line publications. He has also published a non-fiction titled “Walking with Baba, the Mystic”. His books are available both in Amazon & Flipkart."
Somnambulist
Chandini Santosh
Dear somnambulist,
When will you walk into my room
That smells of naphthalene balls.
Walk in through the fluffy curtains,
Remove your canines,
Your religion and caste
Just wear your maleness.
Chandini Santosh is a novelist, poet and painter. Her poems have been published widely in national and international anthologies and eminent journals. She has two novels and three solo collections of poems.
Word to mother
Anwesha Mishra
Ma, I'm not asking for much.
When it's the last sweet in the jar,
Spare me some before feeding your son.
Pull my ears when I can't recite the tables,
But don't deprive me of knowledge.
The quintessence of love,
Teach me to be benevolent,
For I need to be patient,
When wronged.
Sure, you can weep at my betrothal,
But do send me to a house where I have a say.
When your son scoffs at your old self,
Shed a tear in hiding, may be.
But don't push me too far,
To not remember me as your own.
Urge me to grow a spine,
And retort,
Everytime I'm groped
And you are nowhere near.
At times when I'm manhandled,
Or my modesty is outraged,
Condemn me not for I'm pristine as ever,
And forgive me if I raise my voice.
Ma, I'm not asking for much.
Or may be, I am.
Anwesha Mishra is a first year medical student at Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College, Baripada, Odisha, India. Hailing from Bhadrak, Odisha, Anwesha's interests include singing, dancing, sketching, poetry writing, learning French and Astronomy.
Woman-Battered Soul
Kabyatara Kar (Nobela)
Celebrations everywhere on her birth
Is it true..No!..born as a daughter
She grows with precision
'Under guidance' for future
Every moment her ears seek the advice, how to shape for her future
Stigma of society pulls her back, encroaching her feminist views
She has to choose a partner over her career to satisfy the false norms
She blindfolded strides into an unknown world
Yet the best is expected of her
No one cares what little things she desires for
The beautiful juncture of her life 'A Mother' arrives
Wherein she dreams with her children sacrificing her own
Partner is just a word of adjustment and responsibility to her
Lost and battered under the debris of responsibility and sacrifices
Her soul bleeding with hurts unseen
Her wrinkles define her pain
The irony of her life.....though she had so much
Yet poorest is her battered soul
Lying on the bed of sticks,
Vermilion on partition
To turn into ashes on the pyre...
Kabyatara Kar (Nobela)
M.B.A and P.G in Nutrition and Dietetic, Member of All India Human Rights Activists
Passion: Writing poems, social work
Strength: Determination and her family
Vision: Endeavour of life is to fill happiness in life of others
Dusk till stars
Disha Prateechee
Burnt my tongue on some free coffee
Writing with a stolen pen after
Smoking a cigarette and sitting at my spot,
On the beach,
I can barely see the Sun now.
It's gradually submerging into a pool of clouds,
Turning a shade darker as it goes down.
Awestruck by the mysterious beauty
I sit there staring
Scarlet, magenta and crimson clouds
Fading into a deep violet.
The rest of the sky is filled with tiny sparkling dots
And the silhouette of birds flying home
On the chromatic background
The Sun's glowing like Ruby
And slowly fading into the horizon,
But a few strings cut through the clouds
Like a warning for the closing doors to the Heaven.
The sun seemed like a running man,
Chasing the stars endlessly.
After the Sunset, the sky is a different world in itself,
A different Heaven altogether
The Night wears her beautiful azure veil,
Decorated with diamonds we call stars
They dazzle with a priceless sight.
And that's when you know
Even in the darkest phase of life,
There is always a little hope.
©Prateechee
Disha Prateechee
A 3rd year student from KIIT University, Odisha. She completed schooling from DAV Public School, Burla, Sambalpur, Odisha. She has a keen interest in poetries apart from which she likes painting and playing musical instruments like synthesizer and ukulele.
THE LITTLE GIRL WITH ROSY CHEEKS
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
I saw her gathering flowers
In the little garden filled with deep, green shrubs.
The flowers were playing pranks on her,
When she went close
They shook their head and moved away.
She was hurt by their silly laughs
The more she tried, they kept on laughing.
The girl was upset, she started crying
Little drops of tear welled up in her eyes
And came flowing down her rosy cheeks.
The flowers stopped laughing,
They all came to her
And with dazzling smiles bowed before her.
She gathered the flowers
And kept all their smiles closed in her small palms.
Little does she know,
A few years from now
She will perhaps open her palms
And pluck those smiles
To cheer up someone's dreary life.
VALENTINES FOREVER
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
(March 05, 2019)
Yesterday we had a friend and his wife visiting us. They are a very charming couple, friendly, and epitomes of decency and decorum. My wife Geetanjali cooked lunch for them and I made my trademark welcome drink of Lime-soda and ginger tea in the evening. We kept chatting and the hours just flew by till it was time for them to leave for the airport. In one of those poignant moments of parting we wished they had stayed longer. We felt it was nice to have them with us.
This morning, on our fortieth wedding anniversary, I suddenly woke up to a chilly dawn, shivering, and desperately looking for a chadar to tuck myself in. Winter is still playing hide and seek with Bhubaneswar, appearing and disappearing at will, leaving us flummoxed. Last night when we had retired to bed, it was distinctly warm, warranting the setting of the ceiling fan at full speed with minimal clothing on the body. Yet, by dawn it was chilly, cold seeping into the bones and disturbing the early morning dreams which have an uncanny way of getting themselves imprinted on the mind.
I found I had forgotten to get a chadar for myself and tugged at the one Geetanjali had covered herself with. Slowly and stealthily I managed to pull away the chadar without waking her and enjoyed the warmth of the plundered sheet, hoping that another one hour's sleep will be warm and comforting. But within minutes guilt gnawed at my heart and refused to go away. I quietly restored the chadar to its rightful owner and hopped out of the bed to proceed to the kitchen and start the day with my ritual ginger tea.
On my way I stopped at the puja room, bowed my head before the gods and goddesses, thanked them for the forty years of togetherness with Geetanjali and sought their blessings for many more years of bliss. I reflected on the journey we have gone through together, treading a somewhat uneven path of life with its multifaceted vicissitudes.
There have been moments of heartfelt joy, such as when the kids came to our life, and soulful pangs of unbearable sadness when they left home for their higher studies and decided to take up jobs abroad, leaving us staring at an empty nest. There were days filled with financial hardship. When we needed more money the salary was inadequate to meet the needs forcing me to dip my hands into the Provident Fund savings repeatedly. And finally when the salary became reasonably decent, the children had left home, leaving us with surplus money but the heart had been drained of any desire to spend!
When the kids were home, the noise, the pranks, their numerous demands used to disturb our tranquility. Now the empty nest reverberates with a silence which cuts like a knife. I remember one distinct occasion about twenty years back when some guests came for a visit in the evening and when Geetanjali opened the cookie jars, the cookies were all gone, devoured by the kids during the afternoon interregnum when their mother goes off for a nap and the father is immersed in files at the office. We were upset with the children - at least they could have warned us about the total depletion of the precious cookies. Today we will give our fortunes to get the best cookies of the world, if, only if, the kids come home to spend a month or two with us!
Through all this, myself and Geetanjali have walked together, hand in hand, revelling in the joys and fulfilment of life and sharing the occasional grief. Over the years we have played the game of life, loving each other with the eagerness of new Valentines and the quietness of responsible parenthood. We have been co-travellers, the humsafars, in a timeless caravan wading through the lanes and bylanes of life, leaving numerous milestones behind.
There have been occasions of immense stress, personal and professional. But our love for each other has sustained us. Like all devoted couples if one of us fell sick or got hurt in body or mind the other has felt the pain. In our love for each other we have found the true meaning of life - every life should be embellished with a primordial, quintessential sense of selfless love - if you love someone you will do nothing that will hurt him or her and do everything that will make him or her happy.
We have had our differences and small fights, but we have always, unfailingly followed the sacrosanct principle that no fight should last beyond the night. The morning must start with a clean slate. We have never spoken ill of or upbraided each other in the presence of a third person, our children included. We have never ever hurt each other with our words or action. And competed with each other in showing understanding or forgiveness. It is my singular good fortune that in this competition Geetanjali has always been more mature and a winner par excellence.
Saying all this in the morning of our fortieth wedding anniversary is probably a bit strange and presumptuous. We are certainly not a great deal different from other couples of our generation. Everyone goes through the same experiences, of raring children, taking them on vacations and providing for their education. But we have never also wanted to be different or unique. The stress of chasing uniqueness would perhaps have been too demanding for simple souls like us.
We have given unconditional love to each other in all these years. We have felt, similar to what we felt for the friends yesterday, it is nice to have each other. We are celebrating each day our Valentine moments, for forty years back on this day we were made each other's Valentine forever and perhaps beyond in the vast horizon of time.
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing short stories and managing the website PositiveVibes.Today. He has published eight books of short stories in Odiya and has won a couple of awards, notably the Fakir Mohan Senapati Award for Short Stories from the Utkal Sahitya Samaj. The ninth collection of his short stories in Odiya will come out soon.
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