heartstrings

Four poems in Muse India (Jan-Feb 2012 issue)

2012-01-17T21:30:00.006+05:30

Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here.
Do check out the Muse India issue at Four poems out in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Muse India. The annual issue edited by Prof GJV Prasad. The poems are 'Making Love', 'Red: a sonnet', 'Nasturtiums', and 'Lost in your House'. The poems are elsewhere on this blog. 'Nasturtiums isn't, so I am putting it here. Do check out the Muse India issue at http://www.museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=41&id=3082 It has, among others, Priti Aisola, Uddipana Goswami, Temsula Ao, and Tabish Khair. :-)

Nasturtiums

The curves of your leaves
ache
for ripples of water to reflect them
... They contemplate escape from pots
They dream of the memory of the pool
they must have surrounded
when Narcissus looked into its mirror
and fell in love.
They wait eagerly
for the orange laugh of blossoms

Two poems in Reading Hour and some news!

2012-01-16T13:27:00.008+05:30

Two poems published in Reading Hour-Jan-Feb issue. I am copy-pasting the two poems below so that you can read them here. :-) 'Home' and 'The Weft and the Warp'. The Weft and the Warp is a sort of love poem, how poetry can connect and unite two people, and Home was written for Civil Lines, Delhi.

Home

There are floating roots and
aerial roots, but I
prefer under-the-ground ones.
Cold winds may blow and tempests
may rage, I may
be hungry and broken
But in Emily Bronte-ish fashion
“Nothing drear can move me
I will not, cannot go”
faith may seem to totter and
angst may seem to win
But, in the words of a childhood
'Chapni' tale
“The world is big, it's fun to roam
But the nicest, nicest place is home”

The Weft and the Warp

Snip. Snip. Click. Swish.
A whisking metallic sound
breaks silence with a tone of finality
scissors cut cleanly through cloth.
Hearts too are torn and ripped
like cloth, mine has frayed edges
jagged threads stick out.
the knit is lost without the purl, the weft
goes in search of the warp.
A new thread can stitch them
into a patchwork compromise
Poetry can sew hearts and
my warped lines
woven with doubt, hope and insecurity
the head bent in prayer
ardently long to find
the weft of yours.

And the news? Just the possibility of being invited by Toto Funds the Arts to bangalore for a poetry reading sometime this year. if that would happen, it would be my very first! and so exciting! :-))

And yes, Happy New Year and all that!

Viewerscope/ Solipsism

2011-11-19T15:15:00.000+05:30

Viewerscope / Solipsism

In a flash, I can turn
Darkness into light.
In a zooming jiffy, people
Become larger than life.
All I do is change the metaphor,
Really. I mix a tinge of black
With the red to make it maroon.
I can make a big tree and
A small boy. Or vice-versa. I can make
Moons fly, I can make men stand
On their heads, I can overturn
Buildings. Perhaps empires too.
I can turn that frown
Into a smile. Just a concave
And a convex difference, really.
I can make things blurry, I can
Make ‘em clear, I can make
The merry go round go faster
And faster. I just need
To change the lens, really.

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

2011-11-19T15:13:00.001+05:30

Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf

Me-tem-psy-cho-sis
Said Joyce, is transmigration
Of souls.
If a soul from any earthly body
Flew into me, it was your own.
Perhaps it was made of fire and dew
In a rainbow. I have a spirit
Fashioned of your spirit.
You unearthed dormant rage in me
And let it live. You made me see
Myself in a mirror, fashioned out of
The clear depths of a river.
You helped me accept
This image in the river, you led
Me by the hand, whispering softly
Oh, ever so softly!, you lifted me
To ecstasy, you made me plunge
Into deep pain, you played
Havoc with my soul. I am a half-full
Cup of grief
And you make me whole to the brim
As you lead me
To ever-widening
Moments of being.

Parrot Parody

2011-11-19T15:10:00.001+05:30

Parrot Parody

You hear them chattering
in the hidden green, long before
the red of its curved mithu-parrot beak
comes into view.
Leaf green, parrot green
Bright emerald green.
Tai-tai-tai-chai-chai-to-ta-to-ta
Preening, pirouetting
Prancing, dancing, proudly pecking
Strutting they seem to parody
A bunch of noisy women.
I fly with them to my favourite places
To you, and you, ..... and you.

Diwali- a Holy Night

2011-11-19T15:08:00.004+05:30

Diwali --a Holy Night

This amavasya night
This glow of candles
This lit-up darkness
Makes me believe.
Tracing your name
In smoke-trails with the phuljhadi
Makes me believe.
Green-yellow lights wind snakily in the lawn
Up-vine-down-trellis, strangely eerie
The burning flame in me grows stronger
Creating magic with quicksilver heat
the flame of my belief in you.
This is the flame which lights me regardless
All doubts scatter in surrounding darkness
Rangoli patterns my fingers etch draw life
From this flame which makes
This smoke-strewn, flame-strewn
Night holy.
I am the blue of the flame
Beyond touch, beyond reach.

Horizons

2011-11-19T15:06:00.001+05:30

Horizons

Vermillion sun
In purple sky
Dips down dusk, as pink
becomes ink. A pale moon
Faintly shivering hovers.
Lowroofshighroofsbuildings
Acrid smoke mixes with winter fog
Scraggly paint peeling off bare walls
Dotted lights in twinkling windows.

---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ---- ---

There is life beyond the horizon, my friend.

Self-Preservation

2011-11-19T15:03:00.001+05:30

Self-Preservation

I seek you within the pages of this book
I seek you through your words, I seek you
Through mine. I seek you within
An anonymous crowd. I seek
To resurrect you through memory
In flesh and blood. I type your name
In the facebook search bar, in vain.
And then I seek to believe in you
Through memory fantasy words silence
Dead, self preserving habit
Has made me say itsokayitsokayits
Okayitsokayitsokay for too long.
Because I know I must say
Itsokaytohurtallover
I know I can’t fuckyouoff
I can’t discard you like a useless
Scrap of waste-paper.
Dead, self preserving habit
Has taught me to smile.

Snails

2011-11-19T15:00:00.001+05:30

Snails

It is a snail
Withdrawing the tip of its head
Into this stony shell.
Poking its nose out, blink-ing
its eyes, removing itchy sand
Moving inside this hard resilient cover
For protection against barbs
It plods through life, secure
In this shell, fashioned by words
And sometimes by empty silence.
But you never knew. You took it
For a piece of gravel
And trod on it.

Babble

2011-11-19T14:57:00.000+05:30

Babble

I speak incessantly.
I talk. I repeat myself.
I repeat, I repeat myself
Over and over again
I overdo it. I overspeak.
I speak to myself.
I am so afraid of the depths
Of silence.
But when I come to you
When I come to the depths of me
I gaze blankly at the wall.
I am in the other world now,
Gazing, my eyes moist and glistening
In trying to find you within myself
I have reached the depths
Of a silence
That is almost Joycean.

What Ifs

2011-11-19T14:55:00.004+05:30

What ifs

What if I fall on the highway, crushed
under a car superspeedrushed?
What if, some random day
I take a bus to nowhere , and run away?
What if I apparate in Ithaca Lesbos,
Houyhnhnms Hogsmeade Ozma’s Oz?
What if horses were green, and elephants blue
And all of us lived imprisoned in a zoo?
Squibs giants dragons house elves all
Lived amicably in one big hall?
What if I could become YOU
Or look into your mind if I wanted to?
What if Hitler’s mother was a Jew
What if I had never met YOU?
What if I went into delirium
Did crazee stuff with fraught e-qui-librium?
What if poems were written dia
Gon
alley
and life lived synchronically?
And what if a poem stubbornly resisted
To fit and sit, no matter how you persisted?

Making Love

2011-11-19T14:53:00.000+05:30

Making Love

I want to make love.

I want to make love
To the glittering, frosty edged moon
That cuts through the cold,nipping air
Like a curved sickle.

I want to make love to the full moon
I want to worship this purnima, I want to gaze
Longingly at this white misty dream forever
As it plays hide and seek with the clouds.

I want to make love to this lone tree at night
when its bare branches make love to the moon
I want to hug this tree, and rub my cheek
Against its grizzly trunk.

I want to make love to the whispered secrets of the forest
Aflame with pink, yellow, and orange
I want to make love to the firy red leaves
Of the fall, the hidden violets,the thickest green verdure

I want to lose myself in this green and make love
To the rhythmic beats of the barbet
To the golden notes of the koel, the red of the bulbul
To the magpie, the hoopoe, the jays and the squirrels.

I want to make love to them. I want to make
Love to this river, it speaks to me in meanders
Reflects my dreams and the leaves of the trees
The waves frolicking, carrying me, playing with me

And I want to make love to you
I want to worship you, I want to hug you
I want to touch your hair. Softly.
Making love to the trees and the moon,
The birds and the river was after all only
A way of making love to you.

I also want to cry.

Crow- Cawnversations

2011-11-19T14:51:00.003+05:30

Crow-Cawnversations

A flutter of wings
a whirling blur of black
four pointed beaks
between two stringy wires overhead.
The crass cawing of this crowy crew
Screeching themselves hoarse
fills the air with raucous shrieks.
One inquisitive pair of eyes
With spread-eagled fan-like wings
Swoops down low to my ear and cries to me.
In every black blurry flight
From one stringy wire to another
He swoops down low and crows to me
Is he angry, do I intrude? Is he
crowriously curious? Or,
does he croon and make love to me?

Shapeshifty

2011-11-19T14:46:00.003+05:30

Shapeshifty

A dragon
With a huge hump,
perhaps pregnant
And a short tail
Dissolves itself
In the sky.
Its camel head
Reared up, stretches
Into blue-white nothingness
As clouds de-form and re-form.
The whispering leaves
Of the white eucalyptus
Are fragile shadows, spying
Eavesdropping on clouds
as winged dreams
become the sky, dissolving
evolving wild horses
on a shapeshifty terrain.

---> the title of the poem 'Shapeshifty' is not a proper lexical word but has been taken from a poem titled 'Shapeshifty:a poem for Meret Oppenheim' by Nitoo Das.

Sad Ootin

2011-11-19T14:40:00.002+05:30

Sad Ootin

Ootin is an elf
With a Piglet face
Pixie ears, needle
Eyes and nose.
A flick of my wand
And Ootin appears
Bowing low to the ground
From his waist. Thy wish,
He says, is my command.
Ootin has a fractured soul
A split face, and creaky arms
That need oiling. He also has
A cracked tongue.
Ootin slaves hard night
And day, catering to my whims
He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps
And sometimes, he brings stolen
Honey from bees, or nectar
From butterflies. Ootin
Does my shopping
So I stay home. He also
Does my work.
I need to keep Ootin busy,
Very busy. Ootin, you see
Is under a curse
When he finishes work
He does mischief, he sticks things.
Yes, he sticks doors and windows
So I can’t open them. He sticks holes
In clothes, so I can’t wear them.
He sticks pots and pans,makes
A mountain of them. He once stuck
A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.
For this, he is punished, yes
of course he is punished.
He is burnt in the fireplace
And beaten with a stick.
Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.
His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,
Can stick things, but he cannot
Stick his fractured soul, his cracked
Tongue, or his creaking arms.
Otherwise
He could have been free.

Six Poems Up In Muse India Sept-Oct 2011

2011-09-06T19:04:00.003+05:30

Six Poems published in the new September-October 2011 issue of Muse India. The issue this time is around the theme of Literature of Young Adults. The six poems that have been published are:

The six poems are -- "The Midnight Black" ( it is about kajal/kohl)
"Anyways" (the over-usage of this word which isn't even a word, really)
"Dear Old Eighteen" (a letter to my past eighteen year old self)
Flee Fly Floo (an attempt at nonsense verse and amphigory)
The Ladies' Car (about the new ladies car in the Delhi metro)
and, "Requiem for a Dream" (which shows the big impact teachers have on students but which, i think, they little realise).

You can read them here. http://museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=39&id=2837
You can also read a lot of other people's work there, so I hope you check it out! :-)

Graveyard Ghosts, or, I Flee From Them

2011-08-10T22:51:00.002+05:30

I buried these traumatic fears
and this pinching hurt
I buried them alive
I dug them a grave, I made
them a coffin, I disowned them
And I left them to die.

But my disobedient passions
burst out of the grave as ghosts
They pursue me and stalk me
and sometimes, they find me
Like the accursed Eumenides
Desperate to live, I flee.

Immunity

2011-08-10T22:37:00.007+05:30

The holes in my eyes

Were burnt into them

As yours bored into mine

Piercing the insides of my head

With the swift sharpness of arrows

Examining my soul.

Barbs from your mouth scalded me

Cut me into meat-pieces.

I thought I needed to develop immunity

From you.

Night, and night follows day

I operate like clockwork,

Sleepwalking, gliding, dragging my steps

Searching for your face unconsciously

In likely and unlikely places, I know

I need immunity now, not from you,

But the absence of you.

View Counterview

2011-08-10T22:33:00.003+05:30

Head Hanging backwards
over monkey bars at age eight
Feet at the top, the world
turned topsy turvy.

Head hanging backwards
over the boat, the river became
My sky, and surreal reflections
My world.

A sidelong glance at your face and
My heart leaps up and I behold
Worsworthian rainbows
in the sky.

I thirstily search among crowds
The next face could be yours, after all
And will o'the wisp memories become
my shadowy companions.

In Sandy Shores

2011-08-10T22:26:00.002+05:30

Blown by every wind that flows

Hither-thither, I am a reed

In sandy shores.

where does the wind

Come from, where does it go?

Toppling ,uprooting me

Winding its way into large pores

Of the sandy soil in which I grow

At the water’s edge.

I must recede within the interior

I must find the clay of the mainland

I must abandon this life of rootless edges

And growing on risky precipices.

They told me clayey soil has smaller pores

Where windy-watery intruders may not nose

Where warm and secure rootholds oppose

Every windy-watery stream that blows

And every firmly rooted reed thrives and grows.

Cocooned

2011-08-10T21:44:00.001+05:30

You lie enclosed in your cocoon
And I sleep oblivious in mine.
Neighbours,
We live as strangers.
Only the whispering wind brushes
Us together, and we touch, at times.
Stray insects that crawl over you
Crawl over me too.
When the cocoons burst, will we
Recognise, will we realise
That we are sisters born
Of the same butterfly?

Broken Things

2011-08-10T17:24:00.005+05:30

Broken things

Are broken.

Yes, you may cradle them

Cry over them, try

To mend them, sew them, patch them,

Use feviquick glue on them, break

Unbreak your heart , say

That time will heal them.

But broken things

Are broken.

Yes, they can be mended

Broken things perhaps

Can even be made whole again

But even broken things made whole

Can never me made the same again.

Sorrow runs deep through cracks and crevices

Refuses to go away again

Do not try, do not desire

For broken things exude flyawayspirits

Which visit you, haunt you, talk to you

But can never be brought home again.

Punctuation Marks

2011-08-10T14:39:00.002+05:30

Punctuation Marks

You fill the empty pauses, you are
A comma. You are the parentheses
Of daydreams (this comes in useful
In classrooms, trains and market places)
You hover like quotation marks
Around every word I say,
The backdrop of this play.
My life is a story, it has coils of words
With events, characters, colours
An intricate plot and an open end.
This rapid river sometimes
Has lighter tones, which turn shady
And cloudy in places. But it has
No pauses, it is unpunctuated.
you are the colon
The semi colon which gives meaning
The genotext of this phenotext.
You are the accent, you mould
My pronounciation. Dot my I’s and
Cross my t’s, You are
The language of my imagination.
The story would still be a story
Without the punctuations, but it would
Be endlessly garbled speech
You, even in absentia, are just the full stop
I come home to. Period.

Six Poems Published in Kritya

2011-08-03T10:40:00.006+05:30

Six Poems are up in Kritya- an online worldwide journal of poetry based in Kerala. The poems are 'Asomiya', 'Irom Sarmila- a ghazal', ' a photo-poem for Nabina Das' Mer-City picture', 'On Poetry and Photography' , 'a poem in response to J M Coetzee's Disgrace' and, 'Choices'. You can see them here-- http://www.kritya.in/0702/En/poetry_at_our_time.html

They are elsewhere on this blog, of course, but I am not posting them again, as six poems take up a lot of space. Scroll down, or use the search button, or better still, just use the link! :-)

I realised some of the links in Blood Prints in Web-Worlds don't work because the url's had changed, so anyways, now they work! All the links are "clickable"!

Two poems are up on the Ultra Violet website

2011-06-24T19:09:00.002+05:30

Two poems "Being Belindas" and "Almost Rape" are published on the website Ultra Violet-- a site for Indian Feminists. You can read them here-- www.ultraviolet.in
I am also pasting them below, although they are elsewhere on this blog as well.

Being Belindas
(a response to Pope’s Rape of the Lock)

The mirror hangs before me
My long face stares back at me
a pointed chin
whose rounding I dread
A tiny forehead
gleaned from the thick mass
of black hair surrounding it.
At the black hair
now streaked with red
I oscillate between
fascination and nostalgia
The hair, mostly helter-skelter
sometimes, precise in a bun
A glazed eyeball
with its bit of plastic-glass lens
A newly pierced nose–a shade too large
showing off that li’l bit of green
My ears trying to seek attention
with their multiple studs and rings
which I regard as pets
And a moody mouth.
but on the whole, a faceI can live with.
My skin the colour
of burnt caramel
a thin, supple body
I am unashamedly
in love with.

Bottles and vials lined
in an array on the slab beside me
the daily ritual
of cleansing, toning, conditioning
the creams and the perfumes
the chief kohl that lines my eyes
the earrings in their silver box
the cupboard with its
greater assortment of clothes
than i could ever wear
the occupational hazards
of being a young girl.

Oh Pope, and other misogynists!
We love being Belindas
and Belindas we shall remain
with our bottles and our vials
our bibles and our billet doux
and we rebel against rapes
of our locks and otherwise.
our bodies and their vagaries
and tricks we play with them
are ours.
And not playthings or objects
for your phallus
or that inglorious phallic symbol
your pen.

Almost Rape

“bhaiya, is this the rajiv chowk metro?”
“yes, take the next metro that comes”
“ok, thank you”
“do you live here?”
“No, I just came to visit someone”
“I work here, in the metro”
“ok”
“in the metro bathroom, come with me, I’ll show you the bathroom”
“I can’t! The metro comes in 2mins now”
“so what? It will come again soon. Let me show you the bathroom”
“I can’t! I have a very long journey ahead. I can’t possibly waste time and go with you.”
“Madam, the metro is very quick and fast, your journey will not be long. Come with me to the bathroom, please come with me to the bathroom……”

"Split-Selves" published in Reading Hour

2011-05-25T10:41:00.003+05:30

"Split-Selves" has been published in the May-June issue of the Reading Hour magazine... :-)
It is elsewhere on this blog, of course, but I am still re-posting it here: (and happy 3rd birthday all over again, beloved blog)

Split-Selves
I was born whole, yes,
but the Fates that decreed me a gemini
split me into two
The quiet, serious me and...
the wicked rebel.
Freud further split me into three
the yearning in me, the stoical
reason in me, and the balancing act
of yearning and reason in me.
I inherited my mother's hair
my father's eyes, my mother's mouth
and nobody's nose. I mean, Nobody knows.
And anybody's height. and whobody's brain?
But my grandma's memory, that's for sure.
This body of mine that now lives in delhi
is part gujju-part tamil, half punjabi and
used to live in Benares. But even that
is history. Places proliferate
and multiply.Yes, I believe in post-modernism
yes, I believe in pluralities, and liminalities
of Identities.
But sometimes, I yearn
to carve an imaginary
unified Identity

Happy 3rd Birthday,Beloved Blog!! and a poem :-)

2011-05-23T19:39:00.002+05:30

Happy happy 3rd birthday, dearest, beloved blog!! You have become an integral part of my existence which I cannot imagine myself without, over the course of the past 3 years. I have started considering myself an experienced blogger :p, and I have thoroughly enjoyed poetrying and blogging more and more. Ummm... yes, so exactly 3 years today, and here's this poem I just wrote. And no, the poem has absolutely no connection with the blog completing 3 years.

Evidently Not Enough

A few dozen poems
and tear filled buckets
Those night vigils
and those greened-down screams
were evidently not enough.
Not enough to corrode
the heartstrings which tie me
to the presence of your absence
Living with this presence, carrying
this absence, trying to become
like you, I wait, groping to pass
the test which would be called
Enough.

CaPoWriMo-- April 2011

2011-05-06T23:28:00.002+05:30

CaPoWriMo April 2011 Confessions!!

Yay!! I did the Caferati Poetry Writing Month for the second year running!! :-)
okay, so last time was the first time, I had a lot to say about my experiences and I remember I did in just such a post. This time I knew that what it's like to have given themes, play around with them and write voraciously. I'm glad I got the chance to explore certain new kinds of poems like the photo-poem and the nonsense one. I'm very glad of CaPoWriMo because unless you begin to write, you don't realise you can make such interesting poems out of out-of-the-way, seemingly banal topics. Last year I was free. this year, balancing it with work wasn't easy. In the middle, I decided to give it up, and did. then I got a fresh burst of motivation and wrote, wrote wrote voraciously, even at the cost of my studies! It also helps me see at a glance the progress I might have made over the period of a year. taking stock, so to say. Well, so it's done. 27 poems, not 30, I will confess. Last year I wrote 25. come on, some topics are either un-writeable, or you've written enough on them before or well, whatever. or you run out of steam after writing 25-27 poems on consecutive days!!
Thank you, CaPoWriMo, my writing times were usually right-after-breakfast, and right-after-dinner, now it feels sooo wierd to have no poem to write at such times, I don't know what to do with myself!!

Day 1-- The Pensieve, day 2-- the Midnight Black

2011-05-06T23:25:00.001+05:30

(using unusual words )

The Pensieve

Strands of thoughts swirl madly
with unbridled energy. Stray-
fore and after-thoughts gush
in random confusion. Melancholy
and hope conjoin in the mind's
magical potion. They overspill.
Dumbledore's Pensieve cannot contain them and
They escape into air as effervescence

( something you wear everyday or a trinket you use)

The Midnight Black

Arabian eyes. Oriental eyes.
Wicked, mesmerising, soulful
eyes, Witch eyes, big-fish-eyes
Laughing, black buttons of
eyes. Kohled eyes. Kajra eyes.
Heavy sooty beauty eyes.
Clothed eyes. And a playful
pencilled-kajalled
twirly-swirly moustache

Day 3-villanelle

2011-05-06T23:21:00.000+05:30

(pattern of rhyme scheme and line repetition. In "a" and "b", the rhyme is repeated. In A1 and A2, the entire line is repeated. A1 b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1, a b A2, a b A1 A2.)

Why did you go?
I am sick with fear
I want you to know.

It cannot be so
Eyes fill with bitter tears
Why did you go?

How do I express my woe
It is not a trifle mere
I want you to know.

In vain I cry hello hello
I cannot find you, far or near
Why did you go?

My heart aches with sorrow
Without you, my world is drear
I want you to know.

You will not answer, No?
I wish you would hear
Why did you go?
I want you to know.

Day 4- a photo poem for Nabina Das' sketch 'Mer-city'

2011-05-06T23:19:00.004+05:30

written for Nabina Das' sketch "Mer-city"

I am a riverine nymph
with long black woman hair
and a forked-fishy tail
But my fishy tail won't swish.

Long ago, I was an earthly woman
my wild roving heart and spirit river-
-dreamt, river-walked
But now, my fishy tail won't swish

I river-talked, river-loved
and thought I could become the river
my dreams swam, my thoughts glided
But my fishy tail won't swish.

One full moon night, I climbed
out the window, downhill to the river
My heart laughing and singing with merfolk
But my fishy tail won't swish.

I puffed, I dragged, I sprouted
a tail of brick, it held me back
I could not reach the water
And my fishy tail won't swish.

Restless as a Byronic wanderer
between the river and the chains
On the yellow sands of the nodi Luit
But my fishy tail won't swish

Day 7- Sport with Sport , Day 6-- haiku

2011-05-06T23:11:00.002+05:30

(a poem on sport)
I could sport a new look
hippie clothes, a trendy bag
I could be sportive and sport
a beard, or a moustache
a sarong, a kimono, a feather in my cap
ridicule me, make sport of me
I would be sporting and take it in play
I could ride hobby horses and rocking horses
But from a sportsfield I'd run away!

Haiku (syllables-- 5-7-5)

wicked poppy seeds
scarlet waxy jealous anger
opiate cocoons

Day 9- A Red Sonnet ;-)

2011-05-06T23:07:00.001+05:30

Sonnet-- Red

In a riot of colour, the lawn is ablaze
The red silk cotton tree seen half a mile away
Hanging brooms of bottle brush scarlet sway
The waxy crimson poppy petals glaze

My aching-breaking heart bleeds passion red
My angry jealousy burns all flame and fire
My impish wickedness jumps, plays, never tires
And I mourn the loss of something dead.

Red is the knowingness of menstruation
Jane's rebellious rage in the Red Room
Anne Shirley's red haired temper when it fumes
Little Red Riding Hood's cruel deception

Red is intensity of a passionate kind
That which I lost and yearn to find.

Day 10-- on Poetry and Photography

2011-05-06T23:04:00.003+05:30

(a poem for a gadget. the camera is implied, not visibly present in my poem)
I need a decent title for this one!! For now, randomness on poetry and photography!! :-)

The play of light and shadow
hides fault lines
and seeks to delude
Focussing and zooming
craftily make the backdrop
pale away. the angle and
the perspective are tricks
artificers use to lure the senses
Cuckoo's eggs in crows' nests
Art designs illusions, conjures
to deceive, magics
wizards the banal to look romantic
Photography is an art, poetry too
They do it exceptionally well
A photo is a poem which rhymes
metres, line breaks truth into lies
A poem which seduces the most apathetic reader
willing suspension of disbelief
into accepting secrets of my heart
which you threw into the bin yesterday.

Day 11-- Asomiya

2011-05-06T22:57:00.001+05:30

(a poem about a language you cannot speak, read or write but have an associaton with)

Asomiya

You are the allure of a bihu geet
the mystery of matsyagandha
you are turmeric, you are plantain plant
and I a pure virgin girl
you are the secret in the folds of this mekhala
the mad fervour of the bordoisila
you are in my ahom stole, in my ahom bag
but I can reach you only in translation
you are poetry, bihu dance and melody
hiding in the clining mist
you hug the Luit river in your fold
you kiss me, caress me fleetingly
I feel you, love you, wonder you
But I do not know you.

Day 12-- For Nadia :-)

2011-05-06T22:54:00.002+05:30

a poem about a distant relative you don't know too well

For Nadia

An aunt in the U.K.
who is a twin and who visits
every five years, was an exotic
mystery to my child eyes.
An aunt so un-auntish
so much an elder sister
a friendly cousin, only ten years
older than me. Poof, what's a decade!
An aunt who initiated me into card games and
the beloved Anne of Green Gables
Small and slight with short trimmed hair
her distinctly accented "shrew-tea"
sharply cuts across time
leaving indelible imprints in my memory
An aunt I want to carry back home with me
An aunt so cool to marry at thirty five
An aunt with an aura
which the passing of timeless years
could never fade.

Day 13-- Purple Acrostic, Day 12-- Irom Sarmila Ghazal

2011-05-06T22:50:00.003+05:30

Irom Sarmila-- a ghazal

Do eleven years go in vain, Irom Sarmila?
As she lies in worse than pain, Irom Sarmila.

People are killing and dying in Manipur
Are those deaf ears in power insane, Irom sarmila?

They put her in jail and her demand on the shelf
She from food and drink for us abstains, Irom Sarmila

How long can we sit in apathetic silence
Let's join her, protest, complain, Irom Sarmila

She has unflailing courage that does not give up
Shruti wants to learn your refrain, Irom sarmila.

Acrostic

Poignant poetry of a twilit sky
Unearthly symphony
Rivers and seas and storm tossed waves
Pregnant as hope, passionate as dream
Love and love's longing and Shug-Celie
Eggplants, big elephants ears, eerie.

Day 14-- Anyways

2011-05-06T22:46:00.000+05:30

write a poem about an overused word.

Anyways

Anyways. This poem
is about Anyways.
Anyways is such a cliche
Let's write a poem about Anyways
anyways.
Anyways to drop the subject
and anyways to change the topic
of Anyways.
Anyways is my boredom
Anyways is incomprehension
Anyways is anticipation
of rejection. Anyways.
Anyways expresses everything
without needing expression.
Anyways is not a lexical word anyways.
But who cares? Anyways is "our" word
anyway.
Anyways so I decided to write a poem
about the delightfulness of Anyways. Anyways.

Day 16-- Women Help Desk, Day 15-- Scarred

2011-05-06T22:43:00.002+05:30

a poem about a scar or a person with a scar

Scarred

The beauty spot of the angel
the kiss of the sun
Voldemort's Dark mark
it brands you, stamps you
good and evil vie for you
it makes you so uniquely you
yes, you you you!
You marked and scarred you
Blyton and Rowling hold you in deep suspicion
And mothers tell you thet the fairies love you.

a poem about something written on a billboard. well, it wasn't a billboard but it was a board all right. :p
Women Help Desk

'Women Help Desk' says the board
brightly painted in red, blue and white
staring boldly at the back entrance.
A large desk in a tiny cabin
to help women.
All day the women come and go
The desk always ready to help them
Always there to help them
But recently I found
the big desk in a small cabin
and a woman.

Day 18 ~River~

2011-05-06T22:38:00.001+05:30

write a poem about the first face that comes into your head.

~River~ :-)

Frizzy ribbons
stream down like unruly black Rivers
A face revealed
A face concealed
The forehead cries Asomiya
and the lips take up the refrain
Kohled eyes that murder me
Kohled eyes that consecrate me
Straight-set lips that smile poetry
when they look at you
The erotic ring of silver in the nose
Pottered masks make faces in the ears
A long face, a dusky face
with the layered depths of a forest floor
with creased lines that hide
secrets which I yearn to know.

Day 19-- Dear Old Eighteen

2011-05-06T22:36:00.001+05:30

a poem as an apology letter to your 18-year old self

Dear Old Eighteen

Dear old eighteen
your naivety could not read
other people's minds
your trusting innocence believed
too much too quickly
your meekness could nor refuse
imposing demands and pompous exteriors
your receding backstage modesty
held you back from centrestage
you were ignorant
to the blunt point of dumbness
Uninitiated into this world
You were a stranger from foreign lands
perhaps you stepped off a rainbow.
But your heart was true, dear old eighteen
I will say so much for you
Courage enough to play the fool
and laugh at it afterwards
Idealistic and stubborn, you wanted
to keep the cake and eat it too
Youw ere the seed half a dozen years ago
that gave birth to me, to the last quarter
of my twenty four
Learning, skipping, sliding, falling
Cursing, aching, yearning, mourning
I look at you with amused nostalgia
Thank you for you, dear old eighteen
It ain't that I'm wiser
I've picked up a couple more years
on you baby, that's all.
I am still as true
a little less naive
and a lot more wicked. :-)

Day 21-- Rain, Day 20-- The Ladies' Car

2011-05-06T22:30:00.002+05:30

a poem about a mode of commute or transport

The Ladies Car

Running for the pink lines
that mark our sex
A bee line for an empty seat
Putting down stray men who dare encroach
upon this female sanctum.
Shooting invisible glances
at earrings, slippers, foppish hairstyles
Eve, Belinda and Becky
travel in style through vanity fair
We do not like to pull push snatch
We believe ourselves more civilised
than those uncouth men.
The train hurtles down a tunnel of darkness.

poem about an element-- rain, heat, earthquake etc

Rain

Music of the aeolian harp
melody of flute and lyre
It is the sound of heavens laughing
the thunder is the tabla beating
destroying habit
enforced freedom from routine
I tune in with the rhythms of this dance
to be set free

Day 22-- Smell Spells

2011-05-06T22:27:00.001+05:30

a poem about a smell-- a person, animal, food or waste

Smell Spells

The polite fragrance of elaichi
is the dining room visitor perfume
the tangy amchur remembers
the green mango before its demise
the heeng invades all your senses
but the laung reveals its sharpness
only to the tongue
the ajwain is strong and yet prim
like a school mistress.
the dries methi seeds tell you the story
of how the sund ried the green fields
the abrupt saunf bids goodbye to the guests
the boring old jeera screams everydayness
and the tej patta is what everyone uses
but secretly hates
In a North Indian kitchen, I drown myself in Malabar

Day 25-- Migrainitis , Day 24-Shefali

2011-05-06T22:23:00.002+05:30

6-line poem

Shefali

Spirals strewn in white fragrance
dew laden in the dawn
with orange filaments nestling in grass.
the bounty of a benevolent caopy
if I touch you, I might squah or sqeeze
for your are of the fairies, Parijat!

write about a person with a disability or your own disability.

Migrainitis
Shiva's Tandava Nritya
in the Bhayanak rasa
his left foot right foot alternating
pounding, resounding in my head
the balance shifts for the thirty seventh time
Condemned to burning in hellish fire
For sins of past births and this
In the Benares Shivnagari

Day 26-- For Nandita (Das)

2011-05-06T22:16:00.001+05:30

a poem for a celebrity-- actor/dancer/singer-- you have a massive crush on.
For Nandita (Das)
Her dusky beauty puts to shame
cliches of the fair and lovely
Her eyes speak to me, her smile
knows me, and her mouth
blunt yet kind joins in.
Secrets hide in the rustle
of her gorgeous skirts saris
I am closest to her
when she is unreachable
on a film reel
when my eyes ardently follow
her ephemeral figure.
She just refused a role
in your new advert
which was worth a fortune
The world screams actress! social activist!
but she hovers at edges
which defy definition
Passion, elegance
honest intelligence
I yearn to follow her
beyond the silver screen.

2011-05-06T22:13:00.001+05:30

a poem about a mythical figure

Aphrodisiac Desires
She comes to women in fleeting visions
loves them, makes much of them, teaches
the secrets of love to them
with her eyes and soft kisses
the enchantress writes a 'how to love' poem
and I stumble to write.
For aphrodite goddess of love
who taught most beautiful Helen
and whom Sappho invoked
Aphrodite high on mount Olympus
cannot hear me.

Day 28-- birthday poem

2011-05-06T22:11:00.001+05:30

a birthday poem as a gift to someone you love

You have given me
more than you would care to give
you have given me what
you don't know that you gave
or did I steal?
Even when you hurt me something escapes
you and comes to me
what offering can I give you
more constant than this faith
deeper than these tears, more precious
than this very self
when you gave my self to me...

Day 29-- Panchgani

2011-05-06T22:10:00.001+05:30

a poem about a place you have visited as a tourist
Panchgani
The vigour of mountain air
wraps you
Cold breezes frolic and play
with you, strawberry fields
hug you in an embrace
Prim cottages in a row grow
red heart strawberries, pulpy
and jelly-like to my touch
I pluck them, eat them
cannot get my fill of them
basklets and baskets full of them.
Their sweet, sharp juice
seeps in like tangy mountain air.
Later, in out-of-the-world
picturesque, fairyland you
I bask in open terraces
gotging on the delicacy
of fresh strawberry and cream.

Day 30-- Flee Fly Floo

2011-05-06T22:02:00.001+05:30

a free poem. about freedom. 20 lines. I decided to try my hand at amphigory nonsense :D
Flee Fly Floo
Fumungus grothucus wurrwurr
buzz growl wuthering smurthering
Frazzy hishy frooky pooky
wolving snappiting frappish snarging
the humbug grotchety way of the world.
Wuzzbuzz poof! Stomp it, Shuntit!
Damn it, whumpit! Fly floo
wheeze around it, frick it, jonk it
and waddledydoo, escape from it!
Furly in the friggin morn
Let fluty warbles ting-a-ling
chant fleely flawly flee fly floo
birdies chreeping, freezes flowing
Stomp the fumungus, whomp
the wurrwurr, frick and jonk
the wolvish snorging
Wheeze around it, gleely, plyly
easy there now! Hunt and runt
for zing, zwang, and zappyness
Flout the Droner, Free Chielo!

2011-03-22T16:22:00.001+05:30

With you, my cup should overflow
its brim with ambrosia
What should I do with all that nectar
it should be sacrilege to spill
Elixir is dangerous for mortals
We should be content with remembrance and hope.

Yet, some day I shall come looking for you
like a lost puppy.

2011-03-22T16:20:00.001+05:30

A migratory bird, you flew
down south, a river
you changed your course
a butterfly, you hunted out
blossoming flowers
I search for you in vain
in the barren emptiness of my present.

The Weft and the Warp

2011-03-22T16:15:00.002+05:30

Snip. Snip. Click. Swish.
A whisking metallic sound
breaks silence with a tone of finality
a scissors cut cleanly through cloth.
Hearts too are torn and ripped
like cloth, mine has frayed edges
jagged threads stick out.
the knit is lost without the purl, the weft
goes in search of the warp.
A new thread can stitch them
into a reworked compromise
Poetry can sew hearts and
my warped lines
woven with doubt, hope and insecurity
the head bent in prayer
ardently long to find
the weft of yours.

February

2011-03-22T16:08:00.003+05:30

Purple perfect profusions
and velvety-violets amidst
the dappled green
Dewdrops glitter like jewelled crystals
The marigolds have stolen
the yellow-gold of the sun, the orange
of the narangis. The red poppies
are crimson to the point of wicked sinfulness.
The pristine purity of the white
with their centres of blue-purple
and green-black offsets the rest.
the purple shehtoot is ready to be plucked
The February rain plays hdie and seek
with february wind and february sun
Now that spring is in the air.

On the street, the beggar counts her meagre coins
the hungry eyes of children follow me
A car speeds up, a dog limps across the road.

Split-Selves

2011-03-22T16:02:00.003+05:30

I was born whole, yes,
but the Fates that decreed me a gemini
split me into twin selves, split selves
The quiet, serious me and
the wicked rebel.
Freud further split me into three
the yearning in me, the stoical
reason in me, and the balancing act
of yearning and reason in me.
I inherited my mother's hair
my father's eyes, my mother's mouth
and nobody's nose. I mean, Nobody knows.
And anybody's height. and whobody's brain?
But my grandma's memory, that's for sure.
This body of mine that now lives in delhi
is part gujju-part tamil, half punjabi and
used to live in Benares. But even that
is history. Places proliferate
and multiply.
Yes, I believe in post-modernism
yes, I believe in pluralities, and liminalities
of Identities.
But sometimes, I yearn
to carve an imaginary
unified Identity.

2011-03-22T15:59:00.002+05:30

Spirits glide above me, slide
beneath my feet, listen closely
hide in my hair, in my ears
follow at my heels, watching softly.
They try to steal my thoughts.
Are they part of me
or do they belong to you
these ghosts of memory, desire and dreams?
Or do they hang midway
carrying my secrets to you?
Do they mock me, do they
stalk me, or do they guide me
these invisible presences?
They whisper, murmur,haunt
without end, I cannot escape
these voices, you see, are inside of me
Do they know me more
than me, do you know me
like a river's meanders know its boulders?

Doppelganger

2011-03-22T15:49:00.003+05:30

I am an illusion
a ghostly apparition
I embody your mind,
your body and your soul
no, I am not you
no, I am not a clone
I am a doppelganger.
What's that, you ask
a pretender, an imitator
a duplicitous masquerader
a fake identity, a passport stealer?
No, I am a doppelganger.
I have holes in my body
and rings in the holes
fishes hang from my ears, a tree owl
nestles in my hair, midnight black
surrounds my eyes.
I have the slantedness of your
awkward smile, the rigidity
of your aloof body, I can
purple you to perfection.
Oh well, not quite to perfection
I told you I am not you
a spirit bound by you
yet not free from me
I walk the liminal edges of you and me
I observe with delicacy, stalk
with sensitivity, try to enter
your spirit imaginatively
and I doppelganger.
They think I can't be real
They think I am a doppelganger
But I am uncannily real
you cannot get rid of me
I am bound unto you.
I delight in doppelgangerism
it's a fascinating entrancing game.
One day, I shall stamp my body
with your indelible blue black mark
Neither here nor there, belonging nowhere
I wander like a restless spirit of longing
and incomplete desire in the air
I walk the liminal edges of you and me.

Requiem for a Dream

2011-03-22T15:45:00.001+05:30

"Fasola is a sweet girl", the teacher said,
"and she writes lovely poems".
She flashed her a precious smile
Stars rose in her eyes that night and
gave birth to a dream.

Another day, she avoided Fasola's gaze, returned
a poorly marked paper, praised
the stout girl over there.
A sacred dream died its death and
buried itself in the classroom dust.

One day the dream will learn from Sylvia and Lady Lazarus
and rise again.

For the Love of Cultures of Peace- Festival of the North East: A report

2011-02-15T23:40:00.005+05:30

My report of the North East Fest at Habitat Centre, 28-29th Jan "For the Love of Cultures of Peace" has been published in the Fried Eye Magazine... :-) http://www.friedeye.com/2011/02/15/for-the-love-of-%E2%80%9Ccultures-of-peace%E2%80%9D/

"For the Love of Cultures of Peace”- A Report on the festival of the North East
by – Shruti Sareen (with inputs on the Second day of Events by Rini Barman. )

The India Habitat Centre witnessed revelry of colour, art, poetry and music on 28th and 29th January 2011 in Cultures of Peace, a festival of the North East. It may seem ironical that cultures stereotypically associated with violence were here invoked as Cultures of Peace. This is what the festival tried to bring home, the message that life in the north-east is not one merely of violence, but of peace and love as well, and that focussing on peace and love is the key answer to the violence and terror in the region.
The first of the round table conferences, which as Sanjoy Hazarika pointed out, was actually a long table instead of a round table, was around the theme “Writing Peace, Writing Violence”. Indrani Raimedhi, Arupa Kalita and Pradip Phanjoubam focussed on the implicit violence in the north-east: the drum beats, the gun shots, people dying, the domination by the Assamese of certain surrounding areas of Meghalaya and Nagaland. Temsula Ao, a Nagini who spent her childhood in Assam, spoke of the emotional violence, that crisis of identity and belongingness this creates, and how both Nagas and Assamese people tend to see her as “the other”. Subir Bhaumik chose to focus on peace through the reminiscence of his army training, of generations of his family who had served the Tripura king in the army, and his decision to leave it all. Ananya Guha and Aruni Kashyap spoke in vivid terms about the cultures of the north-east which they do not see as implicitly associated only with violence. Ananya Guha talked about the land and nature, maintaining that spreading peace will inevitably lead to the lessening of violence, whereas Aruni Kashyap chose to show the ordinary experiences of common folk in the north-east, of the people living and not necessarily only the people dying. Nilanjana Roy moderated the session.
The session was followed by a viewing of Uzma Mohsin’s photography exhibition. The exhibit focussed on how girls from the north-east do not feel comfortable in a city like Delhi, where they are constantly seen as “the other” and viewed with suspicion, where people have stereotypical ideas about them based on their dress and so on. There was also an exhibition of paintings on the theme of violence in the north east, showing people breathing through oxygen masks, trying to escape suffocation, as several viewers commented. Red blood and blue faces contrasted and alternated with red flowers and blue skies in these paintings. During this interval the sale of books from the north-east on various aspects like literature, history, activism, mythology, politics and sociology also drew the attention of book lovers and knowledge seekers.
The next round table conference “The Words to Say It” moderated by Preeti Gill saw the participation of Mamang Dai, Mitra Phukan, Bijoya Sawian, Rita Chowdhury, Mona Zote, and Omar Sharif. Various ways of conveying the reality, or rather, realities, from the journalistic, reporting style, to fiction, to Mamang Dai’s style of focussing on myths, legends and folk tales were brought to discussion. The accessibility and democratic nature of blog-culture, e-books and the internet were also mentioned. North-east cultures are traditionally seen as being very rooted cultures and people are seen as having a strong sense of belongingness. Yet in this forum people spoke of Assamese people being deported to China, arrested and confined, and the identity crisis caused thereby. Mona Zote talked about her own atheism, which set her apart and made her feel alienated from the people of her own state, Mizoram, the majority of whom are Christians. She also mentioned that Mizoram does not have a strong culture of its own, quite unlike the Khasis, Arunachal Pradesh and others. Another important question raised here (and explored in more detail in the next session) was whether writers from different states in the north-east are connected to, or isolated from, each other.
The next session “Crossing Borders” had Monalisa Changkija, Uddipana Goswami, Aruni Kashyap, Triveni Mathur, Rajesh Dev, Rupa Chinai, and Dhiren Sadokpam as speakers, with Uma Chakravarti as the moderator. Critical questions like, who is an outsider/insider, and are all “north-east” people insiders, were raised. The session highlighted aspects in which power structures of dominance and hierarchy were recreated through boundaries within north-east and stressed on the need to exercise caution before seeing all ‘insiders’ as heroes and all ‘outsiders’ as villains. The north-east has no one singular culture which gives its inhabitants an “identity”, only several proliferating ones. As Sanjoy Hazarika said in a later session, it is more appropriate to see them as seven step-sisters instead of romanticising them as The Seven Sisters. The Seven Sisters identity is also troubling because it completely leaves out the Sikkim state. Does distance make one nostalgic or more critical? What is the identity of an Assamese who never thought of himself as a “North-Eastern” before he came to Delhi? Where and how is identity constructed? What about the sub-altern tribes within the North-east, such as the Bodo tribes in Assam? When are they written about, and when do they actually speak for themselves? Questions such as these were brought up to ponder upon in this session.
The last of the round table conferences was “Stories from a War Zone”. Subir Bhowmick, Sanjoy Hazarika, Meenakshi Ganguly, Deepti Priya Mehrotra, Utpal Borpujari and Pradip Phanjoubam. Moderated by Urvashi Butalia this session focussed on issues such as the freedom of the artist. Journalists talked of their experiences of being threatened by censor boards and by underground groups when they wrote anything that did not toe the line, thus raising questions of “truth-telling”. Writers voiced an opposite concern, of the publishers’ stereotypical demand that writers from the north-east should only write about violence. Listening to people’s stories in villages was also seen as an important function of the journalist. A direct link was traced between the government’s bid for progress and modernity of urban, metropolitan areas, which leads to, for example, the development of dams in Tripura, dispossessing tribals of their land, and which in turn, makes them become insurgents. Other concerns that were addressed included the effect of violence upon the environment, insurgency and disputes with neighbouring countries like Bangladesh over resources, and emphasised the inter-connectedness of all states and the need to maintain solidarity.
The day ended with a spectacular theatrical performance tracing the life of Irom Sharmila, the bright torch light amidst the darkness, the passionate woman who began by writing poetry from a young age, and became a staunch activist, fighting for the fate of her people, going through hunger strikes to protest against the government, being arrested and jailed on baseless charges, and later, her helpless condition in the hospital where she is force-fed. This powerful performance brought the truth home more sharply and keenly than any of the round table conferences had done throughout the day.
The second day began with the session titled “Confronting the Past, Imagining the Future” with Sanjoy Hazarika and Laxmi Mathur as the eminent speakers. The north-east is a region with enormous linguistic, ethnic and political diversity, and yet with many commonalities of geographies, of resources, of marginalization. What does, or what can, the future hold? This was the basic question opened up by Sanjoy Hazarika while explaining how the north-east is in the periphery but by no means peripheral. He talked about the burning issues of migration, poor infrastructures of the north-east and the failure of the centre and state Governments to resolve the same. He brought forth the problematic plight of the 30 lakh people in the 3 thousand islands of the north-east. Laxmi Mathur talked extensively about the need of justice for establishment of peace. She also agreed with the need of retelling the untold and unheard histories of the northeast particularly of women, without which, the old wounds cannot be healed.
This was followed by book and poetry readings by Mitra Phukan, Mona Zote, Aruni Kashyap, Omar Sharif, Ananya Guha, Nitoo Das, Uddipana Goswami in the session “Expressing the North-East” . Haripriya Soibam’s readings Irom Sharmila’s poetry collection, Fragrance of Peace and Rojio Usham’s performance based on the same carried forward the performances of the previous evening.
The festival ended with music by Imphal talkies speaking to the passions and the senses of a large gathering, leading on to a spectacular concert by Soulmate, the jazz and blues band from Shillong. The festival seems to have been a good blend of the intellectual and the passionate, speaking to both minds and hearts. Hopefully, the Cultures of Peace festival lives on, reverberates, and gives meaning in times to come, and the end turns out to be but a beginning.

Elegy for a Broken Vase to be published in Differsense!!

2010-12-31T23:23:00.002+05:30

Yay!!! My poem "Elegy for a Broken vase" has been accepted for publishing in the magazine Differsense!! The poem is just two posts below this one. However, in the magazine, it will appear in a slightly edited form, so I am putting up the edited version here right now, as it will appear in print. hope I'm not doing something wrong!!
Okay, tisn't a big deal, doesn't affect the world. It does still tell me though that at least I don't write total crap. My 4th publication, "proper" one... :-)

Wet,malleable,clay
,a potters wheel
and a friend's hand
birthed it.
Our stories dented it
Etching lines like the wrinkles
left by River’s waves on stone.
Mud-coloured, elegant,
it graced a prized corner
as befitsa hand-crafted gift...
Until, one day, it fell,
struck by my careless hand.
Sorrow, distress, and broken earth
delicately curved, now fill the room;
draughts of love, clouded memories,
bittersweet vapours escape
from the empty vase and
search for a new home.

Philanthropic/ Misanthropic thoughts on 31/12/2010

2010-12-31T23:22:00.000+05:30

Dear people,
Today, as 2010 ends and we move towards what will hopefully be a new beginning, 2011 (the phrase is way too clichéd, but our world desperately needs a new beginning right now) , I grasp this opportunity to say to you what I really, really need to say. Please read this!! But let me not push something on you. If you would rather not think or question, if you would just rather go out and “have a blast” on New Year’s Eve, let me not impose this upon you.
Oh!! By the way… I just got to know that my poem “Elegy for a Broken Vase” has been accepted for publication by the Differsense magazine… yay!! J I hope it is a good ending to 2010 and a hopeful beginning for the new…
Okay, This is the result of an entire month of intense thinking, much angst and agony. I became haunted and obsessed with it. This is to share with you some of that, bcos it’s our world, it’s one world, we need to connect, and bcos I want to learn and be wiser, so I must talk to people,of course!! Thought should always precede action. Okay, so let me be honest. In my usual life, balancing my academic life plus my socializing life plus my day dreaming and personal life, plus all the things I must do as an outstation student in delhi leaves me with absolutely no time for much else. My own worries and my own satisfaction is what I am usually preoccupied with. Of course, I am concerned about the world in a general way. Now, however, I have become obsessed with the violence and inequality in this world. This is what we must address now. Immediately. Our own personal lives are nothing short of heaven. One persistent migraine that refuses to go away, one broken heart that adamantly refuses to mend, and one insurmountable NET stubbornly acting as an obstacle … that’s it!! My only and only “real worries”. Tis nothing at all!! And now.. what do I want to talk about?? I want to talk about the war prisoners, the kidnapped children, the raped women, I want to talk about people like Binayak Sen. And so many such people. And you know what I want to talk about?? Animals. The ones we eat. Sorry, I mean the ones which we kill and eat and then call this barbaric practice a civilized one. This is bcos I am haunted now by the eyes and by the pain of those animals… do try, for once, to put yourself in the place of that animal and experience it… of course we say it’s the natural food chain. But aren’t humans something better than animals? I mean we have intelligence, reasoning, we know self control… don’t you abstain from things you really want to do?? Don’t you use your self control? bcos your mind sees that to do such a thing is morally incorrect, however much you might want to do it. We all do. We are all “broad minded, university educated people”… no, this is not entirely satirical. This mail is sent to you bcos I think you are intelligent and sensitive enough to understand, bcos I respect you, bcos I am glad to know a person like you. Okay, when we have reached a stage now when we can see that violence on the basis of gender is wrong, caste is wrong, religion is wrong, sexuality is wrong, when we have studied and rethought power structures… then why don’t we also think that violence against animals is also wrong?? Do we think that animals don’t feel the way we do?? Or are we slaves to our taste buds? Just imagine yourself in the place of that animal… Okay, at a different level now. We are conditioned, of course. But then we are conditioned into so many things. Literature, delhi, and certain people have made me rethink and question my conditioning so much, and I am so glad and grateful for that. But it must not stop!! That is the whole point. I cannot now become complacent and pat myself on the back that I have become so broad minded and stop there. I must stretch myself, go on with this search, this questioning. Yes, it’ll mean a lot of angst, a lot of thinking, there will be pain. I could choose not to think and question and to just be happy. But I can’t be happy!!! As a citizen of this world, I feel I cannot sit and look at so much violence around me and just look on and do nothing. All violence ultimately arises out of forms of power structures. Men over women, adults over children, teachers over students ( all my apologies to the oh-so-many teachers whom I hope have bothered to read this far), rich over poor, humans over animals, always the strong over the weak, the powerful against the vulnerable, … the law of nature to a certain extent yes, but not beyond that, please. As humans, why are we barbaric enough even in the 21st century to only value physical strength? personally, I value moral, emotional and intellectual strength much more. Gandhiji was one of the greatest leaders and India is lucky to have had him. Bcos he fought violence with non-violence. Peace, love and compassion, the only things that make sense if the world has to change for the better… more peace, love, and compassion, endless and healing love… for everyone, not just for our loved ones. Anyways, I think signature campaigns on the internet are very good, democratic, non-violent and effectual ways to do something. That we already do. But can’t we do something more?? We need to bridge the gap between our progressive ideologies and the actual state of things around. The gap is toooo wide, trying to bridge it a bit is so necessary!!
Okay, I was so haunted and obsessed, I couldn’t even sleep, but then I realized I will do no good to anyone by this. If it would have done good, I am willing to suffer. Now, being happy almost seems like a selfish act, an escapist act, but we need to be happy. Bcos it’s true we can’t change the whole world. We can do our bit, though, and that is only possible by doing our work well, contributing in whatever way we can, learning, creating, sharing, helping… if I think of all those victims, man, woman, child and animal, I’ll be sick and insane… so beyond a point, I must put I away. It is not escapism, it’s what I must do to at least do something for this world. We all have different ways of contributing… I was thinking of concrete stuff… I know lots of us are concerned by say, women, for example, or animals, or whatever. We could at some stage, actually do social work, whether by joining an existing organization, or by creating one of our own. Writing, teaching… well, that is what I can do, at least, (and by teaching I mean something much, much larger than creating answer writing and marks obtaining machines. That is NOT what I am going to spend my life doing.) and I think Nandita (Das) ( are you reading, Nandita?? J ) yeah, so I think Nandita was right when she told me once that whatever our heart is in is what we can do best, and when we have that happiness, then we can spread it the best. So we must all find our ways of contributing… but pls let’s not grow complacent, let’s not lose that urgency, let’s keep questioning and examining ourselves and what we are doing!! What good is art, literature, culture, left wing politics in a world like this?? How does it help?? We need to ask, at least, surely.
People, I really really hope no-one’s going to take this in a wrong sense, it is not meant as a morality lecture, it is not meant as an accusation, it is an attempt to share what was spilling over after having driven me insane. Pls take this as an attempt to learn, to share, and hopefully, to make the seeds for some kind of change, that’s all it is!! I want to live close to the earth, and open to the sky, without all the time thinking of security, protection, fortification!! To take whatever life brings!! Takes courage, yes, though.
Okay, now… Extremely glad, grateful, happy and proud to know all the people I send this to!! Learning, living, loving, fulfilling, satisfying, fruition … I wish you all of that in the new year!!!!!!!! J J

Elegy for a Broken Vase

2010-10-15T23:25:00.000+05:30

The malleability of wet clay

a potter's wheel, and a friend's hand

birthed it. Stories etched into it

as dented lines, like wrinkles

formed by River's waves, on stone.

Mud coloured and elegant, it occupied

a prized position, as befits

a handcrafted gift, with grace.

Until it fell,struck by my careless hand

in dignity, stature, and height.

Sorrow, distress, and broken pieces of earth

delicately curved, now fill the room and

Draughts of love, clouds of memories and

bittersweet vapours escape

from the empty vase and

search for a new home.

An Urn of Ashes

2010-10-15T23:24:00.000+05:30

It is an ornate and

heavy urn of bronze

shaped like a lota of water

its handles carved, and arching.

A heap of grey ashes

lies within, sanctified

hallowed remains.

The ashes seem heavy as lead

I lug them on my back

around my neck

everywhere I go.

Nourish them,

cherish them, they are

but metamorphosed forms

of the words you said, the smiles

you looked, and the red flame

of my heart before it was taught to turn to stone.

Waiting, hoping, for the phoenix to rise again

The leaden dread that I wait and carry in vain.

An Ode to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010

2010-10-15T23:22:00.000+05:30

Dusky darkness steals in softly

tiptoeing, caressing

cradling the white fragrance

of the raat rani, shefali, frangipani.

The moon between the two tall palms

is a boat,the star is a kiss on the sea-sky.

At 7pm in the grounds of IP college

spirits and gods and trees converse, converge

mysteries like flying insects are suspended in mid air.

A silhouette of blue smoke seems strangely kindred

At odd hours, this spirit creeps out to share this tryst.

Six years have made it a translucent omnipresence.

The spirit then glides down the street, smoky

invisible, pervading ,absorbing atmosphere

which mutates into night smells

of ice creams, juices

the red paan, smoke-fags,

the tea,maggi,rolls,momos, chocolates.

Smell jostles against smell, sounds and lights

the shops, autos lined up at the gas station

cars teeming with yellow cat-like eyes

Sights, sounds, memories, smells,feelings

are brewed together, the logic of boundaries

comes undone. The spirit traverses

Into the by-ways of winged hopes,

feathered dreams, nostalgic idylls

of rajpur road, under hill lane, sri ram road

and ram kishore road, that take me across

time and space, desires and sorrows

back to the room of my own I call home.

My five feet four inch fifty kg body

may measure acres, square miles, cities

but a whiff of smoky translucence

will always glide down bylanes of dreams

and memory at 7pm, in the IP grounds

the place that brewed and stewed and cooked

and sprouted me.

Untitled (a response to J M Coetzee's Disgrace)

2010-10-15T23:21:00.000+05:30

(a response to J M Coetzee's Disgrace )

Teach me

that ritual, David's daily penance

of carrying dead dogs to the incinerator.

Teach me

Lucy's mysterious wisdom

of accepting guilt without flinching.

But do not try to tell me

that shame precludes desire.

That they cannot coexist.

Desire can be consecrated, pure

as blue fire, it can worship the beloved

yet not touch her with its flame.

Fighting Menka and her fellow apsaras

of desire and temptation

is the agnipariksha remorse must win over

A daily duel with these dancing apsaras

only strengthens my victory

and is my highest offerring of atonement

towards grace.

The twin birds on the tree of the gita are within me

one tempted to eat the fruit, the other watching

even if one succumbs to the fruit, the other redeems.

Passport Sized Photographs

2010-10-15T23:19:00.005+05:30

Passport-sized-photographs

A dummy, a mannequin,

a wax work doll. An object

to be stared, commented, laughed at.

A robotic machine. Controlled

by a set of commands.

“Shift your face to the left

your neck is not straight, your face

not level with the ground,madam.”

The holy mantra for photo-production

needs me to wear a plastic smile on demand

of correct length and breadth measurements

The canvas of my life

is replaced by a cheap blue one

Dirty too. I persuade him

to make it grey.

And I wonder how many sittings

and how many, many rehearsals

would capture my flyaway spirit

and inject a whiff of my soul

into this two-inches-of-gloss

this millimetred smile?

Show me how to do it like you

2010-10-15T23:19:00.004+05:30

Not a hair

out of place. Not a ruffle

of dress, or of distress.

No clumsy errors

or misdemeanours

Perfect. And

Immaculate.

A story-book heroine

A graceful River flowing easy

is how your life

appears to me.

And I stare ruefully

at my own cobwebs

that need dusting,

removing, rethinking

at the fault-lines

that lead to earthquakes

at the sticky slime

at the acids that corrode

layers of my limestone mind.

Show me how to do it,

Show me how to do it like you.

(The last 2 lines, taken from Stevie Wonder's song, also form the epigraph to Alice Walker's The Color Purple.)

Choices

2010-10-15T23:17:00.000+05:30

Frost's road diverged in a yellow wood

But what made him take the one less travelled by?

How do Hamlets decide to be or not to be,

to go, to act, to kill, or to not?

This power to alter our states is terrifying,

Nambisan is right, and I am paralysed

into Alfred Prufrock's doubt and inaction.

Dumbledore said our choices make us

what we are. But how do we make choices?

But let's not get existential. Let's not fall

into this canyon of questions.Let's find

a bottom to this bottomless gorge.

Or make one!

Open Pandora's box! Out with the bees,

the wasps and the hornets with their stings!

rights, wrongs ,goods, bads, reason,

logic, morals, virtues!

Shoo them away! No wreaths of laurel,

no gold medals for me! No awards of virtue!

Who decides, anyway? And when? On the Day

of Judgement on my deathbed?

Shoo them away! Doubts corrode as much

as certainty, after all. We meet in rust. That's

what Arundhathi Subramaniam said.

If you want references. And authorities.

Shoo them away! And let me be.

Let me be happy. Let me be me. Let me live

the life I wanted, the life I dreamt of. Let me

follow my heart.

But a tiny demon stalks me constantly

whispering in my ear

“are you quite sure?”

4 poems in Muse India!!

2010-09-04T19:00:00.002+05:30

Muse India , in their September issue this time, published 4 of my poems!! The basic theme of this issue is tagore, but they have lots of other stuff as well. an my poems aren't even remotely about tagore!! Okay, so the selected 4 are -- The Legend of the Pot, Of Poems Dreams and Reveries, Being Belindas, and, Homeless Home-makers, in that order.
Check them out here-- http://www.museindia.com/regular.asp?id=33

and yes, I am grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat!! :))

poem published in The Chay Magazine

2010-07-07T13:58:00.002+05:30

"Being Belindas" got published on The Chay Magazine website! The Chay Magazine is a Pakistan-based magazine on issues of gender and sexuality. Yay!! to read the poem, and other interesting stuff, pls do visit www.chaymagazine.org

The poem is elsewhere on the blog, but I am copy-pasting it below again, anyway.

Being Belindas (a response to Pope's Rape of the Lock)

The mirror hangs before me
My long face stares back at me
a pointed chin
whose rounding I dread
A tiny forehead
gleaned from the thick mass
of black hair surrounding it.
At the black hair
now streaked with red
I oscillate between
fascination and nostalgia
The hair, mostly helter-skelter
sometimes, precise in a bun
A glazed eyeball
with its bit of plastic-glas lens
A newly pierced nose--
a shade too large
showing off that li'l bit of green
My ears trying to seek attention
with their multiple studs and rings
which I regard as pets
And a moody mouth.
but on the whole, a face
I can live with.
My skin the colour
of burnt caramel
a thin, supple body
I am unashamedly
in love with.

Bottles and vials lined
in an array on the slab beside me
the daily ritual
of cleansing, toning, conditioning
the creams and the perfumes
the chief kohl that lines my eyes
the earrings in their silver box
the cupboard with its
greater assortment of clothes
than i could ever wear
the occupational hazards
of being a young girl.

Oh Pope, and other misogynists!
We love being Belindas
and Belindas we shall remain
with our bottles and our vials
our bibles and our billet doux
and we rebel against rapes
of our locks and otherwise.
our bodies and their vagaries
and tricks we play with them
are ours.
And not playthings or objects
for your phallus
or that inglorious phallic symbol
your pen.

Jealous- Green

2010-06-14T23:00:00.001+05:30

Jealous-green

From a sober olive green
dark, sombre, brooding jealousy
to bright emerald which screams
its insecurities to your face
to jade- moss- parrot green
to the sickly green pallor
of vommitting food or
unpalatable emotions.
I have turned all
greened all, screamed
from the pain of burning
a yellow-red-orange flame
which I try to simmer down,
swallow down, green-it-down
before it rages and runs amuck.
I wonder what's green about
Envy.

Lost in your house

2010-06-14T22:58:00.000+05:30

My mind went a-wandering
into your house
it peeped through curtains
spied from behind doors, scuttled
on the floors, flew like an airy spirit
into your hair, tried to invade
your mind.
My mind often lives inside
your house, sometimes
even you're not there.
My mind often lurks nearby
hides, and sometimes, it
catches you unawares
comes face to face, no,
mind to mind.
At times, I have to summon
my mind to come back to me.
I take an evening walk
in the direction of your house and
hope to find my lost mind
midway.

The Watchman

2010-06-14T22:56:00.000+05:30

Girls pass in and out in droves
at all odd hours of everyday
A dirty ragged child squeals
another chases him
buffaloes ruminate in the middle of lanes
chewing their cud.
Workmen-- and women-- carry
bricks and stones and cement
The maids and cooks come and go
a kabadiwalla's voice heard above
the tring-tring of his cycle.
The businessman in his coat-tie-suit
And his car.
The hot torrid sun beats down
upon everyone.
And later, there is deathly quiet
by starlight and moonlight
the faint rustle of a leaf
a cat on a late night prowl
and awe-ful silence.
The Watchman Watches.

Like the White Rabbit
in Alice's Wonderland
hurry-scurry-hurry-
no one has time.
Except the Watchman
The watchman is busy
watching a-busy-world
He keeps time on the watch and
He watches time go by
Observing, reflecting, watching
he sees into the heart of things
into the souls of people
into hidden secrets.
He watches and
He knows
a reality that escapes us and
gets lost
while we are searching
for other things.

The Red River

2010-06-14T22:31:00.002+05:30

I feel it trickle between my legs
a red river, warm and sticky
forms a valley of blood.
An aching numbness
makes me heavy
a ripe fullness fills my body
pregnant with possibility.

Each month I protest
against the fatalism
that awaits a woman.
against its encumbrances
the sordid, stark reality
with all its itching fusses
and always the bloody river.
I resist, desist, grumble and
Obey.

Yet
this deep red river
flowing, dripping, trickling
is my identity, my pride
at being Woman.
It is a holy river, a sacred river
not a dirty river of waste, or of taboo.
A symbol of a woman's growing, caring,
feeling ,loving giving
The River is not a means to an end,
It simply IS.

Thousands of Duryodhans
over hundreds of years
have dragged Draupadis
to the stake,
to pyres of burning fires,
pyres of rape
violated their privacy,
outraged their dignity.
Societies over centuries
have isolated women,confined
to dark rooms, forbidden
to enter temples, made to sleep
on beds of straw and hay.
Untouchables Outcast.

Shared silences bind women
to women, I only seek
to word-verb-speak them.
Silences in poems have voices
I know that you know that I
know what you know.

Happy 2nd birthday, Blog!!

2010-05-23T23:16:00.002+05:30

Happy Happy 2nd Birthday, Blog!! :)

Exactly 2 years ago, I posted the first bunch of posts on Heartstrings, acting upon a very eager desire of starting a blog. So, it has been 2 years!! I think, (quite immodestly) , that there is a fair deal of difference between what I wrote then and what I write now. So, how do I celebrate this happy fact?? Write some more, blog some more, learn some more, improve some more, and get more eager desires?? I will!! Three cheers to you, Blog!! :)

CaPoWrimO-- Caferati Poetry Writing Month!! :)

2010-05-04T19:17:00.004+05:30

Caferati, the writing/ poetry group I am part of, organised CaPoWriMo, Caferati Poetry Writing Month, in April. One poem per day for the entire month of April, following the forms, themes and instructions that were given. Below is my "Thank You" Post to caferati at the end of this month long exercise. All my poems are up here on the blog, but the rightful link which began it all is National Poetry Writing Month in some corner of the world, http://www.napowrimo.net/ and Caferati Poetry Writing Month for us!! http://caferati.blogspot.com/2010/03/capowrimo.html

Well,Caferati... thank you so much for putting me back in touch with myself, for putting me back in touch with caferati, for making me learn so many different forms and for actually making me feel that I can write in "form", for teaching me discipline to write a poem a day (sometimes I cheated, and wrote 3 in one day!!), for making me realise the very highly "constructed" nature of poetry... one can hardly force oneself to be inspired 30 days a month!! It was interesting to twist themes the way I wanted to,so that I always managed to write on the theme given, twisting it just enough to make it say something I really find meaningful and want to say. None of the poems were written just for the sake of writing them... not one!! ...and for... so many things!! a very learning, enjoyable and meaningful experience... and when all that is combined, what could be better!!well, my honest statistics, haven't been as scrupulously honest as Pushpa, so I must confess!! 25 of the poems were very honestly and scrupulously written!! As for the other 5... well, they were ones I have written recently over Feb and March... they just happened to match themes... Lots of the 25 poems were reworked versions of earlier ones... I converted so many free verse poems into form... a very interesting experience...anyways, I don't think it matters, so long as one learns from the experience and it proves meaningful. And I will go prolific on my blog now, posting all these. haven't done it yet, haven't had the time. I thought of FB notes... but decided to give it a miss, all my poems are on my blog, I usually don't put any on FB notes. And Finally, at the end of this prolific post... a very heartfelt... Thank You soooo much, caferati. I'd never have done this if you hadn't made me!!! :)

Day 1,2,3

2010-05-04T19:17:00.001+05:30

CaPoWriMo (Caferati Poetry Writing Month)

Day 1 – Haiku (5-7-5 syllables)

Round, orange baubles
hanuman's suns, narangis
pluck them, they dangle.

Day 2--Clerihew (biographical. Begins with a person's name. 4 lines, couplets. Irregular line length)

Alfred Lord Tennyson
never had much fun
Arthur Hallam died at twenty
and left him with tears aplenty.

Day 3-- Limerick (funny poem. Rhyme scheme-- aabba. Syllables- 8-9, 8-9, 5-6, 5-6, 8-9)

Pooh was deep in a jar of hunny
when there came along a bunny
'Where's Tigger?' asked Rabbit
Jumping down to market
Said Pooh, with hunny all runny.

Day 4

2010-05-04T19:16:00.000+05:30

Day 4-- Ballad (a poem that tells a story. Plenty of rhyme and repetition.)

The Legend of the Pot

On a rocky ledge in a cliff by a river
Fasola heard a magic pot quiver
with the sound of wind, or water
or perhaps, the sound was laughter.
Go to the stream, what do the waves say
They whisper the legend of the pot, the lay.

This pot was shaped long ago by a potter
who took it home to his wife and young daughter
the pot was so perfect, so exceptionally round
all who looked at it, by it were bound
The daughter and her friends trotted down one day
with the pot to the river, all happy and gay.

Busy in their play, they forgot the pot
Left it behind on the bank to rot
Whisked into the river by a sudden wave
it bobbed and floated past the mermaids' cave
The magic pot embodied all that came its way
the waves, the breeze, the laughter of the fairy fays.

But floating was the pot's destiny
even mermaids cannot engage in mutiny
It landed in a circle of smooth, round stones
a lotus in the centre, and a few pine cones
A fisherman saw it, tying his boat to the pole
picked it and looked, admiring the whole

A storm brew up and swept it away
Jigglesqueak is all he had time to say
Battered and wasted, it lay there, half broken
Is this what I came to, it could have spoken
Till rich folks decided to make a cottage by the river
the workmen found it, put it aside for later.

On a rocky ledge in a cliff by a river
Fasola heard a magic pot quiver
with the sound of wind, or water
or perhaps, the sound was laughter.
The magic pot embodied all that came its way
the waves, the breeze, the laughter of the fairy fays

Go to Fasola, feel the perfection and charm
of this little round pot, unharmed by harm
Go to Fasola, you will, won't you?
The pot may embody some part of you too!

Day 5, 6

2010-05-04T19:14:00.003+05:30

Day 5-- sonnet (Shakespearean sonnet. 3 quartets + 1 couplet)
April

The cruellest month mixes memory with desire
Eliot digs up old roots, stirs them with fresh soil
Dormant passions awaken new inner turmoil
Chilling frost gives way to smouldering fires.

April enters when the indecisive wind
of Anjum Hasan opens its slow mouth
The year, frisky as a lamb, uncouth
Is trying to learn to make up its mind

the month of brief, sudden showers
(in Mother Goose's nursery rhymes is April
In India, mango blossoms, first call of the koel
the orange and green of gulmohur trees

Poetry has sought to immortalise April
My debut is this pastiche of my quill.

* Lines 9 and 10 have a different version, but this one is the "public" version.

Day 6-- Cinquain (Line 1- noun, line 2- descritpion, without using adjectives. Line 3- action. Line 4- effect or feeling it produces. Line 5- synonym of first noun/line. Iambic meter. )

the river
a possessed creature
its oceanic waters merge with the sky
the peepul tree dances in epiphany
Jahnavi.

Day 7

2010-05-04T19:14:00.001+05:30

Day 7-- Villanelle (pattern of rhyme scheme and line repetition. In “a” and “b”, the rhyme is repeated. In A1 and A2, the entire line is repeated. A1 b A2, abA1, abA2, abA1, abA2, abA1A2.)

Reason and laws can our actions constrain
subdue, chastise, cleanse with holy fire
But this intensity of pain they cannot restrain.

A public “you”, you then have to feign
a schizophrenic split between facade and desire
Reason and laws can our actions constrain.

This walking the tightrope to stay sane
implies a discipline one must acquire
But this intensity of pain they cannot restrain.

Sometimes, you may nearly break from the strain
of the inherent duality causing agonising seizures
Reason and laws can our actions constrain.

They feel that with time, passion will wane
become sober, sedate, burn itself on the pyre
But this intensity of pain they cannot restrain.

Refrain itself has become my refrain
Repeated again, over and over
Reason and laws can our actions constrain
But this intensity of pain they cannot restrain.

Day 8

2010-05-04T19:13:00.001+05:30

Day 8-- Look Closely (at objects around you,what significance does it have for you)

Harbingers of Summer

I like them plump,
these harbingers of summer
like this one
it lies heavy
and dusty green in my hand
the heat of the sun, the warmth
of the ground
seep into my hand from its interiors
that are cool and white and juicy
springy and tangy
with a big fat white seed in the middle.
They call it kairi at home, and in school
my friends called it tikola
and in english, we call them green unripe mangoes.
It reminds me of cherished summers
spent, looking forward to them, plucking them or
picking them up from dry ground, eating them
tearing them with our teeth, giggling
or sometimes, like at home when they
were put into delicious sabzis.

Day 9, 10

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Day 9-- Angel and Gargoyle (opposite/twin sides of myself- the angel and the gargoyle)

I am Jane Eyre
sensitive, a little shy
intensely devoted and
loyal
with a fierce spirit of justice and
independence
a strong desire for love
for being wanted.
The angel and the madwoman
conflate within me
I am Bertha Mason too
I rage with anger, I scream
till I tear my hair from the roots
I can be violent.
And jealous. Very Jealous.
Playing Jane-switching-
to-Bertha
is a very interesting game
What angel and which madwoman?
The two are just the same.

Day 10-- Olfactory poetry (the sense of “smell”)

There is an 'old' smell
a much-lived-in0worn-
down-smell
in run-down-to-death-clothes
in a pile of dry leaves
shoved aside
in yellowed pages of books and
much thumbed letters.
There is the comfy, homey smell
of home.
And there is a 'new' smell
a strange-pristine-
smell-of-the-unfamiliar
in starched clothes and
fresh paper and empty
unlived in houses
a smell that you can never
Own.

day 11, 12

2010-05-04T19:11:00.000+05:30

Day 11-- An Exercise in Blue (blue as in, the blues of the spirit. I tried connecting it with the colour blue)

There is the pensive violet blue
of a dusky twilight sky
which reflects lost loves
and past failures
with philosophical sombreness.
There is a torrid, violent blue
of cloud-rolling-thunder
or a river in spate
my anguished frenzied
trembling outpourings
or a shrieking migraine.
There is a bright, cerulean blue
of a summer sky that
mocks my pain. Jeers.
Or the gurgling, blithe blue
of a bluebell and a brook.
And there is the liquid, limpid blue
that absorbs my tears
before they fall.

Day 12 – The Original Simile (write loads of similes, select interesting ones, twist them, mix them up, use them in a poem)

Frankenstein's Monster

Frankenstein's dream, vivid
and loud
grew like mercury levels
rising in a thermometer
with nervous elbows and knees
he set to work on his masterpiece
as quick as The Big Bang
lo and behold! His creature was ready
all angular and
geometric.

day 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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Day 13 – Following the golden string-- take the first thought in the morning and think it through

Your name
my first unspoken thought
each morning is followed
by articulation.

Dreams are my only mode
of sustenance
My lips have been stitched together
my hands bound
The year comes full circle.

This thirteenth of april
do I celebrate my speechless
tongue tied mouth?
Or do I celebrate rongali bihu
which would, in a sense, link
me with you?

Day 14 – my new poetic form (2 rhymes, one in the middle of each line, one at the end)

my eyes stare into yours
two pairs-- are they at war?
Silence ensnares words I could conjure
speak, I dare not, I would rather endure
muteness where unsaid words obscure
burn and flare, unheard but sure
we cannot spare this, there is no cure
haunting memories fare forth, unholy or pure.

Day 15-- sms poem-- 'O. Henry Nightingale' poem. (It's elsewhere on this blog, an earlier post)

Day 16-- poem in 100 words-- 'Your fear bring me closer to you' (90-97 words) (It's elsewhere on this blog, an earlier post)

Day 17- poem that takes off from another poem-- Being Belindas : a response to Pope's Rape of the Lock (It's elsewhere on this blog, an earlier post)

Day 18

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Day 18-- Dialogue poem ( a poem entirely in dialogue, in quotations. No asides. Not even the names of people talking)

Almost Rape

“bhaiya, is this the rajiv chowk metro?”
“yes, take the next metro that comes”
“ok, thank you”
“do you live here?”
“No, I just came to visit someone”
“I work here, in the metro”
“ok”
“in the metro bathroon, come with me, I'll show you the bathroom”
“I can't! The metro comes in 2mins now”
“so what? It will come again soon. Let me show you the bathroom”
“I can't! I have a very long journey ahead. I can't possibly waste time and go with you.”
“Madam, the metro is very quick and fast, your journey will not be long. Come with me to the bathroom, please come with me to the bathroom......”

Day 19, 20

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Day 19-- Ode ( addressed to a particular person/object etc. Written in rhyme)

My Room-- An Ode

Inside my room
is a nurturing womb
where I am bare, naked
unclothed, exposed
thoughts and feelings freely
lie outside my body
There is paper and pencil
to hear me when no human will
With volumes of poetry
and musical symphony
I, myself and Me
are in harmony.

Day 20- “Home” poem ( of what “home” means, where “home” is, in my imagination)

There are floating roots and
aerial roots, but I
prefer under-the-ground ones.
Cold winds may blow and tempests
may rage, I may
be hungry and broken
But in Emily Bronte-ish fashion
“Nothing drear can move me
I will not, cannot go”
faith may seem to totter and
angst may seem to win
But, in the words of a childhood
'Chapni' tale
“The world is big, it's fun to roam
But the nicest, nicest place is home”

Day 21 and 22

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Day 21-- Acrostic (The first letters of each line, taken together, spell out a message!)

Glorious profusion of wilderness
Orange flash of gulmohur trees
Ducks dawdling in the lake beyond

I idly gaze at this immensity
Standing with the wind billowing around me

Deer in the park, nibbling at grass
Elephants with trunks majestically swaying
Alice Walker's god lay in no church nor temple
Death of religion, let's embrace a purple vision.

Day 22-- Free Writing (thoughts in the state between dreaming and waking)

Nightmarish Life

Burning fires, strange creatures
Random men putting something
on my face.
Familiar surroundings turn hostile
Known people turn away
Arbitrary groups ridiculing me
mocking, mauling, harassing me
rape, thefts, accidents, and other
god forsaken things
Scared of the future
Guilt in the present
The world becomes a malignant,
threatening place.

Day 23 and 24

2010-05-04T19:07:00.000+05:30

Day 23-- Grace's Elevator ( Taking life as a multi-storeyed building. Memory as an elevator. And I, as being free to roam where I like in this building)

A journey of no return
Linear time
a forever forward march
gone once and gone forever.

But memory
is different...
Memory is an elevator
up-down-up-down-back-and-
forth-to-and-fro
Memory is the desire
wishing to turn back time and
my elevator often
gets stuck on the same floor
and adamantly
refuses to move.

Day 24- Death Poem

half closing eyes
a quaking mind
trembling before

the Ultimate Sovereign
who is our guest tonight
surrendering
before the awe-ful presence
the individual will
reluctantly, unwillingly
relinquishing the five senses
the gateways of life.
Memories leap up and
you must let them go
Nostalgia is a bane and a boon.
And... the curtain falls
the play ends abruptly
Oblivion. Blissful
Oblivion.

Others write elegies in memoriam.

Day 25, 26

2010-05-04T19:02:00.001+05:30

Day 25- poem based on fairy tales

The witch who locked hansel in a cage
Cinderella's evil stepmother
The wicked woman who imprisoned Rapunzel
in an upstairs window
The wolf who pretended to be
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother.
The curse on Sleeping Beauty
The banishment of Snow White
to seven dwarfs with malicious grins
amidst spooky goblins and demons
I search for angels and
fairy godmothers in vain
in these devilish tales of witchery.

Day 26- circular poems. ( begins and ends with the same line. All in less than 12 lines.)

As I walk down to the office, it is 2pm
a sudden feeling of deja vu, a re-enactment
in my mind, before my eyes, it is 12th August 2008
the single most humiliating, embarrassing, shaming
moment of my life, it haunts me, taunts me
hunts me down like a scared animal
the vision threatens to overwhelm me
at the brink, I brusquely shake my head
one compelling, irresistable look and
I resolutely turn my gaze away
As I walk down to the office, it is 2pm.

Day 27, 28, 29, 30

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Day 27—News poem (based on a newspaper article)

Said he loved her
he said he loved her, yes
and so he killed her
murdered her with two
butcher's knives.
He could not see her with
another man.
Thus a tragedy came to pass
Because a pompous fool
a male chauvinist pig
dared to think he possessed
her life.

Day 28-- poem on an object always within hand's reach-- 'The Art of Making a Juda' – It's elsewhere on this blog, an earlier post.

Day 29-- List Poem ( a list of things. The same phrase/kind of thing should be repeated many times)

Free me from this pain
Free me from your disdain
Free me from angsty insanity
Free me from demons of lunacy
Free me from these tears
Free to unchain my fears.
Free me from the debt I owe to you.

Day 30- a poem about poetry-- 'Poetry, Dreams, and Reveries' – it is elsewhere on this blog, an earlier post.

Feast: Body and Soul

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Feast your eyes
on the cheeses and the sauces
the steaming soup
the melting-in-the-mouth dessert.
savour the rich aromas
the mix of desires and spires of smoke
Steep yourself into it, crave for it.
Then dip, bite, chew, dig in
Let the full-filling meal
satiate your body's hunger.
And watch how
the spires and the desires
the aromas and the sauces
stitched up
that rent in your heart
that tear in your soul
where pangs
of unconsummated desires
had lurked.
That was when you were too busy
Eating.

Of Poetry, Dreams and Reveries

2010-03-22T18:46:00.002+05:30

Poetry, dreams and reveries
create oyster pearls
and fertile lands
from grains of desert sand.
Impregnate
black monsoon clouds with rain
Moons, stars and comets
wanderers in the night.

A blank notebook page
or a digital word file
tabularasa of my mind
like the ovary is the receptacle
for the stamen's pollen.
mine to write, edit, delete
cross over and write again
I the solipsist, creator, god.

Spaces that are truly "mine"
Cottages, nests and homes
Through them, I cautiously put out
feelers, tentacles
sticky threads of spider webs
connecting links
with myself,
with the world.

Being Belindas (a response to Pope's Rape of the Lock)

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The Art of Juda Making

2010-03-22T18:33:00.002+05:30

A wealth of hair
wound around my hand
twisted, just so
with a flip movement, there.
And then there's the inner filling
the stuffing
which must be put in
just right, neither caving in
nor protruding
ouch! That was tricky!
A cautious patting of the bun
to affirm its roundness
its smoothness, neatness
And the wooden stick
with its carved, crowning head
is now inserted
at just the right angle.
Or a pencil or a paintbrush
would do as well
if sticks are few.
Holding up a mass of hair
with a single stick
and grace
that comes from minimalism
The art of juda making
like the art of poetry
is of delicate precision.

A Love-Lorn Night

2010-03-22T18:29:00.002+05:30

Last night I realised
that I am the climbing
white rose briar
and you the teak tree
with your straight smooth bark
and broad leaves
I lose myself
upon extrication.

Last night I discovered
you again,
through your words
you came alive
within me
within these angular walls.

Last night I realised
that this pain that writhes
like a body that is shot
but is not quite dead
and this dull, slow ache
that haunts till life
becomes death
is part of me.

Last night I remembered
the pearl the oyster makes
of the itching grain of sand
and I prayed
that the wisdom of the oyster
be granetd me.

Homeless Home-makers

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A dhoti, a vest
is that a man
precariously balanced
on the wooden ladder
on the third floor
in a sea of mortar?
Saris tied to be gotten
out of the way
women carrying
head loads of brick and cement
Kids of all sizes
playing in the mud
sleeping on the ground
crying, sniffling, happy, gay
in scanty, dirty clothes
they turn into cement
sand and mortar themselves.
Make shift houses
and make shift meals
defy the name
having become the only
way of life.
eaten by mosquitoes
sun, wind and rain
living in shacks
of jute sacks and tarpaulin
they build multi storeyed
buildings with turrets, pillars
fancy woodwork
and exquisite grandeur.

On a roller coaster ride

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From pleasure pinnacles
I plunge headlong
into deep abysses
Dancing with delight
I find myself
in doldrums of despair.
Eternally internally
on a roller coaster ride
looking to you
depending on you
for dancing and plunging
you the key
and I the clockwork.

Rushing, rolling, dashing, drowning
grown tired and weary
I wonder why my boat
rocks so violently.

Your fear brings me closer to you

2010-03-22T18:19:00.003+05:30

Fear stares at me
through your eyes
stands face to face
with the fear in mine.
Fear speaks to fear
I see fear run through your eyes
touch your lips, change your face
Your fear brings me closer
to you.

Hatred would break me
Dislike cripple me
as I stand at your mercy
yet again.
But your fear tells me
you have devils
and demons to fight
as much as I have mine.

Strange conundrum!
Your fear brings me closer
to you
your pain helps me deal with
my own.

Things Fall Apart

2010-03-22T18:17:00.002+05:30

Things fall apart
and bury
a piece of my heart
under rubble.
My shrieking, protesting heart
alive and awake
is buried under rubble.
reams of paper fall apart
an earthquake hits me
tremors shake the ground beneath me
treasured memories, lost loves
covered by debris
scarred forever
struggle to survive.

In a Library

2010-03-22T18:13:00.002+05:30

The far corner on the right side
of the first floor of the library
There they are--shelves 9,10,11,12,13
The Literature section
all labelled with "American lit"
"Indian lit", 14th to 20th century lit
musty, yellowed, decaying
books bound in red and brown
faded, crumbling tomes
line my hands with their dust
shelf after long shelf of books
ceiling to floor, wall to wall
here and there, ah relief!
books with shiny, laminated covers
books with glossy, illustrated jackets
books, books, books
and me
lost in a reverie
awed into solemnity
world opens upon new world
in a library.

These are a few of my favourite things

2010-03-22T18:09:00.002+05:30

Peacocks trees rivers poetry
Jane Eyre, Brunizem menstrual rites
Don Williams Simon and Garfunkel
masks fractals long open tresses

coffee popcorn silver fishes in my ears
red black olive green purple
blue elephants flying violet owls
big fat yellow gold moons

These are a few of my favourite things...
mixing memory and desire
they speak to me
of you...