Literary Vibes - Edition XLIV

 

Dear Readers,
Welcome to the Forty fourth edition of LiteraryVibes. 

I have great pleasure in introducing Ms. Sakuntala Narasimhan, a prolific writer from Bangalore, whose short stories have adorned the pages of reputed magazines like Caravan, Women's Era and others. A recipient of many awards, she is an accomplished singer, professor and literary personality. Ms. Aboojumaila from Alapuzha, Kerala, is a talented poet who has achieved a lot despite her young age. She has translated three works of Khalil Griban. We at LiteraryVibes wish them much success in their literary career.
 

I want to share a wonderful experience I had yesterday during my morning walk. On the street I chanced upon a classmate of mine who had joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) and rose to occupy the position of Director General of Police for close to four years in Odisha. He had got an excellent reputation in tackling Left wing extremism by earning the trust of the local villagers. He had mastered a number of tribal languages so that his channels of communication with the local people would be open and effective. 
 

My friend was walking to the bus stand to catch a bus to his village, about forty kilometres away. It is close to Cuttack town and has many facilities of the urban life such as fairly dependable electricity supply, water and street lights. In many respects it has also retained its rural character through vast agricultural fields, coconut topes, and mango orchards. My friend's heart lies in his village. He goes back there from time to time to relive the memories of his childhood, the simplicity of life, the deep friendship with his schoolmates, the blessings of the elders and the pure, unadulterated smiles of the village folk. 
 

My friend regrets wistfully, over the years he has seen the decline of the village culture. There are no community sports any more, no village festivals and practically no interaction among the people. Watching cricket has replaced playing volleyball or kabaddi. Cuttack is only eleven kilometres away, every household has at least one motorbike, so going to the town to watch cheap imitations of Hindi movies in Odiya language is the norm.  Everyone is glued to the TV or the mobile all the time, often late into the night. Petty crimes, previously unheard of in a well knit village community, have vitiated the village environment, festered by alcoholism and use of narcotic drugs. My friend says he got the biggest shock of his life when one of the youngsters, under the influence of Bhang, tried to force a paan laced with it into his mouth. A man who had served as Director in the Narcotics wing of the state police for two years, this was the ultimate shame!

Yet he returns to the village, a few times in the year, to sit under the mango trees, drink unlimited glasses of tender coconut water and eat freshly caught fish from the village pond. No one talks to him any more, his attempts at building friendships have been futile, because nobody has time to socialise. He has plenty of regrets at the decline of the village life. I tried to explain to him that decline of rural life and development on modern lines are the inevitable two sides of the same coin. 

My friend knows that. Yet, like an incurable romantic he wants to return to his roots and look for his playful childhood, the lost innocence of his folks and the quietness of the village life.
I have a feeling that he will not find them any more, but his pleasure is in the journey, not in the destination. And part of the journey for him was to get into a crowded bus and hang from the overhead railing swaying to the undulations of a moving bus. It has a beauty of its own, a music that must be soothing to his heart. I wished him a happy, fulfilling journey, and left, with a final wave of my hand.

My story in this edition is also about a visit to one such land of angst and nostalgia. There are many other poems and short stories celebrating the journey of life, including "A Train to the End of The Earth" by Ananya, an exceptionally gifted young student. 

 

Hope you will enjoy all of them. 
Please send the following link to all your friends and contacts:

http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/246

With warm regards
Mrutyunjay  Sarangi

 

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GRANDMA’S   EVER-YOUNGMAN

Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

Among grandma’s deities in the shrine

there hangs the faded photograph

of a young man, the only man who

ever slept in her marital bed.

 

One night, leaving her in a lurch,

her beloved rascal moved into

this photograph, remained ever-young

unlike the Picture of Dorian Gray.

 

The only accomplice sharing

grandma’s juicy secrets, I visit

her wilting brain’s forbidden zones,

know the illusory man she had loved.

 

From hazy outlines, the sweet hoodlum

rises like a phantom. I understand

what has desiccated granny’s innards,

the Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

 

Key to metaphors - the novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ by Oscar Wilde and ‘The Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

 

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VASAI FORT BY THE SEA

Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

By tall mossy walls

the grey chilly wind whistles;

horses’ hooves echo

from a past, far away.

 

A flock of clucking ducks

enters looking for food,

loudly questioning our trespassing;

claiming their rights to the ruins.

 

At the entry point we had seen

labourers, males and females,

digging trenches and carrying away

the loose earth on heads;

 

their newborns napping in cloth swings

swaying in late afternoon’s abandon,

dreaming of mothers’ milk, hardly knowing

bread was made of crushed bones.

 

A murmur of rain comes resounding.

Female labourers’ wet boobs

come alive in mind, competing with

our wives’ sheltered ones under parasols.

 

Macho ferns of the ruined ramparts

stick out heads from telltale cracks,

rejuvenate in the rain, their priapic spirits;

thawing frozen memories, blood and booms.

 

The drizzle would wash away

the labourers’ sweat, soothe

their grumbles; the rumbling sky

guarantees them a cool cozy night.

 

We talk about the missionaries,

traders, and soldiers from Portugal;

their missionary zeal, treachery,

and valour, in that order.

 

We sip scalding hot tea,

chew smoked crispy peanuts;

condemn their roving eye for local flesh,

pity their women left at home overseas.

 

At a distant anchorage in the open sea

a ship looks forlorn and unmoored,

the shore broods, a retired sailor,

bored by a flock of jabbering tourists.

 

(Footnote – The ruins of a Portuguese fort broods on the seashore at Vasai, a rural township, around seventy kilometers northward from Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus.)

 

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  

 

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THE BLISS (SUKHA)

HARAPRASAD DAS

Translation by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

I chase after the all-pervading bliss,

but hasn’t the chimera eluded all?

The poetry is said to be

cathartic to all maladies,

why has it failed

to bring me all-season happiness?

 

Not that, feel-good times

are alien to me,

but they have been

like fleeting cuckoos -

 

I recall the naughty smile

lingering on your lips

like pink balmy rays

of the evening sun,

sprawled on our bed,

messy from our fun and frolic.

 

I also recall the night -

reaching home by the last bus

soaked in rain, frozen to bones

by chilly wind; but finding

my warm haven in your cozy arms,

by the fire under mantelpiece.

 

I couldn’t be less thankful to luck

that cradled me back to life

catching me mid-air in a tangle

of electric wires when I fell

from a high-rise; even a pair

of burnt feet seemed a blessing.

 

We may not inherit an all-time

or all pervasive happiness,

but often a cruel mirage

delivers moments of joy,

as does the unexpected oasis

in the middle of a desert.

 

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THROUGH A SURREAL NIGHT (YAATRAA: RAATI)

HARAPRASAD DAS

Translation by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

Night is putting

the last touches to her makeup,

her grey hair

already coloured black;

 

the courtyard is swept clean

of the odds and ends

from a harried hailstorm,

that brought no rain;

 

the clouds are being pushed out

of the sky like hesitant ships

from their harbor, their sails

filled with fidgety southerlies;

 

but she worries, as the miscreants

are getting ready to reach the temple

to defile the deity

before the devotees could arrive.

 

In the meantime,

an unmindful moonshine

has tumbled down from the sky

into the dark riverbank;

 

like a marble water-nymph

it spreads her pretty white feet

into the river’s rippling water

playing with the smithereens of light.

 

Anticipations crackle

like thin wafers -

what would happen next (?)

this night, nothing perhaps!

 

But you may take stock

of the situation -

the night ends, surreal dreams

vapourize, the fairy, guised

as a dragonfly, flies away

at the first light of dawn;

 

 you are to return from here

to the reality as always,

leaving a mark

etched with blood

on a milestone for someone

you are looking for.

 

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)”

 

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THE STRUGGLE (YUDDHA)

HRUSHIKESH MALLICK

Translation by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

This is no leavening of dough

for baking bread, your writ won’t run;

you are not the ultimate chef

to decide people’s choice and taste.

 

You are no creator

of stars and planets,

no arbiter of their rising

or setting.

 

Bees hum,

the moon washes the nights

with her milky glow,

blue lilies romance with the sun;

 

the caressing notes of a flute

fill the evening with ecstasy,

the mullah’s Azan, worshippers’ bells

and cymbals affirm, we still live and love.

 

You blast bombs at places of worship,

fill serene evenings with screams of fear;

you wallow in bloodshed with impunity,

aren’t you ashamed of your macabre acts?

 

Simple folks are waiting with bated breath

to watch nymphs descend into the lake

for frolicking in night’s solitude, or gods and

goddesses romance in vacant lots,

 

aglow with little lanterns carried

by fire-flies; but you arrive and blow up

all that, their hopes and dreams included,

as if you are the almighty lord Shiva?

 

Hadn’t it been wise for you

before your irreversible acts of terror

to know that they were ordinary men,

women, and children; no traitors

 

of your nightmare, who make you

insane with rage, hide in bunkers,

ambush and kill them, even Alibaba

and his forty thieves had acted wiser.

 

Perhaps, you carry a chip on your shoulder

from childhood, your playmate, a bully,

rode you roughshod; you grew up to a bully all,

barking up the wrong tree, it’s cowardly revenge.

 

God creates the sky for the birds to fly,

spreads meadows before children to

to play and fly kites; but you have usurped

them all, your stentorian preaching

 

drowns even the sober precepts

from mosques, and temples. The air chokes

under the onslaught of your loud decibels

in the name of Azans, hymns, and booming guns.

 

You wish the world to bow before you,

to cringe at your beck and call;

but soon you would be a sepia page

in history books. Sons of the soil would rule.

 

 

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)   

 

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DEEP GALILEE

Geetha Nair G.

 

The Lake of Galilee shimmered before our eyes. Awe filed my heart as my eyes drank in the deep, shimmering blue. Here it was that He walked on the water. Here it was that he met his disciples… .

 “Look!” I said to my husband, in Malayalam, “You can see Him, almost.”

He smiled at my words. But it was a deeply-satisfied smile.

Two girls, who were next to us in the crowd turned around to look at us. One was exotic brown, the other stereotype white, was my first thought. They were beautiful with the firmness and abundance of youth.

“Are you from Kerala?’ asked one of them. She spoke in halting Malayalam.

My husband and I were surprised and pleased to find one speaking the language of our little sliver of a state, so far away from home.

“Are you from Kerala?” my husband asked her. I could hear the doubt in his voice; she looked very exotic, very un-Mallu.

“I spent my first eight years in Kerala,” she replied. Now she had switched to heavily-accented English.”Then I went to the States and remained there. But I still remember a bit of the language I spoke as a little child. Happy to meet you.” We spoke together awhile. Then, we went looking for a restaurant ; it was lunchtime. The two girls, Emma and Anne, moved along with us.

St Peter's Fish announced a big menu board in front of a restaurant. That settled the matter. What could be a better choice than this when one was at Galilee?

Over the meal, Emma told us more about her self. Anna was her sister, the biological child of Emma’s adopted parents. The two young ladies had visited Kerala the previous year and gone to the orphangae from where Emma had been adopted. Emma had wanted to know if she could track down her biological parents. But she had drawn a blank; the nuns knew nothing at all. She had been found as an infant in the cot kept near the gate of the convent for such convenient disposals.

“I was found there on the night of 21 July. That is why Dad and Mom celebrate that as my birthday. Yesterday was my twenty first birthday.”

Emma smiled; dimples appeared in her cheeks.

“Where in Kerala is this orphanage?” asked my husband.

. “Kottayam, it is called Holy Family Convent” she replied.

 

  I had been attacking my portion of the bland, sainted fish with a fork. The fork slipped, the fish skidded off my plate did a somersault and  landed on the floor. My mind too had done a somersault. 

 The ensuing commotion and good-humoured comments helped me to hide my feelings.Everything had fallen into place, like the pieces of a simple jigsaw puzzle. The girl had inherited Naomi’s dimples. She looked much as my dear friend had looked when she had been young. Everything tallied. There was no doubt in my mind that this young lady was Naomi’s daughter

 

 Naomi and I had been boarders together when we were children. My father was the manager of a tea-plantation. This foredoomed me to boarding school. Naomi's father had wanted her to be "convent -educated" but there were no swanky convent schools in their village. So he had put her in this school just 30 kms from her place. She went home almost every weekend and came back with aromas wafting from her stuffed bag. Beef fry. Fish pickle. Achappam. Cheepappam. Kuzhalappam. How I had gorged on the stuff my generous friend laid out for me ! We were the best of friends. Naomi and I agreed on everything. No; there was one subject we differed sharply on -Akshay Kumar or Amir Khan - who was the better actor? Otherwise, we were, to misquote a well-known line,,"Two bodies with one heart, spirit, soul ." We ate, slept, dreamed together.

  One September, when school reopened after the ten -day Onam break, Naomi came back, looking devastated. There was no other word for it. Her long black hair was uncombed. Her lustrous eyes were hollowed and dimmed. She said she had been ill. It was her sixteenth birthday in two days' time. I had got her a make-up set. When I handed it to her, she burst into tears.

" I must, I have to tell you... ." In the shade of the mango tree at the edge of the chapel, she told me all.

 

Her cousin, Roy, about 8 years older to her, was a frequent visitor to her house. She adored this feisty big brother. For us Christians, cousins are brothers, unlike for some other religious groups. He worked in a firm in Cochin. That Onam vacation, he had come into her room as he often did. But something was different this time. He had made love to her. “But, didn’t you resist? push him away?” I asked in shock. “He was too strong for me; Royachayan, Royachayan...” She broke down..

In a month, she was positive she was pregnant. She was frantic; so was I. Tell your mother, I said. She looked at me as if I had uttered some blasphemy. “I called him yesterday,” she said, listlessly. “He will come this Friday to pick me up.”

After that weekend visit, she returned, minus the usual goodies. She was pale and silent. I did not ask her anything; sometimes no questions and answers are needed.

  She recovered to some extent. We passed out of school and moved up to college. We were still together, room mates though not classmates.

Inexplicably, she now moved around with Roy quite freely. She got pregnant again; got an abortion done again. Her people by then had got wind of what was going on. Marrying a cousin was unthinkable. There was only one solution. She was taken out of college and sent to a convent. It was a way to escape calumny. Their family name had to remain untarnished. Moreover, a member in holy orders would add to the shine.

  I visited her once in the convent. She was an Aspirant ; she still wore lay clothes. But her long hair had been cut short, her lustrous eyes were a little dimmed.

" How do you spend your time?" I asked

"Eat. Pray. Sleep " she replied, with a flash of her old liveliness.

And what of Roy? He was married and standing for the next panchayath elections.

Soon after the visit, I got married. Naomi did not attend but sent me a lovely gift-her lapis lazuli chain that I had always coveted.

 

Two years later, she sent me a letter. She had left the convent- her conscience would not allow her to take the Final Vows. Interestingly, she was now under the “protection”of a rich and regular visitor to the convent whom she had met and felled during his visits there. I mused on that conscience of hers for a while. But I could never sit in judgement on Naomi. I was a good Christian who followed His dictum- He who is without sin among ye, let him cast the first stone. Besides, I loved her very much indeed.

 

Then, inevitably,she was passed from man to man like a box of chocolates., turning less tempting, less fresh with the passing days. She became pregnant at thirty eight.There could be no abortion this time, the regular doctor told her. He had warned her the previous time.

 

So Naomi was housed in a secluded place, fairly close to where I stayed at the time. There was a trusted maid to look after her. Her richest protector paid for all this. There was no way of ensuring whose child she was carrying but he was magnanimous; he was very fond of her. " Very little ego"; she told me, smiling her sad, sweet smile. "Such men are good lovers. The others ... ." She shuddered. I thrust away the images that crowded into my mind. I had the feeling I was listening to an alien. I remembered how years ago, we had commented on dishes served in our boarding. How she had detested the brinjal fry -a staple on the miserly menu- and approved of potato fry ! She spoke of men in the same way now. I was unspeakably saddened. How unpredictable lives are ! We had started out together, like Juno’s swans. Yet, here I was, more or less happily married to a stolid business man, respected in our social and home circles, a model church-goer. Also, I was looked up to by several of the new gen group, no doubt because of my non-judgemental attitude and my openness to change. I had no children; that could have been another reason for it. My husband did not favour adoption; so his neices and nephews stood in for our non-existent children.

 

And Naomi, who should have been married to an eligible member of an illustrious family belonging to her religious denomination, who should have spent the rest of her life tending to her husband, rearing their children and being a model to the parish...reduced to this.

 

My husband was away on one of his frequent business tours when Naomi delivered. She wanted to hand over the baby to me. I declined; my husband would have never agreed; he did not even know that I maintained contact with Naomi. Three days after the little girl was born, I accompanied her as far as the road to the convent orphanage. It was a dark night. “ Leave her in the covered cot near the gate. Ring the bell and come away fast. They will take her in. Rest assured. The child will be looked after, educated.”

I looked the other way while she bid farewell to her baby. Naomi spent the night at my house. We spoke late into the night. “I did it for her sake. If I bring her up, what future would she have?  Far better to be an orphan than the daughter of a whore,” she wept. I held her close to me. There was nothing else I could do.

 

 My husband and I relocated to Dubai soon after this. The years went by; I maintained an infrequent email contact with Naomi. She had faded, shrunk, finally becoming a teacher in some convent school far away. Her brothers had deposited some money in her name. Financially, she was fine.

 Just a year back, my husband had been diagnosed with cancer. After a long struggle he had emerged free from the pincers of the Crab. For the time being. He told me soon after, “The Holy Land - I want to visit it, my dear , before metastasis sets in…” I covered his mouth with my hand.

 

So we had set off on the long journey. He would have none of those conducted tours; we would do it on our own, in our own sweet time.

 

And here I was, in the Place of Miracles, face-to -face with a miracle of sorts. My beloved Naomi’s child, now grown, beautiful, poised, prosperous, ready to take on the world. Only, she wanted to find her biological parents… .

“Why did you arrange this meeting?” I asked Him in silent anguish.

The three of them were talking about about Kerala.

“Dear, didn’t we stay awhile very close to this convent?” My husband’s repeated question broke into my thoughts.

“Did we? I don’t remember.” I replied and continued with my meal.

 

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MARKED FRAGILE

Geetha Nair G.

The dark box moves
round and round  on the  carousel.
In swaddling clothes
And soft tissue, the Inside rests,
Layered,
Somnolent.
And then a jerk,
a tweak,  a shriek... .

All its armoured folds
Peel off; the cocoon breaks
To reveal
that frail, flawed self.

 

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 

 

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ECONOMICS FOR THE JUST

K.Sreekumar

 

April came and Mahesh knocked at my door. For several years, it was when Mahesh knocked at the door that I realized April had come.

Opening the door and greeting him, I stared at his head first. He had lost some more hair but looked much fresher.

I was very happy to see him. After a few verbal exchanges of etiquette and formalities, he went in, as if he had been there even the day before, and brought out the shovels and other implements from the store room. Sudha came out from the kitchen to see who it was. She saw Mahesh.

“Have you brought your wife and daughter this time? No? I knew that.”

She turned to me and said, “She is such a beauty and his daughter is so adorable. But he won’t bring them over.”

I didn’t comment on that but smiling at her, went out with him to show him where exactly the pits to plant the plantain saplings had to be. He too was extremely meticulous about their symmetry and position.

He was such an intelligent fellow. There were plenty of workers in my own place but I was fed up with each and every one of them.

The only problem with Mahesh was that he would come here only in April. I always wanted to do some vegetable cultivation and it had to be started in January or early February. That is the only season Kerala takes to vegetable cultivation. You get three months of hot summer. With a good stream going along my three acres of discarded paddy field, it would bring me a good harvest if I did that. However, I didn’t want to do it with anyone else but this young man.

Every year, as he went back just before June to his native place, his beautiful wife and his adorable daughter, I would ask him to try to come back in December. My wife would ask him to bring his family along. Both he denied, giving us no reason. He would just conjure up his charming smile.

I was sure that even my wife found him very charming. He had that thing about him. Good voice, stature, a well cut beard, a dab of sandal paste on his forehead and a great amount of humour.

Our eleven-year-old Sumi was so happy that he came only during her holidays. That way she could spend more time with him. She would hang on to him calling him ‘uncle, uncle’ and badger him with endless questions which he managed to answer, at times with amazing accuracy but mostly with some nonsensical humour which made her laugh like Mini in Tagore’s Kabuliwalla. From him, through Sumi, I know that Mona Lisa is most likely a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, that theSistine Chapel was the name of the church where Michael Angelo painted The Creation of Adam, that in India the wet season, called the south-west monsoon, occurs from about mid-June to early October and that the inspiration of Salvador Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory came to him when he saw chunks of cheese melting away in the sun.

Holidays had begun and I too had nothing to do. Sumi had not woken up. So, I thought I should give him company.

As we walked down the narrow path towards the small farm I had, I heard him humming an old song. He once told me how he had managed to court a tailor and how he married her against the wishes of her family. His own family was very happy about it.

“Mahesh, do you sing?”

“No, this is just.”

‘Just’ was his favourite word. Sumi had discovered a host of skills in him. He could draw, paint, dance, do gymnastics and answer any question from her encyclopedia which was actually an old PSC guide I had handed over to her. Every time I confronted him with some new revelations on his abilities, he would give me the same answer.

‘No, sir. I was just.’

As he started tilling, I sat under a coconut tree and started reading the newspaper out loud for his sake. I had already read the main items of news early in the morning.

I read it in detail and he passed humorous comments on most of them.

“Ha, this is interesting. Private school teachers to get a fixed pay scale from next academic year.”

I read it and laughed at it. He stared at me as if to ask why I was laughing. He didn’t ask me but his face told me he needed an explanation.

“You know why it is funny? There is already such a rule and obviously the government never wanted to implement it and I am sure they never will. Most of these central private schools belong to big fellows and they give huge donations to all the parties regularly.”

“So, why are they saying this? You mean, they will never give a decent salary to these teachers?”

“Salary? Not only that they won't give a decent salary, almost no school offers vacation salary. So, what do they expect these unfortunate people to do? Go for mason work or be tillers and tailors?”

As soon as I said that I regretted it. It sounded like I looked down upon tillers and tailors. Mahesh might be hurt. I changed the topic.

“Does your wife work in the same tailoring shop even now, the place which gives her almost nothing?”

“Yes, yes. She likes it there. With that money and some painting work, we can manage. But usually in April and May, they don’t have much work at the tailoring shop. So, she does not go there and can stay home minding our daughter. That is when I come over. Here I get work every day. In our own place, work is rare.”

I was amazed how sensible he was. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. How true! When his wife brought home some money, he stayed home, minding the kid and doing odd jobs like making paper bags and repairing bicycles. When things were too much during April and May, for reasons unknown to me, his wife stayed home and he would pack and come to Malappuram, my place, to work every day for two months. All this I knew from having engaged him in casual conversations. Some information was given to me by my daughter too.

Such smart guys always come up in life. It is just a matter of time, the right time. The economy is not as black as it is painted. I went back to my newspaper.

“FM ministry to sell more companies”

“Will they?”

“O, sure they will sell the whole country. I think they've already sold most of it.”

“No, I was asking whether the government would implement the salary rule for teachers, ever?”

Now, how was I supposed to understand he was still thinking about it? Even if he had given me a clue, I would have found it hard to catch on to that because it was always a bit hard to understand his dialect. He came from some far off place near the sea in south Kerala. Why does he have to travel this far to find work?

“I don’t think they will ever do that. If they do, then the market will be flooded by the inflow from those teachers who would shop on and on. Enough money will flow around. There will be more work in your own place and I will never see you in this part of the world.”

“That is true. So, you should pray that they never implement this so that there won’t be enough work in my own place and you can get to see me for your work every year.”

This is the kind of sarcasm that my daughter liked to hear and it always made her laugh. As a principle, I consider sarcasm as an obsessive compulsive reaction, a vent for hidden oppression, rearing its ugly head from the unconscious.

Furthermore, he looked up and put his hands together to mock me. I had noticed it many times. There was also a strain of insolence in him. Having never been to school, maybe he didn’t know how to respect a teacher.

He started laughing at his own joke. I kept a glum face and went back to reading the news. I didn’t read out, I didn't know why. He was waiting to hear me read the news. Try as much as I did, I could not read it out loud.

After a while, seeing a good cartoon and not being in a mood to laugh, I marvelled at my own pettiness. It wasn’t fair to belittle Mahesh. He was smart, probably with more surviving skills than me. He drew very well. If there were good people to guide him, he would have taken a degree in fine arts and went on to become a Raja Ravi Varma or someone like that. He could have joined the government service as a teacher like me.

Or he could have joined a private school as an art teacher, a school which gave no vacation salary.

Sumi came over with her notebook and I happily handed over to her my duty of giving him company.

Before I went back, my daughter showed me her notebook in which Mahesh had drawn some birds and trees.

“Even my art teacher won’t draw this well.”

“Right. Right,” I said.

And I wished the government would never implement a scale for private school teachers and there wouldn’t be a flourishing economy or a lot of work in southern Kerala.

Then Mahesh would come every year to work in my banana republic which sprawled over three acres.

 

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. 

 

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WAKE UP CALL

Dilip Mohapatra

 

You are your own sacrificial goat

and you lead yourself to the altar

and wield your own scimitar to 

chop off your head again and again

since you have imbibed 

that sacrifice is the greatest of the virtues 

and that’s what  life is meant for.

 

You are sermonised constantly 

about the three fingers pointing at you

when you point one at the other

and you are taught to believe

that self flagellation 

is the surest way to salvation.

 

You are told that 

it’s noble to be humble and stay subdued

and not to blow your trumpet

nor to spend time in front of the mirror 

or even take a selfie

for that would spell out your vanity

your self love and self conceit 

and would be seen as reflections 

of the narcissus in you.

 

You are reminded of your diminutive self

and forced to realise that you are just an insignificant speck in the infinite universe

like a little tittle in the vast 

epic verse 

and you must bow down to all with utmost reverence 

like a tree well laden with fruits

and let people trample you

and use you as a doormat 

as much as they may

while you just grin it and bear it

with no protests 

not even a whimper

nor a word in dissent

and you would attain a kind of martyrdom

while in fact the world would sneer and laugh behind your back.

 

You see everyone overtaking you

leaving you far behind

and you keep twiddling your thumbs and 

keep wondering endlessly 

when will all the losers be winners

when will all the givers receive 

their due?

 

But for how long 

would you keep asking yourself

while basking in your comfort zone

when are things going to change

and when will your turn come?

 

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.

 

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AWAKENING

Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura

 

As a child,

I was a true lover

Because I was not affected

By anything else

Other than this divine fever.

It was chronic

But, nevertheless,

Quite fulfilling;

Though forbidden

It wasvery pleasing.

 

Never knew

It was love

It was as simple

As any normal act.

There was no pressure

If I would pass,

Nor any anxiety

In case there was no result;

It was just a routine

As I reacted to my instincts.

 

My life took a turn

As I joined the gold rush

With shovel in my hand

I got busy in the rocky land,

With the robots.

I forgot I have a heart

As I started behaving smart.

Life became a desert

And I cried in severe thirst

For a few drop of elusive love.

 

Clouds came from the west

While I was asleep

On a hot sandy bed.

Birds followed in flocks

Bringing in cold wind

Instilling life in the rocks.

As love showered

In diamond drops,

The child inside me,

Woke up from his sleep.

 

"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.". Dr Behura welcomes readers' feedback on his email - bkbehura@gmail.com.

 

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WEAVES OF TIME

Sangeeta Gupta

XVII

I, on a journey
so inward
so intimate,
so personal am

so all by my singular self
in sea-deep silence,
that it helps
materialize me—
to actualize
my utmost possibility.

Now am I aware
Me, myself, I can transform
can redirect the flow of a life-line—mine,
and that the
gift of choice is
given each one
to become aware

Life, that one gift
of the choice to be,
of creativity.
Miracle
without a parallel.
 

XVIII

Have thee realized!
are thee aware!
that even as we meet
there is, of energies
a concordance, 
an inter-play
of minds, in the air; in bubbling chemistry

a rhythm, a solace, and a peace, yea, 
the very celebration of cosmos

Ah me, for me
these meetings are tidings
worth waiting for,
and for much more?
 
 

Sangeeta Gupta, a highly  acclaimed artist, poet and film maker also served as a top bureaucrat as an IRS Officer,recently retired as chief commissioner of income tax. Presently working as Advisor (finance & administration) to Lalit Kala Akademi, National Akademi of visual arts. She has to her credit 34solo exhibitions , 20 books , 7 books translated , 7 documentary films.

A poet in her own right and an artist, Sangeeta Gupta started her artistic journey with intricate drawings. Her real calling was discovered in her abstracts in oils and acrylics on canvas. Her solo shows with Kumar Gallery launched her love for contour within the abyss of colour; the works seemed to stir both within and without and splash off the canvas.

Her tryst with art is born of her own meditative ruminations in time, the undulating blend of calligraphic and sculptonic entities are  realms that she has explored with aplomb. Images in abstraction that harkens the memory of Himalayan journeys and inspirations, the works speak of an artistic sojourn that continues in a mood of ruminations and reflections over the passage of time.

Sangeeta wields the brush with finesse, suggesting the viscosity of ink, the glossiness of lacquer, the mist of heights, the glow of the sun, and the inherent palette of rocks when wet. The canvases bespeak surfaces akin to skin, bark and the earth. 

Her first solo exhibition was at the Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata in 1995. Her 34 solo shows have been held all over India i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh and abroad at London, Berlin, Munich, Lahore, Belfast, Thessolinki. one of her exhibitions was inaugurated by the former President of India; Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam in August, 2013. Which was dedicated to Uttarakhand, fund raised through sale proceeds of the paintings is  used for creating a Fine Art Education grant for the students of Uttarakhand. She has participated in more than 200 group shows in India & abroad, in national exhibitions of Lalit Kala Akademi All India Fine Arts & Craft Society and in several art camps. Her painting are in the permanent collection of Bharat Bhavan Museum, Bhopal and museums in Belgium and Thessolinki .  Her works have been represented in India Art Fairs, New Delhi many times.

She has received 69th annual award for drawing in 1998 and 77th annual award for painting in 2005 by AIFACS, New Delhi and was also conferred Hindprabha award for Indian Women Achievers by Uttar Pradesh Mahila Manch in 1999, Udbhav Shikhar Samman 2012 by Udbhav for her achievements in the field of art and literature and was awarded "Vishwa Hindi Pracheta Alankaran" 2013 by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Saahitya Sammelan & Utkarsh Academy, Kanpur. She was bestowed with Women Achievers Award from Indian Council for UN relations.

She is a bilingual poet and has   anthologies of poems in  Hindi and English to her credit. Her poems are translated in many languages ie in Bangla, English and German, Dogri, Greek, urdu. Lekhak ka Samay, is a compilation of interviews of eminent women writers. Weaves of Time, Ekam, song of silence are collection of poems in English. Song of the Cosmos is her creative biography. Mussavir ka Khayal and Roshani ka safar are her books of poems and drawings/paintings.

She has directed, scripted and shot 7 documentary films. Her first film “Keshav Malik- A Look Back”, is a reflection on the life of the noted poet & art critic Keshav Malik. He was an Art Critic of Hindustan Times and Times of India. The film features, several eminent painters, poets, scholars and their views on his life. The film was screened in 2012, at Indian Council for Cultural Relations, , Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Sanskriti Kendra, Anandgram, New Delhi and at kala Ghora Art Festival, Mumbai 2013. Her other  documentaries “Keshav Malik – Root, Branch, Bloom” and “Keshav Malik- The Truth of Art” were screened by India International Centre and telecast on national television several times.

Widely travelled, lives and works in Delhi, India.

 

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THE DISABLED

Major Dr.Sumitra Mishra

 

The bus was running slow. It should have reached Puri by 7 p.m. but till then it had not even crossed Malatipatapura. Due to a punctured tyre, it was already late by two hours. It was pitch dark outside. Ranjana lowered the glass windows and looked out. It looked as if it would rain any time. She got worried whether she would get a rickshaw or auto-rickshaw in the rain after getting down from the bus. She would have to go alone. Ranjana was a maiden of twenty two years. She was sitting in the seat meant for three passengers. She was wearing a salwar suit and her dupatta was wound around her neck stylishly. Two men were sitting by her side. One was quite fat; could be an officer. The other one was a young man wearing spectacles; could be a college student. He was holding a polythene bag containing some papers, could be some certificates, which means he might have gone to attend some interview. He was sitting quite carefully so that Ranjana would not get disturbed. Ranjana was leaning on the window heavily trying to keep a distance from the boy. Anxious about facing some untoward situation, she was praying to Lord Jagannath for her safe arrival at home.

Suddenly the bus stopped. Could it be an animal which appeared on the road forcing the driver to apply the brake? The whole bus rocked. Ranjana’s body also oscillated on the impact. Her head dashed against the window and her body touched the young man’s. He asked, “Are you O.K, Madam?”

 

While Ranjana was thinking of a reply, she saw three wicked-looking persons entering into the bus. All of them appeared drunk. One of them rushed to the conductor and snatched his bag. Another man threatened in a loud voice,

“All of you keep quiet. If anyone protests, I will use my knife. Sit silently.”

He showed his sharp shining knife. All the passengers sat dumbfounded. 

?Another man was searching for somebody with his mobile torch. Was there any thief in the bus? Ranjana sat hiding her face in fear. After two or three minutes of searching that man pulled at a woman passenger who was sitting quietly in the rear bench.

He shouted at the woman, “Get down from the bus or you will see what I am going to do with you.”

All the passengers looked at that woman. She looked neither poor nor rich. She could be from the lower middle class. She was wearing a red georgette saree , pleated at the waist and chest. The border of the saree was pinned to her shoulder neatly. A red bindi was shining on her forehead. Her hair was tied with a clutch at the nape of her neck. She was holding her handbag resting on her lap. Who was this woman? What was her relation with the hooligans?

Another of the ruffians held her hand and pulled her. He addressed  his friend,

“Oye, Butu, what are you staring at? Lift her and carry her outside.”

Everybody in the bus felt shocked. The young man who was sitting at Ranjana’s side looked back and said,

“What is happening here? Why such forceful action on a woman? This is a civilized society. Such nuisance cannot be tolerated.”

One of the three miscreants came out and lashed a strong slap  on the cheek of that young man who fumbled and fell down on his seat. Another miscreant rushed to the bus conductor pointing the knife at him and said, “All of you keep quiet! No need to show us your civilized manners!!! This is our personal matter. Let that woman get down and then you may go on.”

Everyone inside the bus panicked. Two poor passengers who were sitting at the side of the targeted woman changed their seat out of fear. But the woman sat calmly in the back seat without being least affected by the noise. It seemed as if all this hooliganism was not intended towards her.

Ranjana stood up. She looked all around. Besides her that woman was the only other female passenger in the bus. Ranjana immediately gathered courage to face the situation. With strong confidence she tried to advance towards the front door of the bus crossing the young man who was slapped. The fat man sitting beside her shouted, 

“Hey, you sit down. Don’t dare to invite more danger!”

Ranjana did not care for his words. She limped  forward and shouted,

“All you men sit quiet like you are wearing bangles on your arms. How do you all tolerate such hooliganism when a woman is being tortured in front of you? Shame! Shame to your manhood!”

One of the miscreants pushed her hard from the back. He caught her by her hair and threatened, 

“Hey you! keep quiet, showing off your courage? Let’s see!” 

He tried to pull her cloth from her shoulder. Ranjana strongly gripped her cloth and kicked him with her left leg. The ruffian managed to keep standing while on the verge of falling down. He pulled Ranjana’s long braid of hair and abused her with foul words.

By that time the young man with black spectacles stood up and advanced towards the middle of the bus pushing the fat man back. He slapped the ruffian and got Ranjana's hair free from his grip. Other passengers accosted the hooligans. The fat man felt offended. He left his seat and went to the driver.

The entire bus echoed with noise. The passengers, the cleaner, and the conductor all closed around the ruffians.

One of the ruffians caught hold of the bag of the woman and  dragged her from the back seat. Abusing her, he shouted,

“Get down from the bus or I will put all these people into trouble.”

The woman was a bit shaken. She got up from her seat and pushed ahead to get down from the bus. At that time Ranjana caught her hand and said,

“Don’t be afraid! All of us are with you. Tell us what happened? Who are these hooligans? Why are they compelling you to go with them? We cannot leave you with these people in such darkness.”

The woman cried piteously and said, 

“I am an unfortunate woman. Why should all of you suffer because of me? Please allow me to go. I will follow my destiny. I wish you all a safe journey.”

Ranjana’s heart started beating furiously. She felt as if all her efforts of acquiring and instructing self-defense techniques would be futile if she allowed the helpless woman to be a prey to hooliganism.

Ranjana used her much practiced judo and karate skills used for self-defense in attacking the miscreants. All other passengers got inspired by her courage and ganged up against them. The fat officer who was sitting quietly near the driver could no more keep silent. He used his cellphone to call the police hoping that the patrolling police might be passing that way. But before the police arrived the passengers in the bus started attacking the hooligans using their shoes, fists, slaps. Butu, the head of the gang threatened the woman,

“You have escaped only for now. We  are getting down from the bus but don’t think I will leave you like this. I will follow the bus and see where you get down. I won’t leave you so easily.”

The miscreants got down from the bus and started their Honda motor cycle. The bus cleaner Chandu shut the door and tapped the door indicating to the driver to start the bus.

As the bus started the passengers returned to their seats. Ranjana looked at the young man who was sitting on her seat and had saved her from the attack by the hooligans. In darkness she had not marked that the glasses he was wearing were not normal glasses, but one meant for  blind people. She could not believe herself. It was surprising that while fifty to sixty strong and healthy passengers were sitting quietly watching the drama, only this blind young man had dared to protest. Yet for the society he is one of the ‘disabled’.

Ranjana requested the gentleman to go to the window side seat and requested the woman to sit near her. Then she addressed the said blind young man, “Thanks a lot young man. You are actually an eye opener to this blind society. Although God has withdrawn your physical eye sight you have been blessed with a divine vision. We are all so grateful to you for your courage in defending this lady.”

Ranjana stood up on her seat and addressed  the passengers,

“Can you believe that this young man who fought with the miscreants is a blind man? You are all strong and capable. But when we two women in this bus were heckled you kept mum, none of you dared to protest against those hooligans, because you cared for your own safety. But this blind young man could protest against injustice. In spite of getting slaps, he came forward to fight with them. That is why I request all of you to thank him and express gratitude to him with applause.”

Loud applause followed. Then Ranjana asked the blind man,

“Now please come over here and introduce yourself.”

The blind man hesitated. But the fat officer came forward from the driver’s place and held the young man’s hand. He addressed the passengers and in a confessional mood said,

“I am so sorry that I didn’t interfere when that woman was being manhandled. This young man and this young lady have opened our eyes. On behalf of all I thank them and I request you both to introduce yourself to us.”

Ranjana started her own introduction,

“I am Ranjana Agasti. I am a resident of Puri. My father Raghunath Agasti is a servitor in the Lord Jagannath temple. When I was a child, I suffered from polio. Because of that my right leg is not actively functioning. But I have never considered myself as a cripple. After graduaing from Puri Women’s College, I joined a self-defense training course, as I didn’t want to live as a parasite dependent upon my parents. Now I am teaching judo to young girls in a Women’s volunteer association in Bhubaneswar. I have got black belt in Judo. I am also skilled in Karate and Taekwondo. I have gathered courage to face any adverse situation because of these self-defense courses.”

Now Ranjana requested the young man to speak about himself. The young man removed the black spectacles from his eyes. Everybody saw two holes in the place of eyeballs inside his sunken eye lids. He faced the passengers and said,

“Now all of you can see this is my identity, a blind man. For your pompous and civilized society, I am a disabled person.”

Ranjana shouted,

“No no! You are not disabled. What you have done today, here, none of the so-called normal people could do. Now tell us about yourself.”

“My name is Saroj Behera. I don’t remember how and when in my childhood I lost my vision. My mother became my eyes. I have learnt everything through her guidance. I have qualified for M.A. Degree in Odia literature. I have acquired a degree in playing violin also. I have been the champion in the running race of the Asian Games meant for the blind. All this could happen because of my mother.”

One of the passengers asked, “Then what about your father? Has he not done anything for you?”

Perhaps the male ego of the passengers was punctured by the youngman’s praise for his mother.

Saroj humbly said, “Please excuse me. I know without the blessings of both the parents a child cannot prosper in life. But my father Biswambar Behera is a soldier in the Indian Army. From my childhood I have seen him working for our country using all his time and energy. He did not get enough time or opportunity to serve his own family. He used to come home once in a year on leave for one month. During that one month he remained engaged in clearing bank loans incurred in purchasing the house and other important financial transactions. Hence I was always with my mother. I didn’t know how  she managed  the expenditure on my food, studies, clothes, games and travel. She used to accompany me everywhere until I was twelve years old. Gradually she encouraged me to go alone and play. Instead of the blind school, I was admitted in a common school. I give all credit for my upbringing to my mother only.”

Ranjana intervened, “Saroj, did you go to attend an interview? I see some certificates in your bag.”

Saroj replied, “Yes madam, you are right. I actually had come to attend an interview for lecturership in a college in Bhubaneswar. It ended late, so I missed my bus ‘Chakadola’. By this time I should have reached my home. May be it was God’s will to be acquainted with you.”

The bus was running at high speed. The driver was determined to arrive at the destination as soon as possible. It was raining outside. They had crossed Malatipatapur and reached Batamangala. It was already ten o’clock at night. Some passengers were dozing. Ranjana requested Saroj to take his seat. Then she asked the harassed lady, “Where do you intend to go and how?”

The lady was already deeply moved listening to Saroj’s narration about his mother. She said emotionally,

“Who can take the place of a mother? As long as mother’s arms are around her child, she is safe. After getting separated from the mother, one has to face one’s destiny. I am an unlucky woman. I had to leave my house due to my husband’s aggressive behavior. I have no destination now. Only Lord Jagannath is my Saviour.”

Ranjana asked the lady’s name. She did not disclose her name. She said now that she was shelterless and helpless, she had no identity. She would follow the path wherever God would direct her! She said, “I think I can serve the Lord in any capacity and stay inside the campus of the temple.”

Ranjana felt hesitant, she said,

“It is already so late. The temple gates might be closed. Please come with me. This night you can spend in my home and in the morning you can go to the temple. It is not safe to go alone at night. Those goons might be following you.”

The lady said, “No. no, I don’t want to put you in trouble because of me. They must be already angry with you. First think of your own safety”.

Ranjana replied fearlessly, “I will inform the bus number and name to my father. He will come and escort us home. He is familiar with almost all in Puri town. Nobody will harm him. I know you have already faced a lot of hardship beyond your tolerance. Please tell me your difficulty, you will feel relaxed.”

The lady started narrating the sad story of her life.

“My name is Kalika. My village is Nachhipur. Because my mother gave birth to four daughters in a row, her in-laws drove her out of the house. My mother went to her father’s house with her daughters. Later with the help of her brother, she set up a vegetable vending cart in Bhadrakh town and started earning a livelihood by selling vegetables and reared us. My elder sister got married to a tailor. The second  sister who was a good singer got an offer to join an opera party. She was very beautiful. So the crafty son of the opera manager harassed and raped her; hence she left the opera party. When she realized that she was pregnant, she found no way to hide her shame, so she committed suicide. That evil man married me proposing that he would make me the heroine in the opera show. I spent two years in the opera playing minor roles. When I demanded to play the role of the heroine, he started torturing and beating me. Now he wants to use me to earn money by engaging me in sex with other young men. He is himself flirting with other girls, and is addicted to alcohol and drugs. As I understood his evil motives, I escaped from his house. But at Bhubaneswar bus stand, one of the men from the opera party saw me. He must have informed my husband, Butu.”

Ranjana became enraged listening to the sad story of exploitation and said, “So that man who was pulling your hand is your husband. Such people are the real disabled ones despite having all their limbs and intelligence intact. I wish these people to be crippled by God’s curse.”

Kalika kept quiet. She was anxious about her future which was so uncertain and of facing some untoward situation. Would she ever be free from that evil man? Would she get safety in the temple?

Ranjana could read her thoughts. She said,

“Kalika, please don’t worry. Now that  you have surrendered yourself to Lord Jagannath, He will  protect you. I know many philanthropic organizations which help  destitute women. According to your capability you will be given a job somewhere. But you have to fight with your wicked husband to be free from his clutches. Oh! Finally we have reached Puri bus stop.”

The passengers got down from the bus. The conductor who was sitting near the door and the cleaner Chandu thanked the passengers. All the passengers in return thanked both Ranjana and Saroj for handling the terrible situation inside the bus so bravely.

Ranjana saw two police men playing cards under the light post. She approached them and informed them about the wicked men’s hooliganism inside the bus. She requested them to get an auto-rickshaw for Saroj the blind man, because it was a dark night. When Saroj got into the vehicle Ranjana said to the policemen, “This young man is Saroj, the only gentleman in the bus who in spite of being blind dared to fight the goons to protect our honour. He has proved that disability is not a physical attribute but a mental state. Society doesn’t recognize their capabilities although they are otherwise abled, because a curtain of ego covers our eyes.”

At this time Ranjana’s father arrived. He heard about Saroj’s brave attempt to protect the women. He embraced Saroj and said, 

“My son, your parents are lucky to have a courageous son like you.I am obliged to you for helping my daughter. No doubt our society is crippled by blind judgments. Our own revered Lord Jagannath has no limbs, does that mean He is crippled? Whenever you get free time, please do visit us.”

An evanescent ray of a smile graced Saroj’s lips and his heart felt a joy never felt before!

 

Major Dr. Sumitra Mishra is a retired Professor of English who worked under the Government of Odisha and retired as the Principal, Government Women’s College, Sambalpur. She has also worked as an Associate N.C.C. Officer in the Girls’ Wing, N.C.C. But despite being a student, teacher ,scholar and supervisor of English literature, her love for her mother tongue Odia is boundless. A lover of literature, she started writing early in life and contributed poetry and stories to various anthologies in English and magazines in Odia. After retirement ,she has devoted herself more determinedly to reading and writing in Odia, her mother tongue.

A life member of the Odisha Lekhika Sansad and the Sub-editor of a magazine titled “Smruti Santwona” she has published works in both English and Odia language. Her  four collections of poetry in English, titled “The Soul of Fire”, “Penelope’s Web”, “Flames of Silence” and “Still the Stones Sing” are published by Authorspress, Delhi. She has also published eight books in Odia. Three poetry collections, “Udasa Godhuli”, “Mana Murchhana”, “Pritipuspa”, three short story collections , “Aahata Aparanha”, “Nishbda Bhaunri”, “Panata Kanire Akasha”, two full plays, “Pathaprante”, “Batyapare”.By the way her husband Professor Dr Gangadhar Mishra is also a retired Professor of English, who worked as the Director of Higher Education, Government of Odisha. He has authored some scholarly books on English literature and a novel in English titled “The Harvesters”.

 

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BETROTHED  (BARA)

Kabiratna Dr. Manorama Mahapatra

Translated by Sumitra Mishra

 

The man

Whose mind ripples with mercy

And whose heart is an ocean of love

The work horse

Who runs on the heels of equanimity

Generous and serene as a sage:

He is my bridegroom.

 

When the sound of his footsteps

Rang on the porch of my juvenile youth

It brought the happiest news for me

For he is the greatest blessing of my life.

 

He is my captain and friend

He is my lover too and boss,

The companion in the path of my life

He is

Also the driver of my life’s chariot.

How happily did he help me

In steadying my tumultuous feelings,

How calming was his hand on my shoulder!

The safest and trusted friend of my life,

He is

The protector of my new home and family.

 

Ever filled with spiritual fervor

He ; my betrothed;

Acquainted me

With the power of the Supreme.

The seeds of

Contemplation, conscience and confidence

He sprinkled

In my mind with his caring hands.

 

The holy chants of Divine faith

Did he teach me fondly

And made me realize

The Absolute truth of this universe

And the benevolence of the Supreme creator!

 

He is no other than my

Betrothed-my hubby-my husband!

 

Kabiratna Smt. Manorama Mohapatra is a renowned poet of Odisha who is revered as the ex-editor of the oldest Odia daily newspaper “Samaj”. She is a columnist, poet, playwright who has also contributed a lot to children’s literature in Odia. She has received several awards including the National Academy Award, Sarala Award and many more. Her works have been translated into English, Sanskrit and many Indian languages. Her works are replete with sparks of rebellion against dead rituals and blind beliefs against women. She is a highly respected social activist  and philanthropist.

 

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REASONING WITH PRIDE

Sharanya Bee

 

But drop me down so gently that I don't twist my ankles

or break my toe nails upon this hard ground so cold

 I don't remember the feel anymore,

The soles of my feet bereft of their warmth too

Although I must admit, a few steps up in the air was a good place to be in.

Almost too good. Quite addictive I could've made that my abode.

People seem most interesting when viewed from above,

Now they're used to seeing me from below,

I need raised heads.

Only now, why did you have to let me down,

You say your arms grew tired of holding me up so high for so long

but we both know you're stronger than that.

Oh dear pride, why do we have to part ways so soon?

I won't take this betrayal, please continue your act of holding me against this gravity.

I won't survive the fall,

I am too used to this superiority.

Please don't let them people know that our relationship ended so quickly.

 

Sharanya Bee, is a young poet from Trivandrum, who is presently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature in Kerala University. She also has a professional background of working as a Creative Intern in Advertising. She is passionate about Drawing and Creative Writing.

 

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THE LAST TRAIN TO EARTH 
Ananya Priyadarshini

 

“Bella”

“……..”

“Bella, Honey you awake?”

I woke up this time. My mom's voice had grown too faint to wake me up. It was the husband of the lady admitted next to Mom who dropped something that awakened me. I threw a panicky glance at him finding him already apologetic and rushed to Mom.

“Yes… Mom… I’m… I'm here only. Do you need something?”, I entangled my fingers in hers and started stroking her hair with another hand.

“Go to sleep or you'll fall ill. You've been running throughout the day”, she gave in all the efforts she could to speak up. 

“Yes, Mom. Don't worry I'll be fine”, I tried to detangle my fingers to wipe out a tear that had welled up in my eyes. I didn't want her to see this. But she held on to my hand, refusing to let it go. Drops from my eyes fell onto the linen of her bed. She saw it. She smiled. 

“Bella, don't hide your tears. If you feel like it, cry it out. It's okay. Don't let it freeze in your heart and weigh you down.” I nodded as she caught her breath. She was deteriorating. She fell sick, I learned. She was hospitalized, I watched. She stopped moving around, then stopped sitting upright, she gave up food, I kept watching. As she confined herself to this particular bed of this cheap hospital, I did nothing. I didn't have the resources to buy her some more breaths.

Having lost her husband (and my father) when I was just four to an unfortunate road accident, she'd brought me up single handedly. I remember hiding in baskets of her room in a women's hostel that didn't allow kids. I remember shivering on streets and then, sitting on a broken stool of a café where she worked as a waitress. When she made enough, she chose to enroll me in a pioneer University than buying a house of her own. Now, I haven’t started to earn and don't even own a house to sell so as to afford for the health care she needs. 

“Bella”, she had had enough of oxygen meanwhile to continue talking.

I didn't answer but clutch her palm a little tighter.

“Apply for scholarship. Be wise with the savings. Don't stop singing, Honey. And take care.”

“Why don't you sleep, Mom? Doctor says you need rest. We can talk when you wake up tomorrow.”

She grinned. 

“I won't wake up. Honey, life is beautiful.”

“What, Mom… hey!”

The thin outcast of bones that she'd been transformed into, had never got up from sleeping position since months. Doctors said she had stopped responding to drugs. And that, she'll die. But look, she has woken up! And was standing right before me! But she didn't look at me and started walking away.

“Mom, where are you….”, my voice was muffled in a sharp blow of train whistle. A train? Yes, a train! In the hospital. The train stopped next to my mom's bed, a door opened and she began to walk in.

“Mom!” I screamed again but she didn't seem to care. I suddenly recalled she always had motion sickness. I didn't know where was the train headed to. I just jumped in before the doors could close. 

But where was Mom? She was nowhere to be seen. I started looking for her like a maniac, just like she was looking for me in a fair where my hands had accidentally slipped from her clutch amidst the crowd. 
“Mom… MOM!”, I was shouting and surfing through the passengers who didn't or rather, couldn't hear me. I was shocked to see the woman admitted next to Mom sitting on one of the seats. She had suffered an abortion and doctors said she was critical after losing a lot of blood. I didn't have time to pay more attention to her. I kept moving ahead. I was passing those gloomy, filled up yet terribly silent compartments looking for Mom when the train jolted and I bumped into the husband of the same lady I had seen a little ago. What was he doing here? 

He too had the same question but none of us had seconds to lose as the train had begun slowing down. We proceeded in opposite directions. As the train stopped, I jumped out into the platform- painted in grey. Even the air was ashy. Mom! I saw Mom in her blue hospital gown. She was walking faster than ever. Or maybe, she was floating.

“Mom”, I shouted at the top of my voice. She didn't stop. I started running, unsure what's beneath my feet. 
“Mom”, the faster I ran, the farther she got.

“Mom”, I shouted and broke down as I fumbled and fell onto the ground only to realize that there was no ground. I was struggling to figure out what was it that I had been running on when I heard my mom's strict voice.

“Get up.” I extended my arms hoping she'd hold them and help me stand up. But she kept on glaring at me. I got up. I wasn’t hurt.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a very familiar tone. I remembered being caught stealing candies from kitchen in the middle of night. I smiled. She didn't.

“Go back”, she commanded. 

“Back to where? And what's this place? Why have you come here?”, I was so disoriented. 

“You don't follow me till here. Nobody does. Go back and you'll get to come here when it's time.”

“Okay. Let's go back”, I moved forward to hold her hand. She stepped back.

“I've to go ahead. You've to return.”

“Why?”

“Because that's how it's meant to be!”

“Mom stop puzzling me! Either you're coming with me or I'm going with you. I’ve never lived without you, Mom. I can't go back without you. What will I do back there? Alone?”
 
“You won't be alone. You'll find someone. Soon”

“Who’ll leave me someday, just like you. Isn't it?”

A steep whistle disturbed our conversation. The train that had brought us here was all set to leave for Earth again. 

“Go!”, Mom shouted.

“No”, I shouted back. “I'm tired, Mom. Tired of loving and losing people. Tired of being alone, of struggles. Of all the pain. I'm afraid to live, Mom. I can't imagine a life without you.”, I wailed like a baby.

“What if I tell you how’d be life without me?”, she smiled for the first time in this strange place.

She drew a screen before my eyes. I saw myself going back to the university, applying for scholarship but being denied the same, then staying on streets for a few days, starting to sing in pubs for a living, graduating, staying in a hostel, getting a job, getting married (to the husband of the same lady who had suffered an abortion!), my husband being shot dead. I looked at my mom, dreaded. To live again, love again and lose again? Again? 

She said 'keep watching’ with a nod.

In the screen, I was lying on the bed of a posh hospital. Sick, few moments away from death. A handsome young man sitting beside me. My son. I see myself holding his hand and say to him, “Honey, life is beautiful!”

The screen vanished as the train whistled for the second time. 

“I suffer everything I’m afraid of and yet say 'life is beautiful’. Why so, Mom?”

“Because Honey, you endure it all and you’re proud that you did. And that's why you've to go back and live again. You suffer, fail, cry, stay alone, love people, lose them, watch your worst fears come true, your dreams shatter and still live on for the one day you'll be able to say 'life is beautiful’ for you've withstood them all. It's worth it, trust me!”

“Where are you going now?”, I asked as we both now knew that I had to return.

“I'll find out!”, she said and turned back without bidding a goodbye. I heard the third and the last whistle. I ran towards the train that had started to move. As I ran parallel to it, almost gasping and skeptical if I’d be able to get in, I saw a hand emerging from its doors and offering me help. I caught it and got pulled in. It was the same lady's husband.

“It was supposed to be our first child. Mary suffered an abortion. She's dead”, he said. 

“Mom died too.” He nodded in an 'I know’ gesture.

We didn't speak a lot till the train stopped with a violent jerk. 

I woke up. I’d rested my head on Mom's bed all this while. My hand still in hers that had begun to get stiff and cold. I freed mine and proceeded to call the doctor who was declaring Mary dead.

“Doctor, my mother died too.”

The doctor looked at me, shocked. So did the nurse. But Mary’s husband wasn't astonished at all.

 

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.

 

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THE CROW IN BLACK COAT 

Dr. Aniamma Joseph

 

I’m a crow in black coat

Black, but glossy

I was a companion to kids

They loved me lot 

When I crowed, they jumped for joy

I might’ve snatched a morsel of food 

But they didn’t mind; they had enough!

Isn't it said, if you have two, give one to the other?

Only the grown-ups were angry

But, lo…  kids don’t come out of their houses

To see me in the backyard now!

I may cry my hoarse cry

You may be irritated

I can’t sing in a melodious voice

‘Coz, I have none

They say that songs are written on me

What use? I can’t read!

 

When they set the grains on the mat for drying

I might ‘strut’ near to take a mouthful

But, the grown-ups would shoo me away

What would they lose if I pecked a few grains?

They had plenty; they could spare a little for me!

 

 

See, how I keep your environment clean

By eating all the waste you dump

I keep it clean and tidy

Free from pollution

 

You make fun of me for tying

The peacock feathers to my tail

Yes, I wanted to be a peacock

People laughed at my pitch blackness

I wanted to sing like a koel

I wanted to dance like the peacock 

It was my dream; don’t you dream?

Do not say, I’m an ‘upstart’!

 

You see me as an ugly bird

As the meanest of the meanest

And the lowliest of the lowliest

It was not my choice

I’ve asked God, why He created me in this form

He said in my dream, “Wait patiently! 

One day I’ll explain everything

There’s a reason for everything

One should play one’s role well

You will get the reward that suits your labour

You serve my humans best

You keep my earth pure and clean

I’ll transform you into an angel

You will be rewarded amply.

You remember what you did for my prophet Elijah*

You obeyed me; It’s written in letters of gold

In my book of Memory. Be contented!”

Yes, my Lord! I’m contented

I know what I did for the prophet as you commanded

He had run away in fear of Isabel and Ahab

He was hiding himself by the Brook Cherith*

I took him bread and meat every morning

I took him bread and meat every evening

Oh…just to see the glow in his eyes

To see the glee in his face!

He drank from the brook

Ah me, the ugly, mean creature…

Was raised to a glorious state when

I flew on this mission of the Lord!

 

• I Kings 17:6 in The Bible

 

Aniamma Joseph is a bilingual writer. She writes short stories, poems, articles, plays etc. in English and Malayalam.  She started writing in her school classes, continued with College Magazines, Dailies and a few magazines. She has written and published two novels in Malayalam Ee Thuruthil Njan Thaniye—1985 and 2018 and Ardhavrutham--1996; one book of essays in Malayalam Sthree Chintakal: Vykthi, Kudumbam, Samuham--2016; a Non-fiction (translation in English) Winning Lessons from Failures(to be published); a Novel (translation in English )Seven Nights of Panchali(2019); a book of poems in English(Hailstones in My Palms--2019).

In 1985, she won Kesari Award from a leading Publisher DC Books, Kottayam for her first novel Ee Thuruthil Njan Thaniye. She worked in the departments of English in Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta; B.K.College Amalagiri, Kottayam  and Girideepam Institute of Advanced Learning, Vadavathoor, Kottayam . Retired as Reader and Head of the Department of English from B.K.College. She obtained her PhD from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala in American Literature. She presented a paper at Lincoln University, Nebraska in USA in 2005.

She is the Founder President of Aksharasthree: The Literary Woman, a literary organisation for women and girls interested in Malayalam and English Literature, based at Kottayam, Kerala. It was her dream child and the Association has published 28 books of the members.

 

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MEMORIES THAT RODE ON A MORNING BREEZE.. 

Dr. Molly Joseph M

 

they draw dancing 

          pictures on 

ground...

      shifting shades

and shapes..

 

in this very yard

            so many

tiny feet 

           toddled once, 

played hide

              and seek

and later

     on strong feet

they set out

       to explore

the world..

 

the wide 

             valleys

they

         traversed

threw back

        in echo

their firm

       footsteps..

 

now, 

the green 

       lawn stretches

lying in wait..

 

the sprawling 

      Champa tree

spreads 

          red carpet...

 

its all 

      a repeat

the cycle

              of life..

 

 

memory 

         trembles

a naked branch

          before

the winter 

              wind....

 

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).

 

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THE SMOKELESS GUN

Ishwar Pati

 

          The evening news was telling about an armed robbery on the highway. Robbers brandishing guns had placed tree trunks on the road and stopped a VIP car. Then they overpowered the armed guard and decamped with a black briefcase. The attaché case reportedly contained cash of ‘unestimated’ value. The police were clueless about their identity. 

          “As usual,” I let out a sigh. “Law and order have gone to the dogs!”

“What’s the world coming to,” my aged father commented from his corner arm chair, “when even highways are not safe?”

          “I am sure you miss your good old peaceful days. Don’t you, Dad?”

          “Of course it was peaceful,” he grinned. “Relatively speaking, of course. We too had our share of thugs.”

          “Really?”

          “We had to lock the doors and windows, you know. And take care when moving around at night. Which reminds me of an incident before you were born. Your mother and I were returning by train from her father’s village. Our village was about three miles from the station. Nimai received us with two bullock carts, one for us and one to carry all the things your grandfather had given his daughter. He had also gifted her fifteen tolas of gold ornaments. After loading the carts we set off just before dusk, with Nimai following us in the second cart.

          “We had to pass between two hills identical in height, colour and contour. From the road on either direction they looked the same, whether one was going to the station or coming back to the village. I was engrossed in talking with your mother when I looked up at the hills in the fading twilight. For a moment I was confused as to whether we were going to catch a train. Your mother sensed my bewilderment and gently nudged me, ‘Have you lost your senses?’ She never lost hers, bless her soul!” He was suddenly lost in thought of my mother.

          “So?” I prompted him.

          “Oh!” he reacted. “You see, it was all right to make a fool of myself before your mother. But in the presence of the cart driver Parsu!” He shook his head, trying to shake off Parsu’s loud laughter pursuing him through the years.

          “Please, Dad!” I was impatient for him to get going with his story.

          “Suddenly Parsu stopped the cart. I asked him curtly, ‘Now what?’ He ‘shhed’ me to be quiet. ‘There are some men ahead blocking the road,’ he whispered, ‘May be dacoits. There have been incidents of hold-ups.’ I thought of the fifteen tolas of gold and my heart froze. Your mother, bless her soul, squeezed my arm. Why did she have to wear all that gold? Why didn’t we come by the morning train? Why didn’t anyone tell me of the hold-ups? Why didn’t I have a gun…

          “It was then a brainwave struck me. Mustering all my courage, I took a deep breath and shouted at the top of my voice to Nimai in the second cart, ‘Arre o, Nimai, where’s my gun?’ And you know what Nimai did? He too shouted back, ‘It is here, Chhota Babu, under the straw. Shall I take it out?’ Before I could reply, Parsu gestured that the road had been cleared!” 

“You have some nerve, Dad!” I remarked. He beamed from ear to ear.

“That Nimai... our Nimai, was no fool,” he said. “Clever indeed to catch on to my ruse so fast.”

          “Well, you can no longer fool armed dacoits that way now,” I pointed out. “But, honestly Dad, I can’t believe you ever possessed such brilliant presence of mind!”

          “What do you mean?” He snapped at me. “So what if it was your mother’s idea? It was my drama that saved the day, wasn’t it?” And his armchair shook with the mirth of his toothless chuckle.

 

Ishwar Pati - After completing his M.A. in Economics from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, standing First Class First with record marks, he moved into a career in the State Bank of India in 1971. For more than 37 years he served the Bank at various places, including at London, before retiring as Dy General Manager in 2008. Although his first story appeared in Imprint in 1976, his literary contribution has mainly been to newspapers like The Times of India, The Statesman and The New Indian Express as ‘middles’ since 2001. He says he gets a glow of satisfaction when his articles make the readers smile or move them to tears.

 

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ALBERT

Prof. Latha Prem Sakhya

Albert was just seven years old. Kanaka met him at her mother's place. He was dark and good looking with  sparkling, smiling eyes. A  look at his face would etch him deep into  anyone's heart. Kanaka fell for him the first day itself and talked of him as the boy with smiling eyes.  His grandmother had brought him to Kanaka's mother to be taught. He had come down to be with his maternal grandparents as chicken pox was raging in his house, in the remote village. So he couldn't  attend school.

Amma immediately took him under her wing, teaching him lessons from his text book and also songs and stories. She forgot her aches and pains when Albert was there. At 83, partially on the bed the whole day, due to osteoporosis, Amma was starved for company after the children and her son and daughter in law left home in the morning.  Now, they were like two small children. He shared all his stories with her when they took a break. Kanaka was relieved  to see Amma happy and sparkling those days. Amma surprised her one day "Look mone, see what Albert gave me today as he was leaving".She handed Kanaka a rolled-up bit of paper. Kanaka' s eyes brimmed with tears  as she read. " I love my teacher"; beneath it, he had signed- Albert. Next to it, he had drawn a  flower and written -  rose flower. He never knew that his beloved teacher's name was also Flower. Amma was truly overwhelmed. She had been teaching from the age of 15 but none of her students had written such a loving declaration of their love for her. Yes, she felt she was indeed a blessed soul to get so much of innocent love from a seven year old.

 

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 

 

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SLIPPERY SLOPE

Hema Ravi

For survival, endlessly the fight
blessed with hindsight and 'sight'
amidst the challenges of life:
Tsunami, “Vardahs”, oil spills….not necessarily of midlife.

Life ne’er a bed of roses
Day after day a new challenge poses.
Contaminated Fish! for them doom
even as inflation’s at a zoom.

With bodies covered in oil
wading through the sludge to toil-
Miles to go ere the Sun rises
Fisher Folk ne’er say die even during crises.

 

Photo Courtesy: N. Ravi
 

Hema Ravi is a freelance trainer for IELTS and Communicative English.  Her poetic publications include haiku, tanka, free verse and metrical verses.  Her write ups have been published in the Hindu, New Indian Express, Femina, Woman's Era,  and several online and print journals; a few haiku and form poems have been prize winners.  She is a permanent contributor to the 'Destine Literare' (Canada).  She is the author of ‘Everyday English,’ ‘Write Right Handwriting Series1,2,3,’ co-author of  Sing Along Indian Rhymes’ and ‘Everyday Hindi.’  Her "Everyday English with Hema," a series of English lessons are  broadcast by the Kalpakkam Community Radio.

 

Ravi N is a Retired IT Professional (CMC Limted/Tata Consultancy Services ,Chennai). During his professional career spanning 35 odd years he had handled IT Projects of national Importance like Indian Railways Passenger Reservation system, Finger Print Criminal Tracking System (Chennai Police),IT Infrastructure Manangement for Nationalized Banks etc.  Post retirement in December 2015, he has been spending time pursuing interests close to his heart-Indian Culture and Spirituality, listening to Indian and Western Classical Music, besides taking up Photography as a hobby.  He revels in nature walks, bird watching and nature photography.
He loves to share his knowledge and experience with others.

 

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RAINBOW

Sheena Rath

 

Mama, let me be the way I am

I shall always be your fan

Please just give me my space

And I will pamper you with grace

I may not be verbal, or sometimes

But I comprehend all most times

I too take pleasure in the smallest of things Like a glass of lemonade

drink I'm always tormented by sensory issues Don't worry, stay calm,

dab your tears with a tissue.

I may not sleep well every night

Leaving you in a space of fright

But do hold my hand tight

Am sure other days would be bright

As we embark on our next flight

A family time in unison

On a voyage, fulfilling our dreams, taking a breather You, Me,

Father..... Altogether.

 

***** Autism is a brain disorder, a developmental disorder, that impairs social and communication skills, a lifelong disorder. There is no cure for autism. All that our children need is Love, Acceptance and Inclusion.

 

Sheena Rath is a post graduate in Spanish Language from Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, later on a Scholarship went for higher studies to the University of Valladolid Spain. A mother of an Autistic boy, ran a Special School by the name La Casa for 11 years for Autistic and underprivileged children. La Casa now is an outreach centre for social causes(special children, underprivileged children and families, women's health and hygiene,  cancer patients, save environment)  and charity work. 

Sheena has received 2 Awards for her work with Autistic children on Teachers Day. An Artist, a writer, a social worker, a linguist and a singer (not by profession). 

 

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A LITTLE  BLUNDER  COSTS  MUCH

Dr (Major) B C Nayak

 

Had Daksha behaved

With his son- in- law Shiva

in a befitting manner,

 and invited Him

to Ashwamedh(horse sacrifice)

The universe would have been

Disease free.

 

All the Gods but Vaidyanath

 were invited to the occasion,

Daksha’s daughter, Sati

Taunted her husband.

Angered  Mahadev with all his forces

attacked the sacrificial altar,

started chasing the horse.

 

During the chase,

a drop of sweat fell from his forehead

 and hit the ground,

turning into a short, red-eyed man

named Disease (Fever, in some versions).

 

The other gods relented,

 allowing Shiva to join  the sacrifice,

 provided he divided  his new creation.

Shiva agreed,

dividing Disease into several different categories,

 creating different illnesses for different creatures.

 

He would have to

provide panacea,

Turned Vaidyanatha,

healer of all.

 

Dhanvantari ,an incarnation of Vishnu,

arose from the Ocean of Milk

with the nectar of immortality.

Physician of gods.

 

 

Ashvins, twin doctors of the gods,

Nasatya the elder

and Dasra the younger ,

 being the god of health

and the god of medicine respectively.

 

These days Dhanvntharis, Aswins are

far advanced,

gone digital in every field of medicine,

just cms away

from creating “humans” !!!

 

Notes:  Daksha was the father-in-law of Shiva .Daksha  arranged Aswamedha(horse sacrifice)  invited all Gods  but  Shiva to grace the occasion .Sati, Shiva’s wife taunted him and provoked him. Angered, Mahadev attacked Daksha’s sacrifice chasing the horse.

During the chase, a drop of sweat fell from his forehead and hit the ground, turning into a short, red-eyed man named Disease (Fever, in some other versions). The other gods relented, allowing Shiva to join  the sacrifice, provided he divided his new creation. Shiva agreed, dividing Disease into several  categories , creating different illnesses for different creatures.

 

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

 

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DEVOTEE

Aboo  Jumaila
Translated by Geetha Nair.
 

Grant your love to a devotee;
Then, neither You nor  He will have meaning-
There will only be
Idol  and Worshipper.

He will adore you unendingly,
He will light holy  lamps for you;
Burn camphor on his palm;
Adorn your feet with  sacred -leaf offerings;
Not once will he utter your name
Out of reverence for you.

He will not sully you
With even a touch of his finger-tip.
And he will  never flee from you, coward-like.
Neither, like a rationalist, will he subject your heart to questioning;
Nor, like  an atheist, ever deny your essential being.

With folded palms he will wait at a distance.

Meanwhile, he may marry;
Generations may branch away.

Yet even though wrinkles and grey reach high tide,
He will be ever-present
With clasped hands
To heed  your divine footfalls.

Until your flaming pyre is quenched
In the rain of his tears,
He will remain there;
Steadfast.
 

Aboo Jumaila is an upcoming and prolific writer in Malayalam. She is a bank employee from Alapuzha,  Kerala.
 

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THE WORKING  OF MINDS

Sakuntala Narasimhan

 

Maya put down her book and moved to the window seat to watch the sunset. Four more months, the doctor had said. Six, at the most. When she heard the diagnosis, she had been shocked at first, then  resentful before finally coming to terms with the knowledge of her nearing end. No, she was not sorry for herself. But it perturbed her how little Madhu would manage when she was gone.

Madhu was seven, the only child born eight years after she and Sunil were married. He was the apple of her eye and was in turn exceedingly fond of his mother. So fond that if a friend gave him two sweets at school, he would not only save one for her but desist from consuming his own share till he had offered her the other piece and watched the pleasure in her face.

How upset he had been, she remembered, when she had left him with his grandparents for three days the previous summer when she had gone into hospital for a minor operation ! By the time Sunil took her home on the fourth day, the boy was down with fever and had kept muttering all through the night. “Ma, don’t go away again, ever. Promise you won’t leave me again…”

How would Madhu live without her when she was gone? How could she prepare the child to face the tragedy? ’I have to do something’, she thought   with urgent despair, ‘or the child would never recover from the shock of my going away’.

She   moved out to the  front veranda to watch the children playing on the neighbour’s lawn, and immediately Madhu broke away from the group and came running towards her.

“Ma, look at…” he began when suddenly he stumbled on a pebble, his arm brushed against a rose bush and he began whimpering. By the time he reached her he was sobbing and holding out his finger pathetically. She could see that he was not hurt at all – just a little prick from a thorn. Yet she gathered him in her arms. “There, there, it’s only a teeny weeny prick, daring,” she said soothingly, “and  mummy’s kiss is going to make it all right. There now, isn’t the pain already gone?” He quietened swiftly and already there was a smile playing on his lips and joy on his face.

“That’s my boy. Let’s go in, I’ll give you dinner.”

“piggyback.”

“Look darling, you’re growing and I  can’t lift you,” she protested, and yet she let him ride on her back. How much longer, she thought, could he ask her for piggyback rides?

She put a plate of rice and vegetables before Madhu. Wordlessly he ran to the kitchen and returned with a spoon which he held out to her with an impish smile.

“You lazy boy,” she said, ”when will you learn to feed yourself?”

“But ma, it tastes sweeter if you put the food in my mouth.”

You clever flatterer, she thought with loving pride, you certainly know how to get things done. Where does he learn to say these things? “All right come here,” she acquiesced. She could spoil him, for a short while more…

In the middle of the night, as she lay tossing, watching Sunil asleep and  trying to picture his life without her, the thought suddenly occurred to her: supposing Sunil married again?

The idea sent a stab of pain though her, but the next moment she knew it was absurd to be jealous. Of course, he ought to remarry. He was only 36, and there was Madhu to be brought up.

She heard the bedroom door open and saw Madhu walk in. This was almost a daily occurrence. Madhu still had not got used to sleeping alone and slipped back to snuggle beside his parents whenever he woke up at night. ‘Where is the harm’, Maya had thought,’ he’ll grow out of it gradually.’  But that night as she moved to make space for Madhu, a whole chain of  thoughts flashed through her mind.

 If Sunil remarried, would Madhu be able to climb back into  his father’s bed in the  middle of the night ? Would the stepmother spoon-feed him? Would she indulge his craving for attention and give him sympathy when he cried over little scratches and pricks? Suddenly she saw Madhu as a helpless, inept and pampered, almost spoilt child, and it filled her with dread. A step-mother need not be a monster, and yet, she thought, even an angel could not be expected to mollycoddle a child beyond his years.

If Madhu expected from his step-mother the same attention that his mother had given him  and found the former wanting in comparison, he would not only nurse a grudge against the step-mother but also pine more intensely for his mother who used to dote on him. And even if Sunil did not marry, she reasoned, wouldn’t Madhu find life a little less difficult if she taught him at least to look after himself? In a way, wasn’t she harming the child with excessive affection and wouldn’t it ensure his happiness in the future if she tried to make him efficient and capable?

She must start now. This minute, she thought, for there was not  much  time, less than four months in which to carry out her resolve.

All this she thought and decided in the few moments that it took Madhu to climb over the edge of the bed and move towards the middle. She pushed him out.

“No Madhu, you’re old enough to sleep in your own bed. Go back to your room. Quick.” In her effort to sound firm, the words came out harsher than she had intended.

If she had slapped the boy, he could not have looked more pained. There was fear, bewilderment and hurt all crowding his sleepy face as he stood incredulous and  hesitant before climbing up once again beside her.Surely she did not mean it seriously?

“Madhu,” she said sharply,” didn’t you hear? Back you go.” She dragged him resolutely out of the room and shut him in his room.

He was crying pathetically and she was sorely tempted to let him have his way, but despair and worry seemed to harden her soft heart. Moreover, time was running out.

“Put away your toys, Madhu, your lunch is waiting” she said the next afternoon. Five  minutes later Madhu was still playing and when he finally came in to eat, his toys were strewn all over his room. Automatically she bent down to pick up the toys before she remembered.

“Madhu, I said put away your toys,” she repeated. It came out as a shout and he stared at her disconcertingly before meekly tidying up the room.

“Now eat this.” For a split second he hesitated, staring at her imploringly before he began eating silently. She sighed with relief. Thank God he was not protesting. That made her feel less guilty about her sudden change in behavior.

He remembered that this was the day she had promised to take him to the bazar to buy him the bicycle he had been asking for. He wanted to remind her, but he could see that something was wrong – he had never seen her so testy, and he was bewildered and frightened. Diffidently he began, “Ma, remember,  we are going this evening to buy my bicycle ? You promised.”

Yes, she had promised but the money for it was to come from the amount Sunil had set aside for a wristwatch for himself which he needed badly. “Your watch can wait, you’ve been without one for two months now, two  more won’t matter,” she had said to Sunil. Now she wondered. Wouldn’t  Madhu turn selfish and impervious to the needs of others with such doting? He had to learn that he could not always have everything he wanted.

“Not now Madhu, next month perhaps,” she said brusquely, trying to avoid the wounded look in his face. It was imperative that Madhu and his step-mother should like each other. To that end, she reasoned, she had to prepare Madhu – first by destroying his belief that ‘mother’ was one who always made much of him, and with whom he could always have his way, and secondly, by drilling into Madhu an impeccable behavior so that the step-mother in turn could not find fault with him.

She was busy in the kitchen when Madhu came in again.

“Ma, tie up my shoe laces.” Involuntarily she bent, but immediately straightened up again.

“You must learn to do it yourself. Come on, try. I am busy cooking.”

He fumbled with the laces impatiently and declared, “I can’t. Hurry up ma.”

“You can’t ? You won’t try?” she flared up. “I’m not going to do it for you. You must learn.”

“Here, I’ll do it for you. Come on,” offered Sunil.

“No,” she cut in. “He must learn. Watch me do it.” She pulled the knot open again. “Now you try.”

His eyes were like deep limpid pools, the tears ready to spill, and she herself was near crying, but she thought of the future, and firmly closed her mind to the pleadings of her heart and the child’s misery.

In less than a month he was managing all his needs himself. He had also grown aloof and   withdrawn – he no longer came whimpering to her seeking the protective folds of maternal concern and sympathy when he was hurt, nor did he throw his arms round her neck with shrieks of delight as before, every evening when he returned from school.

She was dismayed, but this too, she consoled herself, was good in a way, for to that extent her passing away would be less unbearable to him. She was filled with the contentment of a job completed. Madhu would not be helpless when she was gone, and if Sunil married, Madhu and his step mother  were bound to like each other.

Three months later she could not get up from her bed one morning, and the end came swiftly a week later. It was Sunil who broke down uncontrollably, and Madhu who maintained a dignified calm, going about his routine with complete control over himself.

Sunil’s  mother managed the household, and eighteen months later the subject of his remarriage was brought up. Sunil protested at first but when he heard of Dipti, he consented. She was a distant cousin and he had known her from childhood. He knew immediately that Dipti with her patient, cheerful and  gentle ways would be the nearest substitute for Maya, and that with her Madhu could not but be happy.

“You’re going to have a new mother,” Madhu was told.

Mother? He thought – a woman who could turn sour and irritable so inexplicably and suddenly, who promised him things and then  refused to keep her promise, who shut him up in a room by  himself one dark night so unreasonably  when she had allowed him to sleep with her for months before without protesting?

Once upon a time, he remembered mistily, he had an adorable, oh-so-sweet  mother, but the suddenness of her transformation into an exacting and impatient disciplinarian  had erased the previous image out of his mind and in its place left the turbulent image of the mother he had known in her last months. A forbidding enigma, that was ‘mother’. And now he was getting another ‘mother’ in her place . He decided he disliked and dreaded mothers  intensely.

“I hate her,” he  burst out savagely, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “I hate her. I don’t want any  mother…”

(This story appeared originally in Caravan magazine , issue dated December 1968)

 

Sakuntala Narasimhan  has won prestigious  awards in journalism, classical music and consumer activism, all at the national level.

She has two doctorates – one in women’s studies and another in musicology. She has taught music, journalism, women’s studies, and economics  at the post –graduate level, at Bombay and Bangalore university, and also in the US on a Fulbright fellowship.

She has presented papers at international conferences on media, music and  feminist studies, at Boston, Oxford, Norway, Pakistan,  Nairobi, Kampala (Uganda) the Philippines, Barbados, Bali, Bangkok, Sydney  and Nepal.

She reported on the  U.N. Global  Conference on Women in Beijing (China) for the Deccan Herald  in 1995, and on the UN general assembly session at New York in 2000. She was also one of four Indian journalists  selected to attend and write about the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2002.

She received the Chamelidevi award of the Media Foundation for Outstanding Woman Journalist, and the PUCL national award for Human Rights journalism for her investigative lead stories. Her fortnightly columns, on gender issues and consumers’ rights. ran in the Deccan Herald for 27 years till 2009 and won her many awards. One of the first short stories she wrote won the first prize in a national fiction contest organized by the Times of India group in 1968. The Karnataka government conferred on her its prestigious Rajyotsava award  of Rs one lakh, for her multiple achievements, in 2016.

She has published  around 3,800 articles and authored 11 books, on consumer rights, music and feminist issues. Her writings have been translated into Russian, German, Swedish, Japanese, Hindi, Tamil , Malayalam , Kannada and Telugu. 

She has translated and published stories  by leading Tamil writers like Sivasankari and Rajam Krishnan, besides trsnlating famous writer Sujatha's science fiction from Tamil to English, for serialisation in Science Today

She has been interviewed on radio and television in five languages – English, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. She turned to journalism when she lost her singing voice for nine years during the 1960s, and has  subsequently continued  her involvement in both disciplines, as performer and teacher. As consumer activist, she was Vice President of the Consumer Guidance Society of India (Mumbai) during Justice Lentin’s tenure as President, and received the government of India national award for consumer protection twice, in 1994 and 2000. Her short stories have been published as a collection titled Lucky Days (Writers Workshop. Kolkata).

 

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TO KAMALA SURAIYYA

Sulochana RamMohan.

 

She sits

proud as a peacock

preening its glorious feathers,

a divine gift showered on the privileged.

Bedecked in an Arabian Queen’s

cumbersome attire

adorned with heavy jewellery

she smiles enigmatically

the mystic allures of Oriental culture

once hidden in a thousand stories

concocted by exotic feminine fancy to save life

narrated every night to perceive new dawns

now  reflect in her eyes

as she winks coquettishly,

confusing the young interviewer beside her.

She is openly joyous

lisping in her trademark naiveté

sense and nonsense, fact and fiction,

all intertwined into long strands of alien flowers,

blue, green, brown, black,

She cares not that they do not exist

For her,

Existence in itself is a mere myth,

Retold a thousand times,

it is established as

the only version, the ultimate truth.

Whorls and curls of unwritten words,

Unexplored worlds,

create intricate networks of conspiracy,

she gets lost in the web she herself spins

and straying between

religions, faiths, philosophies, languages,

she seeks to define

the fallacy of a single Truth.

Do I know you, Madhavikutty,

Our own dear Aami,

Kamala Das for the elite,

Now a star of the Universe, lovely Suraiyya,

Do I see in you

that little dark skinned girl

hiding behind her Ammamma’s mundu

her insecurities mirrored in the

intense depth of thick lashed eyes?

Maybe I still see myriad versions of those  past confusions

buried  in the myopic look

of this pretend Arab Queen.

Trapped between the public identities

the little lost girl wanders

weaving her own fantasies

and casting her own spells on reality.

Yes, I do know you, Kamala,

Those eternal feminine dilemmas

that generate cracks in the self

that changes forms and names

when challenged and cornered

and yearn incessantly to metamorphose

into an exalted aspect of creation.

I love you, dearest Aami,

The fragrance of the neermathalam

nestling in your bosom, nurturing our literature,

an innate woman sensibility

enriching our illusions,

I see the pale pink tips of those petals

just beginning to bloom,

peeping out from tiny crevices

of those bare blank walls surrounding you.

Defying strictures and moral dictates

It seeks fulfillment in Nature’s choice of Destiny.

Now I see the soul of neermathalam

Freeing itself

from the confines of a worldly entity

to float away into the vast expanse of Infinity

its transient life pre-determined

by a She God of multiple identities.

 

Sulochana Ram Mohan writes in both English and Malayalam, her mother tongue. She has published four volumes of short stories, one novel, one script, all in Malayalam. Writes poems in English; is a member of “Poetry Chain” in Trivandrum. Has been doing film criticism for a long time, both in print and vis

 

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TRIAL BOX

Kabyatara Kar

 

In the glorious moments of life

Some events tested me of my will power

Standing in the trial box,

With only Almighty as witness

My determination, my lawyer, standing chest out,

Trying to prove me strong every moment, my destiny swayed

Destiny sitting there as the judge to justify the pre-ordained events of life.

 

My moral values,

parental love and loving kids,

a silent partner stand by me to give me strength

As I fight on..

 

When will the judge certify me innocent and endow me with a better life

I await the judgment standing in the trial box.

 

 

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

 

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THE BODY

Mrutyunjay Sarangi

 

The body deserted at the dead of night,

on a quiet street of the town,

was noticed by an early morning walker,

he thought he knew the person,

he looked uncannily familiar.

Yes, it was a prominent leader,

who fought for the poor and the deprived.

 

The walker called the police,

they came and took the body away,

and decking it up, displayed it at the police station.

Soon the word spread

that an unknown body had been found on the street,

unwanted and abandoned.

 

The curious onlookers came in hordes,

and wanted to know whose body it was.

The man looked like a padre, a mulla and a priest.

The Women's association came rushing,

somebody had tolld them

the man was an anti-alcohol crusader.

The Dalit groups came with large bouquets,

the word had gone round that

perhaps the man was their spokesperson.

 

The town went into a frenzy,

No one could know who he was,

Yet everyone fought to claim his body,

suspecting that he was someone big.

Till a little boy, all of eight years of age,

came there dragging his small feet,

He remembered to have seen

the man's image in his school book.

 

In his simple uncluttered mind

there were no conflicting claims.

He knelt down and in honour of

all the deserted, abandoned bodies of the man,

In villages and towns, in offices and court rooms,

he paid his homage, tears flowing down his cheeks for his beloved Bapu,

he said in a clear voice of an innocent child, "Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai"!

 

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A DEWY MORNING

Mrutyunjay Sarangi

 

It is that time of the year, 

when dew is aflame on the trees and flowers,

drenching them in the sweet fire of passion,

making their hearts go afflutter,

waiting for their favorite birds and bees,

And looking up to the moon for her love.

There is a sweet shiver in the early morning chill,

cooled by the tiniest drops of dew.

It is the moon's smile broken into a million fragments,

and frozen on her chosen lovers.

 

The night is just past

when the moon played an endless game

of hide and seek with the amorous clouds,

and finally got tired and went off to sleep.

Now it is the trees and flowers that will sip the dew,

with slow and langorous seduction.

They will relive the moon's presence

and her soft caresses,

As if she belonged to each one of them, and them alone.

 

The world awakes to a dewy morning,

rejoicing at a thousand joys,

before worries of the day engulf them.

The dew will be retiring soon,

grieving at the prospect

of tired lives and blistered souls.

 

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A HUMAN TOUCH

Mrutyunjay Sarangi 

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There is this story of an old-world father and his tech-savvy son. The son gently nudges his eighty one years old dad to stay put at home and not to take unnecessary risks by venturing out. 

• Papa, your Bahu told me today again you went to the Bank and on the way back bought some groceries and vegetables.

The Dad smiled, beaming with pleasure,

• Yes Beta, it was a good outing.

The son is not amused,

• But Papa, why do you have to go all the way to the Bank for any transaction? I have showed you how to do internet banking. And groceries? Vegetables? These days the vendors have a mobile. We just give them a call and they send the stuff home!

Dad looked at the son, his tone became wistful,

• Beta, for internet banking I have to use the computer. It is just a machine, it doesn’t talk to me. At the Bank the man at the counter, although very busy, talked to me for a couple of minutes, enquired about my health. We even touched upon the India-Bangladesh Test series and Virat Kohli’s fabulous batting, how marriage with Anushka has done wonders to him. It was like my old days, breathing, living on cricket! I felt so young and excited! I also met three of my retired colleagues from office who had come to collect their pension. We talked about the old days, went to the kiosk outside and had a hot samosa with a cup of tea. On the way back I stopped at the old Grocer’s shop. We chatted for more than ten minutes – about you, your two sons, we discussed the weather, the political scenario – Ghanshyam even had a word or two about his sense of impending economic meltdown, what with rupee touching seventy three against the dollar and petrol galloping towards eighty rupees a litre!

The son was still not happy about his aged father roaming around the neighborhood at the age of eighty one. What if he slips and falls? Will he be able to recover from such a catastrophe? He asked sarcastically,

• So your grocer friend is an economist? What about the vegetable seller? Is he also an economist?

Dad’s beaming face broke into a smile,

• No, no, Chhedi Lal doesn’t have the broad range of views like Ghanshyam, but he has a warm human touch!  His eyes were moist when he reminded me of your mother’s favorite vegetables, how she used to buy them with so much care, how she taught him to make stuffed karela and lauki kofta! He almost cried remembering the day her body was laid to rest – how he, Ghanshyam the grocer, Raju the Dhobi and Hameedbhai the ladies’ tailor were in the procession to the Shamshan Ghat, how even on her funeral bed her face had not lost much of her radiance!

The Dad stopped for a moment, emotionally remembering the fateful day three years back. The son fell silent, the poignant memory stirring his soul. But dad had not finished,

• When I told Chhedi Lal it is time for me to go to Memsaab who must be waiting for me in heaven, he was shocked! No, no, Babuji, not so soon. You have a dutiful son, a devoted bahu and doting grandsons! We will not let you go so soon. Let Memsaab wait for some more years – sabr ka phal mitha hota hai!

The son looked at his dad’s wistful face. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind his dad’s voice resonated, “Will your computer do all this to me? Will it soften my heart with a human touch?”

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. 

 

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