 SetuVolume 4; Issue 9; February 2020Setu PDF Archives EditorialPoetry
Fiction/ Flash
ExclusiveLiterary ConversationSerial novelCritical Essay
Translation: Hindi FictionOn Ghazal and its LiteratureBook Review
Special Edition: Voices Within Guest Editor: Gopal LahiriForthcoming Calls Setu Special Editions
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Showing posts with label 202002E. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 202002E. Show all posts
Setu February 2020
Your complimentary copy of a Setu ebook
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| Anurag Sharma |
Thanks again for tremendous support provide by you to Setu. With 750 authors, 4,100 articles, 1,250,501 unique hits, two literary festivals, 90 issues, and nine published books so far, Setu's reader base is increasing everyday. Our presence is being felt in literary circles of English and Hindi alike. Setu is being listed on literary directories and aggregators, CommonwealthWriters.Org being the latest one to join the league. Here is a short list:
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| рдЕрдиुрд░ाрдЧी рдорди рдХрдеा рд╕ंрдЧ्рд░рд╣ :: рд▓ेрдЦрдХ: рдЕрдиुрд░ाрдЧ рд╢рд░्рдоा |
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| Ps-Fs :: Sunil Sharma |
Please note that all Setu ebooks are always free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
I am glad to announce that another novel "Orange Dawn" by American author John Clark Smith and published by Setu will be coming soon in a bookstore near you. This will be followed by a collection of English poetry by an eminent poet from USA. More details will be provided soon. Please keep looking for more Setu books.
In this issue we are introducing Deepak Sharma, a well known name in Hindi Literature to worldwide audience through 'The Tanner's Yard', English translation of her short fiction. This issue also features Voices Within 2020 with 44 poets and our guest editor Gopal Lahiri.
Enjoy!
Yours,
Anurag Sharma
Setu, Pittsburgh ✍️
Editorial: Sunil Sharma
The February edition is before you, dear friend of Setu.
A thrilling combo of the general and the special sections.
The former carries the regular columns and the latter, the second edition of the “Voices Within”--- an annual selection of the most happening poets of the dynamic field variously known as the Indian Writing in English (IWE), Indian English Writing (IEW), Writing in Indian English (WIE) or, in the present case, Indian English Poetry (IEP). These labels highlight different elements of the interchangeable usages as seen important by the concerned editors of the anthologies or the critics of the domain. The common thread is a writing done in a variety of English called Indian English (IE) that has emerged as a distinct field of study and practice by the middle-class professional reader or writer. IE is a most-preferred mode of creative expression over the regional dialects of the highly-diversified and multi-lingual pluralistic country, and, is attracting the critical attention of the Western world, its university system and the mainstream media. The subsequent garnering of the coveted literary awards, seven-digit advances, Hollywood rights and the resultant glam quotient have all combined to enhance the overall appeal of such writings in the IE. The IWE has overall turned into an exalted area of continual artistic communication, international academic research and cultural conversation in the last three decades or so. Celebs like Rushdie and Roy, Jayanta Mahapatra and Kamala Das, to name but a few among many other distinct practitioners, have helped consolidate its increasing prestige on the global literary stage; it has become a source of enduring appeal for every writer desirous of fame and wealth through their books.
The country loves English, cricket and Bollywood.
Markets have opened up for the IEW, the IEP being no exception.
It has begun recruiting and mobilizing the young and the old alike.
Translations in IE have also helped.
The IEP has proved to be a great commercial hit and burgeoned across the country and beyond, thanks to the impact of the social media and allied opportunities. Many new poets have been discovered through the social media and earned solid reputation.
Literary fests and online awards have too recognized the value of this field.
In order to appreciate the rich contribution of these native talents, Setu decided to showcase the best of such poetic voices by inviting submissions through an open call.
The second edition of the “Voices Within” is a labour of love done by the guest editor Gopal Lahiri, an eminent poet-editor-photographer-scientist from Kolkata.
He has curated a high-quality poetry collection for you. A total of 44 poets in a single issue!
It is sheer delight---musical; aural; aesthetic; sensory; evocative, full of new imageries.
Judged on strong parameters by a senior artist like Lahiri widely respected for his craft and consistency of quality work.
Hope you will savour these flavours of India.
A novella by John Clark Smith is also being serialized apart from an ongoing novel by Glory Franklin Sasikala.
Trying to serve you the finest of content in varied forms.
Thanks to the contributors and the guest editor Gopal Lahiri for their overall support.
More calls are there for a wider engagement with the community.
Happy to share that your fav bilingual journalis also now listed at Commonwealth Writers, thanks to their editors. Another milestone:
---https://www.commonwealthwriters.org/setu-submissions/
Sunil Sharma,A thrilling combo of the general and the special sections.
The former carries the regular columns and the latter, the second edition of the “Voices Within”--- an annual selection of the most happening poets of the dynamic field variously known as the Indian Writing in English (IWE), Indian English Writing (IEW), Writing in Indian English (WIE) or, in the present case, Indian English Poetry (IEP). These labels highlight different elements of the interchangeable usages as seen important by the concerned editors of the anthologies or the critics of the domain. The common thread is a writing done in a variety of English called Indian English (IE) that has emerged as a distinct field of study and practice by the middle-class professional reader or writer. IE is a most-preferred mode of creative expression over the regional dialects of the highly-diversified and multi-lingual pluralistic country, and, is attracting the critical attention of the Western world, its university system and the mainstream media. The subsequent garnering of the coveted literary awards, seven-digit advances, Hollywood rights and the resultant glam quotient have all combined to enhance the overall appeal of such writings in the IE. The IWE has overall turned into an exalted area of continual artistic communication, international academic research and cultural conversation in the last three decades or so. Celebs like Rushdie and Roy, Jayanta Mahapatra and Kamala Das, to name but a few among many other distinct practitioners, have helped consolidate its increasing prestige on the global literary stage; it has become a source of enduring appeal for every writer desirous of fame and wealth through their books.
The country loves English, cricket and Bollywood.
Markets have opened up for the IEW, the IEP being no exception.
It has begun recruiting and mobilizing the young and the old alike.
Translations in IE have also helped.
The IEP has proved to be a great commercial hit and burgeoned across the country and beyond, thanks to the impact of the social media and allied opportunities. Many new poets have been discovered through the social media and earned solid reputation.
Literary fests and online awards have too recognized the value of this field.
In order to appreciate the rich contribution of these native talents, Setu decided to showcase the best of such poetic voices by inviting submissions through an open call.
The second edition of the “Voices Within” is a labour of love done by the guest editor Gopal Lahiri, an eminent poet-editor-photographer-scientist from Kolkata.
He has curated a high-quality poetry collection for you. A total of 44 poets in a single issue!
It is sheer delight---musical; aural; aesthetic; sensory; evocative, full of new imageries.
Judged on strong parameters by a senior artist like Lahiri widely respected for his craft and consistency of quality work.
Hope you will savour these flavours of India.
A novella by John Clark Smith is also being serialized apart from an ongoing novel by Glory Franklin Sasikala.
Trying to serve you the finest of content in varied forms.
Thanks to the contributors and the guest editor Gopal Lahiri for their overall support.
More calls are there for a wider engagement with the community.
Happy to share that your fav bilingual journalis also now listed at Commonwealth Writers, thanks to their editors. Another milestone:
---https://www.commonwealthwriters.org/setu-submissions/
Editor, Setu (English)
Mumbai Metro Area, Maharashtra (India)
Probal Basak (Voices Within)
Probal Basak, 31, from India, started his
career as a journalist working with Press Trust of India, Business Standard covering
mostly socio-political issues. Currently employed as an officer with Department
of Information & Cultural Affairs, Government of West Bengal, he writes
poetry and his recent works have been published in journals like Dissident
Voice, New Verse News, Spillwords, Setu.
A
Dead Kingdom
She
was dead before they noticed she was dying.
They
brought a defibrillator –
cannons
of water to sprinkle and tear gas to breathe.
They
operated, defibrillator kept changing hands
between the who’s who.
Like
a solitary guardrail trying to stop a coup.
At
funeral there was no one mourning, only fiery slogans
grieving the market crash –
slogans to put up barbed fencing securing their hatred.
They gathered, screamed – everything at royal behest
that
protest can’t undo.
Like a forsaken bandage that blood oozed through.
Stateless
She
is a careless scribbling on the map
but
she refuses to accept it.
Not
when the lung starts to squeeze
and
they stamp on the wings
that
silently gets clipped.
Not
when the idle wheel on flag runs away
to
ferry forgotten stateless tears
that
touches no cheeks.
Not
when tired legs of barbed fence
long
for a leisure walk locking fingers
that
no one holds.
She
is a careless scribbling and
she
refuses to accept it.
When
someone tries to erase the lines
she
summons the night owls
and
they lock her in the cage.
Shelling
Busy
fingers of a rough hand making the sound of silence
slip
into familiar groove to pry them open with patience,
I
see the green peas, losing their weak pod shell defence,
are
kept in the frying pot amid odour of burning incense.
More
and more hands, more and more fingers join to shell
And
there, a hidden pea moth, for whom they were on trail,
Gets
plucked. Alas, the addicted fingers can’t see, can’t smell,
I
see the worm taking all the green peas along to the hell.
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
Preethi Govindaraj (Voices Within)
 |
| Preethi Govindaraj |
Preethi Govindaraj is a poet and lives in Virginia with her family.
She has an MSc Nursing degree and work as a Nurse navigator in the Lombardi
Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington DC. She have been composing English
poems for a long time. She enjoys writing in Hindi and Urdu as well.
I am a little shoot
Soon to curl elegantly,
A small green leaf basking
In the sun’s glory.
Gentle and playful
the sunlight beamed
A heavenly breeze teased
Life was pleasant it seemed.
I was delighted to grow up
To view the grand panorama
The meadows, the butterflies
And the bug’s silly saga.
Like all leaves though
I finally withered
To let newer ones unfurl
As my end neared.
I left the gnarled stem
And bid goodbye
Falling gracefully
With a tear and a sigh.
My pretty green has turned tan
My smooth edges have crinkled
I could remain there or offer
Succor to the less privileged.
Then the scene transformed
Dramatically like the movies,
All was damaged in a gale
The bushes and the trees.
A young leaf held on
But the wind was strong
between sobs and struggles;
it was swept along.
I hugged the little one
For it needed warmth and care.
The end was inevitable
But to sweeten it, I did dare.
I covered its tender form
With my faded shriveled body
It found solace breathing its last,
holding onto somebody.
***
GOLD TO GRIEF
My life had pranced between summer and rain
The seasons I grew up with, were seldom vain.
Autumn seemed vibrantly awake
Or did it herald slumber?
Never did a sight
Fill me with such wonder!
When leaves turn hue
And the greens wilt;
A change stirs-
Shimmering in gilt.
The lush, the life
Slowly turn in
The reds, the yellows
A flame within.
A living palette
In every landscape,
Colorful riot
Reflects in the lake.
The howling wind
Aids the descending leaf,
unto carpet of wilting things
Saturating me somehow with grief.
***
MOTHER OR WHO?
Memories of a speech
Long time ago,
I prepared for morning assembly
Torments me so!
I had memorized that mother nature;
Blazed in sunshine,
giggled in the breeze
Flourished in spring,
Pitter-pattered in ease.
But I am convinced
All this while
We didn’t know nature’s face
I imagine, it has an impish smile!
I know you probably know
It belongs to a child
How could we even imagine;
A mother behave so wild?
He opens the basket
To shower some drops
At a whim,
May pause, then stops…
He may flash a lightning
To see the fear it brings,
But soon turn on the oven
To heat up things!
The lakes go dry
Showing thirsty cracks
Hoping for compassion,
The munchkin lacks.
The kid blows up sand
And blinds the desert pride,
The palms stare helplessly
As waters in the tide.
Just when he softens,
Scatters dew drops to add some bling,
Tsunami roars ferociously
And sweeps in everything!
Quakes tremble earth
Disasters cry,
Where is the little devil
Does he hide in the sky?
Sometimes the cold may
Urge him to throw
Some cottony wisps
To magical snow!
Or does he stay deep down
Painting brilliant coral hems
Or perhaps erupt as a volcano
Yet leave some precious gems.
***
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
Fiction: Passing
- Dawn DeBraal
Rena walked quickly, searching for the person she was sent to collect. She knew she was close. She felt it. The soul, waiting for her. The woman was near the end of life. Rena heard her soul calling out to this Angel of Death. It would not leave the woman’s body until someone came to collect it. Others were wanting that soul, others who would not treasure it and take it back to heaven, but in the other direction. It was a constant battle between good and evil. Sophie Meffel was both. The first part of her life the woman on her death bed was not proud of. She’d sold her body, using the money to take drugs. She stole, she’d lied, she’d sold many a person out, all in the name of self-gratification. It was the drugs that altered her and allowed evil out to operate in the world.
It was the birth of woman’s first daughter who cured that. Suddenly Sophie had something more than herself to care about. Ava changed her life. She sought help and cleaned up her act. Ava became her reason to live. Being a mother was a strong motivator.
Sophie got involved with Ava’s school. She went back herself and became a teacher changing the lives of many. Sophie started a food pantry and a clothing drive in her local church. She went around, asking for donations and got businesses to help. Soon the pantry out-grew the church. She found someone to donate their office building for tax breaks. Everything she had was free. Her ministry affected many.
She became a politician and ran for City Alderwoman, being very honest about her past. People seemed to appreciate what she had been through and how she had pulled herself up by the bootstraps and changed her life.
“You Can Too” became her campaign slogan. Sophie was an example of how someone could turn their lives around. Now, she was ninety-two years old. Her seventy-year-old daughter, her forty-four-year-old granddaughter, her twenty-year-old great-granddaughter, stood at the side of her bed, praying her into the end of her life — such comfort for her to know what she had left behind in this world from her broken beginnings.
Rena found the building, she passed through the walls, and up through the floors. One of the apartment dwellers touched her neck when she felt death brushing by her. A dog barked at her in another. She found herself at the woman’s death bed with all those she loved around her, saying prayers. Rena let them have their moment.
Aware now that she wasn’t alone in the room, she saw him. The dark angel. He also wanted the soul that was ripe for the picking. Rena told him he was not needed today. He scowled at her.
“She has a past,” he hissed.
“She made up for that all of her life. She never looked back.” Rena told him.
“We will wait until her soul comes out. She decides who she will go with.” And so, the two of them stood at opposite ends of the room waiting for the woman to pass over. Waiting for her soul to find one of them.
The daughter talked to her child and grandchild.
“Your Grandmother is an example to us all. She changed her life for the better, for us. We can stand here today as educated women because she found the way out of poverty, through learning and love. By helping others, she was able to pull a good many people out of living that same nightmare of a life she had.”
Each woman took a turn to kiss Sophie, whose breath barely rose and fell. Sometimes breathing in, after a long-sustained pause, she would exhale. The women told Sophie it was alright to let go, that they loved her, and thanked her for making them strong, that they would lean on one another as she had taught them to. Her chest fell and did not rise again.
Sophie’s soul struggled. It was hard to leave behind the safety of her body’s earthly shell for the unknown. It was painful separating from the comfort. Suddenly her soul rose from her body. Her daughter and granddaughter’s, were crying, saying goodbye, we love you.
She rose from her body, leaving it below her, confused. The dark one spoke so sweetly to her.
“You are confused, come with me. I will make it all clear to you.” And then Rena called.
“Come with me, dear sister. You have earned your place and rest.” Rena held out her hand. The woman looked dazed, still trying to deal with the fact she had been ripped from her earthly home, uncertain of where she was going. Sophie mourned her body and said goodbye thanking the shell for taking her so far. She looked at the dark one.
“I remember you. You were cruel and demanding. You took from me until I had nothing left to give.” She then turned to Rena.
“I know you. You have been with me always, but I did not know you until the birth of my daughter. Thank you for showing me the greatest gift, the gift of giving yourself over to help others. I have had a wonderful life.
She reached out her hand to Rena, who took hold of her, whisking her away from the dark one once again. She had done it before, many years ago. The dark one vanished. The woman paused for a moment looking at the love in the room.
“I created this. Me.” Sophie smiled turning to her angel of light. “I am ready now.” Rena took her by the hand. They went through the floors and walls, past the barking dog, and brushing against the woman she would be collecting in a few short weeks. The lady who touched her hand to her neck would remember this feeling when Rena came to collect her.
Vinita Agrawal (Voices Within)
Vinita Agrawal is an award winning author of four books of
poetry. Her work has been widely published and anthologised. She was editor of
TheWomanInc for three years. Her poem won the Tall Grass Writers Guild Award,
Chicago and the Proverse Hongkong Poetry Prize. She was also awarded the Gayatri
GaMarsh Prize for literary excellence. She curates literary events for PEN
Mumbai. She has assisted in curating a section of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
2020. She is on the advisory board of the Tagore Literary Prize.
Mumbai
A
very dark sky but no rain
and
the burden of knowing too much.
Cramped,
shadowy spaces,
living-units
in short supply.
Mumbai
-
where
a room is a house.
A
solitary nameplate
against
a solitary pigeon hole.
Men
dream of wheat fields
women
of fresh air and sweat-free afternoons.
They
want to raise english-speaking kids here.
The
sun-dolloped, Laburnum sea cushions their aches.
Local
trains hoot through the suffocation,
commuters
lolling from splayed doors like tongues
for
breeze, just breeze.
The
Traveller Inside You
Not
everyone knows what it means
that
pale opal play of light
on
which a cartographer leans
as
he sails away one night.
What
does he hope for when clear
that
death curates the tide of life?
When
biennales mark with a smear
the
thin scimitar moon of strife.
Bosons
of gems he finds in jars
And
beauty sails against the wind
Capella
that bright golden star
lies
to the lissome black night pinned.
The
brave explorer does not know
what
is real or what is false
What
will he do, where will he go
what
if the allure fades and palls?
To
travel a mystic distance
is
all that his blood seeks to do
To
that inner call he listens
like
the traveller inside you.
Gunjiyas
It
isn't just food
this
melting sweetness
encrusted
in a crisp pastry
murmuring
in the mouth.
For
the filling, the red-brown charoli
dots
the desiccated coconut, slivered almonds,
khoya, powdered sugar
and
raisins (as soft as your eyes).
Delicately
encased in half moons of pastry,
sealed
and fried to the colour of raw silk.
The
crests in the painstakingly crimped dough
that forms its decorative edges
appear to me like the peaks of our tender bond.
No,
these
aren’t Gunjiyas that you've prepared today,
this
in your fourth stage
when
the doctors say
you
might find it hard to breathe.
So
when you offer the sweets
to
me and say
‘I
made you your favourite treat’,
I
realise that I’m going to taste
tangible
love.
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
U Atreya Sarma (Voices Within)
U Atreya Sarma is a published poet, reviewer and translator
(Telugu/English) besides being a freelance editor with 23 years of experience.
He is Chief Editor of Muse India, a literary e-journal set up in 2005. He had
earlier edited Bharatiya Pragna monthly and Cyberhood weekly,
both from Hyderabad. Also as the Contributing Editor of Muse India for Telugu
Literature, he has so far presented four exhaustive features on the subject.
His collection of English poems, Sunny Rain-n-Snow made it to
the final three shortlisted for the Cochin Litfest Poetry Prize 2019. In all,
he has edited, translated or collaborated on 16 books. And he guest edited a
feature “India @ 70” for the Pittsburgh-based online journal Setu (Aug
2017). Atreya Sarma had maintained a poetry column ‘Wordsmith’ in The Hans
India, a Hyderabad based English daily (Jun 2013 to Jul 2018). He is a
recipient of two awards — ‘Setu Award for Excellence 2017’ and ‘Shambhabi
Samman 2019’ for “outstanding contribution to literature.”
A
cosmic seesaw
Our
steady hearts know their magical spell better
Far
better than our hazy and wavering minds.
Our
hearts whisper out their intimate arcana
Aloud
from atop the highest elevation
Of
our growing and converging relationship
In
a silent spring of bracing words gushing out
From
the artesian well of their deep recesses
Audible
and lucid only to each other.
Let’s
do make our steady hearts ready
For
a unity they’ve been craving
For
how many ages we lost count.
“Fortune
favours only the brave, now be brave,”
Let’s
obey the voice of the oracle.
Time
to make true the cryptical dreams
Let
not the rendezvous worry us
Anywhere
could be the meeting ground.
Out
of the maze of cobwebs let’s break;
Sprigs
of our wishes a nest would make
A
downy one on a mountain bough.
Let
our winging hearts their seesaw play
Enjoying
the cosmic concaveness
Between
the empyrean ceiling
And
the sublunary esplanades.
Labouring
under child labour
A
child is born out of labour.
A
child is sent to school
And
made to recognise things
Read,
recite, and write
Draw,
count, and play.
The
child undergoes labour
In
all these movements
Of
mind and limb
Whether
he likes it or not.
If
a child learns too fast
And
sets a precocious record
In
his studies or GK
Or
in singing or dancing
Or
in acting or in a sport
We
laud him as a prodigy.
A
school child is made
To
work or wait for hours
Under
the scorching sun
For
a political or governmental event
(And
with no snacks or water)
Whether
he likes it or not.
It’s
civic training,
A
practical exercise,
Shrama daan (labour of love)
Of
the citizen tomorrow’s.
So
catch them young!
If
a child wants to be free in this free country
From
loads of books and exams of rote
And
play in the lap of nature, like a fawn or a cub
And
begin to study life in the open school
And
learn the letters of the art of living
And
helps himself and his parents too
By
willingly working as a help
And
earns a few dimes
To
drive the wolf away from the door
And
survive in the rat race of this world –
No,
he isn’t allowed
For
it’s child’s labour
A
cognisable offence!
The
child with a silver spoon in his mouth
If
labours with his mind
Is
hailed with accolades
And
promoted by sponsors
And
reaps golden harvests.
The
child with a pewter spoon in his mouth
Who
labours with his hands
Is
dubbed child labour
And
rudely snapped from his patrons
Who
are raided, reviled, and punished.
And
the tear-dried starveling
Is
left in the lachrymose lurch and
Heartlessly
denied his only honest means
Of
keeping body and soul together.
Human
orbits
Stars
stay in their place;
Planets
move within their orbits;
Seas
sway over their assigned vastnesses;
Rivers
flow through between their banks.
If
they go astray
It wreaks havoc.
Let’s
too the humans
Well
be within our bounds,
Honouring space in
between.Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
Tapeshwar Prasad (Voices Within)
Tapeshwar Prasad has authored
blend of five surrealistic and realistic poetry books, and has been featured in
Camel Saloon (U.K.), Cordite Poetry Review (Australia), The Aquillrelle Wall of Poetry, Crashing Waves (USA), Scaling Heights (an Anthology on
Contemporary Indian English Poetry), inklinks,
Anthesis, Episteme, Heavenly Hymns,
I am A Poet, Just for you My Love, Kaafiyana,
Resonance, The Significant Anthology, Rhyme with Reason, World Anthology of English Poetry, Acerbic Anthology, Mandela
Tributes, Whispering Winds, Intercontinental Anthology of Poetry on
Universal Peace, Hall of Poets
and many more. He has been included thrice as ICOP: Roll of Honour (U.K.)
Way of the world
I
was not familiar
with
this co-walker on my morning walk
Who
was striding slowly, barefoot
on
a long two tiled bridge -
a
road and the rail lines under it
But,
his act of finishing his thoughts
and
starting it again
drew
me a little closer to him -
and
I nearly paused my steps further
to
listen to his less comprehensible sentences -
Meaningful
et al
I
knew
I
was getting closer to him
by
his truthful utterance -
as
he was slicing it part by part
He
was ragged, and grey of hair
Stinking
badly, but
of
a princely milieu
I
took pause
Under
His guidance
and
thought about the way of the world -
Those
who are self proclaimed rich, have little of their own
Those
who are ragged, have all the wisdom to share
Nothing extra
He
has shawled himself, nakedly
longer
into this thorny chilly nights
with
trembling fingers
bodily
squeezed in cold grip around
Penniless
he survives
the
onslaught of rising inflation:
Edibles
smoulder heavily and a unit
of
blood costs more than a bargain
A
toothless suitor to his own poverty
Pleasantly
he shakes his head quixotically
Shrugging
off reality from his thoughts
Believing
that tomorrow, when his hospital
will
charge a hefty medical bill
He
will promptly reply to his doctor
wagging
his tail:
Was
he not in remembrance, that many a times at the construction site
He
had laboured more to his hospital with sweat and salt
And
demanded nothing extra
Painful riches
She
has been doing it
for
quiet some time
in
the garb of a faint smile
All
these years, and before
She
could strain herself
to
sieve in her pain
Guarding
her happier moments
Lest,
it must not erupt
Wailing
those unforgettable torment
She
would always lure herself
into
a sobering smile, that
on
a casket of painful riches
that
she could trust,
She
could do onto her
What
a lost memory could do
to
herself -
As
she has been doing this
since
her memory was gone
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
Sutanuka Ghosh Roy (Voices Within)
Sutanuka Ghosh Roy is Assistant
Professor and Head Department of English in Tarakeswar Degree College, The
University of Burdwan. She did her doctoral dissertation on Two Eighteen
Century British Women Poets: Hannah More and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She has
been teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate level for twelve years. She
is currently engaged in active research and her areas of interest include Eighteenth
Century literature, Indian English literature, Canadian Studies, Post colonial
Literature, Australian Studies, Dalit Literature, Gender Studies etc. She has
published widely and presented papers at National and International Seminars.
She is a regular contributor of research articles and papers to anthologies,
national and international journals of repute like The Statesman, Muse India,
Lapis lazuli, Setu etc. She is also a reviewer, a poet, a critic and an avid
painter.
You
and I
Let
us go you and I
To
a place where the sky is green and the grass is blue
Let
us go together
And
build a house whose walls are of ice
And
there is fire inside
Let
us go together
To
a forest where there is only rain
And
we can hear the drops of pain
Our
fantasies become fireflies
Let
us go you and I
To
a river bank where there is a boat waiting for us
And
together we will sail to the other side.
I
Am Not Arjuna
I
am not Arjuna
Why
should I fight
Against
my brothers in Hastinapur?
Standing
knee-deep in snow
In
the glaciers of Siachen
Crawling
in the trench in Sopar
Keeping
tired eyes in the telescope the entire day and night
Standing
in the shores of Mumbai
Why
should I fight?
I
am not Arjuna
Why
should I fight with Guru Drona and age-old Bhisma
For
centuries I am inhaling the poisonous air,
How
many years more do I need to live?
I
am not Arjuna
Are
my weapons that useless?
That
I cannot bring an ounce of peace today?
Black
Pearl Necklace
Surrounded
by an array of Sangbaaz in a green valley
Young
children of conflict start throwing stones at me
I
am almost killed by these sharp stones
The
warm blood tickling my bones
I
stand with my broken body, blinding eyes and spine-chilling fear
How
do I combat lovelessness with love?
I
run and run until each of my scars
Become
a black pearl necklace!!!
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
Sushanta Bhattacharjee (Voices Within)
Sushanta Bhattacharjee is a bi-lingual
poet. He writes poems both in English and Bengali and editor of “Suchetana”.
.His poetry has been published in several news papers, little magazines and in
several Anthology of poetry. He has published two Bengali poetry books namely,
“Kichu Chara Kichu Kabita” & “ Barak Surmar Tera Tera”. He took part at39th
World Congress Of Poets in KIIT Campus, Bhubaneswar in 2019. His two poems
namely, “My Compassion” & “A Pang” have been published in Anthology of WCP.
He has launched his first English Poetry Book, “Blue Horizon” at 39th
World Congress Of Poets.
Aspects
Of Life
Construction Of reality
From multidimensional complexity
Is an unique mathematical task
To interpret logically
All the variable factors
By their coefficient meaningfully.
Thus dialogues, monologues and clich├йs
Want to communicate the syntax
Of language in a grammatical structure
By endorsement of rhetoric graphics
In a coherent system with relationship
By defining certainty and uncertainty
In a natural bias or unbiased frame
With essential aspects of life
By its passion and real condition.
Eternal
Expansion
... interrelatedness of all odd notions
of civilization impel with
all modern elements of humanity
to expand the consciousness of life
by destabilizing odd dimensions
for the search of new sphere of life
in a cosmic binding with objectivity
for a new equilibrium in the
subjectivity
to pass in this natural earth
in every moments of time
for eternal expansion ....
An
Existentialist
Waiting – an endless waiting
In a passage of time
With the experience of the flow of time
Actively or passively....
I am confronting with myself
In the influx of time frame
Just to identify the significance of
life
To be in this earth.
Life is an illusion in a terrible
stability-
Cruelly deforming structural being
In the name of Existentialism
By absurd cross talk in Earth’s Hall
To justify once again freedom of choice
In subjective existence as a whole
Dogmatically denying the eternal question
Of origin of the Universe and its
End-Game.
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
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