Literary Vibes - Edition XXIV
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Twenty Fourth edition of LiteraryVibes. We have returned to you with some more delicious poems and delectable stories.
Enjoy reading. As the results of the semi-final match at Old Trafford on Wednesday showed, life has a habit of throwing up unpredictable cruelties. I am reminded of Doris Day's immortal song, Enjoy yourself, It's later than you think, Enjoy yourself, While you're still in the pink!
Please forward the link to all your friends and contacts. And do send your poems and stories to LiteraryVibes at mrutyunjays@gmail.com
With warm regards
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
MOHANDAS, THE WATCHMAN?
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
The Mahatma’s wax melts
awaiting the mounting
of his teachings
in Madame Tussaud’s.
His statue in our town park
bends down
to look for the fistful of salt
he brought from Dandi.
His bust behind the judge
suffers the justice
spilling through the loopholes
of our confused laws.
Listen, someone moves down our lane,
his stick taps and echoes deep
awakening the night from sleep.
Is it Bapu, or our watchman Mohandas?
MY TEACHER
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
You, the bearded fake
with your sardonic smile,
dramatic nuances
and measured guile,
shall never tilt me or un-keel
my heart’s deciding beat,
make sing a jingle, or alter the pace
in my blood’s coursing heat.
The most beautiful songs
and the enchanting echo of strokes
hidden among the creases of a voice
and the hypnotic look that smokes;
I find in a dismal lane
where whores sell their authentic wares
on tentative shacks for frugal meals
and in ghettoes where no light dares,
he walks like my late father’s ghost,
counts on the time’s abacus,
weighing the pros and cons of life
waits for the last chime without fuss.
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.He welcomes readers' feedback at his email - prabhanjan.db@gmail.com
THE PRISONER (BANDI)
Haraprasad Das
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Keep your feet firm down
and hands raised.
What freedom
do you pray for, prisoner?
You have accepted
to be in lifelong captivity;
your thumb impression
blazes on the dotted line ?
Do you expect a miracle
in future, but the future
deceives by receding away
to out of reach,
the past has written you off,
and the present, by the way,
cares for none.
If you keep still,
you may morph into a plant,
striking roots at the feet,
flowers blooming
from raised finger tips.
Why won’t you enjoy vegetating,
without bothering
of origin, morphology;
as well enjoy the captivity,
joining wife in begetting children,
nurturing them grow, and inherit
the joy of prison life?
That may end your prison term
by default,
also your bonded-labour.
Then wind up shop,
hang your boots,
and don’t rue the legacy.
THE HORNED SAGE (RUSHYASHRUNGA)
Haraprasad Das
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
The ascetic hasn’t cared to know
the tree that shelters him,
the fruits that he survives on,
or the stream
that hydrate his throat.
He meditates over
life’s basic fundamentals,
his quest echoes in his cave.
Intent on the perpetual loom,
weaving in the woman’s bounties -
breasts, thighs and her yoni,
spinning new yarns of life;
they matter more
than victual and shelter.
But his eyes grow tired
looking for clouds
that would bring rain;
they float away like dry puffs;
the drought brings famine.
But the loom of life
keeps weaving,
the aching shuttle keeps sliding
into the hungry warp, releasing
its weft, perpetuating the race.
The ascetic bares the truth -
the tussle between humans and gods -
the humans create,
the gods annihilate !
The indifferent clouds
return to the parched lands
on gods’ command,
rain with vengeance.
The thunder and deluge,
cause death and destruction.
The savant of life’s primal alchemy
of thighs, breasts, and the yoni,
awakes from his trance
enraged by gods’ weird ways.
He finds the shining edge
of his preaching
rusting in its scabbard;
purpose of the rains
to nourish, not destroy,
gone awary.
The angry sage
dethrones the tyrant gods,
takes over the cmmand
but fails to decipher
the cosmic grand plan.
Frustrated, he returns
to his cave, back to his quest,
to seek the cipher to the cosmic riddle.
He forgets hunger and thirst.
He may meditate across births
and deaths to find the key
to his doubts, his questions,
who knows how long ?
Mr. Hara Prasad Das is one of the greatest poets in Odiya literature. He is also an essayist and columnist. Mr. Das, has twelve works of poetry, four of prose, three translations and one piece of fiction to his credit. He is a retired civil servant and has served various UN bodies as an expert.
He is a recipient of numerous awards and recognitions including Kalinga Literary Award (2017), Moortidevi Award(2013), Gangadhar Meher Award (2008), Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (1999) and Sarala Award (2008)”
AROUND OUR VILLAGE HOME (GHARA)
HRUSHIKESH MALLICK
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
A sweltering noon
brings a sweeping squall,
shaking mango blossoms
shedding down new mango fruitlets
rising in them like little green bubbles,
wafting heady green-mango fragrance.
A dust storm rises, bringing
rolling black pregnant clouds
on its heels, and the rain and wind
playing snake and ladder.
The talkative milk-maid
walks away from the door
biting a mock-tongue of embarrassment
if caught red-handed with watery milk.
The silent night
like an intimate family member
whispers at the crack of the door,
“Have you gone to bed, granny?”
A beehive hangs behind the house,
busy bees fill it up with nectar
from flowers of umpteen hues
blooming around the village pastures.
The weaver bird stitches its nest
with varieties of twigs and strands.
Our boundary fence of bamboo twigs
is falling apart, old and worn.
Hordes of faceless children arrive
rummaging there for firewood,
stealing away its sun-dry rafters.
And on a platter of broken bits and ends
of rice-grains, offered to birds,
hover hundreds of chirping sparrows.
(from the poet’s book of poems “Ghata Aakaasha”,1998)
Poet Hrushikesh Mallick is solidly entrenched in Odia literature as a language teacher in various colleges and universities, and as a prolific poet and writer with ten books of poems, two books of child-literature, two collections of short stories, five volumes of collected works of his literary essays and critical expositions to his credit; besides he has edited an anthology of poems written by Odia poets during the post-eighties of the last century, translated the iconic Gitanjali of Rabindranath Tagore into Odia; and often keeps writing literary columns in various reputed Odia dailies. He has been honoured with a bevy of literary awards including Odisha Sahitya Akademi, 1988; Biraja Samman, 2002; and Sharala Puraskar, 2016. He writes in a commanding rustic voice, mildly critical, sharply ironic that suits his reflections on the underdogs of the soil. The poet’s writings are potent with a single powerful message: “My heart cries for you, the dispossessed, and goes out to you, the underdogs”. He exposes the Odia underbelly with a reformer’s soft undertone, more audible than the messages spread by loud Inca Drums. Overall he is a humanist and a poet of the soil. (Email - mallickhk1955@gmail.com)
CAT'S CRADLE
Geetha Nair G
We have played cat's cradle long enough;
That old, old game;
Looped cords of words this way and that,
Pulled them taut;
Interlaced our thoughts
To create chequered shapes.
I have curled against your feet
And been swung in your arms;
My eyes have bored through you,
And seen your sad, chipped heart.
I sheathe my blunted claws ,
Curl my arched back,
Close my love-wet eyes.
Let me nap now.
The Dhobi Did It
Geetha Nair G
It was her first job, in a city two hundred kilometres from her hometown. After the initial dislocation, she loved it. Her place of work was just a short walk away. Her room was small but pleasing. It was on the fifth floor of the hostel. There was a tree by her window. This massive window- tree bore bright pink flowers. Little birds flitted in and around it. She was happy in her new job, her new home.
In those days, she was in love. With love itself. The idea of being adored, kissed, bedded by one man, of caring for him till the end of her life; such thoughts had been generated by the books she had read, the movies she had watched… . Her mind revolved around pure, noble, eternal love.
Her parents were closing in on her with proposals. They threatened to advertise: WANTED: For an educated, middle-class girl, 24... She recoiled from such adverts; she did not want to be viewed, assessed, bargained for and bought. She wanted to be chosen by love, for love. She requested them for a little time.
They did not know that she had three aces up her sleeve; what do parents know about their children ?
Three men wished to claim her. Tinker tailor sailor soldier poet rich man poor man. She would play that button game on her nighties. The ones with buttons all the way down to her feet that her dearest friend had gifted her on the occasion of her leaving home. But that was no way to choose a life-partner.
On Sundays, Tinker Man would come to the Parlour. She would go down to spend a little time with him. He was a very distant relative by marriage, a mechanical engineer who worked in a huge factory nearby. Tinker suited him; she imagined him tinkering with the machines in the factory. His hair was always oiled and gleaming like his machines. Again, like the machines, he had nothing to say. Only “Let us go for a ride. Friendly. Only friendly.” Meaning he wouldn't make indecent advances, she supposed. He seemed a kind and gentle person. Her parents would approve of him whole-heartedly.But how dull he was! Yet, she was thrilled by his adoration. She would let him drink her in with his eyes. But she never ever went out with him. The car always went back with its sole occupant.
Then there was the Poet. They had gone to the same school as kids. He filled letters with poem after poem. He claimed that they dropped from his fingers like dew to the prairie. Privately she thought they fell like stones. Bad verse . Once in a particularly bad poem, he had even called her a majestic peacock and asked for a plume . She had to gently point out the gender problem. It was rumoured that he was so rich that he didn’t need to work. It was also rumoured that he led a debauched life. She thought of him as the Great Gatsby, the main character in that book she loved whose love for that one woman had shone steadily till he was killed. She wondered how many silk shirts he had. He had come once from his home 200 kilometres away in a swanky car to visit her. He was wearing a golden yellow shirt that suited him. He looked adorable. She had been impressed by both the shirt and the car and had been tempted to ride awhile in the dream-machine but had refrained. What would Mrs Grundy say? Strong is the hold of middle-class morality!
And finally there was the Soldier who was posted in some far -off mountain range. When he wasn't guarding the country he was listening to movie songs on his little radio and thinking of life with her. She pictured him against snow-capped mountains, a rifle in his hand and a song on his brave lips. It was a romantic picture. He wrote of the tea he would make for her every morning, the songs he would sing to her every night. His letters arrived regularly; there would be great black patches here and there where words had been blotted for security reasons. Her parents would not be happy if she chose him. Sending their only child all over the Motherland was not what they would wish for their only child. But the question was-did she care enough for him to marry him?
How could she choose?
In high school they had learnt Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. She still remembered that absurd story of the idiotic father who had decreed that his dear daughter would be married off to the man who chose the right casket. How they had laughed over that !
She arranged her make-up kit, her container for safety pins and clips, her bindi box on the ledge that passed for her dressing table. Eenie, meenie, maina, mo. No. As absurd as that old father's plan.
She went on Thursdays to the ancient Krishna temple a bus-ride away and prayed. Krishna, a sign. Tell me how, whom, I should choose. He was decked in his Thursday finery. A gold flute in his dark, stony hand. The flickering lamp threw its light onto one half of his face. He seemed to be winking at her. “ I had many, not one, as you know. I can't help you. You know I can't.” His whisper, carried by the camphor fumes, caressed her ears.
Finally, it was not Krishna the God but Krishna the Dhobi who settled the matter.
She had gone to collect the weekly pile of starched cotton sarees from Krishna Laundry Shop at the turn of the road. This time it was a pile of new ones that she had bought with her first salary, worn steadily over a week and then given for laundering. Krishna had trouble locating them though she told him her initials; he marked every piece of laundry with the initials of the owner. Finally she pointed to a little pile made up mainly of sarees in shades of yellow. "Those are mine" she said, leaning dangerously close to the hot iron.
But he looked hesitant. "Ithu neengada abc alla - They aren't your letters, Akka" he said in his odd Tamil-laced Malayalam.
She saw that he had marked them JR instead of JA. She was Janaki Aravind. He apologised; A and R were very similar to his unlettered eye. He sketched them as he did not know how to write.
JR ! JR indeed! Her moments of mild irritation gave way to something else.
Her mind latched on to her Soldier Man. He was Ramkumar. If she married him, she would be Janaki Ramkumar. J R.
This was the sign she had been waiting for!
That evening, she wrote three letters, walked to the red box at the corner of the street and dropped them in, one by one. It was a decisive moment in her life.
The engineer and the poet whined and pined awhile then, grew strong again.
In two months, Ramkumar and she were married.
She resigned her new job, bid farewell to her new friends and her new home... .
Mornings saw her waking up her husband with a cup of hot tea. Nights generally found her lullabied with his drunken snores.
Sometimes she lay awake dreaming of the tree by her window, the pink flowers, those early days filled with a sweet promise..
Did she regret her choice? No. Not really.
What would her life have been like had she opted for Tinker man or Poet?
It was impossible to speculate.Three roads had diverge in a narrow wood and she had chosen one of them. There could be no going back. She was one person and had one life to live. It wasn’t such a bad life too. Her husband had his faults but then, nobody is perfect.
One thing she was very careful about.
Rama’s wife should be above suspicion.
Janaki is very popular with the dhobis at each Cantonment her husband is posted at. They rave about her kindness and her generosity. At every new place of posting, she identifies the nearest Rama Temple. She is known for her dedicated temple-going. They don’t know that it is another that she prays to.
She touches the feet of Hanumanji who guards the entrance. She offers flowers and vada garlands and beseeches him -Let no dhobi come anywhere near my husband. Protect me, O Maruthi."
A dhobi it was who guided her to this life. Let not another one drag her down to her namesake's plight.
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 " was published in January' 2019. She welcomes readers' feedback at her email - geenagster@gmail.com
MIDSUMMER WIND
Ajit Patra
Translated by – Sangram Jena
Wind is moving
from hill to hills -
Lakhaisinee , Budhaaam , Madaka ,
no traces of greenery
nowhere you find anybody
even the red posters have vanished
from the cracked mud walls
tall defunct tube wells stand
on the broken platforms.
Snapped electric lines hang
from the poles
standing alone .
No where you can find water
even after seventy two years of independence.
The monsoon remains fugitive
only clumps of clouds
hang from the branches of Kendu tree.
An elephant coloured mountain stands
resisting the afternoon wind
snakes swings from the branches of night
Midsummer wind is whistling
all through the night.
Ajit Patra is a poet and a translator. He writes both in Odiya as well as Bengali. He has published three collections of poems - one in Odiya and two in Bengali. His poems have been included in several national and international anthologies. He has translated many Odiya poets into Bengali and vice versa. He regularly contributes to literary magazines in both the languages.
ACROSS THE RIVER
Sreekumar K.
I never understood what is so great about being on a boat. The first time I was on one, I was a poor swimmer and there was the thrill of gambling with death. I was only 11 and no one with me could swim. But, now that I could swim and swim well, boat rides had become a bore.
But one sees a really mixed lot of interesting people on a boat. For example, the one I was on last week had a good number of school children returning from the school in the city. The boat took them from their village to the city in twenty minutes. So, they had access to some good schools in the city. The river had prevented the villagers from accessing the comforts of the city for generations.
Mine was a pleasure trip. I was going to the village to see an old temple there. It was not a pilgrimage and it was not a famous temple either. During the last festival season, there was some news in the local newspaper about a strange idol in a smaller temple outside the main one and it had caught my wife's attention and she had brought it home and translated it for me.
The school children were interesting. They always are. The girls had double plaits tied with green ribbons. They wore white shirts and blue skirts. The boys wore blue trousers and white shirts. They made a lot of noise, telling each other all the things that had happened that day at school. I was weaving through the crowd to reach the side of the boat when a small boy caught me by my sleeve. I turned around and smiled at him. He was following me in the same direction. There was an empty seat I wanted to sit on and he asked me whether he could sit on my lap.
I was intrigued. It was hard for me to understand his language. He might be in a preschool, probably accompanied by an elder brother or sister.
I let him sit on my lap and it took me some time to understand that he had mistaken me for someone else, probably a teacher who was very affectionate to him. He wanted to show me his drawing book and I expressed my curiosity.
He opened his bag and showed me a dog-eared drawing book. He turned the pages and found the latest entry. The date was given on the top in neat handwriting. Truly artistic and mature. Probably it was written by the teacher. He showed me a painting. I could make out a tortoise and a hill. He would have had to copy it from a picture in his textbook.
He buried himself further into my lap and fished out another book. It was English and the alphabet was repeated several times. I helped him put them back in his bag.
I wanted to talk to him about an islet in the middle of the river and the animals that might be there. I also wanted to ask him if they got holidays when the river flooded. But he was rather quiet and there was a good wind blowing that took the moist off my lips and I preferred not to say anything.
Something would have told him that he had made a mistake. He continued to be quiet and slowly became uneasy and he started tapping on the floor with his heels. It was not very rhythmic. Then he wriggled out and went away without another word.
I thought I should have talked to him a little more. I could have told him that they were planning to build a bridge across the river soon. And that a new residential school was coming up in his village.
When we reached the other bank, the school children were the first ones to rush out. I could spot the boy pointing out me to an elder girl, probably his sister. Holding her hand he walked away down the wet path that disappeared around a corner.
When he was turning around the corner, he didn't wave at me or turn back to look at me. But his sister turned around to look at me and waved at me and smiled.
PRACTICAL LESSONS
Sreekumar K.
As we went down the hill, picking up our path among the thorny undergrowth, I felt quite happy. The children too were excited. They see these fields far down from their school playground every day. Some of those who worked in our school garden, the barber who came on weekends and the milkman were from this village.
It was a suggestion from a new teacher in the Social Science faculty that we should take the sixth standard students down to the village. As a part of the project work in Social Science, the students could go down to the village, meet some of the villagers and interact with the children in the village school and maybe even meet the Sarpanch and interview her. I thought it would be good to sensitize the children about the lives of farmers and introduce them to the rural culture and traditions.
Our school was far away from the city, on top of a hill, overlooking a dam’s reservoir on one side and some expansive fields that extended to the horizon on the other. There was a lot of barren land too on the farther side of the fields and then there were rocky hills all around. Most of the villagers who lived in the valley were small-time farmers. The only facility they had in the village was a school which had classes up to the seventh grade.
Our school driver helped us arrange everything and we took along with us two tenth standard students who could speak both Oriya and Hindi fluently.
We crossed a sugarcane field and scrambled up a slope and reached the school ground. The headmistress came and met me. The school was worse than what I had thought. Actually, I would have been disappointed if it had been otherwise since the whole idea was to make our students realize that not many children were as privileged as they happened to be.
The school didn't disappoint me. No classes had benches or desks and the blackboard was a rectangular dark patch on the wall and there was no way a straight line could be drawn on it. Most of the plaster had come off the walls and the only reason it didn't leak was that there was hardly any rain.
Canes, bought personally be the teachers, when they visited the Sunday market in the village near the Kali temple, were the only facility that every class had. Consequently, the school was very quiet except for the teachers who were huddled together, chatting in the veranda, while the children copied the lessons from their textbooks for reasons known to no one.
We went through the veranda with the children in the classrooms giggling at us and some of the chubby ones got more than an equal share of that.
Soon after we finished our rounds, we assembled under the shade of a tree on the farther side of the playground, quite a safe distance from a couple of cows that had wandered in from the fields. The children had to be told repeatedly not to bother them. Some of the teachers were still staring at us from the veranda and whispering to each other, probably about the practices which were rumoured to be happening at our school.
Two of the boys came to me and one of them told me how annoying it was to be giggled at by those children. He said that given a chance, he would have shown them.
“Shown them what? These children work hard on the field when they are not in school and before you know what is happening you will end up licking the dust off their feet,’ said the physical education teacher who had overheard him.
I thought it was good for them to hear that the village children were good at something.
“Sir, I have a black belt.”
“So what?”
We sat around under the banyan tree and the school driver, who had brought some water and snacks, started distributing them. The crows on the branches of the banyan tree above started calling their friends at the prospect of food to be shared. We told the children to turn their back to the school while they were eating. No one asked us why. They knew that there would be children staring at them wondering what kind of food came wrapped in aluminium paper.
The snacks were nothing but two loaves of buttered bread and a sachet of chilly tomato sauce. A couple of children who had done a project on environmental issues around human habitation collected the litter, planning to take it back to the school junkyard where they had organized a system of waste management.
“May I have your attention for a minute? OK. Some of you, or most of you, though not all of you, were annoyed, angry in fact, to see the children giggling at you. Well, they giggled at me to and also at my colleagues here. But, just think for a moment. Put yourself in their shoes. I know, they don’t have any shoes.”
I waited for the laughter to subside.
“Now, the fact is you too would have laughed at them, had the situation been reversed, that is, if they had come to our school and walked down our school corridor, peeping into the classrooms. I know that for a fact, so let’s have no argument about that now. However, what I think is, if they had a recess and you had got a chance to mingle with them, greet them, ask their names and shake hands with them, you would have become friends with them in no time.
“I also want you to remember that the food that you eat, no matter how much you had paid for it, comes from them. Now, why would I say that?”
Several hands shot up and then one by one they all voiced the same idea. They are farmers, the caretakers of our mother earth. That was from the first lesson in their moral science textbook.
We also visited a family and interviewed the members about their lifestyle, culture, economy and agriculture. They were very respectful to the children, especially when they found they could speak Oriya.
Two days later, in their culture class, the children shared with their friends the information each group had gathered.
Most of the farmers owned some land. Their monthly budget ranged from five to ten thousand. Almost everyone had a bank account and saved about 10,000 to 70,000 a year which is added to their bank account. They had not yet decided what to do with the savings. Education was cheap since there was a school in the village itself. They don’t have any health hazards and the only way they may spend the money would be to build or buy a new house. Several of them still lived in huts built by their grandparents.
I thought the information didn't make sense or agree with our concepts. The children also thought that the villagers' life was not so bad. So I had to explain it to them.
“See, happiness or satisfaction is the way you take your life. These people are happy because they are not exposed to higher lifestyle or luxury. They don't even bother to buy good clothes or repair their house. As we see, they don’t even know what to do with the money they have. They are able to do so because even though they are poor, they are farmers and they can eat the food they produce. So, the money they spent on food is way too little and this helps them save so much money. In a city slum, things would be different. If someone in the village takes the initiative, their saving can be better managed to bring them up to a better lifestyle or a higher financial platform. But, the point is, will that increase their happiness. Ultimately, once the basic needs are met, the question is what can make us happy, now that we are satisfied. In other words, the question is ‘Now what?’”
We have a trans-disciplinary approach in our school and so now the economics teacher explained the difference between economy and lifestyle. The biology teacher continued and told them about the common diseases caused by polluted water and the Eco teacher told them about watershed management. He also showed them some slides about Ralegan Siddhi he had visited a few years ago.
That evening, the economics teacher said to me, “Menon, I didn’t want to contradict you in front of the children. The villagers were bluffing to the children, simply pulling their legs. None of them in the village has a bank account.”
“What? How do you know?”
“I am sure. There was a branch of the State Bank of Orissa in the house behind the post office there, when I joined the school fifteen years ago. Two years after I joined, there was a bad drought, the crops failed, a couple of them died due to starvation, many of them left this place and the bank too closed down. You can’t have a bank account without a bank, I think.”
The children have collected some money to send a New Year Greeting Card to each student in the village school. One of the parents, an industrialist, who happened to read his son’s project on the village has agreed to provide some desks and benches for two of the classes in the village school.
We had some good rains this year. It is still raining. The villagers should be really happy even though everyone’s roof is leaking.
Sreekumar K, known more as SK, writes in English and Malayalam. He also translates into both languages and works as a facilitator at L' ecole Chempaka International, a school in Trivandrum, Kerala.
MISSING
Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya
Brilliant stretches of yellow,
dazzling the eyes;
mingled with miles of greenery,
against the canopy of blue above.
Almost an assault on the eyes.
But feast for the mind.
Tried to capture
It with my Cannon.
But it fell flat
in the photo.
All the colours,
minus the magic!
The picture in the mind,
Like the mother’s cooking.
Has the magic formula,
not just the stuff from
the marketplace.
Like the letter from
the beloved:
the unwritten in it says
more than all it reads.
For, that is left for imagination.
Like mysterious methods of
the mind, infusing life
into what I look at,
which is missing from
the photo!
Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya from Hertfordshire, England. A Retired Consultant Psychiatrist from the British National Health Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer in University College, London.
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Dr. (Major) B. C. Nayak
[Dr. (Major) B. C. Nayak is an Anaesthetist who did his MBBS from MKCG Medical College, Berhampur, Odisha. He is an MD from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and an FCCP from the College of Chest Physicians New Delhi. He served in Indian Army for ten years (1975-1985) and had a stint of five years in the Royal Army of Muscat. Since 1993 he is working as the Chief Consultant Anaesthetist, Emergency and Critical Care Medicine at the Indira Gandhi Cooperative Hospital, Cochin]
MONSOON MUSINGS
Dilip Mohapatra
Psychedelic display
of celestial lights
as sounds of the falling rains
play the incessant notes
on the corrugated sheets
interspersed with the bellowing
of thunder
and the muddy water gushes
in the gutters
carrying paper boats
drifting rudderlessly in glee.
Few leaking roofs
in the shanties
water dripping into broken buckets
but who cares?
And the oil boils in the cauldron
on the smoking hearth
in the corner
as the moist firewood singe
and sing their own dirge.
The rheumy eyes of
the famished farmer
light up with hope for
a better harvest
enough to last him a year
as he sips from his
dented aluminium mug
a concoction of insipid ginger tea
and waits for the pakoras.
The termites take wings
to enjoy few hours of glory
and fly in their feverish ritual
as long as they last
to fall in heaps
into the puddles
to float amidst
the wilted Gulmohar
as an old frog croaks
perched on a rotten piece of log
salivating with the prospects
of a long awaited feast.
Under the cover
of feigned darkness
that creeps through
the window panes
little wars are raged
in known terrains
amongst known adversaries
in the cozy comforts
of the soft satiny quilt
but with no collateral damage
warmth exchanges
between sweaty bodies
in a slow osmosis.
PAPER BOATS
Dilip Mohapatra
Monsoon descends
and the clouds split open
the gutters running parallel
on both sides of
the narrow village gully
swell up in a spate and
bridge the gap
between them
to shake hands.
An endless ribbon of
muddy brown water
slithers on the road
like a huge serpent
after its prey
a faint and translucent sun
swims on its back lazily
a wanton wind whistling
through the coconut fronds.
Tiny dots of paper boats
appear from nowhere
riding the crests and troughs
of the gushing stream
dancing in tandem
to the rhythms of the ripples
wobbling aimlessly
with no compass nor chart
and no harbour to enter.
They set sail on their uncertain course
with no ropes nor even an anchor
and with no cargo in the holds
of their folds
but their transparent rigging
laden with laughter and cheer
and boundless glee
like the trinkets twinkling
on a Christmas tree.
The notebooks become
thinner and thinner
while some topple and capsize
and some continue to stay afloat
their keels becoming
wetter and heavier as they sail by.
An infinite joy abounds
in the air and
spirits soar high .
Dilip Mohapatra (b.1950), a decorated Navy Veteran is a well acclaimed poet in contemporary English and his poems appear in many literary journals of repute and multiple anthologies worldwide. He has six poetry collections to his credit so far published by Authorspress, India. He has also authored a Career Navigation Manual for students seeking a corporate career. This book C2C nee Campus to Corporate had been a best seller in the category of Management Education. He lives with his wife in Pune, India.
NEFFRETTI
Dr. Nikhil M Kurien
Arabia’s eastern coast,
Year nineteen seventy three,
Early seventh month,
A mermaid lay still.
A mermaid?
A woman in vessel
Drowns the whole,
For sea loves woman,
Else, she be sacrificed
To pacify him, The Poseidon.
Thus believed yester farers
Journeying at nature’s mercy.
Neffretti, pretty sea-side lass,
Clad in happiness
Blessed with laughter
Was fathered by Captain
Of largest vessel-Augustus,
Buoyant in blue Aegean.
Journeying b’ween shores
Of Asia minor territory
He seeked for a groom
For his pretty slender girl.
And when found
Asked his daughter
To be ready for journey,
To the Ottoman land
Where life anew awaited.
Thus, on tide high
Proud Augustus sailed
With a beautiful bride,
Guided by constellations,
Breeze and currents.
But men on vessel
Behind hardy hearts
Feard the giant Azure
For amongst was a woman,
Fair and lovely,
Whom Poseidon so craved .
The vessel glided tiptoe,
Captain using skills learnt
Lest he woke the slumbering giant.
Sailors on deck prayed
Even the atheist,
Who cursed the heaven.
But aroma of women,
young, lively, beautiful,
Never could be masked
From the women- crazy sea.
Poseidon’s awakening
was heralded by hurrying clouds
Abstaining stars, hiding moon,
And a raging tempest.
Orientless went Augutus,
Helpless stood mariners
Sails tore, masts fell
As sea rose to prey .
Prayers went unheard
Skill proved vain.
‘Why me for a women’?
A question rose by deck
And then another rose,
A mutiny was on.
Captain tried to command
Then gave to pleadings.
But no avail amongst sailors.
The bride had to be sacrificed
On the alter of lust.
Seeing her father confounded
Neffreti came along
Ready to sacrifice herself.
Her father objected
But she persisted.
Sailors stood silent
For they loved her
But not more than their lives.
A sad father, weak captain
Ordered the proceedings
And strode away weeping.
Stripped of her velvet attire
To the bow of Augustus
She was tied firmly
And the night was chilly.
Sailors withdrew in remorse
Elements slowly calmed,
As Poseidon possessed Neffretti
An innocent little virgin.
Early morning, amongst
The sea-fowls cries
A wailing father was heard.
Over a still Neffretti.
He lamented till
The sun reached it zenith,
With vengeance
The captain rose
To order the giant
‘If it’s women you need
Take this what you spoiled
My very own daughter.
Lo! Her face enchanting
You will not see
But of a fish
As around you
For the rest of her life
Possess her whensoever
And forever
But never again ever
Should you tear a sail
Or frighten a seaman
For want of a woman.
Sailors then in order
Prayed and paid respects
To a lass named Neffretti
Who saved a vessel
And many more to come.
They shoved her into blue
And a whirlpool swallowed her,
Pulling her down, to benthos
Ship have sailed safe since
And on every ship’s bow
They put a bust of neffretti
Remembering a sacrifice,
Also reminding Poseidon
Of the order from a captain pained.
Years passed, centuries later,
Arabia’a eastern coast,
Year nineteen seventy three,
Early seventh month,
A mermaid lay still.
A mermaid?
Upper body, fish it was
Fins and scales.
Lower body, woman it was
For every feature,
Believe, just a woman.
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. Dr. Kurien welcomes readers' feedback on his email - nikhilmkurien@gmail.com.
IT RAINS..
Dr. Molly Joseph M
Here am I
searching for
monsoon rains..
where has
it gone
our monsoon's
due..
It comes
in splinters
as sprinkle..
splintered
silence
falling
just to
retreat..
futile...
a disturbed
dream.
the clear
sky says
all is well..
hard to
believe..
is all well
that
looks well?
Dr. Molly Joseph, (M.A., M.Phil., PGDTE, EFLU,Hyderabad) had her Doctorate in post war American poetry. She retired as the H.O.D., Department of English, St.Xavier's College, Aluva, Kerala, and now works as Professor, Communicative English at FISAT, Kerala. She is an active member of GIEWEC (Guild of English writers Editors and Critics) She writes travelogues, poems and short stories. She has published five books of poems - Aching Melodies, December Dews, and Autumn Leaves, Myna's Musings and Firefly Flickers and a translation of a Malayalam novel Hidumbi. She is a poet columnist in Spill Words, the international Online Journal.
She has been awarded Pratibha Samarppanam by Kerala State Pensioners Union, Kala Prathibha by Chithrasala Film Society, Kerala and Prathibha Puraskaram by Aksharasthree, Malayalam group of poets, Kerala, in 2018. Dr.Molly Joseph has been conferred Poiesis Award of Honour as one of the International Juries in the international award ceremonies conducted by Poiesis Online.com at Bangalore on May 20th, 2018. Her two new books were released at the reputed KISTRECH international Festival of Poetry in Kenya conducted at KISII University by the Deputy Ambassador of Israel His Excellency Eyal David. Dr. Molly Joseph has been honoured at various literary fest held at Guntur, Amaravathi, Mumbai and Chennai. Her latest books of 2018 are “Pokkuveyil Vettangal” (Malayalam Poems), The Bird With Wings of Fire (English), It Rains (English).
DESTINY
Dr. Preethi Ragasudha
My beautiful child, so sweet and loving!
The world does not deserve you.
I am confused!
How do I prepare you for what's in store?
You will have to apologize for someone else's mistake.
Shed tears for some stranger's loss.
Be the pillar of strength for someone who will betray you.
Will have to live a life someone else has chartered for you.
My child, the world is not ready to accept your sweet innocence.
Nor is it broad enough for you to spread your wings
They will keep you caged.
Your dreams, your desires, your soul...
It will be clipped to suit their demands.
Darling daughter of earth, do you still want to surface?
Are you ready to face your destiny?
Wish I could hold you within forever.
Wish I could protect you from all this malice.
But you are shackled to your destiny.
And so you will live the life I am about to design for you.
Peace be with us!
Dr. Preethi Ragasudha is an Assistant Professor of Nutrition at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, Kerala. She is passionate about art, literature and poetry.
WAILING BANSHEE
Latha Prem Sakhya
Love was once a red rose-
Vital and crimson; life giving blood.
But now she has pined herself out-
An Echo haunting the valleys,
Pale and wintry like the dead season
Mourning the loss of her former glory
-A wailing banshee lamenting her fall.
The empress of all virtues,
Wooed by all humanity
Worshipped and cherished;
Romantically idealized.
Even unreciprocated love had her charms;
Ensconced in the warmth of loving freely.
Giving only, never receiving, never wanting
Celebrating the thrill of loving, for the sake of love.
Love was divine then;
No earthly stains marred her purity
Love was Christ the Lamb-
Sacrificed that the world may engender
Infinite red roses in all their glory,
To fill the world with love.
Prof. Latha Prem Sakhya, a poet, painter and a retired Professor of English, has published three books of poetry. MEMORY RAIN (2008), NATURE AT MY DOOR STEP (2011) - an experimental blend, of poems, reflections and paintings ,VERNAL STROKE (2015 ) a collection of? all her poems.
Her poems were published in journals like IJPCL, Quest, and in e magazines like Indian Rumination, Spark, Muse India, Enchanting Verses international, Spill words etc. She has been anthologized in Roots and Wings (2011), Ripples of Peace ( 2018), Complexion Based Discrimination ( 2018), Tranquil Muse (2018) and The Current (2019). She is member of various poetic groups like Poetry Chain, India poetry Circle and Aksharasthree - The Literary woman, World Peace and Harmony
UNDERLINED
Ananya Priyadarshini
_There was a boat that sailed through the storms. The sailor and the boat together sailed past the tallest and the fiercest tides. The sailor knew of a beautiful shore and was sailing the boat towards the same direction. The boat was happy because the sailor took good care of it. It was excited to see the shore. It was a strong, courageous and tough boat._
_Then one fine day came a storm and the sailor flew away with it never to return to its dear boat. The boat kept flowing along the stream, trying to make its way towards the shore. The sailor had taught it everything but things now appeared difficult to it. It was still struggling to reach the same beautiful shore and make its sailor proud._
_One morning, it met a man swimming through the waters. The swimmer asked if he could join the boat. The boat didn't deny. The swimmer didn't know sailing and was just a passenger, a company to the lonely boat._
_The boat gradually made friends with the swimmer. The swimmer too wanted to reach the same beautiful shore as the boat and its sailor. They knew, together they'll make it._
I read the excerpt underlined by my Mom for the hundredth time, at the least and again let an intense breath out of my lungs. I could feel my ribs vibrate, like they'd collapse.
I was tired and spread my exhausted body on the bed. The mind was in no mood to sleep.
"Mom! Why do you have to underline in books? And that too, such long paragraphs! This is ridiculous, Mom!", I'd shouted at my Mom when I'd first found these paragraphs underlined in one of our favorite novels.
"If you ain't planning to resell your books, there's no point keeping them anew. Underline the words that touch you or that you agree to. So when someone else reads them, they perceive it as a message from you. Even when you're not around, you can talk to people through such underlined stanzas."
"Mom. Rubbish! This is absolute manhandling."
"You'll realise once I'm gone. For now, ain't our libraries separate?"
I'd made faces and called the argument an off.
We were both book freaks. We had a lot of books that we both liked. But we'd two different libraries. We had not merged ours into one inspite of staying in one house! Funny? Well, on my sixth birthday I was gifted a fancy wooden cupboard by my Mom that I was supposed to call 'my' library. I'd just begun reading Ruskin Bond and R.K Narayan back then. Upon asking why could I not keep my books in her library she'd said, "It's good to have things that are totally yours, dear and library is certainly one of them".
Memories arrive as a storm that blows one's sleep away. With eyes wide open, I was seeing my past running past my mind.
I was closest to my Mom. I thought like her, looked like her, talked like her, dreamed what she'd once dreamt of and grew fond of all her favorite things- books and tea being few of them. I didn't know what shade of denim to buy and went to Mom for the same. But then, the days arrived when I'd to hear her talk through the underlined paragraphs of her books. She was gone and had left behind her books and her daughter to do the talking.
I didn't know of a lot of ways to love people and I couldn't love anyone like I loved my Mom. Over the years, I grew accustomed to keeping quiet over big and small things. With none to share with how I felt, I had become numb to emotions- Joy, sorrows, pain or anger.
I missed Mom without letting it manifest in my actions. I had indulged myself in studies but couldn't help but miss Mom terribly when I'd to make a crucial life decision. I could either join a job or take a loan and study further. I didn't know what to opt for. Both were necessary and both could wait for a couple of years- hence that was making it more difficult to arrive at a decision. With dilemma running in mind, I surfed through her library and picked up a random book.
_'It's not what can wait. Sometimes, it's all about what you can wait for.'_
She'd underlined. A strange feeling ran through my mind as I felt Mom talking to me, help me sort my mess out. In a week I'd enrolled myself in the new course and moved to my new college in a new city.
Getting along people was always an issue for me and the trouble grew worse as I grew older. I become uncomfortable at the very thought of someone sneaking into my personal life and that always keeps me from making friends. The same thing happened at my new work place. I'd built up good professional rapport with all my colleagues but I could hardly call anyone 'friend'. They'd tagged me 'loner' for I was never a part of their hangout plans.
I'd spend my leisures at the library reading textbooks, journals or novels. Loneliness comforted me. One day, when we were all having lunch, my colleagues cracked a lame joke mocking me. I hardly get hurt with people's remarks but that day, it was tough for me to swallow. How could they just crack a joke on me when I'd never opened a window for humor to flow in? Why do people have to be so insensitive and commit such unwelcomed deeds? As expected of me, I had left the room without making much fuss about it for I knew arguments would have turned out to be super unproductive. But, deep inside I was affected.
That evening, I'd gone to my regular tea stall. I sat on the wooden bench waiting for my tea to arrive. Arnab, my colleague-cum-batchmate arrived. He, too was a regular here. He sat close to me though he could sit a little farther. He was a very silent type of person who, too was known for turning down group plans of others. I found him more sensible and matured than a lot others. He didn't say anything and I was in no mood to begin a conversation. The boy at the stall brought tea for both of us but ended up spilling the steaming hot tea on my hand. I said nothing except for wincing my eyes. He was visibly scared and embarrassed and was blabbering apologies. I told him to keep calm, assured him nothing had happened and told him to bring me another tea.
"But your hands are turning red!", The boy was panicked.
"I'm good, chhotu..." Cutting me in the middle Arnab spoke, "No you aren't. Chhotu go bring some cold water or better if it's ice." Chhotu ran in. I was used to not overreacting to such small stimuli and was definitely unused to being so much cared for for such pity issues.
"You have to be more vocal, you know. Do tell people when you're hurt. Because unlike what's written in your books, people here don't get tired of hurting you if you stop reacting", Arnab spoke while applying ice on my inflamed skin.
"How do you know what's written in my books?", I glared at him. He smiled.
"Keep your eyes open and turn your long neck around while you're in library. You'll know how I know", Arnab was still smiling.
"So you're a regular at library as well", I asked sipping tea from the second cup.
"Less regular than you, though and more into poetries, unlike you who loves reading tales and stories."
"I see. You know a lot."
"Bibliophiles eventually find other bibliophiles", he said. "Only a few left who read Shakespeare in the library of a leading technical institute."
It gradually became an everyday routine to see each other at the library and tea stall until the day we crossed paths during our morning walk.
"Am I late or early?", He asked wiping sweat off his face.
"On time. I'm late", I answered, laughing.
"Laugh more often. It suits you."
Then, we went together for morning walks on the route that went across the only river in the city. We both belonged to cities with rivers and loved water bodies. A view into the blues made our days.
We talked of books, films, affairs going on round the globe, shared travel experiences. Then gradually, we began talking about our fears, secrets, families, guilts and voids, too.
"Suggest me some good poetry books. My Mom loved them and I've hardly read any", I'd once urged Arnab.
"You miss her, don't you?", He asked looking into my eyes.
I nodded. We stood in silence for long till I broke it.
"I fear I'm getting used to you."
"Why fear?"
"What if you leave? Habits are the hardest to get rid of. I know how it feels and can't afford to go through the same again. I can't afford to lose you.", I didn't remember last when I'd told someone how I felt about them.
Arnab looked at me- half in disbelief, half pleasantly surprised. Then he smiled and looked away. The next day he lent me a poetry book.
_Live it till it lasts_
_The rainbow that shines for a while_
_Or the earthquake that shivers past_
_Live it till it lasts_
He too underlined what he agreed to or rather, what he wanted to say. Then, we'd often exchange books.
One of my research articles got selected for being published in a respectable journal. Happy, I called him instantly to let the cat out. He sounded happier and asked for a treat.
"Tomorrow at Cineplex. Matinee show. Tickets on you!"
"Agreed."
When we were stepping out of the Cineplex, we bumped into our group of colleagues.
"We thought you liked it alone but looks like it's a date, buddy", they pulled our legs and strangely, none of us was annoyed. We just acted a little awkward and shy.
"Exams to start soon and it'll turn monotonous to just study all day. So keep this. You can read a stanza or two when you feel burnt out", He handed me a book the next day. We seldom met after that till exams.
_I see us in the same city_
_Years from now_
_Holding stick in a hand_
_your hands in other_
_Walking past a River_
_Years from now_
_I see us in the same city_
He had yet again underlined. I was yet again scared. Mom had always dreamed of seeing me in the robe, flying my hat away after getting graduated. But she wasn't around on the day it all happened. I know how it feels to see the dreams you've seen with a loved one come true but without them around to see it happen. 'what if....', and I closed the book and never opened it again till I met Arnab at the cafe after the exams. I returned him the book. He kept gazing at me, waiting for me to say what he wanted to hear.
"I didn't like the book much", I said, quite contrary to what he'd expected. He took his time to ensure he had got it right and then said, "Oh, that's okay."
He composed himself and said, "So, when is your train?"
"Thursday. Noon"
"Alright. Mine is on Tuesday. Morning. Would you come to see me off?"
"Sure", I felt a lump in my throat inspite of all my attempts to look cool.
We were leaving for our hometowns and waiting for our results after the publication of which, we were supposed to join our jobs that we'd already bagged. Arnab and I were supposed to join the same company.
At the platform, I was unusually silent. We didn't talk much and his train arrived.
"Aha! You won't let yourself cry, will you?", Arnab laughed a laugh that was blanketing a lot that was hammering him from within. "See, crying isn't the weak's job. That's how we celebrate sorrows. It needs courage, dude. Be less hard on yourself. Life is too short to not do all that you want to. Bye!", And he hopped into his compartment hurriedly handing me a book before the drop in his eye could roll down his bearded cheeks. After a loud whistle, the train paced up and I stood there watching it fade away from my sight. I was still not crying.
The next two days passed away amidst all the hustles of packing and moving. I was able to turn open the pages of the book given by Arnab only after I settled on the reserved seat of the train that was supposed to take me back to my hometown, my home, a home that had Mom's memories scattered everywhere.
It was the same book that I'd once found in Mom's library! And I was taken aback seeing the lines he had underlined.
_It's not about what can wait. Sometimes, it's all about what you can wait for._
Suddenly, I was scared to go home, to again eat alone, go for walks alone, read alone, go to movies alone, gulp down tea alone. All of a sudden I realised that Arnab's company had replaced my solitude to become my new happy place. I wanted the train to switch its direction and head to Arnab's City but that wasn't happening.
I reached home and before rushing to the restroom, I banged open my library, took a book out and underlined few lines-
_The next time I cry, I want you to be around. If not to comfort me, if not to cry along but just to witness me cry. That's fine!_
I packed the book, engraved Arnab's address on it and dropped it at the nearby post office.
Days passed. I received a message informing me that my parcel was delivered to its destined address. But what I didn't receive, was Arnab's call.
"Maybe, he has found a new friend, in his new city.", A voice said from within. I was still not guilty of being vocal about my feelings for him. He had taught me to express, no?
I just ended up spending another whole sleepless night surfing my good and bad memories. I'm home since a month and all nights have been spent away likewise.
My phone rang and I got out of bed unwillingly to pick it up. I was expecting an appointment call and hence, had to see who it was. It was Arnab.
"Hey! Good morning. Listen, they'll ask you what city you want to work in", Arnab didn't wait for a 'hello' from me and kept speaking excitedly. "Just tell Mumbai. I've collected ample information. Mumbai branch has the best work culture and learning opportunities. I too have opted for the same. We've seen enough of rivers running through their courses. At Mumbai, we'll watch where they head to- the sea!"
Arnab didn't stop. Holding the phone close to my ear I reached out to the book I was reading the night before. From the already underlined text, I further highlighted-
_They knew, together they'll make it._
I'd to give this book to Arnab on our very first meeting in Mumbai.
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. Ananya Priyadarshini, welcomes readers' feedback on her article at apriyadarshini315@gmail.com.
A PIED PIPER SONG
Gopika Hari
Seething I was.
Descending the stairs of Inferno.
You,pied Piper of Souls,
charmed me out of that hole.
What music you forced
Upon these deafened Dhols,
To court my feet,and make them roll?
Ghagra cholis winding up
On anklets,dusted by your notes.
Rise up I,yet swoons too I,
Round,in spirals,leaps my shawl.
What dance this,O piper,I
Know not,yet it gives me hope.
Flying hands find secret doors
And ope mine eyes to
Caves of old.
Folklore nights,
Of Cavemen times,
When lot like us
Made large fire
And danced out roaring
Infernos.
TO KEEP THAT SMILE ALIVE
Gopika Hari
Sun rises
Up in the East
Of your eyes,
Reddening those,much loved Eastern horizons,
And setting them dimples
To rippling yellow..
And yet,and yet,
Why choose to submerge the dear Sun
Down in the Seas you hide inside
your iris,bright?
Why kill that smile,
Just when it was reaching the upward,curling sighs?
No, don't die dear smile.
I'll take flight..
Can't see your fright.
Sun sets, it's time.
That rippling was such a sight.
It will,on its own,keep me alright,
When the day falls,
And the nights rise,
And I slide,into the sunless rite
Of rippling that sight.
Till Dark blinds mine eyes.
Gopika Hari, third year BA English literature student at University college TVM. Poetry is her passion and has published her first anthology under the title "The Golden Feathers". She started writing poems from the age of ten, love poetry and poetic prose. She welcomes readers' feedback on her email - gopikameeratvm@gmail.com
SEIZED TO DEATH
Sruthy S. Menon
It was those hands ,
Clutched on my neck,
Suffocating and choking me to death.
My throat, dry as a vast desert,
Scorching in heat,
Deep inside,
Grasping for breath
My hands, confined.
I cried aloud,
Pleading...
Then, I witnessed myself
A prey,
at the hands of death
Unperturbed,
Thereafter.
Sruthy S. Menon is a postgraduate student in MA English Literature from St.Teresas College ,Kochi, Kerala. A few of her poems have been published in Deccan Chronicle, also in anthologies such as “Amaranthine: My Poetic Abode”, a collection of English poems and quotes compiled and edited by Divya Rawat. An Anthology by Khushi Verma titled “Nostalgia: Story of Past”, a collection of English poems, stories, quotes.
She is a winner of several literary and non- literary competitions including art and painting as inspired by her mother, the recipient of Kerala Lalitha Kala Akademy Awrard. Her poetry reveals the strikingly realistic and fictional nature of writing on the themes of love, rejuvenation of life in contrast with death, portraying human emotions as a juxtaposition of lightness and darkness, the use of alliteration on natural elements of nature, etc.
She is a blogger at Mirakee Writers community and Fuzia ,a platform for women writers, receiving International Certificates for contests on Poetry and Art. She welcomes reader’s feedback in Instagram (username ) @alluring_poetess .
TRAIL OF A MOTHER
Kabyatara Kar
Mother is a simple word to express the magnanimity of her character,
For us she is the epitome of strength and eternal love.
When she walked carrying loads of weight
We used to follow her,
In all unknown social events, we trailed behind her
Now tears roll down my cheeks
Seeing her in this desperate state,
Her fingers trembling, her legs shivering with pain,
Everytime her speech gets disrupted through the harrowing pain from brain.
She tumbles down so easily
Shaking our hearts with grilling pain
We miss the trail of our 'Bou’.
May you get back your strength and set the trail back.
(For my Mother)
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 familyVision: Endeavour of life is to fill happiness in life of others
WALKING HOME
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
The little girl walked by my side
matching each step with her soft gait,
None could see her, but me.
Someone gave me a funny stare,
someone an annoyed look,
as invisible she walked along, holding on to my hand.
It was a long walk home,
Without her I would have been lost,
But she walked with me all the way holding my hand.
I had a thousand questions,
she only had a smile for an answer,
all my questions bounced back on her bewitching smile.
Oh, what beauty in that radiant smile,
spreading from cloud to cloud, waves to waves,
rainbow to rainbow, across countries and continents.
I walked on with the little girl by my side,
and a time came when I heard nothing, saw nothing,
except her serene face and reassuring smile.
That's how I reached Home,
my abode of eternal rest,
riding the crest of the little girl's beatific smiles.
SARASWATI'S AGONY
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
You all come to the Sangam,
To pour your prayers,
and wash your dirt off
in the confluence of me and my sisters.
You chant your mantras and shlokas,
For a moment you pretend you have given up all evil.
The king washes his feet here, as does the pauper.
The holy saint prays here, so does the robber.
I accept you all,
I forgive your impious thoughts,
Your furtive look at the bathing women,
your crave for power, money and lust.
But I have a private sorrow none of you can feel.
My sorrow is not about being treated as a hidden river,
It's about hiding me when I want to come out
and engulf you in my all-forgiving embrace.
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.
Critic's Corner
A Review of “It Rains…” by Molly Joseph, Authors Press, New Delhi, 2019. ISBN 978-93-88859-37-0
Dr S. Barathi
Assistant Professor, Srinivasa Ramanujan Centre, SASTRA Deemed University, Kumbakonam-612001.
It rains is a wonderful collection of short poems hovering over a variety of themes and techniques. It is the sixth collection of poems published by Molly Joseph. The foreword by Dr K M Johnson serves as a prelude to the collection. The foreword evokes interest in the readers to move forward with reading her poems. The collection has three major divisions, the first section titled It Rains, which is also the title of the collection, comprises twenty-eight poems, whereas, the next section titled Kerala floods consists of thirty-three poems dedicated to Kerala floods. The final section titled Travel Poems presents a couple of poems on the poet’s travel experience in Kenya. The poems presented here stand as an epitome of the poet’s imaginary power. With fewer words, the poet is able to bring out a variety of themes.
While browsing through the poems in the first two sections, it appears that the poet has a particular fancy for the rains and it is highlighted throughout the anthology by portraying rain from various angles that enamour the readers. The collection is an instance that shows the poet as a tireless experimenter of various metrical forms. In her previous collection titled Mynah’s Musings, she has presented poems along with pictures that were a great success among the readers.
The first section in this anthology is autobiographical in tone and is based on myriad experiences in the poet’s life. Nature is ever pervasive in all these poems, right from the title poem “It rains, It rains …”, which reverberates throughout the section. Born in Kerala, God’s own land, the poet has not just relished nature, but tries to foreground nature’s bounty through her moderate verse. The poem “It rains, It rains” has an end rhyme which makes it melodious to the ears. The poet’s description of rain that not only offers solace and strength but also comforts people is simply stupefying. Further, the poet compares the rain with the holy grail myth, the Manna. This verse also reminds one of Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” where Portia describes mercy as rain. Here it is the viceversa. Finally the closing lines:
how could one survive
the ravages of time
that wreck
our average lives...
It rains, it rains... (20)
show that human life is futile without rain. It is the one which brings hope in the minds of people. The next poem in this section, “Let me be, Let me be,” the poet expresses her wish to be a poet. As she is satisfied with her verses, she can soar heights and at the same time is “searching for homely solace …” (22) from which it is evident that she wants to be left as she is. The poet advises the readers to have a strong will power so that “nothing /can hamper /a will so /strong” (23), thus concentration and focus could take one to greater heights. This is a highly philosophical poem, where one could forget bitter things that happened to them by detaching themselves from the action. The lines “I can mix, merge / and stand separate…”(21) is what the ancient scriptures teach. In other words, we should be friendly with everyone and at the same time, one should not be attached too much to worldly affairs.
There are inspirational poems too in this section like “Falls make you Rise” which is like the maxim that “failures are the stepping stones to success.” Here, the lesson is to have trust in oneself as found in Rudyard Kipling’s poem“If”. This section has many more poems at personal level which inspires the readers. In a way, one could also call Molly Joseph a patriotic writer. “Falls make you Rise” is an inspirational poem that conveys the message that we need not worry about our failures as we would succeed one day. This poem reminds the readers of Emily Dickinson’s “Success is Counted Sweetest”. The closing lines in the poem reads thus:
Stretch
Your hands,
Spread
Your legs,
Rise
And stagger
on your feet…
Falls
make you
rise
on your own… (26)
Unlike the other poets who had pictured failure as stepping stones, Molly Joseph drives home the point that ‘self-help is the best help’. If one has to become a winner, one should strive hard to achieve it. In “Sleep Eludes”, the poet wants to stress upon nature as a best healer. Nature is required even for our psychological well-being. “Face it Alone” is yet another highly influential poem, that inspires people of all generation.
The poet says,
if we
are never alone
we realise not
our strength
so new
so powerful
hidden within. (36)
People have often received advice that we should always keep company and union is the strength. But here, the poet has a different perspective. She suggests to the readers that by being alone, we will become self sufficient and would be able to explore the power within oneself. Like the various poems on nature, nostalgia also plays a prominent role. As A. K. Ramanujan observes: “The Past never passes, either the individual past or the collective past.” There are semi-autobiographical poems with mixed emotion and varied thoughts. For instance, in “My Dream” the poet talks about life’s simple happiness that a woman acquires in day to day life. The concluding lines here reveal the difficulty of being a poet .
I bear
my stress ridden
days,
its blisters
and burns
that haunt
my days…(49)
The above lines clearly etch the wounded past and the poet’s trial to overcome it.
One could also find the influences of Wordsworth and Frost in her poems. But the major difference is the Indianism that prevails over her verses.“The Road” is a poem on the quest for self. The poet’s staunch belief in God is revealed in the final lines: “eternal/as pastures / fresh” (51) which ends on a positive note of hope. This reminds one of Wordsworth’s “The World is too much with us” where the poet finally turns towards nature.
It is true in the case of the anthology “It Rains”, which comes as a cool shower on a summer season. The versification of the poet is enchanting and like a magician with a wand, Molly pens down her poems on varied themes that ranges from nature, memory, dreams, love for fellow humans, myth, and travelogue. At times, the poet despises the evils in our society as in “The Vulture.” The poet compares arrogant cruel men who inflict torture on innocent women and young girls with that of a vulture which mercilessly catches the innocent fish. The poem “I Run.. I Run” is on the philosophy of life, where everyone of us is bound by time and space. Besides this the poems titled “Friendship”, “X mas” and “Sunday Morning” are nostalgic and filled with images of nature. Like Keats the poet delights the readers by catering to all the five senses with a variety of images.
The second part of the anthology is devoted to the floods that devastated the entire state of Kerala in August 2018. This section has a personal touch as the poet is reminded of her parents, native place and festivals celebrated with her family.
In “A Sickly sun filters in” after the flood everything was destroyed. This is pictured in the following lines:
the flood
left…
muddied
earth
your legs
plummeting,
ghoulish
your house
…
your rooms
no longer
Yours… . (90)
The poet wonders on how to make the place habitable as the flood has made the land inhabitable. “This is Onam… Real Onam” talks about unity in diversity. In “Marooned” is on the fear of raising flood among people. Here, the poet compares rainfall with that of an angry child pelting stones. This is evident from the lines below:
the sky
an irate child
growing dark
quarrelsome
pelting profuse
stones and torrents
of rain… (97)
Thus, the poet never runs short of words to describe natural events.
Besides poems on nature, love and sympathy, peace and society, one could find biblical themes in poems such as “Simple acts of Kindness”. It appears as if the poet is specialised in talking about simple day to day events in a grandiose manner. The poet also pours out her angst in “The Vultures” on the cruelty meted out on innocent young women. Peace is another ideology found in poems titled “Peace” when the poet questions, “can we/attain peace” (131). Apart from these poems there are poems on sufferings such as “It’s tough … Its tough” and “Kind you were, 2018”. The last two poems are addressed to a child, perhaps a grandchild, the poems shower words of love, affection and longing.
The last part of the anthology titled “Travel poems” has two poems with pictorial presentation on the poet’s visit to the African nation. In the poem “I sit, I see, I Listen…O Kenya!” the poet is overwhelmed with joy to be among those poetry lovers and simple folks. The lines “I sit / I see / I listen” (156) reverberates through the poem like a bee buzzing around the flowers to collect honey. Here, in this autobiographical poem the poet tries to convey the message of how simple and pure those people are and also shares the moments she had cherished in the alien land. The closing poem “O, Kenya!” runs for several lines in many stanzas, where the poet treasures fond memories of her presence among the Kenyans. In the first few stanzas the poet appreciates the beauty of the land and moves on to give a picturesque view of the country and the events that happened during her sojourn.. For the poet,
the highlight of the trip
at the fag end of the fest,
basking in Israeli Embassy’s
fond support of creative writers and poets,
sharing delicious meals
and blissful poetic moments… (160)
The above lines prove that the poet is filled with happiness to interact with those people. Also she has not left her favorite theme like nature. In these poems she talks about food cycle, energy pyramid and co-existence. Beyond this, if one takes a deeper look, the poems are filled with humanism, another common theme found in her poems.
Thus, care for environment, aesthetic sense and humanist approach are inseparable components in her poems. Not only is the poet’s choice of words a unique but so also is the structure of the poems. This shows the poet as a tireless experimenter of forms and verse. In a way as Dr K M Johnson stated in his preface to this anthology, her poems are “in simple and lucid style, mostly dealing with ordinary subjects, but subtly incorporating the philosophical and the universal” (10) her diction and imagery reminds the readers of the American poet E E Cummings. On the whole, the anthology foregrounds Molly Joseph as a trained word smith who could create a rainbow out of her poems that looms large over this collection,.. really…” It Rains!”
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