Poetry: Nishi Pulugurtha

The Little Girl on the Terrace

I see her on the terrace every evening
At times with a teddy in her hand
Talking to her teddy
Dancing with it
Some time she has a friend with her
Another little one
They talk and hop and jump
They play, they run.
At times I see her father with her
He teaching her not to be afraid
Holding her hand, standing behind her
Telling her things
Takes me back to another time
To daddy and I.
***


Keeping Up

I had to stop going to school
The doctors said I had some problem
I kept falling down
It was a big name, my problem
It was difficult for me to climb the stairs
I stayed at home
With my mother
I spoke to her
I read a lot
I liked reading my books
The old books, I got new ones too
But I missed school
I wish I could go to school
And play and have fun.

Bio: Nishi Pulugurtha is an academic and writes on travel, film, short stories, poetry and on Alzheimer’s Disease. Her work has been published in The Statesman, Kolkata, Prosopisia, The Punch Magazine (forthcoming), Kitaab, Café Dissensus, Coldnoon, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Bombay Review, The Pangolin Review, MAD Asia Pacific, Prachya Review, The World Literature Blog, Tranquil Muse and Setu. She is the author of a monograph on Derozio (2010), guest edited the June 2018 Issue of Café Dissensus and has a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open (2019). She is now working on her first volume of poems and is editing a collection of essays on travel.

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Children's Literature 2020 :: Setu, July 2020