'Renu Mashi': poem published in the Earthen Lamp Journal

 My poem 'For Renu Masi' duly changed to 'Renu Mashi', perhaps by some over zealous Bengali, figures in the July issue of Earthen Lamp Journal, which has the Personal is Political as its theme. Do take a look. 

this poem was written one December morning while invigilating an exam in Dyal Singh College!

Happy to also see one of my teachers, Mita Bose, figure in the 'Book reviews' section of the journal.


You can read it here.

and two more!

Here are the last two poems of my 'Rendezvous with Assam' series out of the total sixteen which actually Thumbprint did not put up. :-)
So, 22nd May. Incidentally, tomorrow, 23rd May is Heartstrings' birthday... ummm let me see, 2008, wasn't it... 2008 to 2014, Happy 6th Birthday and all that in advance, blog! You reached it!

1.    

           Moi axomiya bhal pau , kintu moi axomiya na bujhisu

I like assamese, but then I do not understand assamese

But smiles and twilight laughter

Food, respect, bihu. Love too. They tie

And knit the world through a million

invisible threads. Probably they do not

Know. Nobody knows. Only I do. The world

Is full of sticky spider webs for me tonight.

Moi axomiya nohoi kintu moi axomiya prem korisu.

P.S.- I love you too. 

2.       The Memory of Assam

My dreams are still full of hills

And kamakhya and the Brahmaputra

Captured with difficulty in mind film

In so short a time, more easily on camera film.

I wonder sometimes at my strange fascination

Then I look at you, beside the Luit,

cradled by hills, haphazard unplanned city

with your big city feel and  your sudden small city feel,

 the land of bihu beauty, mekhela and bordoisila

And I know that despite problems

 risks, disruptions, contradictions

 uncertainties of the future

I shall return to this Assam

And then again.

Rendezvous with Assam

Here are the 'Rendezvous with Assam' poems published in Thumbprint. Yes, been a while, finally putting them here today. Happy read! Happy day! :-)


Rendezvous with Assam

You have been a dream
Far too long. You and I
Were parallel train tracks
That never met. I leapt out
At the golden moon, and fell
Down devastated into the river.
I tried to swim towards the island
You turned out to be a floating,
Shifting island, out of wave reach.
I am afraid of reaching you, as I am
Afraid of defiling exquisite handmade
Paper with a pen. You have been a beautiful dream
I am scared of committing you into a poem
Scarred cracked words where you slipped
Out long ago, between the spaces.

I cannot believe that I will meet
You tonight. The excitement and
The desire is too much with me,
It drugs me. I am a boring, placid
Person. You can disappear, fairy island.
I think I will be quite content
By not having you. By only loving you.
After all, I am used to living with thwarted dreams.

Dhak dhak dhak

Dhak dhakdhakdhak fadfadfad
Someone is beating the bathroom door
From inside. Knock knock.caw caw
Caw caw caw. Caw caw.
Big beak beating, wide wings flapping
Against the window pane. Oh, it is a pigeon!
Caw caw caw, naw naw.No no!
It is a crow.flap flap dhak dhak
Thud thud. Big wild untamed jungle crow.
Desperately adamantly fighting with
The top storey window pane crying
Let me in let me in let me in
A crow visitor on a misty mountain morning.
My first in this hill river axom land.

The crow came again today
He is a regular visitor.


I wondered at your white river blue sari picture

How you managed to merge colour, with binary
Black and whites. I admired your photo-editing skills
With envy. I have now seen the Brahmaputra.
I have now clicked a moving spur of bright red
On a colourless Brahmaputra.I now know that
The Luit is covered in a grey-white mist
Every evening, shrouded in mystery.
Only, when I bend down to touch it, the water is green.

Driving down the length of the river at Pan Bazar

Lined with trees this side and hills on the other
Is when I realize I am in love with you—
The city that you grew up in. You must have walked along this river
And soaked in its beauty so many times.
It is an idyllic river, with that rocky jutting island,
The distant hills, the mist, the steamers and
The bazaar teeming with life. I have almost
A desperate desire to capture and film this place
It is as lovely as you are.

Sometimes I wonder at my fascination

For you who eat animals
Of  all kinds and I who don’t eat any, you
With your weird tribes, so far far away
From where I live. Sometimes I wonder why
I do all this for you-you are an alien person.
You don’t even talk to me anymore.
I feel a foreigner. And then I see the Luit
And the Bihu and I hear your spoken Axomiya
And some thing strange pulls and tugs at me
And I know I don’t want to leave. And I know
I am not a foreigner. I belong to you.
You belong to me. I am so determined
To adopt you, you have been inside my head for years.
I look at visitors around me- so touristy, no
I do not feel one of them. Oh no!
“ I think you are Axomiya only.
You do not behave like an outsider”
It is the biggest compliment I can get.


Assam has been incredibly kind to me

Yes, I know you are no paradise, yes
I have seen horrible child exploitation
I have heard of insurgencies and migrant
Infiltrators. Yes,I know of tribes and
Separatist tendencies yes here too
They have overcharged me.
But I will have to say that people here
Stall owners, shop keepers, taxi drivers
Restaurant waiters, teachers, friends,
Random people and small babies too
Have been nice to me, smiled at me,
Gone out of their way to help me
Yes, they have helped me a lot.
The people of Assam have been incredibly kind to me.

St Mary’s School, Ambari, Guwahati

You were a pretty place where I stood for long
Imagining you as a small child, running in the
Basketball court playing, I could see you
Sometimes standing lonely and solitary
Near a pillar. Climbing stairs to the classrooms
With a pile of books, sometimes staring at the
Idol of Mary among the trees. I think you must
Have been happy here. I was mortally scared
To be there, but no-one shoved me out.
They let me walk around clicking pictures.
I also saw a nun running. I even told a woman
That you used to study here.


Cotton College, Pan Bazar, Guwahati

Estd 1901. That is tremendously old.
So finally, at long last, you are before me
green and rustic. Ancient too. They have let you
Remain as you were. I think you would have
Frequented the library and perhaps the canteen.
I walk around them all, as you would have once
The big buildings, and the little hut ones.
I seem to be obsessed with photographing
Them all, I want to rebuild you in my head
You must have been so young, so inexperienced then.
I wonder what you were.
Keep well, place. I will return to you.

Rambles

The Luit is best at Pan bazaar where
I can gaze at it through the trees.
This poem rambles like the river
Like the road that runs through GU
Where I saw the white stork- the ones
You clicked a video of. This poem
Rambles the way I wandered solitary
Down that road,putting flowers in my hair.
It rambles from ambari through downtown
And Fancy Bazar which was ironically phansi bazaar
To jalukbari- these baris were supposed
to have been gardens. Wander through the
Maligaon railway headquarters to the Khanapara bus stand.
It would like to ramble through your straw huts
And villages, road leading on
To road, field and sunshine. Into the hut
Where they make jewellery with cutters
And moulds and die and flame-fires and
Sharpeners and jewels. Ramble from here
To the main shops in Guwahati
through the busy hum and teeming
With life city which I can sit still
And watch. This poem rambles all the way like I did
To Deepor beel, all alone just because you did.
I did not know it would be off season
At this time of year. But I saw the pretty train,
The bridge, and some birds, though I couldn’t see
migratory flocks like you.
Wander back to the university road
As if I had been walking up and down it for years,
You felt so mine, losing myself in you, seeing myself melt
Allowing myself to become a part of the orange sunset.
Last night,I dreamt of rambling down
Gauhati roads. Dreams ramble, like rivers and roads
And mine travel back to you.


Kamakhya Pigeons

Black and white flecked, snow white
Ones, big red-eyed —these are not
Your ordinary grey north Indian pigeons.  They belong
To another pigeon race. These pigeons that nestle
Among stone pillars- squawking, hawking—preening their wings
looking at their reflection in sacred water the sacred red mark on their foreheads.
Life is lived in the Kamakhya- children playing
Pigeons swooping, people growing old waiting
In the queue to see the main idol, the goddess
Who only menstruates once a year, you wrote.
There are stone domes and carvings and engravings
And everywhere, everywhere, there are pigeons.

Axomiya food

They made the thali especially for me
At 10pm. Red bhoot jolokia small rotund
cackling fascinating and furiously fiery.
The white pulpy bamboo shoots sprout tangy secrets.
the sour khar and pithika, giant nemus and bor-tenga
hold answers to lost dreams.
Feeling food with bare hands, the South Indian way.
If you would rather eat finger-burning khichdi, you should
Irreverently go to the Kamakhya and ask for Prasad.
This is, of course, a strictly vegetarian account.
I could not write about the masor tenga
If I tried. Though I have seen the fins
Of a fish being cut, I don’t have your real
Experience of “how to”.


Bihu

Only axomiya can do justice to this and I
Cannot speak axomiya. How will I write
About Bihu in English? My otherwise stiff body
Which melts into fluidity with these lilting
Tunes is the only language in which Bihu
And I connect. Bright mekhela-sadors and
Dhols and the flute and the taal. They told me of an
Instrument fashioned from a buffalo’s horn
And the jaapi and the dhoti-gamosa and
Always the flute, the dhol and the twirling mekhalas.
I am transfixed here. I cannot leave. I want
To leave but I cannot leave. My body sways
To the rhythm in the memory of Bihu.


You said your favourite colours are red and black

And olive green. I thought you exotic then.
Seeing the kind of culture you grew up in
I now know how and why. I remember your
Red and black striped shawl with yellow tassels
I have admired for years. This place is a pot pourri
Of such varying cultures.Bodo, Mishing, Karbi,
Ahom, Vaishnavites. I particularly remember
Your wondrous orange mekhela when I said
 you look gorgeous. I have bought half
Of assam now. Entranced with its crafts,
From eri shawls to stoles to mekhela sadors to
Gamosa to sarong to kurtis to jaapis to
tiny jakoi-khaloi to axomiya spices
To karbi bags to bamboo pouches to earrings
I have bought them all. All,except for the gold.
I have Assam in Delhi spread out before me.
My adopted home.

No. of Visitors : 607

'Rendezvous with Assam' poem-series published in Thumb Print

Hello folks,

my poem series, 'Rendezvous with Assam' has been published in The Thumb Print Magazine. It is published from Guwahati, Assam, and I had poems there earlier too, in December 2013. You can see them here. 

The link was inactive for a week or ten days. I have changed it now and it works again.

I hope you have an enjoyable read. :-)

Conducting a poetry workshop at Ramjas College

On the 28th of February, I conducted my first poetry workshop ever. :-) Not that I claim to know much, either in the line of writing poetry, or by way of conducting workshops. But it was nice of Ramjas College Literary Society students, who had seen some of my published poems as well as this blog, to take the initiative to invite me.

It was just a one and a half hour long event, in the middle of much rain. I began by reading some supremely bad poetry, which I had very wickedly collected from online journals and other people's blogs. So we talked about what was wrong with them. Thankfully, I had a group of people who could see that something was terribly wrong with them.

Then I told them about some of the things which have helped me learn to write, over the past few years, like the age old adage of "show rather than tell". We talked about line breaks, where to use repetition and where not to, stuff like that. Also Wordsworth's  "powerful overflow of passionate feelings recollected in tranquility" because to me that is what poetry is, an intense experience, thought or feeling which you later recollect,r reflect upon and put into words. Sort of.

Then I read out loads and loads of "good"poems to them, ranging from various themes such as love poetry, protest poetry, feeling poetry,nature poetry,place poetry. I went over some of the common pitfalls such as protest poetry often turning into a jingoistic sloganeering,or become dictatorial and pedantic, and the common traps of falling into blue skies and ethereal splendour while writing nature poetry. Constantly taking examples from the much "esteemed" poets I talk about in the next paragraph. Also how writing about "grief" for example works better when you write the Dickinson way (Or like me :P ) where you reflect and write about emotions of grief and pain in a universal way so that anyone can connect with it, without going into the specificities and particularities of your own situation.


So I read out all my favourite poets. :D  People loved the poets and poems I selected for the reading packet. I read out from Dickinson, Plath, Ted Hughes, Adrienne Rich, William Carlos Williams, Shakespeare, Gerard Manley Hopkins, e.e.cummings, to Indian poets such as Arun Kolatkar (my personal favourite from the slightly older post-Independance era), Imtiaz Dharker, to some of the very contemporary (the younger generation) of Indian poets whom I absolutely love and could not resist.

So, that was it. :-) I meant to ask them to write and then discuss their poems but it got too late for that. We started too late because of certain hassles. Well, so perhaps I spoke too much and gave them a whole overdose of poems in too short a time, and perhaps it could have been more interactive if we had more time, and as I said, frankly speaking, I don't feel I know so much about poetry, I mean, I definitely FEEL a lot but I don't KNOW a lot. :P 

But somehow, I managed. Toodle-oo folks!

'Flowers for Your Hair' in Northeast Review

'Flowers for Your Hair' was published,as I wrote earlier, in Northeast Review last month. The link is here. I am also putting the poem here below.

Flowers for Your Hair

These starry violets
with their thin green stems
and their aster-y white brethren
How would they look amassed
in the jungle of your long black hair
green stems tendrils intertwining
and stars shining? Or should I give you
a bunch of those gorgeous butterfly-
flowers- deep orange, red and yellow?
They would stand brilliantly
against the dense blackness of your hair.
There are some fake light orange ones
they look like plastic when the sun
shines through them, no, I’d rather
not give you those. There are some
fallen flowers. Would you rather
have those, or freshly plucked ones?
What would you say to a bunch
of snowdrops, with that stray curl
you tuck behind your ear?
There’s a wealth of azure blue-purple-
-pink tufts in the far corner
I could give you those, a bit
of the sky. I could make a chain
of these white daisies with
blue-purple centres and tints of orange
and garland you with it. They bloom
with the sun and close at sunset.
There are some blue exotica
with rings of orange. I don’t know
if you’d fancy ‘em. There are the
laughing orange and yellow nasturtiums
they droop. A bit flimsy for your hair,
I think, they might not stay put.
I wonder if you’d care for marigolds
in a bright and cheerful mood, on
a sunny day, there are pale yellow ones,
and orange ones ,I call them liquid gold.
There are way too many flowers here, I am
surrounded by them, scraggly pea-pods,
tall hollyhocks, foxgloves and what not
some mild, some tempting, some guarding
But if you’d wind that black mass
and tie it in a bun, I’d give you
just one single poppy, wicked-
crimson, intense-passion, its
pods bursting with black seeds
pregnant with opiate desire.

Assam photos and videos

Hello all!

here's the link to my Assam trip photos on facebook, it's on public setting, as of now. See them here.

also, all the videos of Bihu and other dance and music performances in Assam are all here in the dropbox. Might have to remove them later due to space issues but hopefully I can increase the space in other ways and they're here to stay. But as of now, I don't even know if anyone besides me is interested in these, so depending on that, I'll see accordingly...

As for the poems, even after they are ready, I will put them here only after they have been published somewhere. I guess, that's the way I'll keep it, but then, I hope they are published somewhere too. :-)

Northeast Review, Muse India, and Assam!

So I am back from Guwahati and Nagaon! :-) will soon put links here to my photos and traditional song and dance videos, I have plenty of them. I have bought half of Assam as well, there are some clicks of what I have bought too. I am also working on a series of poems about my time there and how I connected with the place. These should all come, soon enough.

In other news, 'Flowers for your Hair' was published in Northeast Review the night before I left for Assam. Click on the link to read. Also carries the work of my juniors, Rini Barman and Mihir Vatsa, as well as my teacher, Nitoo Das. I will put the poem up here later.

and yes, below are the multilingual poems which were published in Muse India at the beginning of this year. These employ a mixture of English, Hindi and Assamese.

1.Cut cut ke katega, kat kat ke katega
Katega par kaatke kategaIt will cut strong, but it will pass.
Paas aane ke liye, time needs to pass.

Paraya karke pariah bana diya
Paraya karke pare hata diya
Paraye are outcast, paraye are different
Pariahs do not belong, pariahs are paraya

Pariahs are chucked out
paraye chak diye jate hain bahar
Meet banane ke pehle abhi thoda aur katna haiIt needs to cut and cut some more, before we can meet.

Hum ko paraya bana kar chak diyaIf I have been made a pariah and chucked out
Time will cut deep and cut and cut
But kat kat ke time will slowly pass.
Cut cut ke katega kat kat ke katega
Ye kaise socha tha ki bina kate hi kat jayega?
How did you think something like this
Could pass so easily without cutting?

2.
In axomiya, they say moi goisu
In English, I am going
Moi is I, mur mine, mur hai mera
Aur moi hun main. I am going. Me is going.
Moi is me in English slang now. Moi is going.
Moi goisu. Go is go, chahe going ya goisu.
Jaana toh jaana hi hai, chahe angrezi, hindi ya
Axomiya mein, Aur main maane moi aur meGoing is going is goisu in English, hindi ,assamese
And moi means main, me, and mur means mera, mine
Jo mera hai vo mera hi rahega
Har bhasha mein, har jagah mein, har samay mein
Par use dur jaane ka dukh bhi vahi rahega, kisi bhi bhasha meinWhat is mine is mine, will remain mine
No matter the language, place or time
But the pain of going away from it,
In any language, remains the same.

3.
"beya paisu?" axomiya mein maane
"kya tumne mujhe bura paaya?"Did I do something to offend you,
Did you find me to be bad? Maine
Agar bura kiya, jaaney anjaane mein?
Lekin hindi mein uska kuchh arth hi
Kho jata hai. In Hindi, this axomiya "pau"
Loses its meaning. In Hindi, we say
"tumne bura maana?", "did you mind?"
Tumne bura maana maane dosh tumhara hai
Tumko bura nahi manana chahiye tha, bahut
Jaldi bura maan jate ho."Did you mind?"
Lays the blame on you, you should not
Have minded, you mind too quickly, easily.
Lekin kya tumne mujhe bura paaya? Beya paisu?
Iska arth kuch alag hi hota hai. Kya tumne mujhe
Bura paaya? Kya vo mujhe bura paati hai?
Iske liye mere paas koi javaab nahi hai, koi doosre
Shabd nahi hai. Iske liye sirf mere munh par ek sawaal hai
Ek prashn jiska koi uttar aur koi ant bhi nahi.But did you find me bad? Did I cause offence?
The meaning of this is different from did you mind
Or did you get offended. But did you find me bad?
Does she find me to be bad? For this, I have no answer
No words, no synonyms. Only a desperate question
Which has no answer, and no end.

Of Guwahati seminars and PhD presentations

Well, happy to tell you that I will be presenting a paper on the representation of marginalised figures in contemporary Indian women's poetry in english,at the IAWS (Indian Association of Women's Studies) seminar to be held in Guwahati in the first week of February in partnership with Gauhati University, Cotton College State University, and TISS Guwahati (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)

Even happier that I finally get to go to Assam, a place I always wanted to visit. Even now, it's just a dream. So, my very first visit, here I come. Yay! :D

In other news, also that on Monday, the 20th Jan at 2.30pm, I have a PhD presentation. The PhD being on Emerging Feminist Trends in Indian Poetry in English, the first chapter is on Autobiographical Texts. Monday's presentation will look at identity from a feminist perspective (esp second and third wave feminism), and try to link this with contemporary Indian poets' views on identity.


And,very late in the day but, Happy New Year and all that!

Three multilingual poems up in Muse India

I have three multilingual (english hindi and assamese polyglots) in the Jan-Feb issue of Muse India edited by Prof GJV Prasad. I am honoured and happy to be in the company of some of my very favouritest people and poets, no matter what the forum or platform. I will put them here later. As of now, you can read them at the Muse India site here.



I also have a poem 'Flowers for your hair' coming up in the North East Review soon enough!

Eight poems in Thumb Print Magazine

Happy to say that Eight poems were published in December in The Thumb Print Magazine. Ananya Guha is the poetry editor. You can read them here.
I am also putting them below:


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?

***

Things Fall Apart

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

***

A Fruitless Search for Faith

You believe in jesus
in krishna, in ram
fasting, chanting, praying
you offer flowers to lakshmi's painted smile
taking it as benign and kind.

Faith fills voids, gaps in our selves
making us whole
fills gaps too in what we worship
Only completeness can give of itself
and make us complete.

I have always been an atheist
agnostic, free thinker, whatever
a disbeliever.
I never believed in god.

I have faith in a woman
in pain, in fear
in times of trouble
I believe in her.

gathering shards of my broken self
filling empty spaces in me
making myself whole, through her
my image of completeness.

But a woman has no painted smile
I can imagine as benign and kind
she breaks me into a million shards
and I struggle to make myself whole
through her.

Ironical. Paradoxical.
Life has made me cynical.
a wry smile on my face,
I wonderwho was the bigger fool
You or I.

***

On a visit to Baircha Lake

Arms entwined around branches
I become part of the tree
Swinging, swaying with the breeze
hair floating, branches waving
up-down-up-down-up-down
The rhythmic movement reminds me
of the rowing oars on a boat
Down below, the waves lap and dash against the rocks.

***

Mango Blossoms

Laden boughs
Hang heavy, thick with blossom
creamy-white profusions
sweeeter than perfume
yet wilder...
Here and there, green mangoes
peep through your arms
green parrots nestle within you
for close comfort
oh beautiful lady!
pregnant with the hope of things to be
your loveliness
is too much
for this summer evening.

***

A Traveller

Frozen Russian snows
Bitter cold
a weary traveller
bundled in a shawl
selling gay carpets.
He has been travelling...
travelling all night
Lines on his face,
the look in his eyes
speak more than my words
resting but briefly against a wall
scribbled over with
meaningless nothings
What is life for him?
The nonsense? the gay carpets?
Or the look in his eyes?

***

Betrayal
(this poem is dedicated to IP College)

The branches of your trees are the veins
Of my blood. Your arches deep rooted
In my bone marrow. I was bound to you
from before my birth, ever since the days
My grandmother walked these paths.
I resisted you at first, I know, but I grew
To love you. Facilitated and supported
By kind hands warm smiling faces.
I had grand dreams of repaying you
With something good, something big
A token of my debt and gratitude.
And I betrayed you. Heady with passion
Drunk on folly, I seem to myself
A creature foreign to me. A person
Who could not be me. Who is not me.
Sometimes we are in the mode
Of desperate denial. Then when reality strikes
We cower, we shield ourselves, we plead
That our intentions were pure, devoid of evil design
We beg to believe that all was not bad or wasted
We abjectly try to clutch on to the past that formed us
Sometimes when we live in a dream of belief, we forget
Reality. Then we must learn the hard way,
When sour, harsh lessons wake us up.
Suffice it to say: I betrayed you. Period.
Betrayed the kind hands, the warm smiling faces
And everything they brought me.
But you are home. The crooked branches of your trees
Are the tangled veins of my blood. The arches
Of your low roofed buildings are etched
Into my bone marrow. I will be back, sometime,
I will return. I will make amends.
Will you accept me then?

***

Stub Tales

Spiralling smoke rings
Rise with an introspective air
And a husky philosophical smell
Akin to nostalgia
Telling stories.
Glowing embers
That feed on nicotine
That feeds on human despair.
This stub
Stamped mercilessly by feet
Ash oozing out of its mouth
Lies near a green can
‘Use Me’

***

Disqualified! Clarification and an apology

Folks,

This is to say that I have been disqualified from the aforementioned RLP India awards longlist. This is because it appears that quite absent-mindedly and inadvertently, I did not follow all the rules of the contest. So it appears that all the five poems were supposed to be unpublished, but I made a mistake. I had also sent one or two of those poems to some magazine at some point and then forgotten about it or become confused regarding the rules or whatever. I will not go into the details. I will merely say that my name is no longer there on the list. My apologies for my carelessness.

and here's to poetry... more and more poetry, as long as I can write, and write more, and write better, and read more,and... and live and relive, the kingdom has not been lost. :-)

Longlisted for the RLP India Poetry Award :D and a publication

Dear folks,


So here's some good news. :-)


Read Leaf Poetry had opened its India Office only this year, and Linda L. Ashok has been pretty much the main person co-ordinating it. This was a national all-India poetry competition where one had to submit five poems each. The award ceremony was recently held in Hyderabad. So, there are 2 winners, some 6-7 people in the shortlist including biggies such as Sumana Roy and Sudeep Sen, and some 17-18 people in the longlist including the likes of Abha Iyengar, Sivakami Velliangiri, even my peer and room-mate, Anjumon Sahin, and well yes, yours truly. :-)
So, happy to be longlisted! I still get to be somewhere in the top 27, so perhaps my poems aren't bullshit after all! :D


errrrm, and there was another publication in eFiction India last month. I am putting up the poem 'Pain' here.


Pain


It is wrenched out of one, moment
by slow torturous moment, hanging
heavy as dread, as one day
becomes the next and flows into the stream
of months and years. Tear by tear, drop
of blood by drop of sweat, it oozes out
Pain makes you yearn. Pain
Then proceeds to teach you the supreme arts
of patience and control. This suffering
is extraordinary. It is the lowest and
it is the highest too. This exquisite hurt
that howls, shrieks, torments and ravages
and ultimately becomes the two syllables
of your name. But it never goes away.
It never quite lets you forget.
It makes you learn to submit. There is no other way.

'Of Lovings and Endings' and 'Fear' published in eFiction India

Hey all!

I have a couple more poems in eFiction India: 'Of Lovings and Endings' in the August issue and 'Fear' in the September issue. There is an entire selection committee but the poet and academic, Ananya S Guha is the main poetry editor. I am reproducing the two poems below.

Teaching in Dyal Singh College (Delhi University) for a few months as of now. Trying to make the most of it, and realising that I love to teach. :-)

A young department friend and junior Mihir Vatsa has won the Srinivas Rayaprol poetry prize this year! How awesomely cool is that!! :D


Of lovings and endings

and you saw that it was growing
and it wasn’t really going
and you saw that it was thriving
and blooming and abiding
and without incentive surviving
and you wanted an ending
and you wanted it stopping
and you were tired of my inging
and irritated with my anding
and perhaps you were sick with waiting
and you wanted to break my ‘loving’
you simply wanted a period.
A full stop.
and achingly, heartbreakingly
you are making sure you get one
finally. Now.



Fear

It slips in stealthily, through cracks
of sunlight, chinks in curtains, split
seconds, spare moments
when you're patting your hair or twiddling
with the ring on your finger. Eliot
could show it to you in a handful of dust.
It is the hollow silence, the amorphous
blackness at the centre of your being
which threatens to disrupt and engulf you
Fear of the depths, of the heights, of reaching
beyond horizons. Fear of the deep black pit.
Fear of you. Fear of words, silence, going, coming,
staying away. Fear of time. Fear of myself. My thought-ghosts.
And the fear balloon grows bigger and bigger
until I forget what I am afraid of.
And then, there is only fear.

'Ode to Civil Lines' published in E-Fiction India

Hello folks! There's a magazine in America called E-Fiction and it has several branches such as E-Fiction Horror, E-Fiction Romance and so on, and now even E-Poetry, their newest branch. So E-Fiction India is an Indian branch which began around nine months ago, managed by Indian folks. It has a hard copy as well as a soft copy version but you mostly have to pay for it, though on certain dates they allow you to download it for free. E-Fiction India publishes other genres such as poetry as well.

I have a poem published in the June issue, 'Ode to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010'. It is elsewhere on this blog as well, but this is a slightly edited version. and so, here goes, my attempt to put my love for my beloved Civil Lines into words...


Oade to Civil Lines, Delhi, October 2010


Dusky darkness steals tiptoes softly
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
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.
Then the smoky spirit glides down the street
pervading ,absorbing atmosphere
which mutates into night smells
jostling against food smells, sounds and lighted
shops, autos at the gas station
cars teeming with yellow cat-eyes
Sights, sounds, memories, smells,feelings
are brewed together, the logic of boundaries
comes undone. The spirit traverses
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.

creative writing workshop with Anjum Hasan

and yes, while mentioning some of the "literary" and poetic highlights of the past few months, I simply cannot forget Anjum Hasan's visit to Delhi, her creative writing workshop in JNU with a select group of 15 participants, her readings and other events which I either attended or had short glimpses of :-), and last but not the least, a much prized one-on-one conversation between me and Anjum in the auto and in the metro! :D
and Anjum really liked my poems. yes, she must've told me that at least 3 times. now, isn't that splendid! Thrilling, rather! oooooo!! It is Anjum Hasan after all, you know.

so life at the personal level has sort of been in the doldrums and it has been painful and it hurts and you go all angsty and you dunno how to pick yourself up and what to do, but thank heavens, there is something called writing and something called poetry which can help you heal. So you see, I've been trying to do some of it these past few months. and I mean to keep up. :-)

and yes, some more! I had four poems published in Brown Critique, the journal run by the well known poet, Gayatri Majumdar. So it caused much happiness to hear from Gayatri that she "really liked my poems". well, so I'm putting these ones up here, cos it's been a while now since then.

and yes, I must mention that I participated in a competition Poetry Against caste which was organised by Caste Away- a Delhi initiative in partnership with a group from Delhi university as well as Kavi-the Poetry Art Project, and this competiution was judged by another young well known poet, our dearest Meena Kandasamy. There were 2 prizes, neither of which I won, but Meena was kind enough to make a third "special mention" for my poem 'Hypocrisy' which was later published in Brown Critique. It is the last one in the poems that follow below.

Shruti Sareen                                                                                                                          4 poems
My Heart Is a Poor Student

For perhaps the 50th time in two weeks
I pick up my heart. Open it. explain to it.
The same words I have repeated
the evening before, I have gone through
the same arguments, the same reasoning.
But my heart is stupid. It is a fool.
... It forgets it all, and I have to explain it
all over again. My heart is stubborn. It asks
too many questions. It disbelieves. It does not
accept. My heart is too soft. That is its biggest
failing. It whimpers with a scolding. It cries
when beaten with a stick. My heart
is a poor student. An easy teacher may have
felt sorry for it. But perhaps you need
to be strict with this heart to the point
of sadism. Or sadomasochism. Banish it
from the classroom. Imprison it within walls.
Sting-slap it. Make it submit. Scream at it
until it is ready to learn. Until it is
pliable. Until it admits its faults. Until
it is willing to work hard. Until it learns
strength. Then the heart will be re-admitted
back into the classroom. With weak students
like my heart, you may sometimes
have to use force.


Drama

It is dialogic like a debate. It has
two sets of choruses. They present opposing
points of view with great melodrama and
emotion. The stage of the theatre is me.
Chorus one is Guilt and Chrous two is
Desire. Chrous two speaks first, it is more
... impatient. It begins with you, it ends
with you, it seems to like talking about you
in the middle too somehow. It seems to think
it the most natural thing. It does not realise
that something is wrong. Chorus two desires
and desires and rails against its punishment,
it cannot wait for it to end. Then,
Over to Guilt, Chorus One. This one
eats into you slowly like a worm does
into an apple. It chastises and
castigates the self, it labels you wicked,
evil, criminal- and leaves you squirming
like the vile worm. It makes you regret
who you are. That is its biggest weapon.
and everything you've ever done.
It makes you rot in hell. This
is the moment of anagnorisis. This
is where the hamartia turns into
peripeteia. Without the fatal flaw,
there would be no play, no hero,
no epiphany either. This is the end
of Act 4. The curtain drops.

Some day, there will be an Act 5
of peace, resolution and hope.


Birthing

A tender newborn green
they emerge from knotted nodes
and nodules that protrude a trifle
crooked from the tall, straight bark
their crown tops high in the sky. The barks,
by and large, are weathered old
... bare browns, except for the birthings.
The new from the old. It must be
so painful. It must hurt so much,
I think, for the green to emerge
from the brown. And for the green
to grow, covering the brown.
The brown would have this concealed
grief, and this submerged heartache
and so much courage, to give
birth to spring.


Hypocrisy

We are the bhadralog. We
the middle class. We, the marxists
we the elite, we the educated.
We are the leftists-ah!
We sit in AC seminar rooms and have
dalit conferences. with biscuits and cakes
and endless streaming cups of coffee.
Sitting in our armchairs, we
denounce the corporates and valourise
the proletariat. We clap, we
back-pat, we volunteer too.
We also take out time for our classic look-
my kajal, my kurta- hey, I'm not your
lip-gloss wearing girl, no way! and he?
His beard is a sign of intellect, can't you see?
The conference ends at 5pm and on our way
back home we see: a woman cleaning a toilet,
a beggar counting coins, some newspaper
flashing some dalit suicide. and we
retreat into bhadralog respectability.
We return to our cleansed and comfortable worlds
'Oh dear, oh dear, so terrible', we say
but what can we do after all? We are tired.
We have done so much all day.

Poems published in Our Private Literature and accepted for North East Review

So, it gives me much pleasure to say that 'Flowers for your Hair' has been accepted for publication by North East Review. For obvious reasons, I cannot put this up here until they have actually published it and some time has elapsed before that, but put it I will. So watch this space!


In the meantime, 'Sad Ootin' was published in another newbie journal that is published from North east India. This issue centred around "Protest". Okay, so I'll leave you with Sad Ootin!

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. 

Hello folks! It has been a long break, which is shameful and unforgiveable considering that I promised around New Year's to be regular. Well, so this is a week well past the 23rd of May, when this blog turned 5. Heck, whatever. Not in a very celebratory mood. The blog is hardly alive anymore. anyway, we'll keep you running for a couple of years more, Heartstrings, I promise.Then errrm well, we have become sorta ambitious here and we have other plans from life, so we might make Heartstrings a bit more professional and give it a new name, a new look, and a new home. :-)

hmmm... here's a few short updates:

I am now enrolled in Delhi University for a PhD on "Emerging Feminist Trends in Indian Poetry in English". Looking at mostly all the delightful women who have been writing poetry around gender issues in the past 15 years. :-) 

I presented a paper in JNU in the Indian World(s) of Indian English Literature seminar on the topic- "Frontiers- Dividing and Connecting Places: in the poetry of Arundhathi Subramaniam, Anjum Hasan, CP Surendran, and Tabish Khair" (14-15 March 2013)

Presented another paper at Jamia Millia Islamia in the seminar 'Food for Thought' on 18th April 2013  entitled " Food, Love, and Self in Indian Women's Poetry in English" This one will probably be published a little way down the line as well.

and yes, besides presenting papers for the first time in my life in places besides IP College (oh heck, Indraprastha college for Women, there you go!) and Mphil seminars, I have also begun proper formal teaching for the first time in my life. :D
oh well, we start small, it's not a fairytale world, so I taught in 3 different Delhi University colleges all within 3-4 months, filling up for other teachers who were on leave! well, may the job hunt continue and may more opportunities reveal themselves!

and yes, the "real" poetry bit comes up in another post rightaway. :-)

Paper on Anjum Hasan's poetry published in Muse India!

Hello folks!

And a happy new year!

I am surprised to find that I have shamefully neglected this blog of late, my last post is almost 5-6 months ago! I will definitely take it as a new year resolution to be more regular with this blog, even if I am no longer putting up every poem that I write!

Hmmm... amidst much upsetting upheaval in my "personal" life, and an ongoing fruitless (and hopefully not hopeless!) job hunt in my "academic and professional" life, I just got some good news which will do just as well as some other kind of cheer to begin the new year with.

I have a paper on Anjum Hasan's poetry collection Street on the Hill published in Muse India. Issue Jan-Feb 2013. First time I'm getting a real paper published that feels satisfying! oh well, not such a big deal either, really. This paper has been culled from my Mphil dissertation on "The Imagined and the Inhabited City in the poetry of Arundhathi Subramaniam, Anjum Hasan, C.P.Surendran and Tabish Khair". This issue of Muse India focusses on Indian Poetry in English, as well as on the Marginalised Literature of the North East. My paper is in the latter section. To read it as well as other interesting stuff (and there IS real interesting stuff in BOTH the sections), just follow this link.

And watch out for more blog posts soon... I promise!