Literary Vibes Edition - LXVII ( 08-May-2020)
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the sixty seventh edition of LiteraryVibes. We present to you some brilliant poems and delectable short stories in this edition. Hope you will like them.
This week we have Ms. Malabika Patel from Bhubaneswar joining the LiteraryVibes family. She is an accomplished poet, writer and translator. A retired banker, her passion for literature is commendable. We welcome her to our group and wish her plenty of success in her literary career.
We are happy to announce that Prof. Molly Joseph, a regular contributor to our eMagazine has been conferred the Galaxy Academy Award in Experimental Poetry for her book "Where Cicadas Sing in Mirth." We are indeed proud of her and wish her many more laurels in future.
With the number of infected persons and casualties going up steadily in India and all over the world, it appears that we are in for a long haul in our struggle against the deadly Corona virus. Governments across the globe have risen to the occasion and are putting in their best efforts to save their countrymen. It is unfortunate that even in these extremely trying times, cross border infiltration has not abated and our soldiers are making the supreme sacrifice for the country. Every week there are a few who fall to the bullets of the enemy, plunging the nation to grief. The untimely death brings a sad finality to their lives - many tasks remain undone, many goals unaccomplished. They give up their life to ensure that rest of their country sleeps peacefully and works constructively.
Last week when I read about the Chanjumullah, Handwara incident in which four Indian army personnel including a Commanding Officer were martyred, I remembered the poem I wrote for LiteraryVibes which appeared in the very first edition of our eMagazine on 1st February 2019. It is about a soldier's anguish as he remembers his family in his dying moments. I reproduce it below:
The Last Journey
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
When you go home buddy,
From this war field of Afghanistan, this pool of blood and torn flesh
Tell my folks I am on my last journey,
Not knowing why I started it in the first place,
Whose war I was fighting, for whom I am dying.
Tell my Mom
I am carrying the sweet smell of her pancakes with me,
And the memory of my schoolbag,
The shoestrings she lovingly used to tie before putting me in the school bus.
My Dad,
His endless trips to the mall with me,
The ice cream, pizzas and the movies.
My Sister, the elder one,
I am carrying the broken mirrors of a thousand pranks,
Tell her I always knew where she hid my crayons
I just wanted to make her happy pretending not to know,
To the Younger one,
What can I give her except renewing a promise
That I will be there smiling in the crowd on her prom night,
Clapping my heart out in my formless shadow.
And to my Sweetheart,
Yes, to my sweetheart,
Tell her I am carrying with me
All her whispers, the soft sighs
And the selfless surrender of her heart, her being and her consciousness.
As life sips out of me drip by drip,
I wish she knew how heavy I feel in my short foot steps
Carrying the sweet loads of her memory
On this journey,
My last journey.
Death of a soldier is indeed a sad loss for the country and the family. We at LiteraryVibes bow our head and pay tribute to all those soldiers and officers who have laid down their life for the country.
Please share the link http://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/300 with all your friends and contacts. Kindly remind them that all previous editions of LV including four anthologies of poems and short stories are available at http://www.positivevibes.today/literaryvibes
Do enjoy the hundreds of stories and poems from our pages.
Take care and stay safe,
With warm regards
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Table of Contents
- U-TURN (LEUTAANI) Prabhanjan K. Mishra
- THOSE THIRTY-NINE… Prabhanjan K. Mishra
- BEACON (NETA) Haraprasad Das
- STARLINGS Geetha Nair G
- THE OUTSIDER Dr Ajay Upadhyaya
- LISTENING THROUGH THE.. Bibhu Padhi
- TIME HAS STOPPED Dr Bijay Ketan Patnaik
- FLOWER OF LIFE PravatKumar Padhy
- STATUTORY WARNING PravatKumar Padhy
- THE MARCH OF THE RIFL Dr. Nikhil M Kurien
- MOTHERS DON'T DIE.. Ananya Priyadarsini
- SALT WATER Sharanya Bee
- BLACK Lathaprem Sakhya
- 11:11 Thryaksha A Garla
- AURORA Thryaksha A Garla
- MY MOTHER’S SURVIVAL Sumitra Mishra
- THE MEN WHO MAKE.. Molly Joseph M
- THE SEA I SEE Sundar Rajan S
- OFFERING. . . Madhumathi. H
- STILLNESS IS A MOVEME Madhumathi H
- THE SLEEPY HEAD Sridevi Selvaraj
- LANGUAGE MATTERS Vidya Shankar
- Rebirth? NO. And YES. Padmini Janardhanan
- BLISSFUL SCENE Hema Ravi
- MOTHER Sheena Rath
- BESEECHED Ravi Ranganathan
- PERPLEXITY Anjali Mahapatra
- SEAWARD - A GOAN… Gopika Hari
- PERILOUS Kabyatara Kar (Nobela)
- THE FLORAL FAIRY Padmapriya Karthik
- AFTERMATH Malabika Patel
- SONGS OF SOLITUDE... Mrutyunjay Sarangi
The night snores peacefully
on the wake of happy hours,
breathing the sweetness
of contented lassitude,
dreaming of the passing balmy autumn,
leaf-fall murmuring to the
rustling wind, languor filling
the bones with lethargy,
night jasmines waft
their heady fragrance, magic,
the smiling moon hangs
over the garden’s hedge, a nude.
A dream dances on night’s eyelashes;
its feather-touch footwork, tickles
her flesh, sweat in her undone hair,
the heaven eager to merge with earth.
The dance is raw and wild,
intoxicated by Kadamba memory,
drunk with Yamuna’s reminiscence,
unseasonal rumbles, joyous spate.
The earth yearns to embrace
her one-night-lover, his downpour,
to get soaking-wet in his love-elixir;
embryos stir in her seeds’ wombs.
Time takes U-turn, the space
looks behind, and keeps still,
the weak passion raises its hood
with a shock from its genuflection;
the present rises resplendent
from its past’s ruins, the shadows
emerge as wild desires, unwavering,
resurrected from the dead.
This nameless one-night-stand,
the wideawake somnolence,
its barren past hidden away
behind a fertile monsoon ahead
asks the rainbow to unfurl,
stand witness to its fertility dreams;
even the conscience, tempered
with discipline, behaves smitten.
(Grateful acknowledgement - The Odia poem “Leutaani”, now translated as ‘U-Turn’ by the poet, appeared in Odia literary journal Navaravi, puja issue, 1997.)
Konark Express started chugging off the Victoria Terminus of Bombay at quarter-past three in the afternoon, towards Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha, where it would terminate after running a marathon of roughly 2000 kms taking roughly thirty-nine hours, and going via Sikandrabad junction.
We, my wife and yours faithfully, were visiting our friends and relatives in our native land of Odisha as part of a biennial routine that always had enchanted me with fond memories, a mix of pleasant surprises, and shocks, loveable yet unpalatable at times. Eating our ethnic Odia dishes, talking in colloquial Odia with people, and similar activities were always endearing. Dishonest criticism of non-Odia food and practices, eulogizing certain traditional Odia mean-mindedness under the compulsion of ‘I am a son of the soil’ solidarity, and a few other traits were like pungent pickles, tickling but repugnant simultaneously, a part of our inseparable Odia culture. The imposition, sort of, take it as a distasteful bonus, or leave it just to bask with a sense honesty at your own risk.
Repeat-darshans of the lord of Puri, our fond goggled-eyed Jagannath, had always been a great pleasure to wife and me, but depressing social activities like eating cold and often stale temple-cooked fare, praising its non-existent divine flavour without minding our own white lie, visiting dirty lanes of Puri and Cuttack to buy for our eager Bombay friends, ordering their curios like miniature-figurines-imitations from temple-walls, cheap silver-filigree ornaments and trinkets, canopy-work of Pipli fame, and other ugly-and-old looking purchases had been ever-challenging and repugnant duties.
On entering our two-tier AC compartment, while we were in the process of finding our bearings and settling down, we noticed another pair, much older than us by looks, vehemently entering to take possession of the upper berths that were above our lower ones. From the talk between them and with a friend who had come to help them board the train, I exchanged loaded glances with wife, meaning, “Noted for all future transactions over the next thirty-nine hours to be in Odia, as our immediate neighbours are of similar ethnic origin as us. Would it be a pleasure or pain, let’s take the surprise as it comes, what?” The last observation was not really a question but a doubt.
The couple not only looked old, but they talked old, ate old, and behaved really old, what we were going to notice in the next two nights and one day package-journey that our super-fast (!) train would take to reach Bhubaneswar. We had two lower berths below theirs, we had managed the feat by booking much in advance, and indicating our special requirement for lower berths by mentioning an innocent lie that we both had bad knees (as anyone knows, ‘bad knees’ is a relative state of health, even my knees in their best of fitness may be considered as ‘bad knees’ by my Olympian neighbour). The truth was, we hated climbing up to upper berths like monkeys in our fifties.
Without any formal introduction like “You who … or.. who you etc.” the wife of the pair that had reserved the upper berths above us, spoke to my wife in broken Hindi, “We are both diabetic, beta, (a gender-neutral Indian term for addressing youngsters out of affection), so you and your husband must leave your lower berths for us and exchange them with our upper ones.” My startled wife looked around for a youngster in our gathering to whom the term ‘beta’ fitted. But the next sentence from the unknown lady clarified all doubts, “You two look too fit and young to usurp lower berths meant for senior people like us. Will you, beta, get up, and help me spread our sheets on these lower berths and relax a while before the Ticket Checker (TC) shows up? We are tired and want to give rest to our aged bones. The TC can be informed, as and when he comes, of our mutual exchange.”
My wife gave the woman a look, famous as her withering stare, but it had little effect. So, as the long and short of it, her next best weapon, she fired, a speech in brusque clear Odia dripping with sarcasm, “No, we won’t exchange our berths with yours. We are not usurping any one’s birth-right, senior or junior, our berths are legal and lawfully acquired. I repeat and underscore the words ‘legal and lawful’ and I highlight my NO with yellow marker.” Her reply impressed the ageing husband who bobbed his bald head in appreciation without even bothering about his own wife’s consternation. Which part of my wife’s sarcasm had impressed him remained a mystery to me, until a few hours later when we would know that he had been a judge all along in some Bhubaneswar court, and that, terms like ‘legal and lawful’ were the most endearing words to judges.
In our society the request-portfolio would always by default be entrusted to the females of the species, misunderstood to be more effective because of their fair-sex appeal, (fair-sex, my foot!). Also, if the request was made to a female by a female of the species, it was supposed to have the additional power and flavour of a newly discovered irritating syndrome called ‘feminism’. So, the combination of the two strategies should work wonders. The misunderstood and highly over-rated factors, naturally, had badly failed in my wife’s case, and the wounded remains of the strategies lay writhing there on the vibrating floor of the fast-moving train. But the couple belonged to no ordinary race but Odias, and people of Odia origin never give up easily. Odias, for the general knowledge of late comers, had been born strugglers in annals of history.
For better understanding I would refer the ignoramus to study the history of Kalinga War. The child king of the then Kalinga (Odisha) had fought with Ashoka, the Terrible, and the former miniscule Odia hero not only blunted the great conqueror’s violence, but converted him into Ashoka, the Benevolent. A sabre-tooth tiger was rendered toothless, not a small feat. If one still would continue doubting Kalinga War’s consequences, I would invite him to our two-tier AC compartment at around four that afternoon, to be witness to a smaller tragi-comedy version; the technique we, the Odias, apply in defanging the adversary, might it be as tough as my wife.
In response to my wife’s denial to exchange berths, the elderly looking woman was outright hurt and seemed on the verge of howling in agony, that in turn wounded her husband in a minute after he bobbed his approval. Now with a tragic expression, he helplessly made combing motions with fingers of his left hand on the non-existent hairs on his bald pate. The scene was moving and it moved my heart. He then looked at me with melting eyes. In his eyes I saw the South Pole melting because of my wife’s strong moods and words; probably it had irreparably damaged the ozone cap on earth, creating the global warming, even de-freezing of glaciers. So, I melted liberally.
I took my dear wife out of the aggrieved couple’s earshot, ignored other passengers’ ears wiggling in our direction, and obsequiously commiserated with her in undertones, cajoled her with my own melting eyes. She nodded vigorously. The couple took our subtle hints, looked at us rather accusingly for the delayed show of good-boy-girl syndrome, spoke to the TC as he had already arrived, and made a settlement about the berths, making our berths theirs officially and vice versa. They didn’t thank us, but thanked the TC. The other wife told my wife patronizingly, “You both may sit here, we won’t mind. We are not unkind like others.” My wife tersely replied, “Thank you mam, for your compassionate offer. You have left us no choice but to accept.” But her irony had no takers except me.
The couple, after winning the lower berths, got busy in their joyous unpacking of samosas from home to go with their homemade tea from a big thermo-flask. They ate samosa and drank tea, and behaved as if they were sitting in solitude and isolation in an empty park. Such posture, one of our national quality, had not been acquired blithely, but from our land’s Rishi- Muni parampara (culture). Every other occupant of the compartment, even us almost within touching distance had vanished for them just like in a spell of voodoo. They looked through us, over us, around us while slurping tea and champing aloud on samosas. They had a big pack of three to four dozen-pieces of the historic (even Mughals ate samosas) triangular savoury, but had no manners to offer anyone a small bite, that, I could guarantee, would have brought only polite shake of heads and hands, because the abominable snacks item seemed to waft an evil stench that pervaded the vicinity.
For some insidious reason, our vicinity, as I mentioned, wafted a stale odour, and my clever wife, whom I couldn’t believe for her highbrow attitude for the meek couple, indicated with her eyes that the homemade samosas were the culprits. Surprisingly, before their snacks-twosome-party was over, as the train had left Bombay landscape to merrily whistle through terrains of Western Ghat Plateau beyond Thane city, and had already negotiated a few tunnels that turned the compartments during those claustrophobic minutes into dimly lighted mysterious cages; piping hot samosa and ready-to-drink chai arrived from the train’s pantry.
We proceeded through our samosa-tea-party along with many co-passengers who like us bought the stuff from the pantry men. We offered some to the couple, who were eating in presumed isolation, and surprisingly they didn’t refuse. They picked up, one each, from our paper plates. My wife whispered in my ear, “Don’t offer tea, they may take a sip each from our disposable cups, you never know the limit of gluttony in our own glorious Odisha.” I frowned, “You, and your rotten humour. They are just curious like all the Odias, you stupid.”
The female patience, said to be thinner than its male variety, proved true again that day. The other wife asked my wife, “Are you loving your samosas and tea from the pantry, beta? (I noticed with dismay, the avant-garde new Engish, regularizing poet Nissim-Ezekiel variety of English ‘I am loving it’ used by him in his humorous poem ‘Soap’, had struck roots even in conservative Odisha soil.) I dare say, they are no match to our home-made ones. Here taste, this samosa, sip this tea, we have plenty. You would notice the difference.”
I was going to give some polite excuses, but my wife overtook with her sarcastic best, “No thanks. You may have plenty, but nothing ever is plenty for us, the people of Odisha, the prize-holders in gluttony (by bracketing us into that not-so-glorious flock, she ticked off the possible allegation of calling the other party ‘glutton’ etc. in her most subtle way). I agree your samosas are different than the fresh hot savouries from the train pantry, because the latter variety doesn’t stink like the former. Tasting them would be very risky, please don’t eat them yourself also, their stale smell reaches to us across the aisle. In the night, please don’t complain of food poisoning, and even if I have plenty of antibiotics, I won’t dare to give you one, for I am also an Odia lady, and nothing is plenty for me.” I thought her sarcasm was too sharp for my taste.
But before I could take steps, another Odia male sitting on the lower side berth of our enclosure across the common passage, tried to warm up to my wife, butted into the discussion on the erudite subject of samosa and chai, “Yes, the stink of stale samosas bothered me too, but I was not too sure like you, wise madam. I could not associate educated people like you (this time he looked at, and meant the other lady) with stale samosas. But now I can certify, even take a bet on the issue; they are stale, in fact very stale.” At this point of time, I realized the samosas like a nuclear holocaust were getting too much attention, and the discussion must go to more interesting pastures. But the bald husband who had resolutely stopped champing on his ongoing samosa, and was looking at the half-eaten one in his hand suspiciously, like a judge looking at an accused in the dock, and took away my turn to speak.
He audibly rebuked his wife, “Kulfi dear, didn’t I whisper this very finding to you from my first bite, but you shushed me with your eyes, just like a senior judge to a junior one on my bench. I tell you these samosas are stale. I can write it down and put my signature. And by now, half a dozen has been washed down my gullet with this bloody rancid tea, someone might not have washed the thermos properly to remove the dry remnant of an earlier tea service.” I was amused by the other wife’s name ‘Kulfi’, and drew my sagacious conclusion that the couple was foodie, food was their weakness like ours, a glorious match in cultural taste. But the husband hadn’t stopped yet, “You made them yesterday, Kulfi, now they taste poisonous. Don’t eat. Just stop. Dispose the guilty ones into the waste-bin, like we hang a serial murderer till he is declared dead.” The aggressive wife suddenly had turned into a soaking wet-cat, and surprisingly agreed, “Yes. I will.”
But surprising me, again reconfirming the unknown author’s axiom that wives were made of tungsten-steel whereas husbands of putty, she kind of took a few mental somersaults, fixed her man with a cold stare, and spoke with a colder rasp, “But don’t start here your court kacheri. Here, I am the judge and I am the jury. Your court is at Bhubaneswar.” We then and there came to know with a clarity, putting aside all assumptions and presumptions, that the man was a dignified member of the judiciary brotherhood, and our journey was in safe hands of India’s powerful system of law (that of course, at the time of this recording, has taken a dubious turn, mostly with clever political attributes like ‘law will take its own course’ and we normal mortals know that ‘law is no more the recourse to any sort of course’).
With an effort, I put aside my urge of addressing him ‘Me lord’. I was afraid, he might take it as a sarcasm and hand me over to the railway police for contempt of court. But the universal practice of wives in every family constituting the apex bench for any trial, could it be stale samosas, rancid tea, or headache at bedtime by the female half, displeased me for unknown reasons. I was crestfallen to watch a mirror reflection of my family’s legal state of affairs in that judge’s family.
The judge under the supervision of ‘Me Lady’ discarded the guilty samosas into the waste-bin, poured the bad tea in the coach-sink, vomited a portion of the swallowed guilty food, returned looking hungry and sick and sat down with reading materials. His wife then followed suit in matters of full-throated noise of vomiting and returning with a pale exterior. now she lay down with a book of Odia lyrics by some Devendra Rasik, and the judge with a little book in English, dubiously titled, ‘Case Laws Made Easy’, and the small prints below it announcing ‘Prescribed Best Seller (1998) for LLB Students’. The second mentioned reading material took my breath away. I was extrapolating our country’s coaching system, its dexterity to make subjects simpler and providing better mark-fetching weapons by the day, vis-à-vis our future in the hands of the lawyers and judges who would pass out of the simplified system. Even erudite judges appeared to learn a thing or two from these abridged versions. The most exemplary case was in display on the lower berth beneath mine.
The clever judge had guessed and adjudged my interest and doubts, and blossomed up to find a class (of one pupil though, me and me only) to teach a bit of law. He gave an expansive smile, and said, “Often these two-paisa books contain gems, you find a case law and its year, and the name of the parties with basic thrills and frills, that was escaping your memory for a time; then armed with the information, you would forage through law books for food for your thought.” I couldn’t disagree. In fact, every pirated version of every wisdom had its beneficiary underdogs, even among judges and juries. I remembered a parallel in the sagacious 9th Earl of Emsworth of P. G. Wodehouse comics who would potter in and around his Blanding Castle home, and divert himself with a pig-book during his leisure time.
Time passed. The train rolled on taking short breathers after big intervals, stopping only at big stations. Evening arrived, advanced a little, and dinner was served. Our lower-berth neighbours had ordered three chicken-curry-dinners, third recipient unknown. The husband complained of stomach ache when their three chicken meals arrived. He tried to return one, but the pantry man flatly refused. He and the judge’s wife fought over the matter for five minutes, then, looking appropriately harassed, she requested us to accept the meal. My wife with a stone heart for the other so-called insensitive wife said, “We are eating veg today”. But, as always, I blinked first, winked at the wife, she yielded. I accepted the contraption containing the chicken-remains, the skirmish of that day’s Panipat Battle between the other wife and the pantry man over, the wise pantry man settling doubts once for all, said, “the chicken will be billed to your berth number”, I nodded, the other couple nodded, but my wife remained deadpan.
I was going to clarify to the pantry man that there had been certain readjustment of berths, and the names reflected on the original chart had changed, that our berths were in fact theirs etc., but the burly buster loudly proclaimed that he had all the details, 'the allotment chart itself, mutatis mutandis, was with him,' Still I was trying to remove all equivocality since the dealing party consisted of a serving judge, but my wife, for unknown reasons suddenly broke her silence, and became loquacious, “When the pantry man says he has, then he has, whatever that might be, though he is not very clear to us, yet I am clear that he has and he is clear.” I saw that the ‘has’ and ‘clear’, the verb and adjective, had tangled me in a bind, and before I dis-entangled, the pantry man had disappeared. I felt I saw a glint in my wife’s eyes, hiding a plan to fish in troubled waters, the water of muddy confusion, at the end of this journey, when the pantry man would come around to collect his dues for the meals served from the pantry.
The night softly snored throughout the air-conditioned compartment. The night owls had switched on their bed lamps (those days, the contraptions called bed lamps were provided by the railways, later smart phones would replace them, because book-worms were replaced by net-worms). They were busy at their unfinished novels, magazines, whatever. But our judiciary couple, the secret of the husband being a judge having been spilled, were peaceful on their lower berths, but suddenly, the tranquility took a U-turn, and the judge sat up. He clutched his stomach and whimpered with pain. What so far sounded like a gurgle of the air-conditioning vents to my ears, was out of its veil, revealing the real source. It was the stomach of the honourable justice now sitting on his lower berth. His tummy created the midnight racket.
My attention now shifted to two feet west to his berth, where his wife was lying down like a dolphin under a blanket, a dolphin of about 38”x50”x38” statistics taken at the equinoxes and the equator, the most respectable and healthy measurements for the female Indian human species. Her side-upper profile from under the blanket resembled a lovey-dovey dolphin, I had met at a Singapore aquarium, so closely that I decided, for simplicity and out of love to the Singapore-dolphin, to refer to her, while documenting things thereafter, as only ‘dolphin’, and no more no less. The dolphin appeared restive also, stirring like an unmoored boat in quiet rippling waters of the Pacific. A low gurgle from under her blanket was joining her husband’s louder bass. I guessed the culprit, the villainous homemade samosas who had guised themselves as saints. I was not sure if the rancid tea had a hand in the conspiracy too, so I won’t put blame on it at this stage. I had to be careful, it was the case involving one of India’s powerful judiciary families; judiciary being one of the country’s four Herculean pillars, besides the law makers (parliamentarians), law enforcers (police), and the fourth estate (press); (the last of the resolute pillars those days was really resolute, not yet gone wobbly like now when I record the events as a self-appointed historian, because it now exclusively depends on the spin doctors, the social media strollers for the reporting and not on intrepid journos).
At this point, I noticed my wife taking interest in the midnight proceedings in the semi-dark compartment from her loft. She wore a distinct condescending outlook towards the gurgle and all that, even passed a few disparaging comments in her sleep-groggy drawl in the general direction of the gurgling couple, complained further that a rotten egg odour wafted through the closed-door AC two-tier coach, hinted at making a complaint to the Railway department about the foul midnight emission. I asked her to come off her high horse to help the situation at hand. Having released her steam, she meekly came down to join me.
I forcibly took over the leadership, presided over not less than a dozen harassed and hassled passengers now blinking their bleary eyes, and appointed myself as the master of the ritual. In general, all agreed with me that my neighbouring family had severe food poisoning. The couple now dispatched to the east-end and west-end toilets, couldn’t disagree with us after their return. It was decided that the TC be summoned, he was summoned; was asked for summoning a doctor that he shrugged off as ‘out of the question’. The TC asked if we had a doctor among us, I said “Yes, I am one”, and if he permitted, I would take over their treatment. He shrugged his ‘no objection’ and walked away. I asked the teeming star-eyed men and women, if any of them had antibiotics, they shook their heads. My wife remained nonplussed.
I thought there was time when to fight and when to hold a white flag. I commiserated with wife with obsequious whispers like any universal husband species, and convinced her never to say in such dire situations, “I forgot to pack the medicine kit you had given me”; and she handed over the medicine kit from her duffel bag. The couple took antibiotics, an hour passed, the gurgles and rotten-egg emission reduced to zero, and tranquil and snoring having returned into the hurtling compartment, it was two-thirty, I felt tired, and decided to have my forty winks.
We slept late into the next morning. The whole of the next day passed hunky-dory. The belligerent wives were surprisingly at peace, docile to each other. The judge-couple appeared recovering from their homemade samosas fully. Except a few bleary eyes and lassitude in their general approach to life, the wicked triangular savoury had left no marks on that tough husband-wife pair. Yes, they looked a bit older across one samosa-night, and behaved much older, that seemed a satisfying development. The bald judge on an occasion or two had already addressed me as ‘beta’ which I always found as a distasteful and loathsome word in my dictionary. I, being a serious-minded mature adult, often thinking in the line of alpha males, having most of the leadership qualities like avoiding fist fights, challenges over gulping food items without chewing, avoiding to move out into dark areas without a cellular torch, and other such sub-human activities, had all along hated to be addressed as ‘beta’, even during younger days.
The couple had biscuit and tea for breakfast, frugal veg-meals for lunch, a lot of sleep during the day. They took my advice of taking sufficient rest rather seriously, spreading themselves full length on lower berths all through the day; making me and my wife scurry helter-skelter to find sitting accommodations. Once in a while, my pretty wife contorted her face in an unmanageably ugly way, I still had to learn the secrets of this application, and gave me sidelong accusing glances as if I had been as cruel as Ram, the much advertised Maryada Purushottam, who had exiled Sita to a wildlife reserve of Rishi Valmiki without previous mandatory notice of thirty days.
In those fleeting minutes I recalled my first girlfriend, ever in life, in my class nine, who would give me similar accusing stares with contorted face from across rows of seats in our class, when the math-madam would be breaking her head to put delicate theorems into our thick skulls, if I had delayed replying to any of her daily letters. Two letters a day, she sent through her trusted emissary, her own little brother.
By evening the elderly looking couple had become unusually chirpy with us, inviting both of our team to visit their bungalow at Kharabela Nagar in Bhubaneswar. Wife remained noncommittal, but I said, “OK”. The man became loquacious, “Please inform us one day in advance.” My wife replied, “No man, you tell us one day in advance. You are inviting us, not the vice versa, you know the legal term, don’t be ‘specious’ while dealing with gentlemen.” The judge rejoined meekly, “Actually beta, I meant that, and only that, but my tongue got tangled, I mean, we will let you know in advance. Further don’t call me ‘man’, rather call me ‘uncle’.”
Then he gave me one of his chilling stares that he must be giving to culprits in the dock before his ‘to be hanged till death’ sentence, and rasped, “That applies to you also, young man, I mean, call me ‘uncle’ and that sort of respectable things.” I bobbed a doubtful head, and thought, “This buster is taking me too much for granted because of my genial behaviour!” I wanted to see his birth certificate before attributing an ‘uncle category’ to him. Though his bald head, veined skin, and being a wizened judge made him fit to near about an ‘uncle status’, yet a distant memory, roughly thirty years old, troubled me. I seemed to know an urchin in my locality studying in a class, about five or six classes below me, in my school-cum-college, but having an uncanny facial resemblance to this judge. I made the apparition fade away forcibly, and said, “Yes sir, I mean, yes uncle” to which he replied, “that’s like a good boy.” Earlier he had addressed me as ‘young man’, I had tolerated that as a border case of insult, but ‘good boy’ was too condescending.
Another round of light veg-fare for the couple for dinner, two sumptuous egg biryani and separately ordered chicken curry for we, the two maverick eaters, and our last night in that train, we prepared ourselves for some horizontal rest in our eyries called upper berths. We were already lying down in our two bunks in the sky, and our super-imposed uncle-aunty still chirping away their non-audible gibberish in whispered dark at their underworld level, when the imposing pantry man arrived armed with list-numbers- names to recover his dues for the meals he served to each berth on credit terms.
Our dolphin aunty haggled audibly with him over a chicken meal. The poor chicken might be shifting in her grave over their insensitive argument, but I wanted my sleep badly without the loud and meaningless arguments. The chicken meal ordered by them but eaten by us, was the bone of contention. The mischievous glint in my wife’s eyes etc. was not a distant memory on the subject and it had unfurled its Pandora-like-box. Many like me and my wife craned their necks to partake of the midnight skirmish. The dolphin aunty kind of shrieked, “We ate two chicken meals, why you charge us for three?” Reply, “You gave away one to someone. But it was your order. See this chart and compare with my list for yourself, it is shown against the lower berths, on which you are sleeping.” Dolfin Aunty’s loud rejoinder, “No, the lower berths belonged to them in the chart. They (she vaguely pointed upward in our direction) ate the bird”. The exasperated pantry man now raised his voice a decibel or two, “Why are you talking of birds. Ours is a respected pantry. We cook chickens, not birds, such as crows. Who are they who ate the chicken? Why you point skyward? Are you not occupying lower berths?” Reply, “I mean they who had the lower berths then, not who are on lower berths now. I don’t know, why you stupid, don’t understand the simple thing. I will complain to railways. You don’t know me.” The irked pantry man shouted full-throated, “I don’t care if you are Indira Gandhi’s grandmother. Pay me just now, or jump out of the train and make your complaint, I don’t care.” The subject changed dramatically to more sensitive pastures, aunty more aggressive, “I am old, but not that old to be Indira Gandhi’s grandmother, you rascal with a chicken head.”
By then, the compartment seemed crawling with the crane-brotherhood, craning necks from each berth, curious to partake of the midnight opera. I had no doubts that stronger leadership must take the call, otherwise the inane play of question-answer session over ‘who ate the chicken’ and ‘how old is who’ between a dolphin and a burly pantry chap would go on and on till the first light of the dawn. So, I craned my neck downward sufficiently to be visible, with a resolute voice, I growled like a lowly thunder, “I ate that chicken meal, take your pound of flesh from me.” That was the last of the nightly noise anyone heard and peace returned. But did I see a glint of disapproval in my wife’s eyes with ominous prognoses for the morning across a few hours, “Wait and see, you Alec Smart”, sort of glint?
My eyes opened by four in the morning by overactivity down below. The clamour was almost uproarious. Those days, the Konark Express used to come to its mooring at its Bhubaneswar Terminus by six in the morning, but what surprised me like earlier occasions, the entire train appeared to be up, having finished their toiletry etc., packed bags, suited and booted themselves, were ready by 4am to jump down, the moment the train docked at Bhubaneswar platform, which was expected latest by 6am. “You impatient blokes”, I was going to rebuke them, but stopped halfway, I knew most of them suffered from the anxiety of the train taking them ahead unless they disembark quickly. They always would forget or ignore the basic fact that Bhubaneswar is the terminating station for their train.
The dolphin aunty, who was ready in a georgette sari asked me, “By the way, where are you heading from here?” I replied with my tongue in cheek, “To Bhubaneswar, of course, I think the train terminates there after two hours. And, I was told, it won’t drop each of us to our door steps.” Dolphin smiled (it was her first smile, and she looked sweet), and continued, “Very funny, you naughty boy, I mean, where would you two proceed from Bhubaneswar station…?” My wife replied, “We would directly go to the hotel Midtown, a small joint on Janpath, a few minutes’ walk from the station. We have booked a room there. That would be our headquarters during this twenty-day visit, and from there, we go around Odisha.”
Dolphin, “How are you going to your hotel?” Wife, “Walking with our feet, aunty.” Dolphin, without taking offence, “No, don’t walk. Our son is bringing his car, we won’t mind dropping you to your hotel on our way.” Wife, “Okkie, thank you sweet aunty.”
We deboarded, went out of the station in the august company of the judge and his wife, located their son with the car, an unbelievably smart young man, suave and good looking, but with some sort of resemblance to the young urchin of our neighbourhood some thirty years back, I spoke of a while ago. It felt spooky, Bhubaneswar appeared to be crawling with identical blokes of different age-groups. Just before our luggage was put into their car, the dolphin aunty asked, “I overheard from your talk that you two were classmates in Ravenshaw College of Cuttack. Which batch?”
I assumed, a judge’s family suffered from the same medical syndrome that most IAS cadre people, serving/retired/dismissed varieties, suffered from. While introducing one another, or meeting for the first time each would ask the other, “Which batch?”, as if the former was preparing a tabulated bio-profile of the latter for preparing a high calibre game plan.
I replied with complete information to hurry our departure and reaching Midtown Hotel, “We both completed our B.Sc in the year nineteen hundred and sixty nine, one-year delayed from the schedule for the strike by the professor fraternity. I went on to join Medical College after that, she completed her post graduation two years later.”
Was it an RDX bomb that went off without pre-notice? The dolphin aunty reeled visibly. The judge looked stunned and sick, as if Kasab of Bombay massacre stood before him without hand-cuffs and cradling his rapid-fire gun (Kasab would, of course, enter the scene after quite a few years of that memorable morning). The judge and the dolphin aunty shrieked in unison, “You both are seven years, no, in fact eight years our senior? How could you cheat us so casually? You called us uncle and aunty? You made us call you ‘boy’, ‘young man’, and ‘beta’. You made fun of us, because all along you knew you were older and senior to us. It is sacrilegious. It is blasphemous. You deceived us by hiding your age. It is unforgivable.”
Now it was our turn to stand stunned and ruminate. The bloody junior punks had made us call them uncle and aunty. My military blood boiled (I was a surgeon serving in the rank of a major). It was none of our fault if these funny johnnies lost hair on the pate, or turned into dolphins. they betrayed us in the guise of wizened judges, and over-eating dolphins. When we were still looking for longitudes and latitudes to fix our bearings, we saw the judge and dolphin leave in their vehicle bag-baggage-and-son, leaving us frothing in mouths, and our luggage biting dust.
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
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
He arrives
to a moonless welcome,
not even a star winking
to say hello to him!
Alighting from bus,
bicycling home in pitch dark,
along the mud tracks
cut by bullock-cart wheels,
he sneaks indoors like an alien
from an unknown planet,
his presence given away
only by the gold chain in neck.
But where is his sweetheart?
He shouldn’t grumble
for the pitch dark, an advantage,
let she be his beacon,
for his homing pigeon;
let him do away
with the paraphernalia
of removing the blocking barriers
like her coy modesty;
take her like a timid deer
his darts homing into the beacon.
He knows, the watering-hole
is a pot of nectar,
no poison, no venom;
he can drink in it deep and long.
He makes the visit
a memorable milestone
in their love’s annals, fixing
it, distinct and different.
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)”
( For a short Anthology of Geetha Nair's stories, Click - http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/276 )
( For a short Anthology of Geetha Nair's poems, Click - http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/297 )
Jericho Brown just won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
He is, among other things, the inventor of the Duplex Poem.
This is a poem of fourteen lines in seven couplets.
The second line of each couplet has to be echoed in the first line of the next couplet.
The first and the last lines are the same.
Here is my attempt at a Duplex poem.
STARLINGS
Geetha Nair G
A murmuration of starlings swirling high
Clouding, unclouding the bleak grey sky
Then turning to magic that bleak grey sky...
Their unending rustle arouses something,
A something which awakens a tender shoot
That branches as starlings do in flight
My starlings in flight, brightening swirls
Lightening the dull grey mindscape... .
If starlings can lighten the dull skyscape
And turn magical the cold grey scene
Surely some magic can star this grey mind ?
All is not lost, says a murmur within;
All is not lost when you see in the sky
A murmuration of starlings swirling high.
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
As soon as Alok sat down in his chair, he felt an instant connection with the drawing room. He looked round, systematically examining the walls, one by one, before turning his attention to the ceiling, as if he was looking for something. Although many years had elapsed since he left this house, the sense of familiarity gripped him. He was itching to explore the entire house and its garden. But his desire to know his nephews better, exceeded this impulse by a wide margin. He had barely heard of them from their father Arun, but never met them before.
Alok had lived in this house of his uncle, with his cousin Arun, during his school years. His father’s government job was transferrable, which moved the family around every so often. As this proved too disruptive to his schooling, he lived here, to give his education some continuity and stability. His uncle and aunt had no children of their own and were in the lookout for a suitable heir to pick up the mantle for posterity.
At one time, Alok and Arun were contenders to the heirship of their uncle’s fortunes. So, their relationship had a streak of unspoken tension, heightening their sibling rivalry. For, it was common knowledge that only one of them would eventually bag the big prize. Alok was groomed as the heir apparent by his uncle. But circumstances intervened in this scheme. The adoption plan was changed at the end, in favor of Arun, who finally inherited their uncle’s property. Subsequently, Alok had little contact with Arun; they met once or may be twice after he left to pursue his college education. Since then, Arun had died somewhat prematurely, leaving the estate to his two sons.
They were Prashant and Srikant, living in this house. And, this was Alok’s visit to this house after a gap of thirty years.
It was an utter surprise for them to see their uncle, Alok, to appear completely out of the blue. He had landed without any notice or warning. Given the circumstances, their mutual curiosity was hard to conceal. Both the brothers dropped everything they were doing, to gather around their elusive uncle.
Although Prashant and Shrikant had heard a lot from their father about their uncle, they never had a chance to meet Alok. He left the country to study abroad rather young. They had heard that he had eventually settled in America. After their father’s premature death, they had given up any hope of meeting their uncle. So, this visit had stirred up great excitement in the household.
While Alok was in the toilet, his nephews could not contain their curiosity any longer.
‘What brings him here? Prashant whispered.
‘Perhaps, the news of our Baba’s death,' Srikant said.
‘But he never cared for us, he did not visit us even once, when Baba was alive?’ Prashant murmured.
‘May be, that makes him feel guilty, which drove him here’ was Srikant’s explanation.
After some awkward moments of silence, the conversation began to flow. Prashant and Srikant had heard from their Baba many stories about Alok’s life, particularly about his migration abroad. A lot of what they had heard did not add up neatly and some accounts were inconsistent, if not outright contradictory. Over the years, the picture of their Alok uncle, conjured up from multitude of sources, kept changing with the next new story that came their way. This only added to the mystery surrounding Alok, making their curiosity about their uncle grow.
They had little idea of the world, outside Odisha. For them, its capital city, Bhubaneswar, was big enough; its wide roads and tall buildings were too imposing. Their idea of life abroad was based on a wild mixture of its depictions in movies and the stories they had heard from their friends, with family members, living outside India.
They were busy asking Alok endless questions about his foray into the wider world. He tried hard to answer them, but this was no mean task. First, he could not decide, if he should be truthful to facts or remain faithful to reality, he wanted to paint for them. Then, he had to put everything in their mother tongue. Being out of Odisha for so many years, he had lost the fluency of the language. The effort of translating everything, which naturally came to him in English, into Odiya, hampered his flow of conversation.
In the stream of their questions, soon, the issue of money cropped up. The nephews had heard of people making obscene amounts of money in America. They never knew what to believe, when they used to hear of people in America earning lakhs of rupees a month from ordinary jobs, like garbage collection. Now, they have a chance to get the most authentic information, a golden opportunity of getting all their doubts cleared, once for all.
‘Alok uncle, how much do you earn in a month?’ Prashant finally plucked up courage to ask him directly.
Alok was stumped by this this simple question. He was about to tell them his salary, but he stopped short of spelling out the figure. He was not sure, what currency he would put it in; in Dollars or Rupees. For, the Dollar figure would not make much sense and the higher figure in rupees, they would think, a mere boast.
In order to gain some time to think it through, he threw the question back at them, ‘You make a guess’.
Both the nephews looked lost, for they were not expecting this answer.
‘Alright Uncle, if you don’t want to tell us, we won’t force you’, they replied.
‘Are you rich?’ was their next question.
A straight answer to this simple question was again a challenge for Alok. If he said, no, they wouldn’t believe, and the answer, yes, would be inaccurate.
‘I am not sure’, he said, finally, ‘but I am very comfortable’. He was almost certain, this failed to satisfy his nephews, but it sure put an end to this line of questioning.
Alok was eager to visit each room in the house. For, each part of the house held memories, some faded but some still vivid in his mind. His nephews did keep him company for the first few minutes. But every so often he would simply freeze, looking at a window or a corner of a room, lost in his own thoughts. They then felt, it was perhaps best to leave him alone to wander round the house on his own. Soon, Alok was out of the main house, pottering round in the vast gardens.
‘Do you know, why Alok uncle never visited this house or met Baba for so many years?’, Srikant asked.
'I have heard from Baba, a lot about Alok uncle. At one time, he was the favorite of Badabapa and was set to inherit the property’.
‘What went wrong then?’
‘I am not sure, why he fell out of favour. Baba told me he was not industrious. Hard work was not his style. He had no respect for seniors. To top it all, he was an atheist.’
‘How do you mean?’ Srikant asked.
Although Alok uncle was clever, he was also lazy, spending his spare time in loitering in the fields. When it came to reading, to the great annoyance of his uncle, he preferred novels to text books. In his uncle’s opinion, it was wasteful to fritter away valuable time in such unproductive pursuits.
‘Was this enough to disqualify him from the inheritance?’ Srikant asked.
‘His intelligence, however, did not go unnoticed by Badabapa. He was on the lookout for someone to study in the Sanskrit Academy and become a Sanskrit scholar. For him, this was a matter of great pride to have one of his folks bring glory to the family. But, Alok uncle earned Badabapa’s wrath on this count as well. He was not keen on following this career path as this entailed switching school with new students and teachers. The very idea of leaving all his old friends from his school was anathema to him.'
Prashant then went on to narrate the incident their Baba had told him.
Their Grandpa was a fierce disciplinarian with a strong work ethic. He started his life with a small holding of land and some mango groves, but his assets grew steadily and in no time, he amassed plenty of land, to earn the title of the village land-lord. With his new found wealth, he wanted to leave a legacy. Soon, plans were afoot for building a temple in the village.
Alok uncle learnt of the plans when he saw the site intended for the new temple getting cleared and dug up, ready for laying the foundation, Soon, all his friends and teachers at school were talking about it. He argued with the adults at home, about this extravagant project. There was already a temple in the village, but there was no library. To his simple mind, a library would be far more useful.
But Alok uncle was a mere school boy. His views on the matter were dismissed by the elders, who in their wisdom concluded that a library would fetch no ‘punya’, which could accrue in good measure from erecting a temple.
‘Then, we are plain lucky that Alok uncle lost this race for inheritance of this vast wealth’, Srikant said.
Yes, Prashant continued, ‘Badabapa was a man of wisdom, known for reserving his judgements on people’s character, passed only after due deliberation. He was not a man of rash decisions or impulsive action; he was ever ready to give people a second or even a third chance to redeem themselves. But this was the proverbial straw, that broke Badabapa’s patience of steel.
The decision about legal heirship to the estate was about to be finalized. In his uncle’s mind, Alok did not deserve to inherit the wealth, accumulated over his lifetime through industry and discipline. He was prepared to overlook Alok’s lack of drive and ambition. He was still a child and with maturity, he would improve, he thought. Although, his impudence and disregard for seniors was harder to swallow. But Alok’s irreverence in matters of God was the death knell of any remaining chances for him, disqualifying him outright for his coveted prize. The legal heirship was passed on to our Baba, who was deemed to be more deserving of this bonanza.’
By then, Alok had finished his tour of the house and was back in the drawing room.
‘What is the name of the University, Alok uncle. All we know is that you teach in some University in America?’, they asked in unison.
‘It’s called Temple University, situated in Philadelphia, a major city in America.’ I said.
‘Temple University; what a nice name? But Baba told us, you never liked temples’.
‘It’s simply a name. There is no temple; it’s a University, like any other. They teach all kinds of subjects.’
‘What is your subject, Alok uncle?’ Prashant asked him.
‘Philosophy’, he just could not translate it into Odiya.
‘What is it?’ Prashant persisted.
Alok started thinking about a suitable description for Philosophy, and for the lack of an appropriate answer, said, “it involves deeper study of any subject….’
From the look of being immersed in deep thought on Alok’s face, Prashant added, “we have heard of Arts, Science, Commerce, and degrees like BA, MA, M Sc, and B Com etc. Where does Philosophy come in?’
The mention of degrees was his rescue line; it gave Alok a clue as to how to describe Philosophy. ‘You see, Philosophy is so deep that there is no Bachelor’s or Master’s degree’, he said.
‘You have heard of Ph D., haven’t you?’ he added.
‘Oh, Yes, our college principal has a Ph D. It’s supposed to be the highest degree.’ Srikant said.
‘The full form of Ph D is Doctorate of Philosophy. Philosophy is so deep that you only get the highest degree in this subject. In fact, any subject, studied in depth, turns into philosophy’.
‘But Baba told us that you worked in a department dealing with buildings.’
‘Oh yes, I work in Department of Architecture. It deals with all kinds of buildings, structures, even temples.’ Alok said.
‘So, are you an engineer then?’
‘No, I am not into building anything. I am all thumbs, when it comes to anything practical. I am interested in their purpose and meaning. I am a man of ideas, you see, not of action. I am the philosopher in Architecture department. My remit is harmony, beauty, and meaning of structures’.
Alok’s conversation was so far, mainly in Odiya, but heavily interspersed with English words. He had little idea, how accurately, he had put his points across. He was far less certain, if it meant much to them. By the time, he came to describe his job, he was finding it increasingly difficult to translate. He uttered the last sentence, the synopsis of his job description, entirely in English.
He looked at Prashant and Srikant, who were gazing at Alok’s face, rather quizzically.
‘We shall talk about this later. I have more important things to share with you. I must visit the village temple also, before it gets too dark’ Alok said.
‘The temple! that is the last thing, you would be interested in’, Srikant said , surprised.
Alok considered explaining to his nephews, his position on temples. He had found their aesthetics quite absorbing and his passion for temples had deepened over the years, although his attitude towards the rituals inside temples had not altered. But he resisted this. ‘He had already got them into a muddle with stories of his unconventional life’, he thought, and he did not want to add any more to it.
As he got up, he looked straight ahead and on the wall found the window, that led to the adjoining room. Alok was seized by a surge of emotion at their sight. That window and the room next door held precious memories for him. He bent down to kiss the grounds
One night, he was secretly reading a story book borrowed from the library, after the whole household had gone to sleep. His habit of reading story books was frowned upon, forcing him to read them secretly late at night. Suddenly he heard footsteps; someone was walking towards his room. He had to quickly turn the lamp off and slip the book into the next room through the window, before pretending to be asleep. That room was used as a granary for storing paddy the very next day and he never saw the book again. He never forgot that incident as he lost two months of pocket money, he had to pay towards the fine for losing the library book.
As he reached the ground, Prashant and Srikant looked at him in sheer amazement. ‘What is he doing?’, they wondered.
Alok got up quickly, turning round to look towards them, and said, oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, I have this present for you, pointing to the bag he had carried with him, which was standing next to his chair.
‘What is in it, uncle?’, they asked, unable to contain their excitement.
‘Ah, that is a surprise. You have to wait until I return’, Alok said.
He left hurriedly, saying, ‘I shall explain it later. Wait until I return. Promise, you won’t open it until I am back’, pointing at the bag in the corner of the room.
Prashant followed Alok until they were out of the house and promptly returned into the courtyard of the house. Srikant was waiting for him there, with so many questions buzzing in his mind, he wanted answers of.
‘What was Alok uncle doing on the floor?’ Srikant asked.
‘It looked like; he was kissing the ground! I am sure, he is far too clever for us. I have no doubt, he is up to some trick’ Prashant replied.
‘What do you do think, he was doing then?’
‘I remember Baba telling me the story of gold buried under the wall between this room and the room next door. During their school days, Baba and uncle were under the impression that a big chunk of the family fortune was stashed away there for the posterity.’, he continued, ‘Did you notice, when Alok uncle was kneeling down, he pulled out something from his pocket?’
‘Yes, I saw that, it was a handkerchief’.
‘But underneath the hankie, I could see something glistening’, Prashant said, taking pride in his power of observation.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I think, he had some sort of contraption, may be a metal detector, looking for the buried gold’, was Prashant’s verdict.
‘But there is no buried gold there. I never heard of any such thing’ Srikant said.
‘Yes, you are right. The story of buried gold was just a rumour. But Baba told me that, in their childhood, they really believed in it. Perhaps, for Alok uncle, it is still real, as they had imagined in their school days.’
‘So, you think, he came back in search of the hidden gold?’, Srikant said haltingly.
‘Why else would he return after so many years?’
Srikant was lost in thoughts. He was beginning to grasp the enormity of what was unfolding before his eyes.
‘Bhai, I think your hunch may be closer to the truth, Srikant said.
‘He was so evasive; he did not answer many of our simple questions. Moreover, he was so secretive, clearly wanting to go round the house on his own, avoiding our scrutiny. And, what about his new interest in temples?’, he said to himself.
His thoughts were interrupted by Prashant’s next pronouncement, ‘You know what, I am now worried about what is in this bag, Alok uncle has left here’,
‘What is your concern?’, Srikant asked,
‘He says he has brought a present for us’, there was a tone of sarcasm in his voice.
‘Don’t you believe him?’ Srikant asked.
‘I was not so sure in the beginning. Now, I am definite, this is another ploy’.
‘What are you saying?’ Srikant exclaimed.
‘I fear the worst, maybe he has an explosive device in it, to blow us all into pieces’ Prashant said in a chilling voice.
‘How dare you! I cannot even imagine such a thing?’, Srikant shrieked.
‘Well, he missed the inheritance, which he was certain of, till the very end. And he is now back, to claim his inheritance by a new method. If he has not found the gold, he now wants to blow us up all, the ultimate revenge for a grave injustice.’ Prashant said.
‘So, what do we do now?' Shrikant’s voice was by now shrill in terror.
‘We must call the police and the fire brigade. If this bag blows off, fire brigade would come handy and the police should be here to gather all the evidence to nab him’, was Prashant’s advice.
‘If your instinct is right, we should evacuate first, so, let’s all get out of the house’. Srikant cried.
No sooner had Srikant finished his sentence, they heard an explosion coming from the drawing room. They got up and ran back to the room. To their utter horror, almost half the room was ablaze. At its centre was the bag, Alok uncle had left behind. Pieces of metal and plastic were strewn around.
The whole family hurried out of the house. After they were safely perched at a distance from the house, Prashant took out his phone to contact the police and the fire brigade.
‘So, you were right after all, I did not even think of this possibility’, Srikant sighed.
Then they saw Alok running towards them, flustered at the commotion, generated by the fire brigade and the crowd outside the house .
‘ Alok uncle, here is a simple question. And, you must tell us the truth. No more beating round the bush. No more fobbing us with, oh, you won’t understand!’ Prashant started off.
Alok looked at them in utter amazement, not knowing what they were talking about.
‘What was the purpose of your visit, after so many years?’
Alok stood still, lost for words, searching for the most appropriate words for conveying his sentimental attachment to this house.
‘Surely, you have not come here for expressing your condolence at Baba’s death’, It was now Srikant’s turn to say something.
Alok’s head was now spinning. He knew, something had gone wrong, which had got both Prashant and Srikant so agitated. ‘They were in such high spirits just an hour ago. What has got into their head now?’, he wondered.
Alok saw the Fire Brigade standing in front of the house and the firemen at work.
‘That can wait; I shall explain it all. Why is the fire brigade here?’ Alok’s voice was faltering.
‘Now, don’t pretend any more. You have to come clean and confess. The police will be here soon. They sure will uncover your clever plot’.
‘What plot? what are you talking about?’ Alok cried.
‘What did you put in that bag, you cunningly left in the house, before you slipped out to the temple?’
‘That was your gift’, Alok said
‘So, you wanted to gift us an explosive? And, what was your intention? To get us all killed?’, he screamed.
‘Oh no!’, Alok suddenly realized what had happened. He looked inside the house and to his horror, saw smoke and flames belching out of a window. The fire probably came from the battery of the Laptop, he had brought for his nephews. He remembered the news item, a few years ago, of the danger of laptops batteries catching fire. He thought, that was a problem of the past, and all new laptops were safe.
After giving it some thought, he had decided on a laptop, as a gift for his nephews. He had imagined their thrill at the sight of their gift; a brand new, top of the range laptop. ‘How proudly they would show it off to their friends’ he thought.
The ultimate gift from their long-lost American uncle has now gone up in smoke, literally.
‘How can you even imagine such things? It’s only a laptop, I had brought for you. It was the best money could buy and I thought, it would make you so happy. And, I asked you not to open it before my return. Because, I wanted to capture the joy on your face when you first see it. How would I know; it could catch fire so easily’, he fumbled.
Prashant and Srikant looked at each other in total silence.
Alok plumped to the ground, sitting down, with his head cupped in both hands. His face was distorted in disbelief, as if he had just woken up from a horrible nightmare.
‘How did we get him so wrong?’ Srikant finally blurted out, in a goading tone, meant for Prashant to say something.
Prashant made a gulping movement to clear his throat, before saying, ‘Baba had once said, Alok uncle often felt, no one ever understood him: He was always an outsider here. And, we have made every effort to keep it that way!’
Baba: father
Badabapa: grandfather
Punya: God’s grace
Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya from Hertfordshire, England. A Retired Consultant Psychiatrist from the British National Health Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer in University College, London.
It is raining in Cuttack once again.
The rain that arrives so gently
that it can scarcely be heard
through my son’s dream songs,
the harsh sound of motor cars
crowding the foul road. Once,
on one such afternoon in July,
your limp voice drifted into my room
through the rain. Today
the rains are once again here,
and I can almost remember
your wet voice
through my son’s loud singing,
through the humming sound
of motor cars crowding the road
and, beyond all this,
through the damp sound
of a faraway afternoon rain
in the July of one distant, echoing year.
First published in Prairie Schooner (USA)
A Pushcart nominee, Bibhu Padhi has published fourteen 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
Like soundless night, day also silent
Silence is rhythemically broken
By the 'tik tik' sound of wall clock
Has time stopped at my door step
Neither could I call him inside
Nor I could reach there
Crossing the invisible barrier
A prisoner, I am at my home.
Sipped morning tea twice by now
No news paper to glance through
Open TV only Corona update
Everyone afraid of unknown virus
News and views repeated
Again and again
Displaying the mental agony
That engulfs the entire world .
Perhaps time has stopped
This time on its own
Tried to stop it many a times
Never obliged me in the past.
Why so much perturbation
Why can't I stop with it?
This interval is a boon
To have self introspection.
May I search now onwards
Redness of rising morning sun
Setting sun's hue in western sky
Liberated starry sky at night
May I search from surrounding silence
The melodious 'kuhu' of koel
The chirping lyric of bird
Squirrels chasing up and down
On soft branches of champak tree
Visible clearly from my terrace
Listen the speaking voice of Nature
Running closely with time
For last forty years
That I couldn't hear, even
After stumbling time and again .
Now time has stopped altogether!
Bijay Ketan Patnaik writes Odia poems, Essays on Environment, Birds, Animals, Forestry in general, and travel stories both on forest, eco-tourism sites, wild life sanctuaries as well as on normal sites. Shri Patnaik has published nearly twentifive books, which includes three volumes of Odia poems such as Chhamunka Akhi Luha (1984) Nai pari Jhia(2004) andUdabastu (2013),five books on environment,and rest on forest, birds and animal ,medicinal plants for schoolchildren and general public..
He has also authored two books in English " Forest Voices-An Insider's insight on Forest,Wildlife & Ecology of Orissa " and " Chilika- The Heritage of Odisa".Shri Patnaik has also translated a book In The Forests of Orrisa" written by Late Neelamani Senapati in Odia.
Shri Patnaik was awarded for poetry from many organisations like Jeeban Ranga, Sudhanya and Mahatab Sahitya Sansad , Balasore. For his travellogue ARANYA YATRI" he was awarded most prestigious Odisha Sahitya Academy award, 2009.Since 2013, shri patnaik was working as chief editor of "BIGYAN DIGANTA"-a monthly popular science magazine in Odia published by Odisha Bigyan Academy.
After super annuation from Govt Forest Service in 2009,Shri Patnaik now stays ai Jagamara, Bhubaneswar, He can be contacted by mail bijayketanpatnaik@yahoo.co.in
FLOWER OF LIFE
PravatKumar Padhy
Early in the morning
The day scripts its journey
With the garden of hope.
The brightness of smile
Renders streams of happiness
Embodying the dream of life
In every page of blissful flower.
Caressing one and all
They solemnly reflect
The symphony of Godly gift.
They live their lives
For the present
Composing the lyrics of love.
In this garden of joy
Flower of life is everblooming
Planting poetry of smiles.
(Third Place, 2012, Sketchbook Poem the Picture Contest, Vol. 7 No. 3, Issue 43, Shanna Baldwin Moore, USA, Contest Moderator)
STATUTORY WARNING
PravatKumar Padhy
Life
In this modern world
Becomes
A sheet of advertisement
Epitomizing all colours
And
shoving into voids of
Fantasy and ill dreams.
It drifts away
Far off
From the shoreline of truth
Which remains
As misty streaks of
Statutory warning
“VICE IS INJURIOUS TO VIRTUE”
The Trapped Word: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, 1988 (Ed. Sailendra Narayan Tripathy)
Pravat Kumar Padhy, a scientist and a poet from Odisha, India, has obtained his Masters of Science and Technology and Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, ISM Dhanbad. He has published many technical papers in national and international journals. He is amongst the earliest pioneers in evolving the concept of Oil Shale exploration and scope for “Ancient Oil Exploration” (from Geological very old strata) in India.
His literary work is cited in Interviews with Indian Writing in English, Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, Cultural and Philosophical Reflections in Indian Poetry in English, History of Contemporary Indian English Poetry, etc. His Japanese short form of poetry appeared in various international journals and anthologies. He guest-edited “Per Diem, The Haiku Foundation, November Issue, 2019,” (Monoku about ‘Celestial Bodies’). His poems received many awards, honours and commendations including Editors’ Choice Award at Writers Guild of India, Asian American Poetry, Poetbay, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival International Haiku, UNESCO International Year Award of Water Co-operation, The Kloštar Ivani? International Haiku Award, IAFOR Vladimir Devide Haiku Award, 7th Setouchi Matsuyama International Photo Haiku Award, and others. His work is showcased in the exhibition “Haiku Wall”, Historic Liberty Theatre Gallery, Oregon, USA. His tanka,‘I mingle’ is featured in the “Kudo Resource Guide”, University of California, Berkeley. The poem, “How Beautiful” is included in the Undergraduate English Curriculum at the university level in India.
He is credited with seven literary publications of verse, Silence of the Seas (Skylark Publication), The Tiny Pebbles (Cyberwit.net). Songs of Love - A Celebration (Writers Workshop), Ripples of Resonance (Authors Press Cosmic Symphony (Haiku collection), Cyberwit.Net, The Rhyming Rainbow (Tanka collection), Authors Press), and The Speaking Stone (Authors Press). His poems are translated into different languages like Japanese, Chinese, Serbian, German, Romanian, Italian, Irish, Bosnian, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Telugu, and Odia.
He feels, “The essence of poetry nestles in the diligent fragrance of flower, simplicity of flow of river, gentle spread of leaves, calmness of deep ocean and embellishment of soothing shadow. Let poetry celebrate a pristine social renaissance and beautiful tomorrow of the universal truism, here and beyond
As David walked up to the big white colony he felt like a sinner walking into a town of angels. They were long-legged, long-necked and long-billed birds, stalking their prey in the shallow water of the paddy field. David chose a heron which was close to him and then prepared himself by taking the rifle from his shoulder for the kill.
A flush of ducks came paddling along the stream. Some had fluorescent green heads while others had ordinary brown heads. Their little ducklings came dabbling behind. Seeing a heron, an old acquaintance of hers, a green headed duck parked herself near the bank.
“Hello there,” she quacked to the heron who stood still in the paddy field adjunct to the stream. Hearing a familiar voice the heron turned around and saw her friend in the water.
“Oh! It’s you,” the heron said as she waded her way to the bank.
“Had a good catch?” the duck enquired
“Not yet” the heron replied.
“Even with this spear of yours!” the duck teased, looking at the heron’s pointed beak.
“Anyway, it’s better than your blunt one,” the heron shot back.
”Quackle, quackle,” chuckled the duck at the criticism of her beak.
“Who is he?” The heron asked, directing her pointed bill at David.
“Ah! That’s him from the house that you see there at the distance” said the duck.
“We were a little frightened because of the rifle in his hand” the heron said apprehensively. “We saw him preparing his gun and we were getting ready to fly off”.
“Quackle, quackle” chuckled the duck shaking her fluorescent head. “Shoot? He? Him?Hmmm….", and then it chuckled once again before giving her colourful head a dip in the water in between her cackles.
“Why? What happened? Why are you laughing so much?” The embarrassed heron asked.
“He doesn’t know how to shoot, that is why”, the duck said at the end of a joyful chortle.
“Doesn’t know how to shoot?” the heron asked, surprised.
“Yes! He only knows how to aim all over the place. And the better news still is that the gun won’t work,” the duck said.
“Why doesn’t it work?” the heron asked
“Because it’s old. So old that the trigger has forgotten its fuction”, the duck with the green head said.
“Thank god!” The heron said. “But why does he carry it around?”
“Quackle, quackle” chuckled the duck, "That is the only work and hobby he has. To rub and polish the gun and carry it on his shoulder around the fields and village, showing it off to all the damsels around, flattering himself."
“Are you telling me that there is nothing to be frightened about this man and his gun?” The heron asked, to confirm the fact she had heard.
“Don’t worry, as long as he is the one who carries the gun and this is the gun that is being carried,” the duck assured.
Our rifle was made in a hurry in the year nineteen forty five in Great Britain during the rage of the Second World War. But by the time the parts of the rifle were assembled and the rifle ready to do its duty, to kill, the Axis powers surrendered to the Allies and the Second World War was over. Our rifle was too late to take part in the historic war and it missed its very first chance to show its fire power.
So, our rifle was sent down to India to quell some uprising, crying ‘Simon go back’. But before the butt of the rifle could be placed against the shoulder, the half- naked fakir to the British and a Mahatma to the Indians, shook the yoke off sovereignty with his wisdom and a free land emerged on a midnight in nineteen forty- seven. Our rifle again lost a chance to spit out its red fire.
When the British left the Indian coast the rifle remained in the possession of Abdul Kader, an Indian soldier in the British infantry. But before the British left, what was said to be the inevitable disintegration of a big proud India had sadly taken place. A dysphoria , which truly marred the euphoria surrounding the birth of a nation. Insecurity, expediency, arrogance were all reasons for the still haunting fragmentation of a big country. A haven specifically for Muslims was created and the founder of the new heaven tore off a segment of flesh from both sides of the mother country.
Very much like India, Abdul Kader’s mind too was torn between love for his religion and his mother land. His mother wanted to stay on in the same land where she believed her husband's spirit still lived, while his brothers persuaded him to cross to the other side. With our rifle hung on his broad shoulder, Abdul Kader walked till the newly envisaged border with his brothers in front of him and his mother behind him. There, he saw thousands and thousands of people crawling, migrating to opposite sides claiming, ‘Our god is not theirs, theirs is not ours!’. Abdul Kader stood on the dividing line and pondered over what to do. His brothers urged him to step over the partition line but he saw the anguish in his mother’s eyes. He was a soldier and he had to be strong in such situation too. It took a little time but his decision was firm. Holding his mother’s weak hand and lending her his support he walked back the way he had come saying, “Patriotism is my religion and my countrymen are my family.” So our rifle too remained with India after a moment of balancing on the ever-cursed border.
On August sixteen, nineteen forty seven, Jammu and Kashmir too became an independent state but it did not accede either to India or Pakistan because the state was not a part of British India and therefore the partition on communal basis did not apply to the state. Then in October nineteen forty seven, Pakistan launched an attack on the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Maharaja Hari Singh’s trust was betrayed and he was crestfallen. So the grieved and dejected maharaja exercised the power vested in him under the municipal and international laws. The maharaja of the state, being the sole competent authority to decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir, signed the instrument of accession and Jammu and Kashmir willingly became an integral part of India on October twenty seven, nineteen forty seven. Maharaja Hari Singh then requested the Indian union to send its forces to vanquish the invaders and India responded responsibly because from then on Jammu and Kashmir was a part of its big family.
It was at this point of forcing the intruders out of Jammu and Kashmir, that our rifle entered into a battle field for the first time. Borne by Abdul Kader it went into the site, the battle field, where men gathered to kill each other. But Abdul Kader never pulled the trigger. He was confounded. On one side was his mother and on the other side his brothers. In the middle was a skirmish. But he was saved from the irresolvable predicament by the submission of the Pakistan army before the Indian. Because Abdul Kader was unprepared to shoot with perplexity raging in his heart, our rifle lost an opportunity to draw blood.
Then when Abdul Kader retired from the corps, our rifle was returned to the keeper of the ordnance. There it lay till China’s aggression on India in nineteen sixty-two, trampling the voice of brotherhood, shredding the belief of friendship and lambasting the concern of neighbourhood. Poorly prepared soldiers of India stood beneath the great Himalayan ranges and received the Chinese bullets sprayed from the top onto their hearts.
“It’s enough. There has to be a way”, roared Major Sukhdev Singh. The stratagem he crafted was to mobilise a band of personnel up and around the ranges to attack the unsuspecting Chinese dragons who perched on the peak and spewed fire.
So, the patriotic unit scaled the precarious mountains where snow lay heaped in tons, ready to crumble and slide down at the drop of a hat. Our rifle stood steadfast in Major Sukhdev Singh’s ever ready arms as the hardy men climbed the cliff, crossed the glaciers, sulked the gorges and finally when they were tiptoeing through a pass in knee-deep snow on a final stretch, the fragile white picture of the snowy mountain came tumbling down on them. The avalanche buried them alive. Nothing more was heard of these hardy sons till the war was over and lost. Later, a search operation was carried out to trace the lost sons and among the other things recovered was our rifle. The job it ought to have done had evaded our rifle.
Without a dutiful shot being fired from it till now, our rifle had a period of repose till the war of nineteen sixty-five between Indian and Pakistan. Seeking revenge for the earlier defeat, thousands of Pakistani paratroopers settled down in Poonch and Rajaouri and another war was on for India. The duel was heavy in the Poonch sector and a requisition for reinforcements were sent. So, fresh arms were sent and our rifle too was carried to the site of action, along with hundreds of rifles and grenades that were taken in five trucks. But the Pakistani soldiers waylaid them in a totally unexpected ambush. Within a matter of few hours the Pakistanis confiscated all the weapons and sent them to their own armoury. India won the war but our rifle found itself on the other side of the border. Before our rifle could participate in the war it was taken as booty by its enemy.
Then again in nineteen seventy one, the Pakistani troops rallied together and an incursion was made into Indian territory and another war started. The battle was intense and raging and that was when Captain Joginder Singh received a rich piece of information from his radio man after interrupting the enemy's liaison frequency. A group of enemy soldiers had installed themselves among the hills. So a detachment stealthily made its way across by night and by dawn a blitzkrieg was carried out with a fusillade of bullets fired at the unprepared enemy. Our rifle was kept there as a supplement along with a number of other weapons and they were carried back home together through the bravery of Captain Joginder Singh and his men . Another war was over and our rifle had not yet let out the fumes from its mouth.
Our rifle had a place in the weapon store house of India till the day the army replaced its old guns with those sophisticated automatic ones from Moscow. Never was a duty- bound bullet shot from our rifle till now, even after passing through the hands of different nations and witnessing many wars.
So after retirement, the rifle gracefully came into the hands of a rifle club in Calcutta where it was considered as a prized possession under the false notion that it had taken part in all the wars, beginning form the Second World War. It had, but only as a passive, inactive, unlucky participant, yet to know but eager to learn what blood was like. It was treasured in such a respectful manner that it soon found itself on a wall above the hearth, flanked by two swords. None took it out to have a shot, not even once. There again, it was not given a chance to open its mouth due to admiration and respect.
A retired police officer of West Bengal, a native of Kerala, took a fancy to the rifle (mainly because of its eventful history) and he carried it away without anybody’s knowledge when he returned home.
The rifle would have continued to remain as a treasured possession with the retired police officer if a friend of his had not seen him with it. The retired officer was polishing the rifle when his friend paid him a visit. The friend was bent on having the rifle and the price he was willing to offer was too high to be resisted. So the rifle changed hands for a hefty amount. But what the once hawk eyed police officer didn’t know was that his friend was a poacher too.
So Nambisan the poacher, with four of his poaching friends, set out into the forest for tusks and horns with our rifle in his hands. They sighted a herd of elephants and immediately one among them foolishly fired his gun at a pachyderm which had the longest pair of tusks in the herd. But the bullet only grazed the tusker’s head. The careless, ill-planned shot sent the herd into a frenzy and there was a stampede. In all directions the elephants ran amok. Nambisan’s group too ran blindly till each was left on his own. Then, as if the goddess of the forest had planned it, Nambisan found himself in front of the huge elephant with long tusks. The big black animal headed straight towards the slaughterer and Nambisan stood as though dead, losing both his mind and the rifle. The elephant butted, rammed, gored and hurled him. It smashed his skull placing its stamp of revenge with its foot and then it trumpeted victoriously, brandishing its trunk high in the air. As for our rifle, it was deprived of yet another chance because its user was too frightened to think about using the weapon which he had with him.
For some days our rifle lay there beside the decaying body till a tribal came and picked it up. He was fascinated with the gun and he took it to his hut where he buried it under the floor of his earthen house. The tribal liked the gun but he had an urge to murder his wife every time he saw the rifle. Hence, the burial. The rifle was under the tribal’s eyes but beyond his eyesight. He was the proud owner of it, though it was kept without use in the nether world. He spoke boisterously about his gun wherever he went but nobody would believe him. However, one man in the village did. A rice dealer smelt the gun powder in the tribal’s words and he held forth a bottle of rum. The tribal could offer no resistance and his hands dug up the floor of his house and bartered the rifle for the bottle. So for a bottle of rum the rifle found a new owner.
The land was ignored by the monsoon and the sun scorched the paddy fields. The harvest was too poor and the rice dealer found himself drowning in trouble. But he had a hope. He took our rifle to Ouseph, father of David, the richest man in the village and gave it as security for loan. The rain came but it came down hard, flooding all the fields. So the rice dealer was never able to repay his loan and the rifle remained in Ouseph’s possession.
Ever since Ouseph had the rifle in his hand he was thrilled and he was eager to use it. So, he gathered some of his aides and together they went to the woods to shoot a rabbit or a fox or even a finch. At last our rifle was about to put forward its first duty-bound shot. Ouseph and his aides waited among the bushes for hours, but nothing came their way. No, not even a cricket, though its shrill sound could be heard everywhere and pierced deep into their ears. The little insect had raised the alarm, warning all the animals of the lurking hunters.
Ouseph ventured out into the wood a few more times to put his rifle to use but nothing came the rifle's way. Gradually his interest in the gun and in hunting too waned. Then one day, he raised the rifle onto the wall of the drawing room with four nails to support it. Nailed to the white wall, our rifle hung there for many years till David learned from an old revolutionist that guns are meant to be fired and not placed on walls. So, David brought it down from where it was and cleaned the dust and webs off it. He had heard about the credibility of a gun and the swiftness with which it could kill anything. With the gun in his hand, he immediately walked out to the paddy fields to shoot something that moved. He wanted to get an experience with the gun, about which he had heard so much.
David saw a heron but it flew away before he could position himself. Next, he saw an eagle but it was high in the air and against the sun, making it difficult for David to even look up. After a futile survey of the whole area, David prayed for a prey and very soon an ideal one came paddling along the stream. The gun stock was raised onto the shoulder and the barrel was aimed at the duck with a green fluorescent head which swam closer and closer.
From fifty metres to forty metres.
From thirty metres to twenty metres.
From ten metres to five metres.
Close, closer, closer still. The duck came so near that David’s eyes were filled with the picture of it. The rifle was ready to fire its first official, duty-bound shot. To kill or wound something, the objective with which it was made. David’s index finger trembled though he was not afraid. He was only anxious to know what would happen the next moment. Those were tension filled moments.
‘Click’
His finger pulled the trigger. What happened next David didn’t understand. The duck was still rowing on.
‘Click’, ‘Click’, ‘Click’!
Again and again, David pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The picture of the duck was going out of David’s eyes.
From five metres to ten metres.
From twenty metres to thirty metres.
From forty metres to fifty metres.
Away and away, gently, gently along the stream, the green-headed duck paddled on. David immediately took the gun to the repair shop to find out why it had remained silent. The only such shop in the village was a bicycle repair shop. The cycle repairer put his eye through the barrel and then tapped at the butt. He finally came to the conclusion that the problem was all in its balls and they needed oiling. And so the search began for ball bearings. All the cycle repairer could do was unloosen and detach a spring which he then found impossible to fix back. So, the sad truth was made known to David, that his rifle was dumb and it would be better if it were dumped away. As for David he had to accept what was there. His rifle would never speak again and it would only be an ornament. But David made sure that he wore this ornament whenever and wherever he could. He derived pleasure and happiness when he showed it off to the simpletons of the village and was most thrilled when he frightened the damsels with it. As for the cycle repairer the ill-fitting spring he found in the rifle was later fitted into his bicycle bell. Every time the cycle bell went, Tring-Zring, Tring-Zring, hens sitting on the hedge fell down.
Alas for the gun, its wish to fire on duty, at least once, was lost. Its bizarre and eventful though quiescent life came to an end. From then on it was only a dummy. It remained a maiden gun after being made in England during the tremor of the Second World War. It marched along steadily, passing through the hands of three different nations, witnessing a revolution, a disintegration, an accession and many wars before being passed onto common civilians. The rifle was eager to do its duty for which it was made but was never deployed. At last when a person committed himself to using it and when a target floated before its mouth, everything ready, it couldn’t fire. Reason unknown. Perhaps, the old trigger had forgotten its action. Maybe, an oiling was all that was needed. But what was done was dissection and an ectomy of the triggering nerve. The trigger spring was plucked out which, unknown to the cycle repairer was the stimulator of the whole action. Thus ends the pathetic march of the rifle never able to do its duty but still carried around in high esteem by someone who never knew nor would ever know the pedigree of the gun as he carried it around on his shoulder for fun.
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.
MOTHERS DON'T DIE LIKE THIS
Ananya Priyadarshini
(On the occasion of Mothers' Day on the 2nd Sunday of May)
So your mom is dead, eh? Because some days, months or years back, one fine day you had found her body lying still, you think your mom is dead. Her heart wasn't beating anymore then, she wasn't breathing, she didn't wake up to your cries. So you think she's dead. Because a doctor declared her so, you believed she's dead. Because you and the rest of your family have buried/burned her, you think she's dead.
No, dear friend. That's how people die. Not mothers, not thoughts, not emotions. They don't die like this.
If she's dead, why do you still never forget to put on your helmet when you set out for work? You know, right, that she won't shout at you from the terrace?
If she's dead, why do you still not get a feather cut or grow your beard, instead you put your long locks in a bun or braid and trim your facial hair well? Just because she liked it so, isn't it?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You go to a shopping mall and there is a heavy discount on that sexy ripped jeans or crop top. But your shopping bag carries that peach colored kurti and printed button down shirt. She won't kiss your forehead anymore but you wear her favorite look instead of your own.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hey! Ain't you an atheist? Then why do you make it a point to burn incense sticks twice daily in the 'puja' room? You never did it when she used to ask you to do so.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You have grown a hell lot caring and affectionate towards your family, or say, the family she has left behind. Because deep down you know, they are not just your dad or siblings anymore. They're her husband and her children too. You feel an additional responsibility, don't you?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You water the plants she had planted and jump with joy when any of it flowers. Lol! When did gardening become your hobby? You used to suck at it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remember the day when you were brewing tea for all in the afternoon? The third time you added sugar, the spoon was half filled so the tea tastes perfect. Oh come on! You're no kitchen genius. You were copying her because you wanted the tea to taste just the same.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your colleagues offered you some scotch but you declined. You've no idea where your lighter is. Why did you quit? Are you still afraid that she'll smell it on you and not scold but stop talking to you for a couple of days?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You had planned to wear a designer lehenga with floral jewellery to your bestfriend's wedding ever since you were in school. But when the day arrived, you chose to get draped in one of her old fashioned sarees and jhumkas. Be honest and answer yourself, why?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Why on the Earth have you started saving money, bathing daily, cleaning house? Whom else are you impressing but her?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yesterday when you sang a song at a family function and your aunt said you sound exactly like her, didn't you realise her smiling in the tears that had welled up in your eyes?
That's because she's not dead. She can't die. She'd keep loving and living with you till you're alive. You're her flesh and blood. You're a piece of her soul. Where do you think can she go leaving you behind? You know, everytime you mourn over those happy memories that you have of her, you kill her a little. You might feel angry at her at times for the irreplaceable void she has left you to live with forever. A void not even the God is able to fill. But remember she had dreams unfulfilled. Climb to the height she had always wanted to see you at.
So stop sitting and crying there like an idiot right now. Go cut some fresh flowers and put them in that vase on the dining table. Cook her favourite dish and share it with the people she loved and the people who loved her. On her birthday, forget not to cut a cake! And keep her photo in your wallet. No not as your screen saver. Not in your phone gallery where every random person finds a place. In your wallet because she's special. This is going to be difficult. You'll go through multiple heartbreaks. But recall what your mother used to say each time an injection or a tooth extraction made you cry. That she has given birth to a super-kid. And that, super-kids don't give up this quickly and easily. Be one now!
Don't look for her in stars. Stand before the mirror and smile. You'll find her smiling too in the reflection.
Promise!
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.
( For a short Anthology of Sharanya Bee's poems, Click - http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/285 )
Back and forth my rope swing oscillates,
with me on it of course..
An object of interest to people young an old,
since time immemorial,
That which can take one
back to where they started,
Something that I've always wanted with time..
Maybe it is this ability of the swing
that attracts all humans, I muse..
Like an unfinished circle, drawn over
and over by an artist lost in thought..
I move along the crescent.
With my fingers gripped tightly
around the rope, I lean backward,
My long black hair sweeps the muddy earth,
I don't care..
My eyes close,
An empty cave, lit in red,
I walk forward, to the raised platform,
A horizontal iron rod suspends
a rope with many knots downward..
I examine them, the knots,
All so tight but different forms..
''Your mistakes.'' says a voice
"Untie them"
I start on it, with each untied knot,
I feel lightweight..
Finally, the rope is straight.
The ground disappears,
I grip on the rope that gently
lets me down to an empty room, all white..
From the white walls, emerge faces of expressions,
like masks struggling to break out of it..
"Your feelings" says the voice;
"Release them"
I tear open the elastic walls with my bare fingers,
They come out, the masks,
as they hit the ground, vaporize,
The walls melt away, as they do,
I see the ocean on either sides, I am in the midst of the sea..
I sink down, inch by inch,
the saline water fills into my mouth, my breath stops.
I am underwater..
"Your fears"
I hear the feeble echoed voice..
"Don't drown in them"
I open my eyes,
The swing is still, the oscillation stopped,
I am still leaned backwards, I sit up straight,
I loosen the grip of my fingers on the rope..
Then look at them,
Red (iron like) rods running through the flesh of my palms..
And what runs down from my eyes..?
Salt water.
Sharanya Bee, is a young poet from Trivandrum, who is presently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature in Kerala University. She also has a professional background of working as a Creative Intern in Advertising. She is passionate about Drawing and Creative Writing.
Flash Fiction
Henry and Dennis were just five and four years old respectively. Most of the time they played together without any fights but sometimes they fought over small things. So their granny always kept a watchful eye on them. One day they were colouring pictures in their colouring book. On one page of the book on which they were colouring there was a picture of a hen coop. It was kept under a shady tree around which there were hens, roosters and chickens. Granny told them to colour the picture using different crayons. It was a beautiful farmyard scene. And she left them alone to get a few biscuits for their brunch. When she returned she found the whole picture blotted with black colour. Shocked, she asked them why they did that? Oh my, how are we going to see the hens and chickens again?" Immediately they chorused. "Granny, don't you worry. We have hidden the hens and chickens so that the bad wolf wouldn't see them and catch them". Granny just had no words to reply.
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
It's 11:11, I wish again,
Pour myself into the very thought,
Should've known better,
It's been years now.
The bulletproof case I kept guarded,
Even from myself,
In only a moment burst open,
The glass draws blood.
I can't bring myself to seal it,
And bury it in my soul,
No! It's too dark in there,
I can't push it back inside.
The beauty of it all,
Shines so bright and hot,
It burns me, oh!
Now I'm covered with scars.
It's 11:11, I wish again,
I wish for you,
Oh! If I could have anything,
I would always choose you..
The clock struck an odd hour,
the sound jarring to the bones
of she who wanted to find,
the lamp of knowledge.
Her mind riddled with questions,
she itched to pour out.
So she followed her heart,
Letting it be the compass for her ride.
I was always one with questions,
Naught today, I thought, as her tear
wet the page, leaking out the ink,
it had spent years holding in.
.
An ever-changing reality
with only the sleight of a hand,
someone I know and love forever,
might not exist with the birth of time.
If I love and live this very moment,
am I missing out on birth and serenity?
If I'm here in this present moment,
who's there in the alternate dimension?
For this I say, you never know,
your choices make your future but never your past.
In the other face of time,
all the we-s have different versions of you-s.
If you weren't here and were there,
would you have still been happy as you are?
Much like the cat of Schrodinger,
you'd have been both happy and sad.
I lament for all the roads not taken.
What if my calling was the destination of a different route?
The path you chose to strut along is yours,
there isn't destiny more than the one you make.
What about the people I have missed out on,
the ones that I could've been one with, what of them?
For this, I say, so many possible choices you've before you,
the thread of chance running through everyone calling this universe home.
As an aurora broke open over the quiet sky,
I whisper to you, there's a bit of you in it too..
Thryaksha Ashok Garla, an eighteen-year-old, has been writing since she was a little kid. She has a blog and an Instagram account with about 200 poems posted till date. She touches upon themes such as feminism, self-reliance, love and mostly writes blues. Her poems have been published in two issues of the 'Sparks' magazine, and in poetry anthologies such as ‘Efflorescence' of Chennai Poets’ Circle , 'The current', 'The Metverse Muse', 'Our Poetry Archive', 'Destine Literare', 'Untamed Thrills and Shrills', 'Float Poetry', and in the 'Setu e-magazine.' She won the first place in the poetry competition held by India Poetry Circle (2018) held in Odyssey. She's pursuing psychology. She's a voracious reader, a violinist, and dabbles in art. She can be reached at: thryaksha@gmail.com by e-mail, Instagram: @thryaksha_wordsmith and on her blog https://thryaksha.wordpress.com/.
I can never forget
My mother’s survival ethic
In the whirlpool of poverty,
Jealousy, anger and enemity.
I still remember
The silhouette of
Her slender figure,
The comely face
The squinted eye
And the angelic smile
On the pouting red lips
Often trembling in fear
Yet tactfully hiding the tear.
I still remember
Her zest for living
The strong appetizing flavour
Of her hand made sabji, fish or potato
Shimmering on earthen pots
On the glowing wooden fire;
Life seemed scintillating
In the mild morning sun.
I do remember
Her graceful posture as Yashoda
Daily morning churning the curd
In a huge silver pot with a wooden spatula
Boiling milk on dung fire or
Grinding rice and gram on the stone slab
Scouring heaps of coconuts
Preparing mounds of dough
For manda, arisha, kakara or podapitha,
Never looking tired, irritated,
Nor ever barking or bargaining
Always calm like the autumn pool
Eyes soft, and sober
Like the lovesick blue lily.
I admiringly remember
Her small agile form
Moving around the vegetable garden
Watering, scraping, stalking,
De weeding spinach beds,
Plucking flowers and vegetables
Filling the wicker basket on her waist
To douse the fire of hunger and anger
Of a multi-mannered joint family,
Like the smiling sun, shining dim
Behind the winter morning mist.
I fondly remember
The cozy warmth of her
Hand-stitched kantha off the rags
And old, unusable sarees
Her careful preparation of beds
For all the young and old
To coax us into the lap of sleep,
While she slept on a bare mat
On the veranda keeping vigil on us,
A small kerosene lamp gave her company
Threatening the insects and ghosts,
Her glassy face half blackened
By the dark soot of labor and angst over
Unmarried daughters growing fast
Inviting the attention of dark forests.
I will always remember
The passionate appeal of her voice
Coaxing us to eat, study or get ready for school
The truant children busy in gossip or games,
And the soothing massage of her hands
On my aching head, legs,
And limbs shivering in fever,
The home-made cure
Of hot mustard oil with burnt garlic pods,
Or cool water packs of wet towels
Like an angel divine
Or the benevolent Florence Nightingale,
And how she used her loving care and prayer
To ward-off frightful diseases
Her trembling lips and teary eyes
Pleading to God for the well being
Of her children sauntering afar,
Like the holy saint, the divine Mother!
I sadly remember
Her silent suffering, her choked tears,
Her anguished pleadings
And her selfless commands
As she toiled to keep the family together,
Amid poverty, disparity and growing distance
Among dishonest friends and back stabbing relatives
Away from selfish greed and selfless coveting,
The grueling toil of a simple noble woman.
I cannot but long and cherish
The solace of the love-charmed lap
Of my Mother
For us no less than a divine messenger!
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”.
The Men who make you Listen with Open Mouth..
(Covid 19- Lock down Experience)
Molly Joseph M
Lock down days..
social distancing..
No time for any medical consultation, meeting doctors..
But if you cannot sleep with a bad head ache that starts from a damaged tooth..and you turn endlessly to and fro in your bed, what else is the last resort of ( a scoundrel as some one put it. ) sorry the resort of the lesser one!
So I set out.
It was a young medic I approached. After going through the routine precautionary measures of the hospital, filling up a form after checking your temperature and all,
standing at a safe distance for long, you are beckoned in..
You wonder whether to sit or stand, the young medic is far too pre occupied with writing something. You tell him about your problem, he listens and says he has to examine..
I can understand his fears. Putting on his gloves adjusting his mask, he peeps and I have to locate my cavity laden tooth at the corner.
One look, he doesn't bother to examine, but emphatically declares, the tooth is damaged, has to be extracted...
Not even checking, how can he be so judgemental, I wonder !
After all, this tooth, my wisdom tooth that stayed with me loyal for more than six decades...
I stagger under the shock..
my mouth is open..I have to listen to him.
"You will have head aches eternal with it."
I plead, "no other option?, After all it is so strong in the roots. I can even chew with the other side.."
His is an emphatic " No"
I realise, it is my tooth..not his.
I have every right to decide.
Seeing me strong to safe guard my tooth, he with a sense of relief, goes back to his desk..after all
a good riddance of a work on a lock down day.. !
Let him be happy.
But before I leave, I get a few pills prescribed from him, if I develop pain again.
Back home, I keep the medicine in my casket and try to find whether my tooth is grateful to me by not causing pain.
Believe it.. my pain, head ache was gone. I cleaned it up myself and stuffed it with clove.
Two days pass.
The cavity still glares, one has to be extra careful while eating..
A solution has be worked out.
I think of another senior, seasoned Dentist who has a clinic in the next district. It is trouble moving from one district to another, the police on duty have to be convinced.
Any how, I have to make it. . On the way we are , stopped, interrogated by the police. A lady Police officer who does the verification is not convinced ..quick comes the query..travelling that far for a dentist?
I have to intervene now.
I address the Madam politely, and say, "Madam, we have great respect for the valuable service you do standing under the sun with your mask and all..
try to believe me..
my tooth problem, its pains, I have to take it to a doctor whom I trust.
It is my decision, Mam.. please believe me."
I was into the process of removing my mask to show her the tooth...
Poor one..she hastily nods assent..
Haha! afraid of a corona
open mouth...
or my earnest appeal...?
I reach the clinic..after the ritualistic wait at safe distance, at last I am in front of that seasoned Dentist..
With patience, he listens.. There is a kind of peace that settles with a doctor who listens.
One wouldn't mind listening to him with open mouth for any length of time..
He takes time to examine, confirms whether the filling may cause pain or not..
No, my tooth is very loyal. This is no time to fuss over...to make confusion, confounded..
Supple, she yields to the filling up of the cavity..
After all my tooth, my very loyal tooth that stood with me for more than six decades.. !!
Gratified I leave.. The Doctor, the true doctor smiles in content..
It is a smile that comes out of a content that he could do something good to someone on a lock down day .. !!
Hush ! did I hear someone whisper 'generation gap'.?
Dr. Molly Joseph, (M.A., M.Phil., PGDTE, EFLU,Hyderabad) had her Doctorate in post war American poetry. She retired as the H.O.D., Department of English, St.Xavier's College, Aluva, Kerala, and now works as Professor, Communicative English at FISAT, Kerala. She is an active member of GIEWEC (Guild of English writers Editors and Critics) She writes travelogues, poems and short stories. She has published five books of poems - Aching Melodies, December Dews, and Autumn Leaves, Myna's Musings and Firefly Flickers and a translation of a Malayalam novel Hidumbi. She is a poet columnist in Spill Words, the international Online Journal.
She has been awarded Pratibha Samarppanam by Kerala State Pensioners Union, Kala Prathibha by Chithrasala Film Society, Kerala and Prathibha Puraskaram by Aksharasthree, Malayalam group of poets, Kerala, in 2018. Dr.Molly Joseph has been conferred Poiesis Award of Honour as one of the International Juries in the international award ceremonies conducted by Poiesis Online.com at Bangalore on May 20th, 2018. Her two new books were released at the reputed KISTRECH international Festival of Poetry in Kenya conducted at KISII University by the Deputy Ambassador of Israel His Excellency Eyal David. Dr. Molly Joseph has been honoured at various literary fest held at Guntur, Amaravathi, Mumbai and Chennai. Her latest books of 2018 are “Pokkuveyil Vettangal” (Malayalam Poems), The Bird With Wings of Fire (English), It Rains (English).
It was a warm summer evening. As the waves rose to splash on the shore and recede, it sparkled in the last rays of the sunlight. Mayandi, as usual, was sitting on the raised bed of sand on the shores, with the waves washing his feet but leaving behind the particles of sand as it receded.
Mayandi was a frail old man with a wrinkled face. He had sharp piercing eyes that took in the vast expanse of the sea in front of him.
He wore a coloured lungi and a loose cotton full sleeved shirt which was rolled upto the elbows. Slowly, he rolled down the sleeve on this right hand and took out a beedi which he had saved. From his waist he drew out a match box and absent mindedly pulled out a match stick. He placed the beedi to his lips, struck the match and with effortless ease, lighted the beedi, even though there was good breeze. He deeply inhaled on the lighted beedi and let out the smoke that curled out of his lips.
He heard the rustling of the sand behind him and felt a pair of soft hands around his neck, warmly hugging him.
“Hi thatha. I have come to enjoy the evening with you”.
Mayandi put his hands across his grand daughter Chaya and affectionately caressed her head. “You are back from your office so early dear”?
“Yes thatha. I don’t intend going back to that blessed office again”.
“You mean, you have resigned your job? But tell me. Why”?
“I will explain it in detail when I join you for fishing to morrow”.
“You! Joining me for fishing? In our community women never venture into the sea. Your amma will really fume at me if you tell her.
“No thatha. Not at all. I know you are adventurous and you have also brought me up that way. You love me thatha and I know you will be able to convince my amma.
“OK. Let me try. I know for sure my little one will take a decision only after a proper evaluation”.
“Come Chaya kutty. Let us enjoy the evening sea” and Mayandi gave her a warm little hug.
“Now thatha you tell me your interesting experience in the sea in all these decades. I am never bored how many ever times you recount your stories”.
“I am the eldest of the seven siblings, being four sons and three daughters born to parents who were fisher folks for generations. My father had died when I was just into my teens. I had the responsibility of bringing up the family. Since all my life I have been at the sea side, I took to the sea with ease. My father had left behind a catamaran and other accessories, necessary for fishing. I had joined my father in fishing on many occasions and I became adept at it.
Mayandi suddenly turned quiet.
“Why thatha, just when I was eagerly waiting to hear more, you have stopped abruptly.
Mayandi gave an impish smile and said, “More of it when we go fishing to morrow”. He got up abruptly and holding Chaya fondly, he said “let’s go home for an early dinner and sleep as we have to start by 4 o’clock in the morning, before sun rise”.
After dinner, Chaya looked up at her thatha and gave him a wink with a smile.
Mayandi nodded his head in assent. He looked up at his daughter Kumudham, cleared his throat and slowly started, “Er.Chaya wants to come with me tomorrow for fishing”. And that was it.
“No. She cannot. In our family no one from the woman folk has gone for fishing. What will our neighbours speak about us?”
After heated exchanges, Mayandi was able to prevail upon Kumudham and convince her.
“Ok”, she reluctantly said. “But let this be the first and the last time”.
Chaya heaved a sigh of relief and hugged her amma and thatha with a beaming smile. All of them retired for the day.
Chaya got up very early in the morning, attended to her routine and slipped into her churidar, had a look at herself in the mirror, combed her hair, gave herself a smile and was ready for the day.
She found her thatha as usual was up and about. He was clad in a striped lungi that was folded till the knees and was neatly tucked between his loins. He had a towel across his shoulder. His hand gently moved to his waist to check if his packet of beedies and the match box were safe with him.
The previous evening itself, Mayandi had got his catamaran and the accessories consisting of the oars, the liner with the hook and the dried fish, sail, harpoon, scalpels, net and the like in place. He pushed the catamaran from the sand into the water all by himself. Since Chaya was accompanying him for fishing, he did not want his support team to go with him this morning. He halted for a few minutes near the shore, got his feet wet, looked towards the sea, closed his eyes and a silent prayer escaped his lips. He then bent down to take a palm-full of water and sprinkled it over his head and that of Chaya’s. He helped Chaya on to the catamaran, pushed it into the water and he also stretched himself to get into the catamaran. He then took the two oars and started to row. The land breeze was also favourable this morning and slowly the catamaran moved into the sea. Mayandi was totally focused to gauge the breeze, the waves and the current in the sea to plan for the navigation. Once into the sea and all was set, he relaxed a bit. The catamaran rose and fell with the flow of the waves. He raised the two oars and left them on the floor of the catamaran. He then got up to fix the sails on the catamaran.
Chaya all along watched her thatha deftly handling the catamaran and navigating it effectively with aplomb.
Once Mayandi was convinced he had his bearing right, he left the catamaran on auto pilot and relaxed. A gentle smile escaped his lips as his rough scarred hands gave Chaya a gentle hug.
“Now tell me Chaya dear,why did you quit your job all of a sudden”?
“It is not all of a sudden, thatha. This has been working on my mind for quite some time. And an opportune moment came yesterday.
“The next generation in our country, has been moving away from fishing, where the returns are dwindling and uncertain, to get educated and move to regular employment, where monthly income would be assured. We have been brought up to take pride in what we do and not be cowed down by vested interests, I had graduated as an engineer and come out with flying colours. I got my job in the company too on merit. However I found that because I belong to the fishing community, some of my colleagues in the office treated me with scorn, asking me to stand before them with folded arms and act submissively. I was sometimes given wrong directions which I could not carry out as the consequences were disastrous. Yesterday, one such incident occurred and I was belittled for no fault of mine and that was the last straw. My pride took the better of me and I put in my resignation. My superiors were taken aback and requested me to take back my resignation. But having taken a decision after much deliberation, I stuck to it”.
“Now that you are free, what are your plans”?
“Hmm. I have drawn out a whole lot of plans thatha. That is why I have joined you on the fishing trip to day. We need to change with the times. I would like to put to good use the technological advancement that is taking place around us at a rapid pace. I plan to act as a catalyst for the development and welfare of our community”.
“When you want to adapt and harness the current technology, how will you benefit by coming with me to learn about the old archaic methods that I follow”.
“Well. It would help me mainly on two counts. First I would like to know what methods are being currently followed in the fishing industry so that we could study and adopt suitable technology that would ease operations and improve productivity. We can thus reduce use of human resources wherever possible. You have always been telling me that very soon we will be out of fishing as majority of youngsters are getting educated so that they could get gainfully employed. This would result in shortage of manpower for fishing. This can be addressed by adopting technology to the fullest, wherever possible”.
“But technology is not always fail proof. If we are aware of how you had handled manually such situations earlier, we can adopt technology with more confidence. We can always switch over to manual process temporarily to tide over any eventuality”.
“I am now done thatha”. You have been patiently listening to me. At the same time you were busy in your own way. Tell me your plan for the day”.
“To day I have got the liners ready for fishing since we are not going to venture too deep into the sea. For deep sea fishing we need trawlers and fishing nets supported by a good team”.
“Liners are long plastic ropes and the thickness is dependent on the type of fish we are planning to target for the day. We tie hooks to the liners at a specific distance from each other and place dried fish as a bait for the fresh fish in the sea”.
“We old timers have been into the sea long enough to identify certain landmarks on the shore which provide us the direction we need to take to venture into the sea and also to return. Through experience, we also know where we have to drop anchor to get a crop of good fish”.
Chaya now looked across the sea and found that some fish had got hooked and were struggling to free themselves. Following her gaze, Mayandi said, “These are all small fish. We leave these in the hook to attract bigger fish”.
Chaya just smiled and said, “Why not we remove the small fish from the hook and replace them with these plastic colourful fish, which also has a bigger hook on them. These are available in the market for a price”.
Sensing her thatha’s reluctance, Chaya proceeded to attach the plastic fish she had got with her, to the liner. After some time, both of them noted more fish getting attracted towards the liner and biting the plastic fish to get hooked. Some of them were really bigger than the first catch. Mayandi let out a wry smile.
All along, Mayandi was holding tight to one end of the liner while the other end was free in the sea, while a portion of the line was still in the catamaran, to be released, if required. Suddenly Mayandi felt the liner getting taut. He realized that he has got a big catch and smiled knowingly at Chaya.
“You have made a good start Chaya. We have hooked a big catch just now. It is literally pulling me. If I am not careful, I might even fall into the sea and get dragged with it”.
“Why don’t you haul it into the catamaran, then”.
“Since it is fresh and lively, It will try hard to free itself from the hook. If I try to pull it close to the catamaran and haul it in, there is a possibility, the catamaran could capsize. What we instead do is, allow the fish to get tired and then work on it”.
After some time Mayandi started pulling the liner and arranging it in a roll in the catamaran. At the same time he told Chaya, “As I roll the liner, you remove the fish from the respective hooks and put them in the trays”. As she started on this exercise, she also saw the big fish being pulled towards the catamaran, even as it fought furiously to free itself from the hook and swim to safety. Mayandi leaned across the catamaran and took hold of the harpoon. He aimed at the gills and pushed it hard into the fish. Blood started to ooze out as the sea water turned red in patches and the fish went limp. This must weigh nothing less than 50 kgs, said Mayandi, as he hauled the fish into the catamaran. He then released it from the hook and started to roll the balance liner into the catamaran. Chaya religiously worked on releasing the fish from the hooks and placing it in the trays kept for the purpose.
Once Mayandi had rolled the liner neatly, he looked into the blood stained water. He noticed the water getting agitated. Immediately he stood up and began to remove the sails.
“Why are you removing the sails thatha. Don’t we need the breeze to take us to the shore”?
“The blood stains have attracted a shark and many more are bound to follow. If they see the shadow of the sail on the waters, all of them would move towards our catamaran, assuming it is a fish and we are doomed”.
“Oh my God”, blurted out Chaya and a shiver went up her spine.
Mayandi then started to inspect the fish. As he caressed the fish, he felt a hard lump near the gills. His face turned serious as he mumbled, “Yes, this is bound to be a bonanza”. He moved over quickly and pulled out the scalpel and started to cut open the fish. Chaya and he stood dumbfounded at what was before their eyes. Sticking out of the gills was a diamond studded gold necklace. Mayandi quickly recovered himself, lifted his right hand to the gills and slowly pulled out the blood stained chain. He washed it clean, looked at it and gave a gasp. He asked Chaya to open her palms and placed it gingerly on her hands.
Chaya looked at the chain intently for a few minutes, closed her palms, looked up at the sky and the sea as thanks giving.
“This will be my seed capital thatha to start my venture. The objective of my venture is 3i – Initiate, Innovate, Invigorate”.
“As my name suggests, I will provide hope and shade to our community in general. I will strive to ensure that we live with dignity with our heads held high. I solemnly take this pledge in the sea and I am bound to succeed with your blessings.
“Yes. I am convinced you are on the right direction. I am not able to fully relate to your venture. But my instinct tells me you will be the savior of our community. He could not hold back the tears of happiness that flowed out from his eyes.
“Shall we go back to the shore, thatha? I need to get started.”
Mayandi smiled and fondled Chaya affectionately. He took up the oars and started to row vigorously back to the shore, with a renewed strength that belied his age, as expectations soared.
Mr. S. Sundar Rajan, a Chartered Accountant with his independent consultancy, is a published poet and writer. He has published his collection of poems titled "Beyond the Realms" and collection of short stories in English titled " Eternal Art" which has been translated into Tamil,Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu. Another collection of short stories in English titled "Spice of Life" has also been translated in Tamil. His stories in Tamil is being broadcast every weekend on the Kalpakkam Community Radio Station under the title "Sundara Kadhaigal". His poems and stories have varied themes and carry a message that readers will be able to relate to easily.
Sundar is a member of the Chennai Poets' Circle and India Poetry Circle. His poems have been published in various anthologies. He was adjudged as "Highly Recommended Writer" in the Bharat Award - International Short Story Contest held by XpressPublications.com.
In an effort to get the next generation interested in poetry Sundar organises poetry contest for school students. He is also the editor of "Madras Hews Myriad Views", an anthology of poems and prose that members of the India Poetry Circle brought out to commommorate the 380th year of formation of Madras.
Sundar is a catalyst for social activities. He organises medical camps covering general health, eye camps and cancer screening. An amateur photographer and a nature lover, he is currently organising a tree planting initiative in his neighbourhood. Sundar lives his life true to his motto - Boundless Boundaries Beckon
Teardrops
Dewdrops
Both melt
Crumble
Flow, and evaporate
Ephemeral journey
Leaving
Shadows of
Liquid silence behind...
Offering prayers
With fears
Quivering among the flowers
What does one ask for?
Absence of pain
Or
Absence of fear
Or both?!
A deeper healing
Replenishing the fatigue soul
With new lamps of hope
That light up
The dark rooms
Never entered for years
Yet
Filled with untouched treasure
Like seeds
Waiting for the sunlight
Sprouting from the Earth...
These flowers
What would they say
What would you hear
While you are the Omniscient
The prayers being your script
The voices that chant
Merely leave sounds
Tumble into the universe
Bruised
Broken
They take refuge
In a garden
And make the flowers
Voice them...
Fleeting glimpse
Of greenery
Nature's art
In
Emerald hazel
Against
Milky blue sky
The wind
Playing the dandiya
With all the coconut trees
The trains
Watch
All the play
Each day
As they hone the tracks
To, and fro
Journeys
Ignorant of numbness
Is a boon
Feeling
The rhythm of life
Whichever the tunnel
We go through, and
Glow brighter
From the darkness
Blowing colors
Across the farms
And
Some day
Be
That silent house
Meditating
The movements...
Madhumathi is an ardent lover of Nature, Poetry(English and Tamil), Photography, and Music, Madhumathi believes writing is a soulful journey of weaving one's emotions and thoughts, having a kaleidoscopic view of life through poetry. She experiences Metamorphosis through writing. Nature is her eternal muse and elixir. Poetry, to Madhumathi, is a way of life, and loves to leave heartprints behind in gratitude, through her words. She strongly believes in the therapeutic power of words, that plant love, hope, and enable a deep healing. Madhumathi loves to spread mental health awareness through writing, breaking the stigma, and takes part in related activities, too.
Madhumathi's poems are published with the Poetry Society India in their AIPC anthologies 2015, 16, and 17, the multilingual anthology 'Poetic Prism' 2015(Tamil and English), Chennai Poets' Circle's 'Efflorescence' 2018, 2019, India Poetry Circle's 'Madras Hues Myriad Views'(2019) celebrating the spirit and glory of Madras, in the UGC approved e-journal Muse India, in IWJ-International Writers' Journal (2020), and e- zines Our Poetry Archive(OPA), and Storizen.
Blog for Madhumathi's Poems :https://multicoloredmoon.wordpress.com/, http://mazhaimozhimounam.blogspot.com/?m=1
It seems like yesterday that I spotted the kid in my class sleeping. I became angry and asked her why she was sleeping in my plus two class.
Like every human mortal, I believe in the greatness of my tongue.
She did not reply. Just looked at me – straight in the eye.
My good heart was hurt.
I began noticing her every day after this incident. I saw her tired eyes, bent shoulders and careless fingers.
I decided to find out the reasons myself. I called her to my room and she came with fear in her eyes.
‘Are you not well, Archana?’
‘No, mam. I am fine.’
‘Is something disturbing you?’
‘…….Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘I want to….sleep.’
‘Why?’
‘I just want to sleep…leave this world…sleep forever..’
‘Why?....If you don’t want to tell me, it’s ok.’
‘I cannot tell you mam…it is about my family…things are going wrong..’
‘Can I help you in some way?’
‘No. I want to solve it myself.’
‘Shall I inform the counselor?’
‘No…mam…please. I will be alright.’
Now, you will ask me what I did to support Archana. Good question. As informing the counselor was out of question, I called a trustworthy student and asked her to have an ‘eye’ on her. Good old system in schools.
I also had my ‘eyes’ on her. Made sure I appreciated her now and then. Smiled at her whenever possible. Kept her morale high in innumerable ways. She began responding. She started scoring well. I think I saw her smile at me the other day.
People say school teaching is easy. I forgive them. They don’t know what they are saying.
After a month, the student friend texted me one night around 9 pm saying ‘Archana’s father is dead.’ When I asked for details, she called me. I will always remember what she told me about Archana’s father and her family.
How did she collect so much data? Not bad. Now- a- days kids are smart.
Archana’s father was a man of principles. He bathed twice a day, prayed to god two times, watched only news in Television, read only political magazines, spoke only against corrupt politicians and watched movies only after everyone else slept. His family knew him as a good man. His neighbours knew him as a polite man. His mother knew him as a loving son. His sister knew him as a brother who listened to every word of hers with attention. His wife, of course, knew him as a selfish man. And, his daughter knew him as a man who loved watching women in private – only in images.
The child developed an aversion to the father. He kept asking her to do errands – and she did them slowly. He asked her to massage his feet – and she did it reluctantly. He kept giving her instructions – and she disobeyed. He screamed at her for her Television volume – and she glared at him. One day when she was 10 years old, she shouted back at him.
‘You behave as if you are a good person. I know your mind. I know what you watch every night.’
Archana’s father froze. His image of a perfect man took a hit. So he hit the child physically. Like a good man, he stopped talking to the bad child from then – till he died.
Oh! My God! Fighting with a child of ten! Parents need counseling.
Every one said, ‘What a horrible child! Such a good person – the father is... Look at the daughter…so proud… Staring at her father like that…No wonder he doesn’t speak to her any more..’
You can’t fight the ‘every one’ in every one’s life. It is destiny.
Archana’s mother could not tell the truth – even if she had, no one would have believed her. Everyone knew Archana’s father was a good man. God fearing, pious, kind hearted and generous. How many expensive dresses he has bought for Archana? Some cousins were, in fact, jealous of her.
Jealousy, of course, is ignorance, as good old Emerson said.
Archana could not sleep in the house, as she began wondering what her father must be watching.
That explains it, I thought.
I forgot to tell you that Archana’s father died of massive heart attack, and he was a Professor of Physics in some university, and Archana was his only child, and they lived in a double bedroom flat in a city.
Prof. S. Sridevi has been teaching English in a research department in a college affiliated to the University of Madras for 30 years. She has published two collections of poems in English: Heralds of Change and Reservations. Her prose works are: Critical Essays, Saivism: Books 1-8 (Co-authors-C.T.Indra & Meenakshi Hariharan), Think English Talk English, Communication Skills, and Communicative English for Engineers (Co-Author-Srividya). She has translated Thirukural, Part I into Tamil. Her Tamil poetry collections are: Aduppadi Kavithaigal, Pennin Paarvaiyil, Naan Sivam and Penn Enum Perunthee.
Kavita felt a trickle of sweat run down her neck.
‘I am not going to wipe it away any more. My skin hurts from all the wiping,’ she told herself.
But what else could she expect on a summer afternoon at the Sharjah bus station waiting for a bus to take her to Deira?
Kavita lived in a shared accommodation in Sharjah where she worked in a school. It was a long weekend and her uncle and aunt who lived in Deira had asked her to come and stay with them. The invitation delighted her. She planned to take an early bus that Friday, from Sharjah to Deira, so that she could be at her uncle’s place for breakfast.
‘Che… I shouldn’t have overslept,’ she cursed herself. ‘I should have remembered to set the alarm.’
Friday mornings were always never alarming mornings for her. It was one day in the week when she could wake up late.
‘See, now what happened? I was hungry even as I woke up. Obviously. So I had to cook up a brunch, and then, could I just walk out? No, I had to do those dishes before I left.’
Kavita had been having problems with her roommate. Her undone dishes were the last thing she wanted to hear from her.
Thus lost in reverie, Kavita didn’t notice a man and his wife get under the shelter with her till the man’s phone rang and he started talking into it. He seemed to be quite irate, giving curt, loud answers to whoever it was on the other end of the phone. Kavita didn’t speak his language so she couldn’t figure out what the cause for his exasperation was. But if the excruciating heat was what was frustrating him, she could very well empathise.
The fellow had just finished his call and was pocketing his phone when a guy came upon the scene panting and looking quite lost. The newcomer was Asian, like Kavita and the couple but his facial features markedly showed that his ethnicity was different from theirs. The newcomer went up to the ireful fellow, of all the people at the bus station, and asked him something in English. The man replied to him in English, but other than the change in language, his response conveyed the impression that it was but a continuation of his phone conversation, with no break in the harsh tone. And not just that. He followed his reply with some of the choice expletives in his mother-tongue that marked his telephonic conversation. The newcomer thanked him with a smile and got into the waiting queue.
Kavita was not surprised to see the newcomer. She knew that UAE had a large population of ethnically diverse expats. Just because the newcomer wouldn’t understand the raving bloke’s language didn’t mean that discourtesy be meted out to him. Kavita felt that the discrimination and rudeness was unwarranted and she took a step forward to give a piece of her mind to the obnoxious fellow. But just then, the bus arrived and everyone moved out from the shelter.
While in the bus, Kavita’s meandering thoughts took her to her friend, Sridhar. Sridhar was once sent to Colombo to head his company’s branch there. Being the only Indian in a group of Sri Lankans, he used to feel out of place. This was accentuated by his not understanding or knowing to speak Sinhala. His colleagues, taking advantage of this, used to have fun at his expense amongst themselves. Though Sridhar couldn’t understand what they were talking about, their body language would give them away. But he never accosted them; instead he would pretend to be engrossed in his work. Was it human tendency to mock at someone who didn’t belong to your periphery, Kavita wondered.
However, not all of Sri Lanka was like that. Sridhar’s neighbours were all very cordial and often went out of their way to make him feel at home. In fact, the people in the house next to his could speak only Sinhala and no English, yet Sridhar got on with them fabulously. Goes to show that language did not have to be all words.
Kavita smiled to herself as she recollected Sridhar’s messages to her.
‘Hey Kav… I picked up some new Sinhala words today. Those buggers at work… they don’t know that I am good at languages. Wait till I surprise them one of these days.’
‘Sri, I am waiting for that day… you must tell me all about it when it happens.’
A few weeks must have passed after this conversation when, one afternoon, when she least expected it, she received a message from Sridhar.
‘Those buggers got it from me today… you should have seen their faces.’
Kavita wanted to know more but Sridhar said he was still at work and couldn’t message further. But he did call her in the evening and tell her the whole story.
‘As usual, the buggers were professing to be discussing something important but were, in fact, teasing me. I went up to them and told them with a very serious face, in Sinhala, that even I wanted to join in the fun. They were aghast, hahaa… They didn’t know what to say… didn’t know where to put their face when I told them that for some weeks now, I knew all the mockery they were making of me.’
Sridhar was a gentleman, Kavita thought as she looked out through the bus window at the passing villas along the way. Sridhar could have shamed all his colleagues; instead he asked to join in the fun. Probably, that’s why all his colleagues love him.
Kavita looked across the aisle at the guys from the bus station, both the abusive one and the one who walked away silently with a smile. The abusive one was fidgety all through the bus journey whereas the other one slept peacefully. Maybe he did figure out that he was being insulted, but chose instead to ignore the insult. He didn’t have to know the language that bad-mouthed him; the body language would have sufficed. Maybe it was because he didn’t react that he was able to enjoy his journey peacefully.
Language does matter, doesn’t it? Even body language.
*Deira: a place in Dubai
Vidya Shankar is a poet, writer, motivational speaker, yoga enthusiast, English language teacher. An active member of poetry circles, her works have appeared in national and international literary platforms and anthologies. She is the recipient of literary awards and recognitions.
Vidya Shankar’s first book of poems, The Flautist of Brindaranyam is a collaborative effort with her photographer husband, Shankar Ramakrishnan. Her second book of poems The Rise of Yogamaya is an effort to create awareness about mental health. She has also been on the editorial of three anthologies.
A “book” with the Human Library, Chennai Chapter, Vidya Shankar uses the power of her words, both written and spoken, to create awareness about environmental issues, mental health, and the need to break the shackles of an outdated society.
Life.
Sparks of the five elements
Synergized to become me
A soul lodged itself in me
To continue its journey
With its agenda complete
Seeking its next it left
Purpose over, me dissolved
Back with the elements merged
Rebirth? No.
Not for the this unique ME.
This soul in this persona
A one-timer in space and time.
Rebirth? Yes.
The deathless soul moves on
Seeks a suitable DNA
To continue its evolution.
Padmini Janardhanan is an accredited rehabilitation psychologist, educational consultant, a corporate consultant for Learning and Development, and a counsellor, for career, personal and family disquiets.
Has been focussing on special education for children with learning difficulties on a one on one basis and as a school consultant for over 4 decades. The main thrust is on assessing the potential of the child and work out strategies and IEPs (Individual Educational Plans) and facilitating the implementation of the same to close the potential-performance gap while counselling the parents and the child to be reality oriented.
Has been using several techniques and strategies as suitable for the child concerned including, CBT, Hypnotherapy, client oriented counselling, and developing and deploying appropriate audio-visual / e-learning materials. Has recently added Mantra yoga to her repository of skills.
She strongly believes that literature shapes and influences all aspects of personality development and hence uses poetry, songs, wise quotations and stories extensively in counselling and training. She has published a few books including a compilation of slokas for children, less known avathars of Vishnu, The what and why of behaviour, and a Tamizh book 'Vaazhvuvallampera' (towards a fulfilling life) and other material for training purposes.
Pacing up and down on a sweltering summer evening
mulling over the continued lockdown that commenced one Spring morning
The heart longed for some peace, a little joy..
Lo! there she is, a ball of bliss. The toy
that the Gods would love to covet
was mine for takes - how I love it!
The enchanting scene- Connoisseur's delight...
Let this positivity be the stars of the night.
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.
You are my Mother
I wouldn't want another
The sacrifices you made
To always keep me in the safest shade
I was nothing when I was born
Without your love and support I would have been torn
I had no speech at two
And couldn't even tie my shoe
Now I babble single words and phrases
And I am surrounded by praises
I couldn't even open the tap
Although I have been a good chap
As I always hear you clap
As I progress in the smallest of skills
It gives me an encouraging thrill
You taught me every bit
As I learnt to sit
From the teaching tools that you carried in your kit
You taught me single words by magic
Although that stage was tragic
My speech was always need based
While every other word I chased
I was born to stand out
I could hear you shout
I'm different not less
Now I have learnt how to dress
Although sometimes it's in a mess
Ma, don't take so much stress
May God always just Bless
As every time I regress
Ma, I'm so fortunate to have you as my mother, teacher and mentor
I won't disappoint you, slowly slowly shall learn all
Please do continue to give me shelter.
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)
There’s ripple in clustered clouds
River trembles in sheltered ecstasy
Trees fan their way in tremulous fancy
Verdant woods frisson in their shrouds
Glorious clouds they are that in summer
Love to sail under sky and relish the simmer
Now ready to descend, ready to drown
As they ripen in age for a final back down...
Benumbed as clouds bescreen my wet eyes
Muted as river crowds my melting heart
I know these trees will be my silent escort
As I search for myself within this wooded beseech...
Ravi Ranganathan is a retired banker turned poet settled in Chennai. He has to his credit three books of poems entitled “Lyrics of Life” and “Blade of green grass” and “Of Cloudless Climes”. He revels in writing his thought provoking short poems called ‘ Myku’. Loves to write on nature, Life and human mind. His poems are featured regularly in many anthologies. Has won many awards for his poetry including , Sahitya Gaurav award by Literati Cosmos Society, Mathura and Master of creative Impulse award by Philosophyque Poetica.
‘Hello, Amrita! It's me.’
‘Yeah, Tanya! Did you really think that I can't recognise my own sisters voice?! What's up? Are you in your office or you are on a store visit?’
‘No, no, today I had a store visit, but it was cancelled. Listen, mom is all alone at home, and she was feeling a little under the weather when I left. Can you come back early tonight?’
‘I will try to, did you arrange for some mo-’
‘Stop, Amrita. I don't have the time to discuss everything on the phone. I will talk to you later, bye.’
***********
‘Mom, open the door. Sorry! I had an urgent piece of work, so I am a little late. How do you feel now? Better? Where is Amrita? I told her to come early today.’
‘Yes Tanya, I am fine, only a little head-reeling, nothing big. I feel better. Amrita has already come home early. She is in her bedroom.’
‘Ok, mom. You take rest. I'll go talk to her.’
‘Hey Amrita? I'm sorry about cutting you off earlier…what's that dazzling thing on your table?’
‘Oh! That- that's a necklace!’
‘Necklace?! What necklace?’
‘It's nothing!’
‘Ammu? Where did you get that necklace?’
‘Oh, my friend gave it to me last night, she didn't have any, uh, she didn't have any space for it! So she gave it to me.’
‘What kind of friend gives away such an expensive necklace?! That’s impossible, stop lying to me Amrita, where did you get it?’
‘Uh, haha, yeah, surprise, I actually bought, I ..'
‘BOUGHT IT?! What in the world, where did you get the money for this?!’
‘From my new job! I didn’t tell you, 'cause I wanted it to be a surprise. Are you, are you surprised?’
‘You're lying.’
‘W-what?! Tanya, please why would I l-lie?!’
‘You're lying.’
‘Tanya-’
‘Amrita. Please just tell me where you got the necklace from.’
‘I, uh, might have stolen.’
‘What?’
‘I said that I might have stole-‘
‘No, I heard you the first time. Ammu, what - why would you do that? You have to go and put it back before anyone notices!’
‘Why? I stole it from bigger thieves. We need the money urgently. Who will help us in this disastrous time? Our salaries are not sufficient for mom’s operation. What did you think I would do, we don't have any other options, Tanya!’
‘But, you know that mom would never appreciate it. You’ll make her sad. Does she deserve a thief as a daughter?’
‘Of course not! But, I didn't do anything wrong.’
‘How is this, in any way, the right thing to do?’
‘The hotel owner is a multimillionaire. We don’t know where he got that money from, no one visits this town. Do you think, it’s white money? Please, Tanya, multimillionaires forge their money. What do you think, they are saints? Why are you acting like I killed someone?'
‘That’s not true, we are not supposed to bother about others' business and to compare it as good or bad, or how they make their money. We have to see our own problem and focus on how to solve it. I thought you knew better. I am so disappointed, what would mom say? You're going to break her heart.'
‘I didn't do it for myself! We need this money more than anyone else, especially the owners of the hotel. They’re not going to miss this necklace. And if I ask him to lend me some money, do you think he would agree, never! I know those people!’
‘You sound like any common thief, Amrita. This is how it starts and without knowing it, you’ll be stealing bigger, more expensive things under the guise of ‘needing it’. We can manage with what we have. Please, put it back.’
‘How can I put it back? I would be caught. I don't want to lose my job.’
‘How can you make such a foolish decision?! I’m sure you would be able to figure this out the same way you figured out how to steal it.’
‘It was not a foolish decision! Mom needs her operation urgently and I know that we can't make enough money in such a short time. So, I fixed our problem!’
‘Amrita…please, you didn't solve our problem. You just brought another one to this house. By tomorrow morning, it has to be back in its place, ok?’
‘Um, ok, I will do that.’
‘Don't try any mess, Ammu. Don't be caught in perplexity. By the way, how did you steal it when so many guards and the cctv were there? Do you think your picture is not captured in the camera? Why are you chuckling? How did you do that?’
‘Oops! This is what I call ‘seizing the opportunity’!’
‘Stop your childish behaviour and tell me exactly what you did, ok.’
‘Ok, relax! Two days back, there was some technical problem with the CCTV. In the corridor, one side of the wall is fixed with glass cabinets where these antique jewellery made of diamonds and other costly stones are kept. The necklace I stole from the cabinet, that glass had a very little gap from its attachment. And fortunately, that particular CCTV camera was not functioning that day. As I am an employee, nobody had any doubt on me. I thought enough before stealing, but I couldn't tolerate mom’s painful face. Without any second thought, I stole it although my heart was throbbing like hell. I took the necklace and slowly went to the bathroom. There I threw it outside through the exhaust fan. Then I collected it few minutes later. Nobody came to know!’
‘Oh, lady James Bond! Excellent attempt! Now kindly figure out a master plan to put this necklace back without arousing suspicion. Don't lose your self-respect.’
‘Well, let me attend my duty today, see the situation, then tomorrow I will replace it.’
************
‘Hello, Tanya!’
‘Yes, Amrita?’
‘When did I come to hotel today?’
‘Why? Just two hours before. Are you ok?!’
‘Yeah, Tanya! I am fine. Can you believe what has happened?’
‘What?? Tell me, be quick.’
‘Tanya, I can't believe my eyes! When I came today, knowingly I was passing through that corridor and what I saw is unbelievable!!!’
‘Ok, tell me. What you saw?’
‘The exact replica of the necklace that I have stolen! How is it possible? I didn't bring it with me today, you know that. But identically the same necklace is displayed on the box. How is it possible?’
‘What??? Same necklace?! Ha, ha, ha, Ammu!’
‘What for you are bursting into loud laughter, Tanya? What does it mean? I can't get it.’
‘Ammu, guess what.’
‘What?’
‘It’s nothing but a cheap false necklace which is valueless! When the owner found that the necklace is stolen, he didn't bother. Because he knew its worth. He might have asked his attendant to put another similar necklace next day. That’s it. Anyhow, you are saved, Ammu! Thank God, you are not in danger and promise me that you would never ever do this mistake again in future. Be an honest and good girl, fortune will turn in our favour soon.’
‘I promise you! Never again….’
Ms. Anjali Mahapatra is a retired teacher from Mumbai who taught Mathematics and Science to students in Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow and Mumbai for more than thirty years. She took to writing after her retirement and has penned close to a hundred stories so far. Her stories have appeared in Sunnyskyz and other magazines. Two of her collection of short stories, 'An Amazing Letter to Me and Other Stories' and 'Granny Tales' have been published in Kindle Unlimited.
Waves greet me in dreams often. Green-blue waves, swishing, racing, spiralling, revealing the shells and revelling in rolling them back and forth across my happy feet, caressing them. It was this obsessive affinity for the sea that made me join two of my friends on their way to Goa for their conference.
Reaching Don Bosco, we set out in a cab the very next day to the Baina beach for the watersports. The cab driver, John uncle, who came with us was about the age of my dad, and almost of the same temperament, and we bonded quickly. He was telling me the stories of his driving around Goa with tourists for the last few decades and pointing out to me the places where he grew up playing football and catching fish.
There was a certain warmth that spread from his tales. Till then Goa was for me an exotic locale meant for vacations. But sitting in the front seat, listening to his life in the sea shore pouring out generously from his contented face, I felt the presence of a living land around me - a land where people, real flesh-and-blood beings, lived their lives in full - where they took daily baths in the waves, stretched out beneath the coconut trees at noon, and went out to sea at nights to earn their livelihood.
A real, lived in land, with the tales of loss- of sons lost to sea in storms, of daughters lured and swallowed by the trecherous deeps while collecting shells among seaweeds; a shore so loved by its populace that every fisherfolk moving out to town to educate their kids leave back a lingering heart-breaking anguish in the waves, felt collectively by the remaining children of the sea.
John uncle himself was one such man - who had to leave the waters' shelter to shade his child from 'Oh, the uncouth fisherman' stare. "You were a fisherman?" I blurted out, in excitement. To me,nothing could have been a better profession-staying inside the waves, day in and day out. And he smiled, that piercingly sad smile of his, and asked me why I liked the term so much. Hearing me narrate my favourite fishermen stories from films I watched and the conversations I have had, he laughed a pained laughter and left us at the Baina beach to explore the watersports.
Inside the sea, in the scubadiving apparel, and on its surface, bobbing about in the life jacket, I loved every minute of it. While clambering upto the boat though, I was kind of disappointed to see everyone occupied with their phones in midst of such wonderful sea. All brooding over the corona virus,maybe. Paying no heed to the sea. Feeling bad for the sea, I looked around.
And that is when I saw the glee in the boatmens' eyes. They were all young people,looking around twenty years and one especially caught my eyes. Standing on the edge of the boat, with a long mass of entangled hair and open arms, he looked like a human sail, billowing in the sea breeze. The look of complete abandon in his eyes was quite infectious, and I who was usually afraid of standing too near the front side of the boat approached it quite smoothly, spreading my arms, my hair coming loose. He glanced sideways, saw in my eyes the silent thanksgiving for the inspiration, and turned back, much like a satisfied drawing teacher seeing the progress of his student's work. I waved to him while we returned back to cab, but he was obviously blind to everything except the rolling green-blue water between his outspread arms. I fellt a tinge of hope in me - maybe, one day, with enough money and least care, I will buy a boat, and stand like this on its edge, with nothing but the sea and its frays beside and about me. One day! And in a pensive mood I entered the cab.
The next day I set out again, this time on my own. My friends had to work on the paper for the conference. I could hear nothing but the sound of waves all day echoing inside, so I set out, mindful of the dangers of travelling alone through the party capital of India. After enquiring in a few localites, I reached Calangutta beach. I changed to beach wear and lied down there in the sand, taking in the salty sweet sea, surprised to feel hot tears wetting my cheeks. I didn't expect to find myself in tears in a beach in Goa, not at all. I was supposed to jump and dance and race the waves, and there I was, crying on as if grieving the humanity's fate. And then, I heard the pained laugh of John uncle, and suddenly the laugh stretched out itself in two arms, welcoming the sea, his bald head morphing to an entangled mess, the warmth of his life passing on to the man I saw on the boat, living his life in sea in abandon. Father's grief, mended through the son who returned to claim the joy that was theirs. And I sighed, wiping tears -"One day", I heard my heart say, "one day, seaward shall travel my days. And I will be home again."
Gopika Hari, third year BA English literature student at University college TVM. Poetry is her passion and has published her first anthology under the title "The Golden Feathers". She started writing poems from the age of ten, love poetry and poetic prose. She welcomes readers' feedback on her email - gopikameeratvm@gmail.com
I was an illegitimate
Child of an erudite brain.
I travelled long distances
without being hurt, taking shelter in varied destinations.
Whomever I touched I became part of them,
And with few I fell in utter love, so much that,
I kissed them on their death bed,
Parting my ways to another being.
I gained fame with such velocity,
Carrying my ill fate with me.
People got quarantined becos of me,
Relations estranged,
Professions changed
Children hooked to everything online.
A major changeover came,
Social distancing got fancied,
Population declined whenever it caressed me with touch.
My pride grew with my fame,
As I have left a mark of indelible print of fear in every heart,
"I am Covid, the Destroyer!"
Kabyatara Kar (Nobela)
M.B.A and P.G in Nutrition and Dietetic, Member of All India Human Rights Activists
Passion: Writing poems, social work
Strength: Determination and her familyVision: Endeavour of life is to fill happiness in life of others
From the green, slender and delicate,
Borns a fairy, smooth and silky white.
Sans magical wands,
With magical floral fragrance.
To the chimes of soft, cool, gentle breeze,
Fairy dances,swirls and twirls at ease.
With delight, breeze flutters around,
Carrying her alluring fragrance abound.
Soulful fragrance tickles the drowsy moon,
Half asleep moon rises soon,
With a pearly gleaming charm smile
Inhaling magical moments in artistic style.
Swinging gracefully in the lap of nature,
Fairy weaves magic in air sans light
Exuding mesmerizing perfumes
While dangling in nature's cradle or threaded or even after crushed.
Who else could wear the tiara
Other than dainty, enticing Jasmine
For she is a
Floral magic as well a Magical floral. Is'n it?
Ms. Padmapriya Karthik is an enthusiastic story writer for children and a poet. She has secured eighth place in Rabindranth Tagore International Poetry contest 2020.Her works have been featured in various anthologies published by 'The Impish Lass Publishing House’. She contributes poems to Efflorescence anthology, Muse India an online journal.
Her children's stories have found place in The PCM, Children's Magazine. She has won 5th place in the National story writing contest 2019 conducted by The PCM, Children's Magazine.
Lazy as a lizard
the rain washed hours
lounge still on the walls
idling away the moments…
From a leaf
raindrop falls languidly
on a wet nest
empty to the bone
and perched on the angle
of a branch
with outstretched arms
rising to the sky….
While the clouds slowly sail away
to a distant land
Literature, both Odia and English, fascinates Malabika Patel. She has been experimenting on poems and short stories. Her first translation “Chilika –A love story “ of Shri Krupasagar Sahoo’s Sahitya Academy award winning Odia novella, “Sesha Sarat” was published in 2011. She is also into translating of rare old Odia documents and classics into English. A banker by profession, she retired from Reserve Bank of India as General Manager in 2016 and is presently settled in Bhubaneswar.
SONGS OF SOLITUDE FROM A CORONATED SOUL
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
( For a short Anthology of Mrutyunjay Sarangi 's stories, Click http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/277 )
WHAT YOUR SON WILL TELL HIS GRANDCHILD
I see you sitting before me
listening in rapt attention
to true tales from my life,
I wish they were a little less forlorn.
The long hours
we sat at home
counting bubbles in air,
the clock ticking by,
waiting for the footsteps
of loved ones
that never came.
As night descended
and our small world
got lit by moonlight
the trees swayed
and the wind talked
to us in ghastly whispers,
a distant siren wailed,
another sick man being
carried to the hospital.
Men quarantined pined
for a touch of love
as shadows passed by
pretending not to know them.
Our empty homes,
bereft of their soul,
cried in anguish,
raising their frail hands to the sky,
only silence echoed from above.
I know you want
to hear a different story,
tales of love, and togetherness
of parks and playgrounds
echoing with laughter,
of shops and bazaars
drowned in noise,
of magic lanterns
lighting up the smiling sky.
You ask me,
did it really happen Grandpa?
How do I tell you,
we had laughter and love,
sound and light,
and one day it all changed.
Our lives did really descend
into such unsplendid isloation
and turned us into unglamorous
caricatures of meaningless inanity.
And wonder of wonders,
we rose from the ashes of despair
to build a new world of hope and sanity.
THE MIGRANTS
At this ungodly hour
in makeshift tents
the migrants beg for pills
that will put them to sleep,
and make them dream of ambulances
to take them home
in the guise of patients.
It makes no difference,
as everyone thinks
everyone else is a patient,
Keep your distance neighbour,
they say, we don't know
what virus you carry.
They all returned
in the exalted status of migrants,
it sounds so glamorous!
Except that they returned
not from America or Canada
but from the ghettos
of Surat and Mumbai
from the tea gardens of Cochin
and unfinished flyovers of Chennai.
They wanted to be near home
if Corona snuffs out
their little anonymous life.
They wish they had not returned
to wait in quarantine camps,
To be reminded
they are but passing shadows,
the itinerant travellers
moving from place to place
in search of a handful of rice.
They all wish,
and wish with their heart and soul,
their own little village
had enough to keep them tied
to their tiny piece of earth,
to dip their hand
in the small backyard pond
and raise it to touch
the patch of sky
through the trees overhead.
Sleep never comes,
not even stealthily
like a chastened cat,
heat from the sky stifles
and kills the dream
they brought with them
only to bury it
in saddened soils
of nameless patches.
THE EVENING THAT TORMENTS ME
The evening sits,
so lonely,
so melancholic,
with a brooding face
and drooping eyes
before my cell
I call home.
The evening whispers
in sunken undertone,
sorry, my friend
I have brought
no light for you,
not even a flicker
for your morbid soul.
The evening knows
the day was long,
the night will be longer
The hours stretch like
long ropes of despair
rising from abandoned boats
in deserted shores.
The evening curls
around my tight neck,
I look at it
with a desperate appeal
to leave me alone,
it sighs and moans,
whines and groans,
in a primordial sign
that brooks no appeal.
The evening laments,
I am helpless my friend,
I have to visit you
and all your friends,
it's a pledge I made to eternity,
I have to keep it.
The evening beckons,
look back to your wall,
you will see my shadow
sitting prettily on the marks
you have made
for the days you are in lockdown,
I have been here everyday,
to remind you of the long days
and the longer nights.
I am but a sad hyphen
between vanishing hopes
and niggling pain.
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.
Viewers Comments