Literary Vibes - Edition XLV

 

Dear Readers,

I have great pleasure in presenting to you the Forty fifth edition of LiteraryVibes.
We welcome Shri R. Narayanan to the family of LiteraryVibes. A retired Marketing Manager from Trivandrum, he has a good flair for writing. His story in today's edition 'A Look at the Dusk' is a nostalgic narrative, rooted to the ground. We do hope that we will have more of his creation in our future editions.

In the pages that follow there is a hard-hitting, soul-stirring outburst from Ananya, written within hours of the ghastly rape and murder of the innocent Priyanka Reddy. Words fail to convey the anger and frustration we feel at the repeated incidents of molestation, rape and murder of young girls and women whose only fault is that they have been born in a heartless country which holds candle light processions for them after their death, but fails to protect them when they are alive. 

I often wonder whether we will ever come out of this darkness that envelops us with a menacing grip. My heart sinks to despair knowing that it is an unlikely prospect. With a galloping population, and ever-increasing economic woes, common folks will slowly but steadily descend into an abyss of helplessness and lawlessness. In a country where half the police force is busy protecting VIPs and standing guard at public meetings and processions, where is the wherewithal to provide protection against crime? One can only pray every time our children go out, to face hordes of unemployed youth roaming on the streets, drunk, armed and drugged. Believe it or not, pockets of a small town like Bhubaneswar are terrorised by such scum, ladies take care to remove any jewellery from their person before venturing out of home, and every time police try to enforce traffic discipline they face protests and street wars. I suspect the same story must be prevalent in most of the cities, towns, and semi-urban pockets in our country.

There are two other poems in today's edition giving vent to this pent up sorrow: 'How was Your New Year Day' by Hrushikesh Mallick and 'Cry, the Beloved Country, Cry' by Akshaya Kumar Das. Let us cry our own tears and lend our small voice to the avalanche of sorrow flowing all over the saner parts of the country.

Please share the link with your friends and contacts:

http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/248

With warm regards,
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
 

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RICOCHET
Prabhanjan K. Mishra

It wasn’t meant for you,
for a thousand years you have
worshipped it though
with love and lust; guarded it
jealously as a jewel.

Scared of your devotion,
it coiled close and intimate
around your throat,
bound your wrists and ankles,
calling asphyxiation your modesty.

It breathed a spell on your sun,
its magic dancing
like the spiked time
of a snaking whip. You bled,
your bleeding was called ‘sacred’. 

‘Sacred’ was a cunning word,
others like ‘sacrifice’ and ‘shame’
joined the cavalcade,
tricky ideas and words tailed
and writhed like sleek lizards.

The words have built around you
an impervious jail,
the canons turning into cannons.
Entrusted with the righteous trigger,
you pull and kill yourself every day.

(This poem is an echo of Dilip’s poem ‘Wakeup Call’ in 44th Literary Vibes. ‘Ricochet’ was a poem under the group of poems under the title “The White Hush” in my book of poems VIGIL published by Rupa & Co. The Ricochet was also a kind of wakeup call to women.) 

 

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THE ICONIC
Prabhanjan K. Mishra

Sit an hour in the haze
of the billowing white floss
flowing down her nape, dream
of Khajuraho and Konark. 

Nestling by her wrinkled skin,
see the shadows crowd,
valiant archers, her suitors
aspiring after the rainbow.

Once undulated and lush,
gone fallow and withered;
a serenity of bygone days
lingering in twinkles of her eyes.

The gloom lurked in the lanes
crowding the corners of eyes,
the hooves of mares carrying
matadors marked her mottled skin.

The dust under her feet
drawled lazy syllables
with lisping heart’s arrhythmic beats,
lips spoke little;

but the blood in her pen
was beating drums of raw passion
yet unrevealed a Morse,
treading into forbidden zones.

This hour she waits to receive
her grand farewell,
her ebony lips dangling an irony,
a half-sardonic smile.

The dwarfs mill around her casket,
her flesh dying, but not yet dead,
eager to share her halo,
even wallow in her putridity,

swallow its rancid pungency
as they had inhaled
her life’s fetid honesty
exhaling that as own visceral poetry.

In her palms she held others’ lines
of fate and heart, the streams
and hillocks of their desire.
The streams silt today,

mounds wilt, as she departs
leaving the straw-men, hollow-women
without their spas and parks. Where
would they burst crackers, light sparklers?

Words and ink of her plaintive songs,
drugged million hearts,
cannabis of wakeup calls before
it’s too late to take passion’s calls.

Peeled of halo, she was a mortal,
a lump of naked honest flesh
beneath her high decibel gloss,
a ripe reliquary of myths and traumas.

A motif for an era, a signature on time,
a tome on poetic rubric
a quatrain of pulsating life,
a talisman of the departed millennium.

In a few hours,
she would leave the masks
and lies behind, join
the chrysanthemums and lilies.

(Tribute to the late poet Kamala Das lying in state.)

 

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LITTLE KANT’S EXPLORATION INTO GOD’S DOMAIN
Prabhanjan K. Mishra.

From the day Kant came to stay with his parents at the age of six from the lilting lap of his grandma, two new things took shape in his life. He was put to regular schooling, and was taught to pray in their family temple with Mother in early evenings after his school and take part in post-school outdoor games with friends of his age from the neighbourhood. The school, he loved. But the family temple, that was in reality a small room in their house converted into a sort of shrine or pooja-room, intrigued him no end.
The room was crowded with divine folks besides holy animals, birds, reptiles, and artifacts. Idols of mother’s gods, goddesses, and other divine and sentient animate and inanimate objects occupied the little raised platform on the floor of the shrine. Mother’s idols were mostly of handsome men and women, cute animals and birds like lions, rats, eagles, owls, etc. except a few ferocious ones. The deities had those animals, birds, or reptiles for transport or ornaments, and they carried ancient weapons like swords, mace, tridents, etc. The shrine’s walls were taken over by his father who hung on them photographs and portraits of iconic men and women, whom he did not refer to as gods, but godly individuals. The room smelled sweetly of incense, sandalwood, joss-sticks, and flowers; Kant loved this.
Kant was curious and excited about this dollhouse of his parents. He knew a few of his mother’s dolls like the bow-wielding Ram, Krishna with his naughty smile and flute, goddess Durga on a ferocious lion astride demon Mahisha, and the fearsome Kali with a bloodred protruding tongue. He knewas well a few in his father’s portraits on the shrine’s wall like Gandhi ji smiling disarmingly, Jesus Christ in excruciating pain on his Cross, Subaschandra bose, and a few others who were pictorially described in his class four text book in school.
He was taught by his moral science teacher that God was one but these varied forms in shrines, Mother had explained, were God’s different avatars or manifestations. He had noticed different deities and photos of other icons than his father’s in shrines of houses of his Muslim and Christian friends. There was hell lot of confusion in his mind about Gods worshipped by different religions and God’s incarnations.
One day, he asked his mother his doubts on Gods and deities after her evening prayer. But she questioned him back like a bully rather than explaining his doubts, “Kant, why should you doubt the existence or potential of their divine powers? As you never doubt me, or your dad, why can’t you just have faith in them?” Disappointed, Kant put his doubts to father one evening after his school’s homework, when father looked relaxed after office-return-evening tea. He was relaxing with a book titled ‘Being and Nothingness’ by one Sartre, whom he called a great contemporary philosopher. He smiled encouragingly at Kant, “A very interesting subject my child, though it is a bit complex for your age. I would try to make it easy for you. See, all of those idols or portraits in our family shrine, were ordinary living beings or regular artefacts in the beginning, but with the passage of time, some of them were deified or treated as deities by our society for their noble contribution. Ram destroyed evil Ravan, and became Lord Shri Ram. Krishna pioneered Dharma or righteousness and justice in the world and became Lord Krishna; so on and so forth. They were worshipped as incarnations of God. Worshipping is a way of saying, ‘Thank you sir, you are great, we are grateful for all the good things you have done for us.’ The deified ones are Ram, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Nandi (the bull-transport of Shiva), Garuda (the eagle-transport of Vishnu), Sudarshana Chakra (the disc-weapon that Vishnu wields to destroy sinners), or the Cross (on which Jesus was crucified and became the Christ). The men like Vivekanand, Gandhi, Van Gogh, Beethoven, and other great souls that are not yet deified by our human society, though their sacrifices and contributions for mankind were no less than the deified ones, would one day, I believe, be worshipped as deities.
Yes, your moral science teacher taught you the right thing about God: he is one, and the only one, in whatever name he may be called or worshipped by the people of whatever religion. Muslims call him Allah, we Hindus call him Vishnu, for the Christians Jesus Christ is the son of God and represents his father, God himself, for all purposes, so on and so forth. This almighty God is believed by the people of all religions to be all-pervading (omnipresent), all-knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent). As people follow hundreds of different cultures, and each has named God in their own style and vocabulary, so, God has as many names as there are cultures.
It is like you having different names, say, in school you are Ekant, in your maternal grandparents’ village where you spent the first six years of your childhood, they call you Kanha, and we here address you as Kant. But different names don’t make a different child out of you, so also God, he remains the God almighty himself, even if addressed as Allah, Vishnu, or Christ and by other names.
You would be surprised, my boy, most gods and goddesses of our religion and of others had humble beginnings, often rejected by the then society of theirs as heretics, but later accepted as messiahs. Our own Ram and Krishna, in whose names we Hindus of today wage communal wars against Muslims and Christians, did not profess Hinduism at all. They ate beef or cow-flesh without compunction. Cows were sacrificed in Gomedha Yagna or fire ritual, and cow-flesh thereof was eaten as God’s Prasada.  Hinduism was a much-delayed phenomenon to evolve around 1500 BC whereas both Ram and Krishna are believed to have walked the earth before 5000 BC. The tenets and discipline of Hinduism were crystalized by Adi Shankaracharya as late as eighth century AD. In the same vein, Jesus Christ, around whose name Christianity has taken shape, was not a Christian; he was born and he died as a Jew. His followers compiled his teachings into a discipline called Christianity, around four hundred years after his death, that is around fifth century AD. In his life time Christ’s contemporary society punished him as a heretic and sinner. That is the travesty of most of our religions all over the world. We keep fighting without a proper knowledge or understanding of our own religion’s history.”
Father appeared to pause, as if choosing right words for what he was going to say, “At the root of all inter-religious fights over ownership of God almighty are certain self-appointed religious or cultural leaders mushrooming in all religious groups. They try to outsmart others of their kind from other religious groups, and bias us with how ‘our God’ is real, and that of  others is an ‘imposter’. We ordinary people are taken for a ride by this ego-centric propaganda. Say a god-man preaches ‘our Ram was the actual incarnation of God, but their Christ was just an ordinary carpenter.’ A Muslim leader coins a slogan ‘Ram was just a king, but our Allah is the God almighty.’ People believe these lies as gospel truth and fight with each other, even demolish or desecrate each other’s places of worship. These evil-minded religious leaders mislead their people with their own selfish interest in mind, say, to enjoy the opulent life of a god-man doing no work. They often achieve political patronage and misuse it to gain power and pelf. They reduce the almighty God to the level of a currency note, original or counterfeit. These miscreants masquerading as benevolent reformers are at the root of all communal disharmony.” 
Kant blurted out, “How ridiculous, father?”
Father heaved a sigh of relief, “My child, how nice of you to catch the crux of the origin of differences in the name of God.” Father looked tired and Kant looked drowsy too. So, they postponed their programme for the next evening and sat down to dinner.
The next evening, almost at the same time, Kant reminded his father who opened his heart to his inquisitive son, “Let me tell you a little story. Lord Krishna, the Vishnu incarnate, who is believed to have orchestrated the Dharma Yuddha (the fight to establish righteousness and justice in the world) fought at Kurukshetra, had decided to play the humble role of his friend Arjun’s charioteer during the great war. At the outset of the war, Arjuna developed jittery doubts about fighting and killing his own cousins like Kaurav brothers, his elders like Bhishma, and teacher Drona. He looked up to Krishna, his friend and philosopher, for advice. It has been stated in the Mahabharata, Krishna revealed his cosmic form (Vishva-Rupa) to his friend Arjuna to explain the existential truth. Arjuna in utter awe saw hundreds of constellations of stars and planets crowding each of the hair-roots of God in his limitless cosmic form or Vishva-Rupa. It was a humbling experience for a warrior who thought himself invincible. What Krishna spoke is available in Bhagvad Gita. I would, my sweet Kant, summarise the vast treatise into just two core sentences with as many ideas for you, ‘Whenever the evil forces seem to overwhelm  Dharma and  virtue, I take a form or avatar to destroy the evil, and re-establish righteousness and justice in the world. Wherever and whenever, whatever happens, it happens at my explicit will, and I take its full and sole responsibility, as it is done to establish the rule of Dharma; the living beings, who act, are only the pawns on my board of dice, and they move as I wish.’ The Vishva-Rupa and Krishna’s tenets dispelled Arjuna’s doubts, and he participated in the war of Kurukshetra without doubt or guilt, as he realised, he was doing God’s noble work to establish Dharma. In other words, Kant, if you do an action without malice and with the welfare of the world in mind, then you are obeying a command of the almighty God, and your action thereby is righteous and just.”
Here, Kant had a doubt, “Father, how would a murderer be held guilty in Krishna’s Gita theory, because he may say, ‘My act of murder was God’s command’?” 
Father smiled, “My boy, your doubt or question arises from the second condensed core idea embedded in the second sentence.  You would find your answer in the first sentence. God never interferes unless he has to defeat the evil and protect the virtuous; that discipline is embedded in the first sentence I said. So, a murder done to achieve selfish goals is a punishable crime. But see, when a killing happens in self-defence, doesn’t the law show leniency to the killer?”
After a pause, father added, “Even seven thousand years ago, it appears, Krishna had the foresight to see our times and its infighting for his different names. So, he did not forget to say in Gita, ‘I may be worshipped in different forms and manners in different ages by different individuals, but what matters is their Bhakti or submission to me, and all those prayers would reach me, and I would manifest to them in their own conceptualization of me.’ In other words, he was trying to say, ‘You may worship me or pray to me as Ram or Rahim, it matters little. All that matters is your bhakti, your devotion to me.”
That day, all riddles cleared in his mind, a peaceful Kant went to bed and had a deep slumber.

 

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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EYES WIDE-SHUT (ANDHAPANA)
Haraprasad Das
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

Several opportunities
slip by out of my grip
that worry you for me;
I consider them insignificant
and unfamiliar in my lexicon,
not worth chasing.

I ridicule them while
letting them pass, feeling
immensely pleased from a perch
on the shore, absurdly assured
of a drowning man’s wellbeing
as the tip of his hair is visible above water.

I don’t keep
my appointments with you,
not even fulfill commitments;
neither good at pretending
that I forgot to bring you a gift
nor good at offering excuses.

But bear with me, darling,
With your selfsame
mad philosopher,
living in his
enchanted cocoon
keeping eyes wide-shut.

 

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THE SOUL-DEAD (MARUBHUMIRA AATMAA)  (for Baudelaire)  
Haraprasad Das
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

Isn’t this portal
a collage of reproaches,
demented words,
drifting leaves…
from the whirlwind of life?

Eloquent barbs
of silent snubs,
hide in parentheses…
sounding poetry?

If frigid souls
go out shining
like a moonlit desert;
would their fake glitter
deceive onlookers?

Can their snobbishness
escape attention?
Their dramatic eloquence
in poetic aesthetics
would impress none. 

Would any one go
after mirages
that survive
on deer’s blood
that die chasing
sand dunes,
the desert’s dry tits?

No, nothing remains uncharted
in this wasteland -
not even a miserable shred
torn off an escapist’s cloak,
stuck in thorny silences;
it laughs aloud,
its howling resentment
filling the haunted emptiness.

 

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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HOW WAS YOUR NEW YEAR DAY? (Kemiti Katilaa Nuaa Varsha?)
Hrushikesh Mallick
Translation by Prabhanjan K. Mishra

 

                      (1)
Hey, how did it pass,
your New Year Day?
Any New Year’s Eve Party?
What of the pre-planned picnic?

It was so sad to hear
about the death of your uncle who met with
the fatal accident on his way home
from his migrant job site.

No happy tidings this end, friend,
this New Year, wife’s rheumatism
getting worse, and son fracturing
a leg in a scooter accident.
                    (2)
 Did you notice a small news report
hiding in an inner page of a news daily
about the gangrape and killing
of a nine-year-old girl?

She was from our neighbourhood, Sangita,
studying in third standard. You may recall
 giving her an ice cream candy
during the Vedavyasa Fair, do you?  

How helpless she might be
in those cruel hands, choking
her sobs, smothering cries of agony
and shouts for help.

How would anyone hear
her cries, when loud and lewd
movie songs, deafening religious discourses
smothered all ears with loud decibel.
                   (3)
When we reached  the crime scene,
she lay motionless, blood pouring
out of her cracked head, nose, ears,
and torn and wounded private parts;

her inner garments in shreds,
the design of bees, printed on her frock
no more than cracking coagulated blood
and smears of mud and grime;

the fresh flowers she wore that morning
in her hair looked more deflowered,
she didn’t respond to anyone’s call
including her mother, she was so fond of.
                    (4)
Life this end has gone listless
with Sangita’s sordid end,
I have lost appetite for food or poetry,
I have put aside that fond hobby.

I seriously ponder over giving up
poetry. My two decades-long efforts
to reform society with my pen
has come full circle;

It has failed to save little Sangita
from getting raped and killed
in a crowded locality. My blood boils
in impotent rage at her agony.

 

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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MOON

Geetha Nair G.

 

The night the moon got caught on our doorstep

and I captured him with a click,

we spoke of this and that

in a rare languor

till daybreak pinched the silver wick

of the still night.

 

I did not dream then

the eclipse was brooding

just out of sight

Waiting to erase you

in that silent cave

bereft of light.

 

When shall I hold you captive again

in my cupped hand?

 

Now there is only

a picture -

the full moon

in my hourglass heart

where swift drops the sand.

 

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TWICE BORN

Geetha Nair G.

 

 The City that Never Sleeps welcomed me when I stepped off the train. Day was just breaking. Crowds. The heady scent of jasmine vied with the aroma of hot vadas. Tamil chants and temple bells resonated in thecool air… . A few of my favourite things. I was intoxicated.

Here I was, in my thirties, starting out again like the bride of ten years ago. “Different location; same husband! Enjoy!” my friend had remarked when I told her I was taking a few months’ leave from work to join my husband at his new place of posting.

The luggage had gone on ahead and the furniture was already arranged in the flat we had taken on rent. Only I was needed to complete the picture. I was taken to my new abode by the cheerful little driver-cum-handyman. It was a roomy flat on the first floor of a big building. Ratna said a big board right in front. It was a high-end block of apartments and there were just thirty of them.

He opened the door with the spare key, then left after telling me he would buy me breakfast-rava dosa and vadas - from the nearby Gowri Sankar Hotel in a couple of hours. My husband would return only in the afternoon.

The door of the flat just across the landing had leaves over the lintel and a Drishti Ganesha above it. I was surveying it when the door opened suddenly. A middle-aged lady in a white house coat stood there, framed against vistas of curios, gods and plastic flowers.

"From Kerala?" she asked. The grapevine had been active, of course. Her eyes were on my face. It passed muster. Then they slipped to my neck. The Nair thali, the gold mangalasutra, adorned it; not the black-beaded chain with the heavy-weights which would have been, I realised fast, my certificate of acceptance.

My husband had warned me, soon after he finalised the flat, that it was in a predominantly Brahmin complex. The dwellers were mainly old men and women whose children were earning dollars and sending some of them to comfort both their conscience and their parents. He related the popular joke that a male, new to the city, was generally greeted with a lingering embrace; this was to check whether the newcomer wore a ‘poonul”, the sacred thread slung over the left shoulder!

The lady’s next question was shot out, fast-"Non-vegetarian ?"

I scored, there.

"No; I am veg."

She seized on the pronoun unerringly. "But your husband isn't"; it was a statement , ominous.

"Right; but I do not cook any non-veg," I countered.

"But he will buy chicken, fish from hotels; you will heat it up; the smell, the waste... Rama, Rama. "

I was tempted to remind her that Rama, wife and brother must have eaten non-vegetarian stuff during their long years in the forest.

But this was emphatically not a time to be flippant.

She still hadn't asked me my name.

Ah; there it was- "Your full name?" The emphasis was on “full”. She was hoping for a surname that would reveal my caste.Her hope was realized. Whew! I was fairly high on the ladder of evolution but not high enough, of course.Maybe in my next birth I would climb the remaining steps.

We exchanged names and a few details Her name was Rema. She was impressed that I was a professor of English. I was impressed that she was staying there to look after her bed-ridden mother. Her husband worked in the Gulf and came on visits regularly. We had one thing in common; we were both childless.

She closed her door with a slight smile. What a bulldozer, I thought.

 When I narrated this exchange to my husband, he laughed heartily. “Don’t go around trying to make friends. It won’t work; you will get miffed or hurt. I know you only too well, my gregarious blockhead. Just stay at home and tend to me like a good Indian wife.”

 But with the good Indian husband away most of the day, it was dull for me. I was a working woman to whom the smell of chalk was like the smell of the earth after the first rain and the chatter of young voices like the merry chirping of birds. Madam Rema had not knocked at my door. Not once. I was terribly lonely.

So, three days later, stifled, I ventured out. It was a cool evening. I donned a cotton sari, wound a strand of jasmine around my plait and climbed down to the fairly extensive park at the side of the building. There were a few children running helter-skelter, a few mothers chatting in little groups and the aged siting on benches here and there. The women stopped their chatting for a couple of seconds, stared at me, then resumed their talk. No one acknowledged my presence. In desperation, I went up to the nearest group of women and introduced myself. There was a brief silence; then one of them said, politely,”Yes, we heard about your arrival. From Kerala, aren’t you? Rema Akka told us…. “ There was an awkward silence. None of them introduced herself. I imagined that their eyes were on my neck, on that gleaming sign of my lowliness.

I mustered a smile, then walked back swiftly to my apartment. I banged the door shut, tore the flowers from my hair and flung them onto the floor. Much like the heroines of the Tamil movies of the seventies that my grandmother had brought me up on, said a part of my mind mockingly.

I was a victim of the caste system. It was incredible- almost. Though I had read many books and watched many movies revolving around the indignities and atrocities that caste had inflicted for centuries on people in our land, though I had obediently parotted Swami Vivekananda’s scathing words on the subject, it had never ever affected me personally before. I opened my laptop and started searching for articles on the caste system in India. I read on into the night, till my husband returned to find no dinner ready. Gowri Sankar came to our rescue.

The next two days were spent in reading and writing. I was planning an article- Rearing its Rude Head- the Caste System in Contemporary Tamil Nadu. I would send it to that elite journal that had published a couple of my pieces in the past. Composing it mentally was therapeutic; I felt calmer.

 The next day, my husband called just before noon. He wanted me to withdraw some money from some ATM close by and hand it over to a subordinate of his who would be coming for it by 5 pm. I closed my laptop. My salwar-kameez was just okay for street wear. I picked up a black dupatta from the wardrobe, took my purse from the stand and walked out into the street. The heat welcomed me with an embrace. It was May and midday. I had never experienced this kind of searing heat before. I walked about 200 metres to the first ATM in sight. It had a “Sorry; Out of Order” board swinging from its door. I walked on, my black dupatta covering my head. The second ATM was in the process of getting filled. Someone told me there was another one a few metres away. Yes; LV Bank; whatever that was, was kind enough to belch out all the cash I needed.

As I was walking back, I started feeling giddy. The earth was spinning; the sky seemed to be whirling and falling.

I stopped awhile under a huge tamarind tree and took a few deep breaths. Then I continued walking. I remember climbing the single flight of steps to my level. I also remember, vaguely, fumbling in my purse for the key.

 When I came back from wherever I had been, I found that I was on a strange bed in a strange room. The air conditioner was on; my kameez was wet. So were my face, arms and feet. Someone was sitting by the door; it was Mrs Rema.”My dear, you gave me such a fright! Lying flat on your back in front of our doors! But don’t worry; just a very mild case of sunstroke. Heat exhaustion, rather. My friend, the doctor who took a good look at you says you will be fine by tomorrow.” She held out a tall glass of chilled water which I sipped gratefully.

“Your purse,” she said, offering it to me in exchange for the empty glass. I remembered the man who would come at 5 pm. “What time is it now?” I asked, looking around for a clock. There were Ganeshas of every possible size and material in every part of the room. Mrs Rema pointed to a big copper one; embedded in His stomach was a large clock. “Just 2 pm: the Pillayar clock always tells the exact time,” she said with a smile.

I lay down again and listened to her soft voice.

She had stepped out to go downstairs with some clothes to be given to the dhobi who was ironing in the portico and found me sprawled as she had described earlier. Luckily, her friend, the doctor, who stayed on the fifth floor was at home. She had come at once and together they had carried me into her flat. I had been sponged with ice-water, made to lie in the cooled room and given several glasses of cold water to drink. She felt, rightly, that I had no recollection of all this. The heat of May did this to unwary people. No one knew my husband’s phone number. Mrs Rema had wanted to visit me the day after  we met but her mother had taken a sudden turn for the worse and had to be hospitalised for a couple of days. She was back home now. Her words flowed over me like a cool stream.

“Thank you, Madam…” I began; she cut me short. “I am Rema Akka; your elder sister, ok? Now rest for some more time. Let me make some cold curd rice for you.

 I left the city of the Lady with the Parrot two years ago. But my friendship with the Lady with a Heart continues. We have gone on several trips together - all holy ones to the temples housing the father and sons -Murugan, Ganesha, Shiva. Remakka is visiting me next week; I want to show off our very own Ananthapadmanabhan-Vishnu reclining on the serpent Anantha- after whom my home town is named. It is the richest temple in the world.

 By the way, I did not go ahead with the plan of writing that article I had in mind.

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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AT THE POND

K. Sreekumar

 

When Nidheesh rang me up early in the morning, announcing his upcoming visit that afternoon, I knew that one more Sunday was going to be wasted. Whenever he came he never thought of leaving at all. There were days when he would stay back with me and leave only the next afternoon. His wife and daughter had to ring up to find where he was on all those occasions.

So, as soon as I cut the call, I made a list of things I had to do. Swetha was not planning to come for another month from the next city where she was working. Sourabh, my son, had gone to be with her from his college hostel. So, practically speaking, I was alone and my only companion was Ducky, our dachshund, who dragged himself everywhere like a four footed snake.

There were quite a lot of things to do. Once he came, there would be no chance of finishing anything. There were a few more pages of translation to be done, several mails to be responded to, many messages to savour and delete, clothes to wash, the dog to be given a bath, and the garden to be watered.

I worked like a machine and finished everything except watering the garden. When Nidheesh left, he would leave me in a mood with a lot of things to ponder on. Watering the garden was a perfect time for such musings.

Nidheesh was an atheist.

I think that was his job, his life, his food, his dream and his everything. Had he wanted to be a star speaker, he would have become one so easily. But, in spite of all his swag and boasts, he had one fear deep in him and that was his stage fright. One on one, or in a small group, he was as ferocious as a cheetah. But, the only way to silence him or win an argument against him was to do it on a stage. That is, if he was not in a drama or in some such performance. If he had a role to play, he would be fine. But, to be on stage, to lecture on something and be himself was the last thing he was comfortable about.

I think he was born an atheist. My earliest memory of him as my classmate in the primary school was also that of being with a person with illegal thoughts. There were many of our classmates who changed their stance once in a while, political, religious and spiritual stances. Nidheesh was adamant.

I wondered why he was coming at such a short notice.

He came just before lunch and I had ordered some food through Uber Eats. When the food came, Nidheesh asked the young man whether he had eaten. The poor boy could not understand what he meant and just smiled at him. Nidheesh invited him to eat with us but the boy said he had to go.

“Another time, uncle.” he said very politely.

I didn’t think Nidheesh, managing to look younger that he was, really appreciated the boy calling him uncle.

“Another time! How do you know there will be another time, eh? Next time you come, I won’t be here. I am so old that I won’t be even around.”

The smile on the boy’s face vanished and turning his scooter around in a hurry, he too vanished, probably mumbling something within the safely of his helmet.

After our quick lunch, I pulled two chairs out into the garden. We sat under a sprawling pink mandaram, one of my favourite trees. I like it because of its virility. It grows anywhere and its thick foliage is light green in colour.  When sunlight streamed through the leaves, it reminded me of my mother when she was young. Its shade too is quite generous and considerate.

“Do you remember what O V Vijayan, the famous Malayalam novelist said about death?”

That was how he talked. Out of the blue a question would come swooping down on his silence and our peace of mind. The answer to this question, I knew.

“That there might be something after death since a lived life cannot go with no consequence at all.”

“Yes, very true.”

“He was right. When he died he had to wait for days to be cremated. There were some family issues to be settled. Of course, I know that was not what he meant.”

“You are right, you are right. Two of my friends passed away two days back. In a car accident.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“I cannot get over the shock. I had met them three weeks back when they came for a visit. We were meeting after three decades.”

“Is it Girija you are talking about? And her husband? You had a crush on her, I remember.”

“More than a crush. After she got married to this wonderful guy, I thought I would never see her at all. And then last week they came to see me just like that. There was absolutely no reason. We went to see some of our other friends in town and managed to see four out of the seven we wanted to meet. She said it could be another time.”

I suddenly understood why he said what he said to the Uber Eats boy.

"It seems they were together for long hours just before the accident and then they died in each others’ arms."

I didn’t know what to say.

Nidheesh got up and walked away from me and stared into a small pond in the garden. No fish was left in it. Only some wild lilies.

Turning around dramatically and leaning on an old gulmohar tree near the pond, he stared at me.

His eyes were moist.

“I don’t believe in any of your stuff and nonsense. I know you do. You always did. Soul and all that. But I do think now you are right. I know it is not true. There is no soul and there is no god. There is no god in this god-damn world. But, I think it is all true. I don’t know yet whether there is god. But I want to believe, like you do, that there is soul. They had souls. They were soul-mates. I don’t know whether there is God. Maybe there is. Maybe, I will know that too some day. You are right. There must be.”

He wiped his tears and turned his face away from me.

I had, in all my life, never seen him cry.

He came near me and sat down.

Neither of us uttered another world. We just sat there, in silence, heaving a sigh now and then, till the day light died and each pair of the thousand leaves of the mandaram tree above us folded like pairs of hands coming together.

 

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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RAINS IN CUTTACK*

Bibhu Padhi

 

In the afternoons they whisper

over the roadside fields,

round my waterproof room

in crystal-cut forms.

 

Their sharp, geometrical angles

drain the needle-thin leaves

now weakened by the summer typhoid.

 

Their rough and rocking fingers dishevel

the chaste and religious casuarinas

into bare bathing figures.

 

Their cool and miraculous hands raise

the shy greens in the dust-brown grass

under my feet, stretch them about me.

 

Dear mother, if you will allow me,

I shall make the mud-green carpet mine

and make full use of it while

the  rains about Cuttack are whispering still.

 

*The poem was first published in POETRY (Chicago).

 A Pushcart nominee, Bibhu Padhi  has published twelve books of poetry. His poems have been published in distinguished magazines throughout the English-speaking world, such as  The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Stand, The American Scholar, Colorado Review, Confrontation, New Letters, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Poetry,  Southwest Review, The Literary Review, TriQuarterly, Tulane Review, Xavier Review, Antigonish Review, Queen’s Quarterly, The Illustrated Weekly of India and Indian Literature. They have been included in numerous anthologies and textbooks. Three of the most recent are Language for a New Century (Norton)  60 Indian Poets (Penguin) and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (HarperCollins). He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Bibhu Padhi  welcomes readers' feedback on his poems at padhi.bibhu@gmail.com   

 

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MY WIFE’S HANDBAG

Dilip Mohapatra

 

It could be the most mysterious

black box owned by Pandora

the inventory of its contents

even unknown to its inventor

or it could be the tall black top hat

of the magician

that produces almost anything

from rabbits to pigeons

at the wave of the wand.

 

I always wonder how

she pulls out almost any thing

to meet an unexpected need

from the bottomless pit

that I suppose it is

whether it’s a tooth pick

or a match stick

a cello tape or a tube of glue

paper napkins and plastic spoons

and even an old laundry receipt that

once I needed to trace one of

my misplaced underpants

which she thought I had

lost under suspicious

circumstances.

 

The list is unending and

so very dynamic

but it always meets any

kind of unprecedented calamity

and I never dared to explore

the numerous pockets and

pouches it contains

for I could be at my wits end

to figure out under what magical

mantra it bares its contents

so very accurately

on time

every time

on demand.

 

I get impatient when she rummages endlessly

the whole innards of her

puzzling possession

to look for a ten rupee note

to pay for a cup of tea that

I had ordered aboard Deccan Queen

bound for Mumbai from Pune

and in my agitation lose

control of my rising blood pressure

and she knows the signs so very well

and before I could burst a vein or two

and suffer an esophageal spasm

she dips her hand into the

abyss of oblivion

and pulls out a tablet of Sorbitrate

and puts it

under my tongue.

 

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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JUST A THOUGHT

Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura

 

I am just a thought,

Like many others

Roaming around the earth.

I am hardly confined

In this body or heart

As I keep touching

Whoever wishes to attract.

 

I flow through the ink

Get splashed on the canvas

In spectrum of colours

Making rainbows of thoughts

Blowing through the flute

Like melodious music

Flowing like a brook.

 

I am not born, I never die

I am there as always

Part of universal consciousness.

I don’t claim to be good,

Neither I feel condemned

If thrown into a bad mood,

I just drift in the stream

Like a free wood.

 

Wait for a minute

From your busy routine,

Holding in your lap,

Sheltering in your heart,

Feed me with the love-nectar,

Let me away to fly into the sky

So that I rain down, one day,

With thoughts of love

Spreading the infinite space.

 

"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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GENESIS

Dr. Nikhil M. Kurien

 

Before man the papers did fly

And before  them his mind.

Before his mind the birds flew

And before them the leaves.

Before the leaves the clouds flew

And before them the wind.

Before the wind the time flew

And before it the Holyspirit,

Over the face of desolate waters

To conjure things desired

For an exquisite world,

A dream of His

Which did fly first,

Cause of us and the entirety.

 

Dr. Nikhil M Kurien is a professor in maxillofacial surgery working  in a reputed dental college in Trivandrum. He has published 2 books.  A novel , "the scarecrow" in 2002  and "miracle mix - a repository of poems" in 2016 under the pen name of nmk. Dr. Kurien welcomes readers' feedback on his email - nikhilmkurien@gmail.com.

 

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DEAR PRIYANKA,

Ananya Priyadarshini

 

Do you know how famous you've become after your death? Like, just in a few hours, every celebrity, every politician is mentioning you in their tweets! Who would believe that none of them was aware of your existence since a few hours ago. But, till when shall girls keep getting famous for being victimised, being raped, being killed?

Did you hear of the girl from Ranchi who was abducted at gun point and gang raped by twelve men? Yes, you're not alone who has made it into the news today. A fellow sister of yours has shared your fate. But somehow, she survived and managed to lodge an FIR. 

I hear she's a law student. She must be pretty aware of the IPC sections that can be used to penalise her assailants. I'm a common citizen but I know very well that they won't function like they should. We are impotent as a society, as a country when it comes to penalising the rapists.

There are going be candle marches for you. I won't attend any. The social media is going to flood with #JusticeForPriyanka with your photo alongside. I won't post anything similar. For I've seen the same being done to many Nirbhayas, many Asifas and many Priyankas. But I'm yet to see a single rapist being hanged.

Fun fact! Everyone is sympathizing you just because you're dead. Don't mistake them for a sensible mass for they would promptly raise a finger at your dressing, the hour of the day (or night) when you were raped and ask why at all were you out so late and make things worse for you to survive. 

Now that you're gone, you're done. If you see your rapists walking free and stitching suits with a sewing machine 'gifted' by our government, don't be shocked. It's pretty normal! There are a thousand grounds to justify the crime, you see. 

That's it. I'm done writing to you. Now I'll go and pray I'm not the next one to step into your shoes. For lately I've realized that there's nothing else I can do to avoid that.

-A woman who hasn't yet been raped

 

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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WEAVES OF TIME

Sangeeta Gupta

XIX

When the like minded 
meet a miracle shall 
happen: the you and the I
be hugely recharged, be revived, rejuvenated,

each time
we are gathered together
I instantly sense
an intense energy field
tightly encompassing us.

there is, then, as though magic in the 
air laughter in hearts
music in our mutual souls
life feels, life reels

oh, my own twin.
 

XX

I was musing
will our evenings be yet
as magical as when
we were close together

Well,
I can almost read my poems
when I look into your eyes

I hear music in the air
when you are around
then is there laughter
there then joy
there timelessness abounding
in the bonding.
 

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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A MISTAKE

Prof. Latha Prem Sakhya

 

Looking at him, no one thought he was this evil. He was of small built, may be twenty four years old. But he didn't look that, he looked much younger. He projected himself as a do-gooder so he easily entered the hearts of open-hearted people. That was how he entered Rani's house too. He was a willing handyman in their farm. The children too liked him. He was, when not engaged in some task, playing or chatting with them. Days passed into weeks and he almost became a part of their house. No one took him seriously when he accompanied the children's  mother Rani to cut grass or do some odd jobs on the farm. Even Rani thought of him like a younger brother.

But one day she found out his evil agenda. He had captured many of her photos without her knowledge. Even photos of her inside the bathroom. She was flabbergasted. She didn't  know how to tackle it. But she decided to drive him away from her home and her children. The more she chased him the more he stuck on her like a bur. Wherever she went, he was there, like her shadow. One day she decided to end this play for ever. She stopped her moped knowing that he was following her and asked him what it was he wanted from her. Cunningly he spelt it out and threatened to tell her husband if she didn't comply with it. Rani realised he was blackmailing her so she decided not to irritate him any more. He was like an evil snake. So she became the temptress. Yes, of course she would agree to his terms. But  they had to wait.

She became more and more friendly. Waiting for him at the corner to chat with him and egging him on. One day she gave the green signal. Yes, he could come home. No one would be there. He came all clean shaven and fresh. To his horror he found Rani's sister and husband there. He was forced to tell them that he had come to take his mobile which was with Rani.  He wouldn't  sit down, he wanted to go inside and take it from her. Rani now almost like a Bhadrakali shouted at him saying his mobile was not with her. But he wouldn't go. He was waiting for an opportunity.

She had promised him that she would be alone that day. But, when, he did not know. He was totally annoyed with Rani's  sister for that surprise visit. He was sure they would go soon after lunch. That was the practice, he had often seen them on such short visits from a distance while engaged in some task or other. But her sister and brother-in law were meeting him for the first time. They thought the boy had come to meet Rani' s husband but that was soon allayed with Rani's strange shouting. They had never seen Rani so agitated and watched everything  like spectators  in a theatre.

The boy wouldn't sit down. He would run to the dining room, peep at Rani who was busy in the kitchen and would walk the whole length of verandah. Finally Rani' s sister drew up a chair and made him sit.

He turned to her, "Aunty, please tell her to give my mobile. It is with her. Let me go and ask her".

Rani' s sister who had taken a dislike to him as soon as she saw him, told him impatiently, "you wait here boy, she will come to you when she finishes her chores".

Finally  he sat down and fidgeted. He never knew that Rani's husband had come down early in the morning and was fast asleep.

The wait was long. The children were clamouring for food. So food was laid out on the dining table. As Rani moved about, the boy's hungry eyes were on her. Like a snake looking at its prey, he watched her unflinchingly.

Suddenly Rani 's husband came down.  The boy's eyes nearly popped out. "Come here Jayan. I was waiting to see you." Like a lightning he was upon the boy and thrashed him left and right. "So you come here pestering my family and blackmailing my wife. What did you think? That I was not aware of it? I was just waiting to get you here. I will kill you, you…" Jayan who was  badly bashed up was saved by Rani 's sister and brother-in law. He loosened himself somehow from the vice-like grip and ran for his life.

Rani broke down hysterically  at her husband's feet. He lifted her up and wiped away her tears  saying it was his fault too. He should not have been so credulous. He had not seen the sly snake behind the boyish exterior.  Yes, they had learned a lesson from their mistake.

 

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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CONTENTMENT

Hema Ravi

She sits in the arm-chair, frail 
and withered; her place for years now,
pouring over religious texts
watching serials; friendly chats...
Children away in green pastures 
to fend for themselves. Letting go,
she's left with time for self-growth.

From a carefree childhood into a young bride
she learnt to adapt, accommodate, evolve in a joint family
conscientiously serving her life-partner, in-laws and guests 
She managed it all with tact and maturity.
Her beloved companion of fifty plus years
had passed away a few years ago.
Catastrophic! she was unprepared, 
shattered and disillusioned.
Slowly she gathered the remaining strands,
composed herself, accepted the reality,
took charge of the change with poise
Life had to go on!

Beyond her balcony, she can see the 
coconut palm, lush with tender fruits, swaying.
The pale white flowers in clusters
The pair of parakeets perched fills her heart with joy.
The passing clouds, the gentle rays of the Spring sun
after dreary winter offers solace;
She bows down in prayer,
reclines in the arm chair, eyes shut.... 
 
 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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RIOT OF COLOURS

Sheena Rath

 

Fuchsia pink champa

Showcasing its exquisite splendour .

Reminding me of a bright glowing lamp

Throwing its radiance in every direction .

Nature's tapestry in the garden of flowers .

A sign of beauty ,

A symbol of grace ,

Standing tall and proud against the harshness of the weather .

Dancing to the rhythm of the flirtatious breeze ,

Emoting emotions of tranquil

Resplendent in its appearance .

A flower never emulates the other besides it,

It just blooms.

 

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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FINDING PEACE

Major Dr. Sumitra Mishra

 

Is peace unreal and elusive

 like a dream or

Enduring like the heavenly

 chant of a hymn?

 

For me,

Each glowing dawn brings

New hopes for peace

An empire of mysterious tales

On its wings

Each twilight harbours

Celestial wonders in its breath

Peacefully fall

The dew drops whispering to the leaves

And quietly bloom

The flowers dancing to the breeze.

 

Isn’t it just the way we feel?

For I do feel serene

Amid the tornados of passion and heat

And remain passively sedate

Amid the typhoons of commotion

I feel God’s blessings in all things I see

A feeling of calm for ever encircles me.

 

I have left my past grievances behind

Repose and concord in my faith now I find.

 

How I wish

The world to be secure

To enjoy the divine joys of Nature

To be conjoined in a fraternity bond

To value each relation, every friend!

To forget jealousy, greed and power

To love and forgive, care and share!

 

Peace is neither a magic nor a potion

It is indeed our own disposition!

 

Look within, friends

You will find peace

Life is unique, it is divine,

It is an interminable bliss!

O

 

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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SUPREME BLESSING (PARAMA ASHISH)

Kabiratna Dr. Manorama Mahapatra

Translated by Sumitra Mishra

 

The One who is omniscient and omnipresent

The One who does not distinguish

Between the beautiful or the ugly

The foolish and the genius

So it’s easy to confide in Him

And express the inner thoughts of the mind.

 

Be it sin or piety, sorrow or happiness, anguish or indignation,

All thoughts can be surrendered to Him

Secret love, struggle, control, humiliation, heartache or deepest grief.

.

He is nonchalant

He is insouciant

He is detached and dispassionate

Yet he presents Himself to each according to one’s own choice.

He is formless

Yet takes immanence in different forms

To wipe out all dissatisfaction, disaster and distress.

He appears in the end

With a lamp in hand

To dispel all darkness

And quench all the thirst.

He is the special one

He is the unique one

He is the absolute one

Spread from the earth to the sky,

He is the Universe-the Universal

The coveted supreme blessing!

 

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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CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY CRY...

Akshaya Kumar Das

 

How can those men be so cruel ?,

Wearing a false mask they lure & kill,

A victim of innocence,

Trust on men killed in silence,

Treacherous men create nuisance,

How dangerous the situation can be ?

At times you are a blind victim of circumstances,

When men behave worse than vultures,

Helplessly forced to be throttled for maniac  pleasures,

 

Each one of us face the threat of death,

But at times a budding flower crushed to hold, breath,

Alas ! it is such a dastardly design,

Costing life to be a prey of beastly men,

Sadistic beasts loose their basic senses,

Never regret for a moment,

when they impose forced torments,

 

The entire humanity cries in acute pain,

The beloved family's greatest loss,

No amount of consolation can heal the wounds written on the face of humanity,

How can men be so cruel resorting to insanity ?

Cry the beloved country cry,

All ears have gone deaf ,.

All protests have gone dumb,

All eyes have gone blind,

Oh ! God of what use is delayed justice ,

 

Sri Akshaya Kumar Das is poet from Bhubaneswar , Odisha the author of "The Dew Drops" available with amazon/flipkart/snapdeal published by Partridge India in the year 2016. Sri Das is a internationally acknowledged author with no. of his poems published in India & abroad by Ardus Publication, Canada. Sri Das is conferred with "Ambassador of Humanity" award by Hafrican Peace Art World, Ghana. Sri Das organised a Intenational Poetry Festival in the year 2017 under the aegis of Feelings International Artist's Society of Dr.Armeli Quezon held at Bhubaneswar. Sri Das is presently working as an Admin for many poetry groups in Face Book including FIAS & Poemariam Group headed by Dr.N.K.Sharma. Receipent of many awards for hos contribution to English literature & world peace. A featured poet of Pentasi B Group. Sri Das presently retired Insurance Manager residing at Bhubaneswar."

 

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SOJOURN ON A PLATEAU AND DANCING ON THE PEAK

Dr (Major) B C Nayak

 

From plain to peak,

From low land to high,

From downs to ups,

From valley to peaks,

From water reservoir

To waterfalls,

From low altitude to high

From “vibgyor”,

To vibgyor carpet,

Enjoyed by the one,

Arduous and adventurous,

His sojourn.

 

With Moral up,

Ascends the peak,

With mild high altitude sickness,

Relieved with rest.

But moral down,

To descend to the valley?

On peak, highly optimistic

“Optimists invent the plane

and the pessimists ,the chute !

Pessimists more innovative.

With that in mind,

Has had  a smooth descent.

On analysis,

A trekker paradoxically,

Swims in an ocean

of  words and their antonyms,

Normally a smooth sailing,

Sans tempests,

God forbids,

No “Bermuda triangle.”

 

The bewitching sun rise,

And the magnificent setting,

The enchanting moon rise,

(if lucky to behold)

And the setting,

Make one dance,

With ecstacy.

 

Hot and cold,

Every moment summer

And every moment, Winter,

“The poetry of the earth

can never die”,

as grasshoppers and crickets,

are never affected ?!

 

Notes:”The Grasshopper and Cricket' written by 'John Keats' is a poem that conveys

The  idea that the poetry of earth is never dead. In the summer season, when the birds

are tired, a grasshopper runs from hedge to hedge singing songs while in the winter season,

it is the cricket who continues to sing the poetry of Earth.

PHOTOS: Courtesy,Dr Bibhuti Bhushan Pradhan & DrAjaya Upadhyaya, my friends.

 

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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'A LOOK AT DUSK'

Narayanan Ramakrishnan

 

"You need  to  pay Rs. 1500/- per month for her services. Sarada is efficient and sincere and I have known her for the last three years, since she started working at my friend's house," my wife told our neighbor, who was badly in need of a maid to help her with household chores. Sarada got the job immediately and her working time was fixed - very evening from 5.30 to 7. 

One Saturday, she was asked to come earlier, by 3.30, and exactly at that time she knocked at the door, while I was preparing to go out to sell accumulated old newspapers of the last three months. I used the money thus got, to buy roasted cashew-nuts and this had been practice for the last so many years that the sight of old newspapers being stacked produced an elation in my daughter; she commanded as if it were her right, "Cashew nuts on the way back." I nodded approvingly.

In any act you are not alone.  My eyes immediately stumbled upon another man, who was riding his two-wheeler, just in front, with all spaces available in it fully packed in the front and the rear; his pile would surely fetch him more than Rs.1000/-.  Whether he too was going to buy cashew nuts or some other delicacies I could not guess.

We had the same destination and soon we reached there. There were two or three people in their cars for the same reason. You cannot jump the queue but have to wait. I found time to talk to the 'fully loaded' man. "You have a collection of one year or more".  “Yes. My son is against selling old papers. He is preparing for the Civil Services and he would have already taken his share and stored it  in his room. Of this, many pages he would have cut and pasted in chart papers." He announced proudly and added, "Month end syndrome, you know, is catching up and ten more days to go". He gave 'ten more' a great stress and I concurred with him, mentally, immediately. As I expected he got more than Rs.1,000/- and left gleefully.

I was left alone when my innings began. I observed that the go-down had a heap of old books kept in a corner. I obtained the owner's permission to glean and select books that interested me. Short stories always enthralled me and if a book contained selected short stories of various authors it was a double-delight.  Small mercies do happen. I got a collection and selection of two short story books by Educational Publishers and the one from Frank Bros & Co, was compiled and edited by Mr.S. Chakravarthi.  When it came to settlement, the buyer had an excuse, "Sir, today being bank holiday, a lot more people turned up than expected. You just saw one man getting more than Rs.1000/ .  Could you please come back by six in the evening?". "How much should I pay for these two books ?" I asked. "Nothing, you can take more, if you want."  If I had bought these two books from second-hand book-sellers, they would definitely have charged me Rs.50/-.  " Ok, I shall come by 6, I shall pay for the books then."

When I was about to open my mouth about the temporarily suspended payment, an equally eager  daughte  rushed to munch roasted cashew-nuts, as soon as I lifted the seat to take out the books. I had concealed a sachet of cashew nuts under various papers lying inside that space. In a flash, I took the books and announced the news about the delayed payment, without looking at her.

" I know you are lying", she said and with lightning speed snatched the key from my hand and brandished the sachet I had hidden inside, but not safely enough from her gimlet eyes and she vanished.

I sat down on the floor, near the entrance door, and began browsing one of the text books edited by Chakravarthi. In the preface, written in 2009, the Editor laments "Perhaps one of the most disappointing aspects of being an English teacher today to me is to come to terms with the fact that more and more students seem to be so disinterested in reading. This is, indeed, heart break. Young people today have access to several mediums of entertainment -- cinema, television, computers, music at fingertips as a result of which their interest in reading is slowly, but surely, being neglected and heading for an untimely demise". How true, I felt. Many students go through their books mechanically just to get marks and never enjoy the literary beauty and in due course simply forget ever having 'studied', rather, read such a story, leave alone the author.

The first short story was 'An Astrologers Day' by our own RK Narayanan, which I have read umpteen number of times; so, I jumped to the next one by Saki, a favorite author of mine.

The story was titled 'DUSK'. "The story begins on a very a pessimistic note as the author describes all the defeated people of the world who come out of their homes in the dusk time so that they do not have to meet successful people. However, the rest of the story has little to do with this pessimism and we are drawn into the brilliant plan of a confidence trickster who was out to make money on some gullible victim. The end of the story is bound to make the reader laugh and wonder at the wit and creativity of a master storyteller".

I went through the story totally absorbed in the twists and turns  A short story of just four pages, that simply transported me to another world, so that I was totally unaware that Sarada had finished her work and was about to go home. As the story ended, as mentioned by the Editor, I instantaneously laughed so loudly at the totally unexpected end that she looked back and stared.  Stung by the stare, I had to tell her, "I laughed not at all at you; this book caused it".  Whether she accepted my words or not, I do not know; I simply withdrew inside and cursed myself for reading at the door-step in the fainting daylight.

 

 

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THE TENANTS 

Sakuntala Narasimhan

 

I saw them for the first time on a drowsy afternoon in late summer. Our youngest son Raju had left home that morning to take up his first job in a distant city and the house seemed suddenly filled with a gaping emptiness. After twenty nine years my husband and I once again had the house to ourselves; twenty nine years during which our four children had grown up and then left home one after the other – the girls to their husbands’ and the boys to take up posts in different corners of the country.

I sat gazing absentmindedly out of the door, acutely conscious of the stillness and quiet around  the large, sprawling house, a house that now looked deserted like a nest from which the young ones had all flown.

Raju would be nearing Jhansi, I said to myself; and my other children, what were they doing at  that moment? Prema, the eldest, would be busy with her own two children, and Shekhar would be at a matinee show most probably – he was a  movie addict and this was a Saturday.

And Rita, my vivacious little Rita who was married six months ago and had left home three weeks later to join her husband in America, what would she be doing ? I smiled fondly to myself, trying to picture her in distant Boston. Talking nineteen to the dozen, most probably, while her husband listened indulgently and hurried through his breakfast.

Rita was talkative by nature unlike my other daughter and sons who were the quiet, introvert type. She was here, there and everywhere, always excited about something, always busy with some new interest and always surrounded by a dozen friends. The house had been unbearably and oppressively quiet after she left, but Raju was still there with his own circle of friends who dropped in of an evening. And now the youngest one had left home too, and I felt wrapped in a caul of loneliness.

And then suddenly I saw this couple. They passed our doorway thrice to and fro before I realized that their eyes were turned half timidly and half inquisitively towards where I sat lost in thought, and on a sudden impulse I made a welcoming gesture, hoping that they would come in.

They stopped just for a   minute that first day but the next evening  as I sat  in the same chair in the veranda, I saw them  again, and  once again the evening after.

We were having tea on the lawns that third day, and when my husband pointed  the couple out to me, I coaxed them in and offered them sandwiches and biscuits. They were a shy couple, but emboldened by my obvious pleasure in their company, they started dropping in regularly thereafter and stayed for longer periods every day.

There was  much in her that reminded me of my own darling  Rita – the same quick, short steps, the same restless darting eyes and the same endearing chatter as if every  minute brought her some new delight to savour and to share.

It turned out that they were looking for a suitable house. Now that Rita and Raju had left  home, their rooms on the first floor were vacant, and this couple soon moved in upstairs. Their presence was like a gust of  bracing wind in our lonely life and soon their endearing ways won over the lady of the house who at first wasn’t very happy about having let them  occupy those rooms.

With each passing day I noticed more and more similarity between my Rita and this little tenant upstairs. Like Rita she too liked to spend hours   in front of a mirror – oh vain feminity ! – and like Rita again, she flew around the house, nimble and light-footed, busy with her chores and always on the hop.

They went out together around nine o’clock,, immediately after we had finished breakfast and throughout the afternoon I would sit looking forward to their return in the evening. She always retuned home first, and a few  minutes later he would come blustering in. Just like my son-in-law, I thought, who always strode in with a  whistle and  a hail.

And when, a week later, Rita wrote to say that she was expecting an addition to her family, the similarity became complete --   the one upstairs was obviously in the same condition too  -- and our tenants became, for all practical purposes, the daughter and son-in-law who were too far away for us to be with.

 We became fast friends and soon we were sharing all our meals with them. It was a funny and unusual friendship, I suppose –  two old lonely people on the one hand and a tiny little couple on the threshold of life on the other  -- but  we saved them some bother and were in turn grateful to them for the relief from loneliness.

Once they quarreled and I heard her high pitched voice go on and on as she ticked him off roundly. In a huff he moved out to the corridor outside their room and spent the night there, but the next morning everything was again bill and coo and they went chirping out as usual on the  stroke of nine. Oh, these half absurd, half serious tiffs and  conciliations of early married life ! I hope my Rita and her husband are  as happy as this couple, I thought often.

They had twins and somehow even before Rita wrote to us, I suspected that she too would have twins – and so she had, a few weeks later.

The little ones grew up and although I was disappointed that I could not yet see my grandchildren, a part of that disappointment was wiped out by the vicarious pleasure I derived from the boisterous pair upstairs. They would be up with the first streak of light under the door every morning, clamouring urgently and noisily for their feed, and it cheered the cockles of my heart to have those vacant rooms once again replete with all that bustle and sound. Everything seemed suddenly  imbued with the excitement of life once more.

Soon the irrepressible pair was rollicking merrily through the house, flying in and out of our rooms with the uninhibited ease of completely unselfconscious children. I took to offering them titbits and dainty morsels, and soon when they were old enough to manage  by themselves; they were eating with us too.

What an unpleasant turn we had when the mother returned home one evening to find one of the little ones missing ! She went nearly mad with worry, hunting frantically all over the place and calling so pathetically that I felt somehow personally responsible for the mishap.

We joined in the search and looked all over the garden first --  even under the thick, overgrown queen-of-the-night bushes and behind the huge broad-bean pandal in the far corner, behind the outhouse. An hour later, we found the truant – apparently fast asleep – curled up far away under the divan in the guest room. How he got there we could not understand, for the room was seldom used, and remained shut except when the maid went in to sweep – and that was probably when the culprit had slipped in noiselessly and crept under the folds of the divan.

This  again, I thought, was just like another page from the book of my Rita’s life, enacted here in advance before my eyes. Her children too will soon be playing the same kind of pranks, I thought, and driving the mother crazy with their boundless energy.

Time passed. The little ones grew up  and  then suddenly one fine morning, they were gone. First one, then the other. The proverbial time to leave the home nest, I realized. Young ones grow up and  some day they have to go out into the world – to raise offspring who will themselves leave the parental hearth when their time comes. This is the poignant, sempiternal cycle of life revolving on an inexorable order of destiny that spares neither bird nor beast.

And yet, as I watched the mother pecking dispiritedly at her food that evening, I remembered the agonies of parting I had suffered when my own children left home. Tears spurted to my eyes as I thought: she must be going through the same feeling of desolation. For who can say that sparrows have no feelings?

(This story appeared first in The Times of India, dated  4 August 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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FATHER'S LOVE

Destiny Amakwe Chidera 

 

Lies I call it
Where are those 
who describe it as story 
of the cock and the bull

North to south
East to West
And over the universe 
None is you dear father 

Around I stare 
I see nothing
but your love flow
like a river that dries not

How can I pay 
when your love 
proves priceless 
for you are one in trillion

I wound not fail
to tell the tale 
to the world 

that hell yes!
it's exists
the love of a father

 

 

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SONG OF THE MOMENT
Mrutyunjay Sarangi

 
My wife Anjali opened the door and gave a loud shriek as if she were seeing a ghost! Frankly, it gave me a big jolt. Her shriek, I mean; it did. I had expected a bit of surprise from her, but not this loud, combustive otuburst of shock and this piercing shriek.
 
Poor Anjali! Looking back on that early February evening of fading daylight and stealthily approaching darkness, I think she was justified in that momentous, earth shaking shriek. That was probably the first time in our twenty four years of marriage that she saw me return from office as early as a quarter past five.  My usual time was well past eight, often approaching nine in the evening. In the early days when the kids were small, they often used to see me only on Sundays, and the story goes that one day my small daughter asked Anjali who this stranger was, sharing their bed!
 
What followed my sudden appearance would have qualified as hilarious only if I was not at the receiving end of it. She dragged me inside, and started fussing over me like a sober hen clucking over her drunk chick. A barrage of questions was shot with exemplary precision.
"Why did you come home so early? Is something wrong?"
I shook my head, no, nothing was wrong.
"Are you sick? Do you have fever?"
Followed by a touch of my forehead and disappointment!
"Do you have a headache, body ache? Should I get a Crocin for you?"
An emphatic shake of the head from me.
"Is your stomach alright? How many times have I told you not to eat those oily samosas from the office canteen!"
Again a helpless shake of my head.
"Any pain in the knees? Has your arthritis aggravated?"
I smiled, at her concern and the range of illnesses she suspected me of having. As the daughter of a successful doctor, her knowledge of diseases is vast and she often shoots off their names and the name of medicines with the smoothness of an well-oiled machine gun.
 
But now I just wanted to be left alone, hoping that she would leave for her evening walk to the nearby Lodhi Garden. So I tried to soothe her nerves and told her that I simply wanted a few evening hours off from the office, to see how Lutyens Delhi looked in the fading light of a receding winter, how the rays of the sun reflected on the red buildings of North Block and South Block, how hordes of weary office denizens headed home, some with relief, others with worries lining their haggard face.
 
I had taken permission from my boss, though strictly speaking, such permission was not required. After all, we don't seek his permission to come to office early on some days and on most holidays, so why should we ask for permission to leave office on time? But a slave is a slave is a slave and would cringe by any other name. So I had gone to his room and asked for the P. The boss was in a good mood, a rarity in itself. So he winked at me and said, "Something special cooking with Missus?" At my age, an affirmation of this exciting statement is a fulfilment by itself. So I mustered the right mix of suspense and subtlety and winked back coyly at the Boss. That seemed to electrify him. He called his peon and asked him to pack all his files and got them loaded in the car and before I could say, thank you sir, he was off on an uncharted journey.
 
And that's how I was home, getting a thorough scrutiny by Anjali on various imaginary illnesses. When she was finally convinced that nothing was seriously wrong with me, she stood up to get ready for a trip to the Lodhi Garden for her evening walk. But I got another jolt of lightning when she announced that I should put on the right costume for a walk with her. I protested with a vehemence that surprised even me.
 
Usually I finish my walk in the morning and since she gets busy cooking my lunch and 'getting me ready for the office' at that time, she prefers to go for her walks in the evening. That's the time many of her friends also walk in a group, mostly gossiping, inter alia, about their husbands, how useless they are in worldly affairs, how they take great pleasure in buying groceries and vegetables, but develop cold feet when it comes to buying sarees and jewellery, how the husbands never think beyond Mussorie and Simla when it comes to vacationing whereas places like Switzerland and Australia go begging for attention. In such group walks there is usually an unofficial competition among the ladies to show their husbands as the worst specimens God invented in an agitated state when ants were wreaking havoc in His pants.
 
On the very rare occasions I accompany Anjali on her evening walks, she steers clear of her usual companions and I suspect every time we cross their path, they just wait for us to pass by and then roll with laughter remembering all the uncharitable secrets Anjali has let out of me. Moreover, despite her forty eight years of age, slim and trim Anjali has maintained herself quite well, turning a few Punjabi heads in the park during her walk. I, on the other hand, with my obscenely protruding tummy, practically hairless dome and specs with thick glasses gleaned from the bottom of abandoned soda bottles, look like Anjali's uncle from the village. Being a man with some degree of self-respect, I am not very happy about that ugly spectacle and am usually reluctant to accompany her on her walks.
 
But today Anjali was determined like never before to take me with her. Probably her suspicion about the fragile state of my health was still persisting and she didn't feel it safe to leave me alone at home. And a determined wife is a determined wife with a D. I had no choice. So after a hurried cup of tea we trooped into the Lodhi Garden.
 
Whenever we move in Lodhi Garden, Anjali usually talks the walk and I walk the talk. I am a pretty obedient listener, a sort of talker's pet. She revels in unloading all the gossips of the day on me. Today she started with the startling revelation that our maid's daughter in law was pregnant for the third time in slightly over three years of her marriage. I was aghast,
"Who? Roopa, that sickly wisp of a girl? She already has two daughters!"
"How do they do it? In just one room with four adults and two kids!"
Having dealt with Reproduction and Maternal Health in one of my earlier assignments with government, I fancied that my depth of knowledge in the subject was phenomenal. So I tried to explain to Anjali how babies were made, but she cut me short with an imperious wave of her hand. 
"If Roopa adds one more child, they all have to leave. We will find another maid to work for us. Imagine the water and electricity bill for such a huge family. Why should we bear that cost?"
I wondered if that was not too heavy a price for some innocent pleasure-seeking by an amorous young couple, but in all such matters the Missus is always right. As all seasoned husbands know, winning a small battle is not worth losing big wars.
 
As if reading my mind, Anjali changed the subject,
"You know Juli called today from U.S.. She has started dating again."
I was surprised,
"Dating? At this age? Isn't that ridiculous?"
Anjali literally pounced on me, forcing me to veer a foot or two towards the lawn,
"Age? What do you know of her age? She is hardly seven, eight years younger to me! In America women date even as late as sixty, seventy; Juli is hardly forty!"
I remembered Juli from her last trip to India about ten years back, when she stayed with us in Delhi for a couple of days. She is a cousin of Anjali and had left for the U.S. for higher studies after her graduation. After she got a job she fell in love with a Gujarati boy, a Patel, whose parents had settled in U.S. with a couple of hotels and half a dozen motels. Juli and her husband Chandrakant had come to India on a month- long trip. The boy talked incessantly, in a phony American accent, of stocks, shares and dollars. Juli confirmed to us that he ate, slept and dreamed dollars with an undivided loyalty. The way he used to walk, like a pregnant panda about to deliver mini pandas, I described him as a roving ATM which will disgorge dollars from its different cavities if tapped at the appropriate places.
 
Anjali and I were certain that a sensitive soul like Juli would soon get smothered by this fat, dollared doll and they would part ways. It happened within two years of their marriage. And Juli had remained single for more than a decade. Anjali continued to defend her,
"And remember Juli had no child from that useless, good for nothing glutton. So she still looks like an innocent virgin at forty! I am sure she will click this time." From my long experience I knew it was disastrously risky discussing the beauty, age and 'innocent' virginity of sisters in- law; so I kept quiet.
 
Anjali suddenly remembered another phone call she had in the morning,
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Our son had called from Bangalore just after you left for the office." "Dicky? Is he alright? How could he call during his office hours? I thought that is discouraged. Is he off duty today?"
"No, no, it was a short call. He needs ten thousand rupees urgently."
I stopped on my track, as if felled by an itinerant boulder.
"What? Ten thousand rupees? Again? Why can't he manage with his thirty thousand rupees take-home salary? That's a lot of money! Didn't you tell him my take-home was only nine hundred ninety rupees when I joined my job in 1982? Why does he need so much money? What is he doing with it? Going to pubs and spending on girl friends?"
Anjali stopped me with a steady, bone-chilling stare,
"Oh, don't be so harsh on your son just because he is asking for a mere ten thousand rupees! You don't have to pay, okay? I will send him the money from my savings".
I stood, transfixed, like one of those wax statues at Madam T's. I felt like asking her, Savings? And whose money is it that goes into savings? Her father's? But I knew asking that question is like hurtling down a one-way escalator with a bomb strapped onto the back. I am a reasonable, peaceloving man, totally against bombs, strapped to the back or not. I chose to keep quiet.
 
Anjali had resumed walking, a deep frown clouding her pretty face. I asked her what the matter was.
"You know what that witch did today?"
It was my turn to wear that frown, as if it was not a frown, but a crown we were exchanging between us.
"Witch? Which witch? You have so many witches around you! Who is the unlucky one that drew your attention today?"
"Oh, that Vandana, our neighbour. In the morning your rickety Ambassador was standing outside waiting for you. I had come out to put your lunch bag inside. This witch was getting into the new Maruti SX4 her husband has recently got from office. You should have seen the contemptuous look she gave me, as if I am some sort of a lowly worm which strayed into her path! The ugly, long nosed harridan! If I could lay my hand on that wrinkled neck of hers, I would wring it off like a sickly, flu-infected chicken's!"
I was amused. Vandana was certainly not one of Anjali's favourite persons, particularly after she repeatedly refused to join the "Wassip" (Walk less, gossip more) group. But to call her a witch was rather stretching that long, beautiful neck of hers too far! But I kept quiet, letting Anjali stew in her own fantasy soup. She started talking about our retirement plans, how she would totally renovate our apartment at Noida, how a Honda Civic is what she would ride after hurting her back in ugly Ambassadors all her life ...........
 
My mind had wandered off. Although I had taken the unprecedented step of leaving the office at five, I was feeling like an embarrassed, shameless Donkey strutting on the streets of Delhi without the customary bundle of clothes on my back. What would have happened to that unfinished note on public-private partnership I had left with my subordinate Radhika. She was a good, liberated soul from Jharkhand, the only blot on her sterling career was the atrocious English she inflicted on unsuspecting bosses. She suffered from the common syndrome of 'Good intentions, bad English" that many youngsters smilingly sport these days.  I would have to redo the whole draft! And for day after tomorrow's parliament question I had asked the Under Secretary to call for materials. Did he get them? If I had stayed in the office I would have pestered him, but now it was too late.
 
My mind was getting foggier by the minute......I was vaguely aware Anjali was asking something....I jolted myself back to her focus to find she was peeved at my apparent neglect of her retirement plans;
"If you don't want to listen to me why do you come for a walk with me?"
I wanted to remind her that I didn't come with her, I was dragged to the park like a sacrificial goat to the stake....
 
But my mind had got riveted by a glorious sight. I had stopped at a beautiful, long bed of calendula, zinnia, dahlia and petunia plants, brimming with colourful flowers. I was moved, for the second time that day, by this exquisite sight. Anjali stood by my side, enjoying their beauty. I looked at her and smiled,
"Do you know what happened this morning? I was walking by this bed of flowers, when I was drawn by it like a magnet. I got mesmerised by these flowers. Look at the white dahlia, it reminded me of Alka, my class mate in college who used to come to the class in spotless white sarees everyday. This beautiful, red Calendula made me think of Sushma, a girl in our school who used to dazzle us with her red dress. And this yellow Petunia? When I was a boy of around eight years of age, there was a small girl in our neighbour's house who used to look cute in her deep yellow frock. Every time she saw me she would make a face at me, flash a smile and run away. And this bunch of violet........"
 
I woke from my rhetoric, to find Anjali was not by my side any more. I looked up. She was walking away. She sat on a bench in the park, waiting for me. I went near her. She was downcast, her face covered with a hint of some unknown sorrow. Alarmed, I asked her, "What happened? Are you feeling okay, is something wrong?"
She looked up at me and gently shook her head,
"Nothing, let's go home".
But I knew something was wrong,
"You must tell me what is bothering you, it's like Lodhi Garden has been suddenly devastated by an unexpected storm!"
She gave me a tragic look,
"These flowers reminded you of so many girls in your life! Wasn't there a single flower which made you remember me?"
Oh, my God! For a moment I felt the earth slipping from under my feet. I had that sinking feeling when the head master summoned you to give a few juicy ones on your outstretched hand from an evil looking cane. But, being a seasoned bureaucrat used to answering dozens of queries, I recovered in a jiffy. I looked deep into her eyes, trying to melt her with an intense, unspoken love,
"Remember? You? Why do I need to look at a flower to remember you? One remembers a person when she is away from his mind. Anjali, do you ever leave my heart, even for a moment?"
Anjali perked up at my words. Her face melted into a sweet smile. I wanted to press the point beyond no return, to strike when the iron was hot,
"Have you forgotten the instant poems I used to compose for you in the early days of our marriage?
   Every moment of mine is yours,
   my morning opens its eyes
   with you in my heart,
   the day passes floating
   in a cloud of euphoria.
   And then the night,
   Ah, the night of our togetherness, 
   the play of the seen and the unseen,
   the known and the unknown.
   Is there a moment
   you are out of my being,
   my consciousness?"
 
Anjali's face opened up like one of those full-bloomed dahlias, her eyes gleamed like a tigress looking longingly at her innocent prey. She got up and we started walking home. There was a new spring in her steps, and she made sure we walked in tandem, her hand never letting go of mine, not even for a moment.

 

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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