Anju
Makhija
is a Sahitya Akademi, award-winning poet, playwright and translator. She has
written three poetry collections: View
from the Web, Pickling Season and Poems
Grow with You; co-translated Freedom
& Fissures and Seeking the
Beloved-the mystical verse of Shah
Abdul Latif; co-edited three anthologies related to women, Indo-English
theatre and young readers; her latest book is, Mumbai Traps: collected plays. Anju has won several awards inlc. The Sahitya
Akademi English Translation Prize (‘11), The All India Poetry Competition (‘94), The BBC World Regional Poetry Prize (‘02) & The Charles Wallace Trust Scholarship. She
has been on the English Advisory Board
of the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi,
for 5 years and is the co-founder of Pondicherry/Auroville
Poetry Festival.
Fear
Tactics
Where there is
fear,
there is imperfect
knowledge.
– Dharamvir Bharati
The
tribal dance,
an
attempt to kibosh evil,
the
origin of all fears.
The
terrorist’s hand quivers,
his
wafer-thin skin
saturated
with fears.
A
weather-beaten window,
a
dark, dank attic
encases
a clutter of fears.
In
the realm of ghosts,
the
unseen is seen,
creating
a fearful scene.
The
garlanded portrait,
placed
on the mantle
death
begins to fear itself.
The
cat on the window ledge,
stable
as the Eiffel Tower.
Fear
seldom stumbles.
Is
fear real or imagined?
Two
planes pass, seconds apart.
Never
clear from the air.
Metaphorical
attempts
to
trap trepidation fail.
Fear
has a hearty laugh.
Shadows Behind a shadow & Stepping out of a shadow
Expressionless
colorless
appearing
disappearing
closer
further
loyal
lonely
egoless
assured.
Trance-like,
drenched
in obscurity,
darkness-their
only reality.
Concealing
meanings,
like
words in dictionaries;
two
dimensional silhouettes,
devoid
of mass or energy.
Companion
to all,
friend
to none.
When
light deserts,
they
vaporize in thin air
like
flamenco dancers
pirouetting
skywards.
Blind Vision
He
taps the cane,
cups
his hand,
limps
across Haji Ali.
What
can he say?
All is illusion,
Almighty is all?
A
knock from below,
he raises hands,
red with rash,
stomps feet,
dark with dirt.
What
wrong could
he
has committed
defecating
in the drain?
He
taps twice,
the
earth responds;
he
senses a pothole,
