Monday, 19 December 2016

The Last Post...Write...Edit...Publish...





It’s time to head back to Write...Edit...Publish… for the last post of 2016.  This month the prompt is Utopian dreams, as enticing as all the others I’ve written to throughout this year.  A special year-end vote of thanks to Denise and Yolanda for creating and hosting this very special bloghop! Incidentally, this is my 500th post (yay! and....phew!) - it feels entirely appropriate to celebrate this milestone in the company of WEP-ers. 

I started off writing something quite different in tone. But there were some dire news reports coming out around the time, so my story kind of went off track into something completely different.  At first I had thought I’d wrap up the whole thing in a thousand words and be done, but Heba the MC has other ideas….this story is now more than 5000 and no end in sight….so I am presenting an excerpt which adheres to the word limit. 


This is the story of Heba the refugee, the Utopian dream in this case is Saeed’s, Heba’s eldest son’s, which remains unrealised in the story as he has already been killed by the time it opens.  Heba and the family have found asylum in USA where Saeed had dreamt of going. The resettlement becomes an ordeal for Heba through a series of circumstances, her insecurity and confusion rising with the campaign rhetoric and climaxing with the election results.  Saeed’s Utopian dream thus morphs into a nightmare reality in Heba’s life. 


Monday, 12 December 2016

Nah...thanks, nothing that can be broken



I’m not committing to a thing
that can be broken, chipped, or marred.
The year can take me anywhere -
unending oceans, city squares
cut up neat between their boulevards,
edges soft with leafsilk lining.


I’ll not be making resolutions -
anything that’s hard to keep.
I’ll be easy in my shoes and skin.
The year is free to take me in
or throw me out, and I’ll sleep
on its pebbled grounds, or oceans.


I’m not running so panic stricken,
wringing hands, trembling with fright.
The path’s a thin thread but I’m on it
and everywhere I stop to sit
there’s birdsong and bread. Some trick of light
makes it a destination.



I have to admit I am not a very systematic person, especially where things like goals and resolutions are concerned.  One year (and I can't even remember which, so deep in my past this is buried) I came up with some vague phrases - try something new, be more mindful, work on patience, STOP panicking! and called them my resolutions and they looked good even after the year was over, and so I never bothered to make any fresh ones. They have served me perfectly well for as long as I have had them.   

Last year try something new translated to a new recipe every month - looking back it feels way more energetic than I thought I could ever feel!  This year has whooshed past before I consciously got to grips with what new stuff I could try even. But I have ended up doing a bunch of things for the first time in default willing-spirit, woolly-brain, weak-flesh mode anyways, so I guess it's okay, I'm on track still. 

That's all I am going to do for 2017 too - stay on track most of the time, and veer off whenever it feels it'd be worthwhile, and stop anywhere that looks like it has some cool birdsong :)  What are you planning to do with 2017?





Monday, 5 December 2016

Hakuna Matata!






The whole year’s a protest vote,
the entire world’s gone right.
Anxiety’s a rupee note
demonetised one night.
The hospital’s just a shell -
frontline for a proxy war.
The rose is a rose minus smell.
The sea’s a plastic tidal swell.
But the afternoon news at four
said democracy’s doing well,
what are you worried for?


It conquers all in the end
whichever road you take.
The foe of a foe is a friend
give protocol a break.
And sovereign countries are equal
but some are a little more.
The rose is a rose, the guns lethal.
The shop’s closed down, the meal’s frugal.
But the afternoon news at four
said the stock market’s doing well,
what are you worried for?


The anthems of the citizens small
are quite audibly low.
They plod, and trudge, they fight and fall
wherever they might go.
But the Defence is phenomenal -
from mountains to seashore.
The rose is a rose, media’s social.
This status's likely illegal.
This afternoon, the news at four
said by and large we’re doing well,
what are you worried for?




Still in stocktaking- and common-measure-mode, folks! :) Just a few more days to tote...I mean, before the holidays begin in earnest. To be honest, I get into holiday mode on 1st December itself.  But I have a milestone exam candidate in the house this year, so probably no travelling. Painful.  Big time cabin fever alert. 


Though come to think of it, this might be just the chance to tie up all the loose ends and half-done writing projects abandoned because of lack of time or some other rubbish excuse....hmmm...


Wish you a lovely week and run-up to the year end.




Thursday, 1 December 2016

Slip





The details slip, how blue the sky, how white
the foam, how high the waves rode in the sea,
rough or tranquil – and its exact degree.
The sharpness of the moment and its insight.


The image slips, whole edges blur with age,
some colours rub off, some fade’s added in,
things once intense and profound slowly thin,
covers wear, silverfish damage the page.


The hours slip, while I panic and clutch
at that elusive word, picturesque phrase
must nail it down, stick it in, or the haze
will take it all beyond reach, beyond touch.


And yet it slips, fast and slow, part by part
nothing is safe in the brain or the heart.



Have I told you about the final year-end challenge over at Write...Edit...Publish...? Sign up's today, post on or before 21st.  Off to start on my piece. Join in for an interesting, imaginative prompt and of course the gorgeous badges...






Monday, 28 November 2016

Turning



The year’s one long orange peel thrown on the floor
most segments sucked dry, they're giving nothing more
leaf flurries of words caught up in crosswinds
and chat shows about children tangled in war.
Each day has its spinoffs in love and suffering
the old deaths, and young deaths nipped firmly in spring,
drifts of people who don’t know what they’re out for
and minutes which don’t know quite why they’re turning.



Gosh, I am in stock-taking mode already! Every year, this process telescopes into itself and gets weirder and weirder.  I mean, one moment I am trying really hard to remember the year's called 2016 now and the next minute it's zoom! autumn going on 2017...but thankfully there's still a bit of breathing space.  

Blogposts so far - 83
Poems - 75 (Eng) 37 (BEng)
Short stories - 5.5
Anthologies - 3 
Writer's, and other, blocks - 332+


I've written less than I did, posted less than I did compared to 2015, probably a good thing on second thought! Probably greater focus on quality.  A few writing weeks got knocked off because of various illnesses - mine, family members', hardware's, none of them fatal, so far.  Loads of firsts this year - wrote poetry in Bengali, took writing courses, wrote genres I don't usually write, read modern poetry for the first time in life, and even understood some of it! Nothing much really to whinge about still, and with only one month left to navigate. Not counting my chickens before they hatch or anything like that, you hear me, universe? Keep turning it the way you are.




Wednesday, 23 November 2016

Hiraeth



Credit



I still know how to draw those maps, boundaries
of vanished places, craving deep-rooted trees
whistling out of sight now, the slight lift of dust
feathered into a storm, fleshed to grey and rust,
the north winds in the long grass at different degrees.


Rinse. Repeat. Repetition doesn’t change things,
nor needle-sharp new words, seed no new meanings;
the landforms, the contours, the topography
still the same, guinea corn grits crumbing my knee,
an empty clothes line bejewelled with starlings.


The world thrashes, then falls back into its groove,
only a tidal murmur persists, out to prove
every line washes away, but then the sands
reconfigure into the same coasts, same lands
without the pen or my hands having to move.






Hiraeth is actually a Welsh word, I've no idea how the Welsh got so Bengali!! Or how this Bengali got so Welsh without ever setting a foot in Wales?! :) 

It means a hard to pin down homesickness/nostalgia for times and places and homelands lost.  I have been craving me some Africa this week, well, a spike in the hiraeth really, because who, having lived there once, doesn't crave Africa all the time, right? The grandmotherland of us all and the silver lining of whole lifetimes.

It's been an eventful November so far, both the outer world and inner thrashed, but now back into the groove hopefully, running smooth and low key.  Hope yours is running smooth too, at the exact key you want.









Sunday, 13 November 2016

Privilege



The curtain’s cracked silk, and the dawn comes in
and darkens again. I’m glad I was here
when you sang beyond these windows – anthems -
defiance – profane - that was also a hymn -
though the meanings weren’t immediately clear.


Glory, I guess, and grief too, must be felt
before the seaweed heroes can be seen,
waters and wakes that must be cupped and held -
webs of light and sound, and jet-ski rebels,
before trash flowers float on aquamarine.


The waves tonight are banded with debris
of amber light, the skyline polychrome.
I’m held up by this flimsy balcony
made of words, wood and brick, a tracery
of senses. And the jet-skis have gone home.




Some truly ghastly things happened out in the world since I wrote here last, but the silver linings are still there - except those nothing is permanent. Most changes are reversible, or cyclical, or something like that, takes their edge off. Anyways, everything is maya and moh, all elected leaders serve their time and leave, no matter how hard they might grab at anything. Also  a little shocking the cavalier attitude of certain nations! I mean if Russians have a say in everything, then surely I and my RotW-fellow-citizens should also get our share of voice, no? Someone has started an online petition for just that, 'in-a-fair-world-everyone-should-be-allowed-to-interfere-equally-in-the-US-elections' type of thingy, I am happy to report :) 

Back in India, the PM announced without any notice that a couple of denominations of banknotes would stop being legal tender after Tuesday midnight. Now I live away from ye olde homeland, so you'd expect this would not affect me. Except that I have only those denominations here, and so far not one option has been devised for expat Indians to change their notes back if one is not physically present in the country. My entire pitiful wad of Indian cash will have to be shredded. So I am going to be even more broke than I already am, didn't know that was even possible! Thanks for showing me there's more nuances to being penniless than I had thought, Mr Prime Minister! 

Seriously though, the one irreversible change that affects me the most, is the passing of Leonard Cohen - a poet and songwriter close to my heart since I don't know when. Many of his songs are my comfort blankets, my go-to dose of solace in out-of-control situations (e.g. when some obnoxiously rude, misguided misogynist lost to all sense of decency and what's due to high office might get elected to it halfway across the world. Or when your own PM gets into some weird Cinderellaesque mode, also halfway across the world.)  

Hallelujah, Suzanne, Dance me to the end of love, Everybody knows, no knowing how many times I have listened to them. He's seen me through teenage acne to middle age cash crunch.

Heartbroken, devastated, desolated, anguished, I saw these words circulating freely on social media, but I've no words for the profit and loss this past week. The profit side always seems heavier in my eyes, no matter how many notes stop being legal tender or how dismal the misogyny index of the world. 

All I can say is that I am profoundly grateful that I was here on this planet growing up, and growing old, when Leonard Cohen sang. Some privileged upbringing! 




Sunday, 6 November 2016

Guess what?





Some wring their hands and grind their teeth.
Some smile, and drink it in.
Some flaunt it like a badge and cape,
some bear it with a grin.
Some treat it like a wound and staunch
the blood with endless gauze,
and some think it's a game of chance,
and some, a book of laws.






Currently can't get this particular metre out of my head - obsessed! (It's called 'common' or 'ballad' metre by the way, 8686 syllables, easily memorised, easily written to. Most frequently used in hymns, and sailors' ditties, and nursery rhymes, and ballads, for obvious reasons.) It's been on my mind since I reread some of Emily's verses in September - 'Tell all the truth but tell it slant/success in circuit lies...' Masterful! Don't you just love her poetry?!

Sunday, 30 October 2016

Happy Diwali 2016!






I.

My Goddess will not stoop to count
the flames in a courtyard,
Her footprints are more likely found
where lives are dark and hard.


She’ll care nothing for creed and caste,
for spotless floors and plates,
She’ll find the orphaned child, unwashed,
far from the temple gates.


She’ll spurn the white of rice designs,
the richness of symbols,
She’ll be with the refugees crying
in dismantled jungles.



II.

I’m ready now – I’ve rebelled often,
to light my lamps in clay,
to roll my wicks from old cotton,
put ceremony away.


I’m standing here to welcome in
the dark as well as light,
the protocols and discipline
accepting moonless nights.


Whatever walks in at my door
will find a home in mine -
the silver fruits of moonlight, or
the darkness of starshine.




Double helpings today because today is Diwali!  Or Deepavali to give it its full name, the autumn festival of lights in India, where we celebrate the victory of good over evil as symbolised by light and dark. As a poet though, I vaguely resent the equating of dark with evil and ignorance and ungodly, heck, I like darkness, it's restful, it's usually a good contrast, and it does a way better job hiding the wrinkles! Actually, too much light blinds as effectively as darkness.

I also feel absurdly pleased when festivals coincide with the weekly blogging schedule, is that crazy or what?! 

A very happy Diwali to you if you are celebrating, and happy autumn/ spring/transitions if you are not!



Sunday, 23 October 2016

Steam requiem



You come to a point in that field, and there
the winds are mussing the crops' long hair,
and out of the next window, half shuttered - 
a farmer at lunch, a whirlpool of birds.
The thresh of blurred gravel next to the wheels.
On the far side another one reveals
a moment of bamboo, a flash of fig -
a station rolls past, the platforms - red brick
and yellow signage, commuters everywhere  -
but it’s diesel now, or clean electric.








Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Back at Write...Edit...Publish...and back at home


Time to get writing again!




Three ways of looking...


It is time to head back to Write...Edit...Publish... for the October chapter and this is the much anticipated Halloween month. There's a choice of two prompts, both utterly yum! I am going with the Constellations prompt, there are enough scary stories in my life just now to want to write more :) The scariest thing in the world in uncertainty, not knowing what the outcome of any given event will be.  That one thing can reduce me to absolute jelly-legs. But that is also the one thing I, in fact we all, live with on a daily basis, dealing with our given portions as best as we can.


Recently, I have been reading some modern American poetry and specifically fell in love with this poem here, which worked itself into the title.
Not sure what these things are, they aren't poetry, and they aren't fiction. And they probably aren't fact either, though they might feel like that to me. Memory is a tricky thing, always selectively romanticised in retrospect.  Whatever they are, I am happily dedicating them to my mother, who, I am pleased to report, is now recovering at home after her recent illness. She is named after Arundhati, the Indian name for Alcor in the star pair Mizar-Alcor which are part of the Big Dipper (called the Saptarshi, or the Seven Sages in the Indian system of astronomy). I don't know of anyone more deserving of being named after a star. 


...at Constellations of Meanings




I.

The sun leaves smudged finger marks on the sky as he disappears.  Smoke-lilac, bruise-purple, ash-pink, burnt-rust.  I feel like taking a pot shot from the hospital window.  The glass pane is large, divided into three. So many things are divided into three.  Day and Night and the In-between times. Heavens, Earth, Underworld.   Left, Right, Centre.  Faith, Belief, Rituals.  Daughter, Mother, Dust.

She is named for a companion to one of the Seven Sages, she taught me that constellation in the sky herself. It’s the only one I can immediately identify looking up more than forty years later wherever I am in the northern hemisphere. 

“It’s a question mark in the sky.  See?” And I had traced it out with a childhood finger and seen.  “And that one in the middle of the downward stroke? That’s Great Sage Vashistha.  Look a little closer, do you see another? Not as shiny as the others, but she’s there.  That’s the one. Not as conspicuous as the Sages, but always constant, always shining, sticking close to her partner. She’s a good star to have on your side.”


I look from the window to her face on the pillow.  It is tired, lines of pain etched into deep grooves, the claw marks of time running parallel on the forehead. Her eyelids look a few sizes too big for her eyes, ringed with the same smoke-lilac of the sunset sky.  My hand on her forehead feels unwieldy, not delicate enough to touch fragile things.  Her skin is cool velvet, the fever has broken sometime ago, the clamminess now a faint residual glow.  Outside the threefold panes, the constellations have quietly climbed into their places meanwhile.  The Sage’s Companion is faint, but still burning.  Still a good star to have on my side.


II.

A snatch of song interrupts my titanic struggles with the Red Giants, White Dwarfs and Black Bodies.

‘Oh my mother’s smile lights up the face of the Moon; her tender gaze, how can it be lost? it’s there in the eyes of the stars; the sun steals her vermilion to deck the dawn…’ 

It is a 1950’s number popular with her generation, ostensibly an elegy for someone’s mother. Both the melody and the lyrics are maudlin and mildly annoying, really, Bengalis! 

‘Please stop!  I am trying to study here. And my grandmother isn’t dead, why are you singing that?? It’s a silly song anyway.’

I can hear her laugh, she is always laughing, the house rings with it all the time, expansive, pervading, infectious.  But her comeback is devoid of laughter.  ‘You get distracted too quickly, child! And it’s not about your grandmother, it can be about any mother. Mother Nature, the Earth Mother.  Mother is a vast word.  One word, many interpretations, whole constellations of meanings.’

‘It’s just an awful sentimental song.’

‘Space for your dislike too in this house. Just shut the door.’

Blue, white, red, dead.  All things born must die. All the stars are dead.  The constellations are dead, they are prehistory, primordially dead.  Dead is dead black, matter burnt to a crisp, to a nothingness.  Blue is hotter than red.  Red is hotter than dead.  Cool ice blue, fiery red hot.  No, hot blue, cool red. Constellations may actually be patterns connecting star-corpses. Constellations of bluewhitereddeadcrispblacknothingness.  Constellations of ancient, ancient light caught in a time warp.  Constellations of meanings. 

I get up to shut the door.  She has meanwhile switched to a different tune, ‘Are you only an image? Are you not true like the planets, constellations and the sun?…’

III.

A single star pins up the sky in place.  The sunset is a ragged, multicoloured curtain on the horizon. We heave ourselves off in long strides, back off the inselberg at the starting point of the highway. The twilight is just one sharp flare of light - and it goes quickly here.  We haven’t left ourselves much leeway. 

‘Pretty, isn’t it? A bit more colourful than back home.’

I am silent.  Because her ‘back home’ isn’t mine.  She is in a boarding school somewhere abroad, here only for the long summer holiday.  I live a little way up the road, my school a fifteen-minute drive. The local girls’ school - a compound of low buildings splashed with vivid bougainvillea and hibiscus. A residential school where I, as an expatriate child, am exempt - let off every afternoon to go back home.

Back home is a phrase fraught with many difficulties.  Because half the time home doesn’t feel anywhere at the back, it is right here in front of me, in this wide open, magnificent savannah I have known half my life.  And the other half? If I listen carefully, I can hear my still unformed identities split down the middle.  When I go on holiday, my grandfather rebukes my parents in absentia through me, ‘For how long? This nomad’s life? Settling down is also something. Do you know what your ‘gotra’ is?’

I don’t have the faintest clue. And I don’t much care. My father makes an indifferent Brahmin, I don’t see him wearing the sacred thread around his torso, don’t see him do the ritual sprinkling of water before meals, I have never seen him pray at all.  My mother now - hers is a different world altogether, she prays on the full moon night of Lakshmi-puja, marking the Gregorian calendar painstakingly in ink, picking out the correct confluences of suns and moons and constellations from letters that take more than a month to bridge the distances between her home and homeland half a world away.

She stands under the porch now in the fast fading twilight.

‘You’re late, child.  The rule is to get back home before the streetlights come on, remember?’

‘Where’s back home, Ma?’

'None of your cheek!' But something in my face arrests her displeasure. ‘Home is that land which puts food on your table.  Never forget the respect you owe her.’



WC - 999