* Aftermath by Meena Kandasamy
(to consuming six glasses of orange juice)
the next morning in school during your
english exam you take permission to go to
the toilet where you throw up all the white
and creamy breakfast milk. only it tastes
sour and looks like bits of maggoty curd.
weeks later, you get to know two things
one of which will change your life for ever.
first, you scored the highest in the english
exam. second, you became a gossip item.
you still don’t know what affects you more.
because of your boldness and brashness
and bunking classes your ulcerated vomit
is taken for morning sickness. the sourness
extends when you hear hushed whispers
passing around. girls younger than you,
point at you and speak such banal secrets.
in staff-rooms, and in ungainly corridors
teachers chatter of your child, so vividly
imagined in the backdrop of your really
empty womb. slander is a slaughterhouse.
even best-friends seek answers as the
rumours inflame. your anger is mistaken
to be toward a crude imagined lover who
disowned you. you know the nauseous
truth of your thighs: you are virgin. But
evidence will not be revenge, for, so many
smoky eyes implore you to supplicate, to
admit alleged truths. impeaching faces lay
down rules: don’t shout or scream, but
swallow the shame. next, confess the sin.
sin yes they will shred your innocent life to
that yes you may fume or froth or boil or
simmer yes you are their staple soup they
need you just this way yes your fury takes
its toll annihilating you not them yes anger
and hatred seethe in your untamed tresses
yes you know how gossip chokes even the
tethered dreams yes something breaks in
you yes dear yes you start the brute search
for sleeping pills and chaste suicide ideas.
(First published in Cerebrations)
_________________________________
* An Introduction by Kamala Das
(With the reference of the blog: http://academicsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/07/an-introduction-kamala-das.html)
I don't know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don't write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don't
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank Pitifully.
Then … I wore a shirt and my
Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.
Don't play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love… I met a man, loved him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him... the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me... the oceans' tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.
_______________________________
* Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, click the title to read full poem.
_______________________________
* Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
_______________________________
* Remembrance by Emily Bronte
Cold in the earth—and the
deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in
the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only
Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's
all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my
thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that
northern shore,
Resting their wings where
heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever,
ever more?
Cold in the earth—and
fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills,
have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the
spirit that remembers
After such years of change
and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth,
forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is
bearing me along;
Other desires and other
hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but
cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has
lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever
shone for me;
All my life's bliss from
thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in
the grave with thee.
But, when the days of
golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was
powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how
existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed
without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears
of useless passion—
Weaned my young soul from
yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning
wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already
more than mine.
And, even yet, I dare not
let it languish,
Dare not indulge in
memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that
divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
________________________________________
* Ozymandias by P. B. Shelley
I
met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
__________________________
This
note comes as a consolation:
You can do a lot of things
With your left hand.
Besides, fascist Dronacharyas warrant
Left-handed treatment.
Also,
You don't need your right thumb,
To pull a trigger or hurl a bomb.
_________________________
indra, chief vedic
deity and
inspirational hate-monger.
indra, who went to work
inside diti's womb, afraid
she would mother the other,
the demons...
indra who butchered
her fetus into forty-nine bits,
so that, as the legend goes, they
were reborn as wailing winds.
indra. indra. narindra.
the hindu god of war.
herod merely chopped up male kids
in bethlehem, hitler only gassed
jewish infants in germany, and
the peacekeepers just dipped
tamil babies in boiling tar
in eelam...
but indra indra narendra alone
perfected this science of slaughter,
killing children of the other
before they were even
born.
indra. indra. narendra.
the genocidal god of gods.
_____________________
___________________________
* Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy. Click the title to read full poem
___________________________
તમને જરૂર છે ટેકાની ભાઇ મારા
અમને જરૂર છે કેશની (રોકડા ની) !
હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !
છ મહિના હાલે તો ગંગાજી નાહ્યા
આ વર્ષોની વાર્તાયું મેલો
સાત પેઢી નિરાંતે બેસીને ખાય
બસ એટલો જ ભરવો છે થેલો
દો’વા દે ત્યાં લગી જ
આરતીયું ઊતરે છે
કાળી ડિબાંગ આ ભેંશની
હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !
ફાઇલોના પારેવા ઘૂં ઘૂં કરે છે
હવે ચોકમાં દાણા તો નાખો
ગમ્મે તે કામ કરો
અમને ક્યાં વાંધો છે ?
પણ આપણા પચાસ ટકા રાખો
ચૂલે બળેલ કૈંક ડોશીયુંનાં નામ પર
આપી દ્યો એજન્સી ગેસની
હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !
દેકારા, પડકારા, હોબાળા, રોજેરોજ
વાગે છે નીત નવાં ઢોલ
જેને જે સોંપાશે એવો ને એવો
અહીં અદ્દલ ભજવશે ઇ રોલ
નાટકની કંપનીયું – ઇર્ષ્યા કરે ને –
ભલે આપણે ત્યાં ભજવાતા વેશની
હાલો પથ્થારી ફેરવીએ દેશની !
____________________________
To force the pace
and never to be still
Is not the way of those who study birds
Or women. The best poets wait for words.
The hunt is not an exercise of will
But patient love relaxing on a hill
To note the movement of a timid wing;
Until the one who knows that she is loved
No longer waits but risks surrendering -
In this the poet finds his moral proved
Who never spoke before his spirit moved.
_____________________________
* Bamiyan Buddha by Praveen Gadhavi
I had left
Leaving
gold, gems, pleasures
Of
life
Keeping
Rahul weeping
And
Yashodhara sleeping
I
had left
Kicking
silver glasses of
Wine
Death
I
wanted to be formless
Now,
you see
Both
are blind by birth
Those
who are chisleing
My
statues and
Decorating
with
Golden
ornaments
And
those who are
Destroying my
statues.
_______________________
* Buddha Purnima by Praveen Gadhavi
(Full Moon day of Buddha's birthday)
There was an
Underground atomic blast on
Buddha's birthday-a day of
Full Moon
Buddha laughed!
What a proper time!
What an auspicious day!
Buddha laughed!
At whom ?
There was a laughter on his
Lips and tears in his
Eyes
He was dumb that day.
See,
Buddha laughed!
Thank You!
