 SetuVolume 6; Issue 1; June 2021Setu PDF Archives EditorialPoetry: New VoicesSpecialTranslation: Hindi into EnglishAuthor of the MonthPhoto EssayShort FictionBook Review
Setu Initiative: Setu Series of Virtual ReadingsSpecial Edition: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces Guest Editor: Basudhara Roy |
Showing posts with label Collegiate Voices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Collegiate Voices. Show all posts
Setu, June 2021
Guest Editorial: Basudhara Roy (Special Issue, June 2021)
 |
| Basundhara Roy |
While
art, youth and life are words integral to creativity’s register, how exactly do
we perceive the relationship between them? One way to characterize youth is to
look upon it as an interim period of emotional vitality that though fecund and necessary,
must eventually be sloughed off to embrace the sobriety and wisdom of maturity.
From this point of view, youth’s golden glory contains within itself an
essential lack, an absence of something not yet arrived at. In the Preface to
his Endymion, John Keats writes:
The imagination of
a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is
a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character
undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence
proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of
must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.
Though
Keats’s poetic heights attained in Endymion will, in every age, give the
lie to his own ideas on the immaturity of youth, it invites us to look at youth
as a liminal space in the process of growth. Another way of looking at youth is
to find in it the best of life and oneself and to set it up as a goal of
imaginative return, no matter how far life leads one to travel from it. This
perspective, however, can be gathered only from the vantage point of maturity,
youth having long slipped away and art being reclamation’s sole route. Viewed
thus, youth becomes a metaphor for life’s splendour, an asset to be perpetually
held on to, a destination for the creative life of the soul. In ‘Soonest
Mended’, John Ashbery writes:
None of us ever graduates from college,
For time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not
to grow up
Is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now
at any rate.
One would be hard put
to speak of the value of the phase of youth in definitive terms but it remains
to be recalled that youth has been at the centre of much of Romantic, Avant-garde and Postmodernist
art. In the unformed landscape of youth,
one comes across a subjective self-consciousness hard to discover in later
years. For every person who has been young, youth manifests itself as a space
of idealism and uncertainty, of confidence and hesitation, of marginality and
retreat, and of alienation and rebellion. Growing up, one realizes there is a legacy or
at least the ghost of one that must be squarely confronted. Does one step into
one’s legacy, alter it or reject it outright? The tension between worldviews is
at its sharpest here and it is from this conflict that a remarkable volume of
potent art has entered the world. Arthur Rimabud, in writing of (his) youth in the
prologue to his ‘Deserts of Love’, states that its “strange suffering holds an
uncomfortable authority”. (trans. Wyatt Mason) This ‘uncomfortable authority’
born out of ‘strange suffering’ comes from youth’s experiential intensity and
searing honesty – two attributes that will always be indispensable to art.
This issue that brings to you a selection of fifty student voices from
across the length and breadth of India, is an attempt to showcase not only the
writings of young poets but also the contours, colours, conjunctions and
concentration of youth itself. One comes across a passionate, unbridled energy
in these poems as the contributors explore subjects like gender, social
inequality, economic recession, violence, love, nature, relationships, depression,
dreams, failure, the pandemic, and art. In Charu Bahal’s ‘The Diary and the
Pen’, “a pen sits half-open,/ longing for the fingers
to hold it”. “Can love exist without lust lingering?” asks Debanjana Majumdar
in ‘I built a wall with sand’. “How funny it sounds, when I say/ I saw my
mother yesterday. We have been living together / For 21 years, now,” states
Nicho Rongchehonpi’s ‘My Mother’. In ‘Middle Partitions’, Shriya Girish Bhunje writes:
Ravines don’t need a partition,
but oceans? Oceans ought never to be
parted.
They can seep away and quench and
quell—
sweep away what tries to temper them.
My hair can curve into fountains on my
head
and choke the breath out of air.
“Maybe our fates too have crossed and
we have met/ Maybe they’ve intertwined but never aligned,” muses Doma in
‘Songbird’. In ‘To Love’, Titas Sarangi writes, “Between
heaven and earth, you're the bridge/ Though you've the power to ruin.” Weighed
down with life’s tyranny, Babita Daimary wonders whether “To wear or not to
wear” this ‘life saving mask’”.
Dishant Chourasia’s ‘Raining Ecstasies’ rains thus:
I
am the sunlight on your destroyed column
I
am the fire setting my own skin ablaze
I
am the tornado you never saw or will see
because
it’s inside my
pair
of odd clothes
and
torn shoes
that
goes through the empty cycles of bloom.
Syeda
Farhin Sultana writes in Christmas Grief:
This Christmas
I will wrap
myself in memories of your
chestnut eyes and saccharine
skin. This Christmas I shall
make peace with my grief.
Here are poems that will ask you to stop, to re-read and reflect. Where the language wants perfection, it is more than compensated by the energy and depth of thought and the overpowering range of association. Besides carrying the poems into a wider world to meet more readers, I believe that this issue of Setu will go a long way in helping to build a community of these young poets. In poetry, as in most forms of art, a community is crucial to catalyse belonging, assurance and growth. As you engage with these fifty voices that speak from various locations of the country – Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Dhanbad, Patna, Jhargram, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kerala, Assam, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Kohima, Chandigarh, Bangalore and Lucknow, I am certain that you will be drawn unawares through poetry into youth, promise and nostalgia.
Jamshedpur
Basudhara Roy teaches English at Karim
City College, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. An alumnus of Banaras Hindu
University, she holds a Ph.D. in diaspora women’s writing from Kolhan
University, Chaibasa. Her areas of academic interest are diaspora literature,
cultural studies, gender studies and postmodern criticism. She is the author of three
books, Migrations of Hope (criticism; New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers, 2019) and two collections of poems, Moon in my Teacup (Kolkata:
Writer’s Workshop, 2019) and Stitching a Home (New Delhi: Red
River, 2021).
Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces:
Featured Authors
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1. Akanksha Pandey 2. Akanksha Subba 3. Anandita Guleria 4. Ananya Pahari 5. Anjali Sharma 6. Ankita Gupta 7. Arnika Mishra 8. Asha Bhandari 9. Babita Daimary 10. Charu Bahal 11. Debanjana Majumdar 12. Dipanjan Mandal 13. Dishant Chourasia 14. Doma 15. Ekta Dogra 16. Geethu V Nandakumar 17. Kanchan Jasmine Xalxo 18. Kaushiki Singh 19. Kiran Joshi 20. Komal Gupta 21. Madhurantika Sunil 22. Meghna Mukul 23. Monami Chatterjee 24. Monobina Nath 25. Nicho Rongchehonpi |
26. Nikita Soni 27. Nitu Roy 28. Prakriti Deb 29. Puotounguno Basumatary 30. Rachana Bhosle 31. Rahul Kumar 32. Raka Mukherjee 33. Ramsha Zaheen 34. Saad Inshrah 35. Sangeeta Banerjee 36. Shailja Chaurasia 37. Shivam Kumar 38. Shreesti Kumari 39. Shreya Narang 40. Shriya Girish Bhunje 41. Shruti Singh 42. Shweta Kumari 43. Simi Baruah 44. Simranjeet Kaur 45. Sneha Bhunia 46. Surabhi Kashyap 47. Syeda Farhin Sultana 48. Titas Sarangi 49. Vidushi Pragya 50. Zahra Ahmad |
Nitu Roy: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
That very night
When we had wished
to get a glimpse of a shooting star,
you taught me to
weave my own galaxies
among thousands lying afar.
You showed me how to figure hidden constellation,
and to celebrate their existence
and not to grieve for the ones lost.
And when it was time for dawn
and no star had fallen,
you said , " maybe they wanted
to stick around the want
to be with you".
***
Whereabouts
I am unaware of your whereabouts,
but my ears eagerly wait,
anxiously hoping to hear the sound
Of your footsteps on the floor,
Or a call on my phone,
Or a knock on the door.
***Author's Bio: Nitu Roy is an undergraduate student from Assam , Hojai, India. Beside writing, she is fond of cooking and baking too, all three being happy means of self-expression for her.
Nikita Soni: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
I no longer am in senses,
No I'm not drunk.
Oh no, I'm not on drugs either.
I don't need them.
It's your memories that go high on me,
Or maybe I go high on them,
Either way I'm f**ked.
It's that drink that I get drunked on
without even drinking that stays
still in your curvy eyes.
Just about to cascade.
It's that smile, that makes my heart
skip a beat every single time I see it.
Ah yeah.. I no longer am in senses.
My thoughts are too blurry
And the vision too scary.
Maybe I sound like a drunk poet,
Or maybe all poets sound drunk?
I'm high on the words that I once heard in your voice,
I'm high on those long-short messages you once sent,
I'm high on those 2AM calls you made,
hiding inside that velvet blanket of yours.
I'm high on the stories you shared about your childhood scars.
I'm high on the way you talk about how your first love broke your heart.
I’m high on that scent you wore when you’d come to see me.
Oh and also .. ouch.. wait..
Now you're gone. Vanished.
But you're alive in my poems
and all of my writings.
And mind you, you can't leave from here.
For I've caged you, stitched you and
trapped you in this parallel world of mine.
I live in this not-so real world almost all the time.
It makes me chaotic but I also find peace here.
It makes me hate the real life.
Where you, no longer are present.
F**k it, yeah I longer am in senses//
***
Author's Bio: Nikita Soni is an undergraduate student at St. Gonsalo Garcia College, also pursuing Corporate Secretary Course from ICSI. Writing is her way of expressing things that she feels are not just for her, but for everyone and everything around her. It’s, for her, an escape with freedom to live characters and lives that she cannot practically live and be.
Nicho Rongchehonpi: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Ever Feel Like Trapped In Your Own World?
Is There A Different Soul Living Inside You?
Can You Hear Her Cry?
I Say, Hear Her Out.
She Must Be Screaming Her Heart Out
She Must Be So Terrified
Take Your Time.
It’s Okay To Be Selfish
For Once, For Yourself
Go For The Search
That Someone Is YOU
Save Her.
***
My mother
How funny it sounds, when I say
I saw my mother yesterday.
We have been living together
For 21 years, now.
I saw my mother yesterday
The first day I saw her wrinkles
She is growing old now
That looks of her scares me.
I saw my mother yesterday
The ray of the light from the next room
Shines on her face, its glowing
Yet it scares me
I saw my mother yesterday
Like a cute sloth,
She arranges her bible
Placing orderly inside her small bag
Her life is a combo of dramatic events
Spent her childhood miles away from home
In thirst of knowledge
And promise to never return.
Yet irony serves its way
She returns, only to find herself
Celebrating her stay here for 23 years
And more years to celebrate
I saw my mother yesterday
This is the moment I want to treasure
It scares me yet I want to let it go
The time given to you are once. Enjoy.
***
Author's Bio: Nicho Rongchehonpi is pursuing her MA in English from Assam Don Bosco University, Tapesia. As a student of literature, she has always believed that one’s thoughts and imagination have no boundaries and this field of study is a perfect place for a person to rest mentally and stay true to oneself. She finds it beautiful that words connect people together and looks upon the experiences that she has received from life as her real achievement.
Monobina Nath: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Oh Mellow!
Are you sleeping?
It's our coffee time,
To recall our warm time.
Didn't you remember
The cups of-
Caramel macchiato,
Cappuccino,
Espresso with sweet and
Creamy whipped cream.
I- who noted every sip, as days
We passed together and
We sit;
We rolled all the
Yellow and pink sugar candies
Under our tongues, and
Drink and enjoy the last sip
In our mugs.
Now, we grew up a lot,
Situation changed a lot.
Neither you nor I, sit beside.
The catnap reminds us
Like an alien alarm,
We all need a cup of hot coffee.
We are cold.
***
Honour in A Doll's House
(Inspired by Henrik Isben's play "A Doll's House")
“But no man would sacrifice his
honour for the one he loves."
Men are the gifts of
God's miracle,
And women are sent
To serve them.
The world of make- believe
Handicapped them, that
No honour has left to support
Their lives. They sacrifice and
Then sacrificed as their bones are sold,
As a mother and wife.
We are human beings too
But no one wants
To educate us.
"Why? Didn't I talk like a doll- child?".
The answers aren't in 'men's bookshelves',
We have to educate 'ourselves'.
We aren’t a doll- wife
Of your household anymore,
Where,
"It is a thing hundreds of thousands
of women have done".
***
Author's Bio: Monobina Nath is an English honours student in Brahmanada Keshab Chandra College, Kolkata, India. Her work has appeared in Chrysanthemum, Ode to a Poetess , Poetry Nation, StoryMirror, TechTouch Talk, Meghalaya Times and Indian Periodical. Her poems were also selected for the National Bilingual Poetry Competition in 2021.
Monami Chatterjee: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Days go by-
Like dead leaves.
Carried away by a restless river
The ticking of the clock
Fades somewhere in the distance
The world around me falls in a slumber.
Days run too fast.
And suddenly-
The mellow morning sun,
Seems unbearable
Sunsets are no longer beautiful.
Loneliness fills in,
The gaps of my bookshelf
I drink glasses of drowsiness,
As the void within keeps growing
Words are uttered, meaninglessly.
And the void starts to fill me up.
Idleness accompanies me
And the void starts to fill me up.
The void envelops my world-
And brings in the final closure
***
The Sky
Have you ever fallen in love-?
With the sky
A colorless sky,
With broken clouds-
Temporarily occupying its heart
A cloud-capped sky,
Pouring down rain-
And telling stories of the distant lands
A sky storing mysteries in it,
A silver lining-
Radiating from its parched soul
A sky with a dazzling rainbow-
Narrating tales,
Of life,
Of love
A tired evening sky,
Wrapped in a lilac overcoat,
Smelling of rustic nostalgia
A night sky,
All lonely
With only one ageing star,
Glimmering-
Waiting for a new dawn
A new day
A new hope
A sky that belongs to you
A sky that will stay,
And teach you,
To let go-
Of the ones,
Who have already departed?
And the ones who will,
Eventually leave.
Have you ever fallen in love?
With the sky-
That taught you to live?
***
Author's Bio: Monami Chatterjee is an undergraduate student of Literature at Loreto College, University of Calcutta. She is an amateur poet who has been practicing the art of poetry writing since the past two years. She has earlier written for her college magazine and is the editor of a yearly poetry magazine published by her college. Currently based in Kolkata, Monami wishes to travel the world and gather new experiences that can fill up the pages of her diary. She draws inspiration from Modern poets like T.S. Eliot and finds the subject matter of poetry within the mundane city life.
Meghna Mukul: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
I had a story to tell when the night growled
When the stars cried, for the clouds hauled
I began it with howling rain, pouring from
The crying stars, burning in the coldest war
I told my story with ecstasy, with smiling
And whirling chemistry, wet was the land and mind.
Dried up rivers where no one could see a life,
I waited for the end of times, where I shall remain to tell
This story of a thousand dares, and how we
Separated all the love, curiosity and sense;
The story was a fashion, a mad connection
A single word could show the lasts
And a whole sentence could confuse the sads.
Like a strong wind I blew past them, those that resist
Apocalypse, those who were already stained,
I left them behind I skipped the signs
I held the bars of cage that resides inside my life
I tied myself to the joys of life but how,
Tell me how could I resign from this heist
Of identities, of insecurities, all the things that discarded
The existent documentaries, the shining inventories.
The seasons, the reasons, the words that made
What it meant to be, what it would be reluctantly
The characters that shed no light, that knew no sight
The visionaries that predicted this fight
This story of dubious pride, the absence of light
And presence of mind, the civil, the barbaric
Those that held their heads high while the deception took
Their rights, the purpose and the wise.
***
Pearls
I dived in the ocean
But couldn't find a shell
The pearls I wanted
Were hidden inside them
I fell in love with water
Which was still and had travelled
Far distances with many hurdles
With burden of thousand riddles
I dived in deeper to know more secrets
It was as if I found my island
Of new jewels in form of silence
And my pearls I still longed for
So I went again to tackle
With my doubts and my desires
To know if I can believe in miracles.
When the rays dived after me
The surface full of reflections
Attracted me, the shinning diamond it seemed
It was fascinating like dreams
But were illusions momentary
And the ultimate thing was still
A mystery I needed to reveal
My breath was about to release
When I saw the treasury
Beautifully it was lying
On the throne made of stone
Like a king in the court
My final judgement was to start
So I opened it once
There I saw a small heart
I glanced and couldn't stop
My hands from touching the one
Pearl admired for so long
I felt a little uneasy then
And I left the place all of a sudden
I was gay by only looking
Why to disturb the nature again?
***
Author's Bio: Meghna Mukul is a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) English Literature student at Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, and an aspiring writer. She attempts to reflect human emotions and scenes from daily life sin her stories and poems with other elements such as symbols, imagery and stream of consciousness.
Madhurantika Sunil: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
How does it feel..
When u cry, but...
The tears don't come by..
Perhaps they are dry..
Does it mean we do not cry
Or We do Cry!!!!
Maybe the tears are shy..
Or wait are they coy..
How does it feel..
When u cry, but..
The tears don't come by..
How does it feel...
Being called careless..
Accused though faultless..
Nights sleepless..
Head restless..
Moments countless...
Life faithless...
More or less..
The burden useless..
How does it feel..
Being called careless.
Accused though faultless..
How does it feel..
To witness
Absolute policy of no tolerance
To witness
the pain in silence..
Inside their is storm of violence..
Taught the lesson of endurance
Only to be in surveillance...
Lies of assurance..
How does it feel?
Is there a Voice in Silence?
How does it feel
To cry
When the tears
Don't come by...
How does it feel?
***
What Do you do?
What do you do?
When u have immense sadness,
But still u portray happiness.
What do you do?
Do you Question your attitude?
Or u live by it with gratitude?
What do u do?
When u want to refuse,
But still u r put to use.
What do u do?
Do u feel angry and wild?
Or u be composed and mild?
What do u do?
Are u living , or
Are u surviving
What do u do?
U want to rest,
Or put yourself to test.
What do u do?
Do your best?
Or just want to rest?
What do u do?
Do u accept and take.
Or your reaction is fake.
What do u do?
Be with someone?
Or would like no one?
What do u do?
Do u talk
Or do u walk
What do u do?
Breathe in , and Breathe out?
Or simply frown and shout?
What do u do?
Just leave and be indifferent
Or accept with commitment.
What do u do?
Have feelings their way?
Or let them be in grey?
What do u do?
Tell me, what do u do?
What do u do?
***Author's Bio: Madhurantika Sunil is a Masters's in English student at Patna Women’s College in Patna, Bihar, India. She has her degree of Bachelor of Arts from Banasthali Vidyapith, Banasthali, Rajasthan. She has also been a Young India Fellow (2019-2020) at Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana. She has been active in her reading and writing activities, right from participating in poetry competitions to presenting papers at seminars and conferences. She strives to have a balance between her critical thinking skills and her creative persona herself.
Komal Gupta: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
A girl
Strong, sharp and standing on her feet
Who has the power and right
To fly in the sky,
Was caged,
Her wings were cut down by
The cemented walls
In dark deep nights
Always tortured and molested.
Who tied her?
Her soulmate, who never met her soul.
After thinking so many nights
The bird opened her eyes,
Full of self-respect and dreams to fly
And uncaged herself by breaking her silence,
She chooses to be like a crow
Whom no one cages
Because it brings sorrow.
The harsh, vibrant voice can speak
More fiercely which is needed to grow.
And now becoming her
Own golden charm
She opens her arm
To soar higher and higher,
Realizing for the first time
That her dreams are on the sky.
***
Behind Words
One day more,
She knocked my core,
And suddenly she stopped
With the silence
Under someone's violence.
It seemed that
Her mouth was coerced
Someone forbade her to speak of her feelings.
She was broken everyday
Not physically but mentally
Sometime for numbers
Sometime for things
to the level
That her bangles and anklets and
all her ornaments
Started talking and jingling
because they were the only evidences of this violence.
No one could hear her,
No one saw her.
Where did she go?
To give answers to the wordmen or did they chew her soul?
It's only her black dark shadow
that never left her alone,
even in the dark night
It found ways to be with her.
Suddenly a cruel bird came saying-
The wordmen surely burnt her or
murdered her behind the closed door.
And again her ornaments jingled loudly.
The wordmen’s words were enough to kill her.
The unloved woman's soul still wants to know her faults
She comes to see her face in the mirror each day but she can't
Nor can we touch her – a ghost present and absent.
***Author's Bio: Komal Gupta is pursuing U.G. from Gurunanak college, Dhanbad, Jharkhand. Poetry, for her, is the deepest means of self-expression.
Kiran Joshi: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Intone the song sang years ago -
Bless back the beauty lost years ago -
Years ago, I fell into slumber,
Years ago, with each dying number.
Ow! I, a lone, remote, abandoned village
Wrapped up in severe sickening damage
Strange now appear these twisted winding lane
Alone here I am pulling through -
This needle -sharp pain.
No warm gatherings, no more play,
With large trunks people walked away,
Some alone, other with families
Aiming towards their destined cities.
Soon, the green turned barren,
Musical chirping saddened,
The weed land broadened,
The cattles were orphaned.
Barren begged for golden – harvest
Traditional muse came to rest.
Bring back my monsoon rain,
Bring back my season chain.
The world is dying, you in the queue,
Cities fascinate no more, that’s now true,
Running for life, there I see you -
Safest in the nest, from where you flew-
You need me again, you need my embrace,
I am your village and here’s your place.
I see the trunks coming back ,
I hear the musical chirping back,
Feel safe, my lap welcomes you -
Feel safe, for I embrace you -
Your roots are here, wherever you go,
Your soul is here, wherever you go.
Intone the song you sang years ago -
Bless back the beauty lost years ago –
***
Off Happiness (2020)
Frozen eyes, dejected hearts
Ceased walks, startled arches
Once liberated, restrained again
No bully master ,still refrained.
Neither H-bomb nor a weapon,
Alas! Still hard to confess...
What obstinate acts, stripped
2020 off happiness?
One step out, it grapples your breath
Two steps out,
your darlings are trapped
Few more steps and
your area is nabbed.
Corona rules out,
you behind the doors
Dull roofs, stodgy floors.
Alas! Yet hard to guess. ..
What hidden obscure mess...
Stripped 2020 ,off happiness?
Casting penumbra like witch's tress
Assembly made curse, isolation a bless.
The aches here,
Refuse to pause
Misery, torment smeared claws.
Amphan painted Elegiac Black Sky
Locusts gave the funeral cry.
Half-year elapsed,
Half yet to pass
Absurd appear days, life mere farce.
Alas! Still hard to confess...
What obstinate acts, stripped
2020 off happiness?
***
Author's Bio: Kiran Joshi is a post graduate student of Post Graduate Government College for Girls, sector -11 , Chandigarh. Verses have never failed to touch the inner chords of her heart. The rhythm of words when mingled with the rhythm of nature emancipates her soul.
Kaushiki Singh: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
A day I will be old,
No charm and no more bold,
Only a stick and medicines for health,
Children care but only for my wealth.
Grandchildren are their friend,
Who wait for the journey to end,
Firmly believing in existence of God,
Family members treat them odd.
Like a little homeless child,
Getting pity, loosing pride,
Sniffles in silence of breath,
Unaware of being knocked by death.
Death ends a life or pain?
Knows who suffered in vain.
***
Not a Lover
Every story is not sad,
But the pains always add,
Baby plant or a rotten fruit,
Are all parts of the same root.
Hating is on someone’s part,
Reasons for us to be apart,
Days and nights of tears,
Oh! What a fake mask he wears.
Living the same death everyday,
No one knows what to pray,
Same the people and same the life,
Pinch me like tip of the knife.
Love is for today but humanity forever,
So die a great man, not a lover.
***
Author's Bio: Kaushiki Singh is a nature lover from Lucknow University who finds an escape from the hush and rush of life in poetry. She loves to read literary works from new and different perspectives and writes poems to express her inner self.
Kanchan Jasmine Xalxo: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
What it would feel like to taste our own medicine,
Instead of putting on an act of being genuine.
Deceived by the Moon for the light,
Only left to see our own plight.
Following the fireflies can only lead to deception,
Like your actions, are beyond any conception.
Poison is slow to flow and reach the heart,
But once affected, can’t be outsmart.
This, even the strongest man can’t avoid,
As he is too weak to fight his inner void.
Even time doesn’t have effect on poison,
Only the heart knows that it is trapped in prison.
Even after so many passing seasons,
The heart feels gloomy for no reason.
Even the witnesses of persistence,
Can’t make out the reason for existence.
The wound is not on the flesh, but in the heart,
Indeed it is a poisonous dart.
Which Spreads the poisonous venom,
Making us helpless and numb.
***
Warriors
We are all in the road of infinity,
Ah! But no journey can lead to divinity.
Life is the one who plays with our fate,
With every mistake, gives a second chance, just need a little faith.
With every blink of an eye,the time passes by,
But wait, there is no such thing as a final goodbye.
End of distress doesn’t mean, it promises peace,
Need to pull ourselves together,but still be in ease.
There is a need of warriors who don’t compromise with their ideals and face every fear,
Man with honesty and dignity always find presence of God near.
One must speak wisely, as our words are like a sword,
It can wore out a heart or can serve as a reward.
Likewise, our will is a shield which makes us headstrong,
Help us to fight with sincerity and stand victorious for long.
Our battle is not with the world, but is with oneself,
To be more than a unread book kept in a dusty shelf.
***
Author's Bio: Kanchan Jasmine Xalxo is a young graduate of St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi and presently pursuing her masters in English literature from the same college. She was born and raised in a small city of Ranchi in a state situated in the lap of nature, Jharkhand, India. She likes to spend her time writing, drawing or gardening. She loves poetry and is also a fitness enthusiast. She was a state level powerlifter, though she left it when she joined for her post-graduation. Through her poems she wants to present an outlook on juvenescence, the changing human emotions and understanding.
Geethu V Nandakumar: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Hush! For its anarchy that persists everywhere.
"Your voice is not to be heard anywhere, nor anyone" uttered my Self.
Death knells constantly resonate my ears
while screamings and bloodsheds paralyze my senses.
How long shall I exist in this bolthole?
For I can feel the fear crawling in through my veins,
looming around my bowels.
My limbs are numbed;I could feel it.
Everywhere, I hear people greeting each other with futile words
And deceptive smiles welcoming me.
You are not safe! My mind enchanted.
Weary eyes blurred my sight
draining up the whole body.
Big Ben alarms! it's needles are active.
Minutes turn out into hours;
Days end up being nights;
seasons wither away;
hearts witness despair,
while its colours turn grey.
But you see, I could sense a sort of courage;
A drug it seems, that hikes
my adrenaline rush.
And now, there was a halt
for my ruthless thoughts;
Liberated I am, with the aura
of freedom purifying my soul.
Hope returns with the shower of a rain
that sprout the seeds of new life.
Bliss! For it's rejuvenation everywhere!
Ultimately, when the shades of yellow
crowded the sky, peace was retained;
for it was a warfare that ended-
A deadly combat between the Self
and the Other...!!!!
***
A Tiny Dot
Picking up the side seat of a bus
I seated myself and cursed the unceasing call of hunger.
It was past one and
the scorching sun almost blinded my dreary eyes.
Earth was a cauldron of burning coal.
In a trice, my wavering eyes caught the sight of a frail body on the dusty pavement.
An enervated woman she was,
with her pale eyes
having a million trove of silenced tales;
concealed and half-dead, like
the cold, stale chapathi in her dessicated hands.
Picking out the last fallen pieces lying on the ground,
her fatigued fingers placed its last piece
into her shrunken lips.
People went and passed by;
Her body becoming a site of their wicked gazes.
For her it resembled wolves of passion that she is not foreign to.
Hence, she felt nothing,
but a usual cold of numbness.
For some,A tiny dot she was,
In the quotidian routine of their lives;
Visible yet pointless.
Her burning wounds hold fathomless mysteries of pain;
years of humiliation
have made far-flung roots all over her body.
Some called her a streetwalker;
A fallen woman!
Her eyes told, a little darker gray it felt for her under the dark dim red lights
with the clumping of dreary faces
that awaits her.
At times, Awaiting, resembled hunger-
the growling call of bellies,
the excruciating pain of toil
the never ending stories of helplessness;
While at other times,
they are the shadows of unspoken desire masked in civilized faces.
May be it would be true.
She was a fallen woman;
but ruined and deceived by a fallen society!
***
Author's Bio: A lover of words, poetry and fiction, Geethu V Nandakumar is from Kerala, India, currently pursuing her post-graduation in English Language and Literature. Through her realistic portrayal of unrefined emotions and harsh realities of human life, her poetic journey takes flight to the world of hope and liberation. An ardent observer of human life, she writes poems to surpass nothingness.
Ekta Dogra: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
A Poem Out of Death
How do you make a poem out
Of death?
How do you think of the words
To bring together,
When your mind hears none?
How do you remember enough
Of your grief
To carry it home
In your poetry?
How do you make yourself
Be, just a flesh left behind,
A flesh writhing to float
Down the Ganges —
Limp, and hanging,
Head too heavy to lift,
A vague, hazy darkness
Within a country of mist,
Having collapsed in a mess
On a slaty floor —
A sleepy spectator at a play
Of their own tragedy —
How does one recall death
And can get even a phrase out,
Without their wrist falling back
On the table,
Wearing weary hundred years,
The forefinger failing even to
Straighten itself.
How do you not simply,
Close your book,
darken your screen,
And turn your back with
The weight of day and night
On your shoulders,
Crumpling on your wrinkled sheet
And closing your eyes
To the chant of death.
***
Helpless Shoulder
I cannot even sit with her
On her single bed
And be silent with her silence
Over her last few hours with
Her mother.
I cannot even
Take my wheels
On the same roads
I've lost myself countless times
In trying to find her home
For a day of seeing who
Was deeper in the mud
While she would make that face
And we would fall back
The five of us
Slipping over our laughter,
Over and over and over.
And today she told me that
She's getting ready for the funeral
Like she would say that she's
Sprinkling tea leaves in
The warming water,
Only,
Her voice is too tender,
Too placid, too soft —
A feather drenched in quiet collapse,
An untouched bruise.
And today I fail
To close my arms around her,
And let her silence fall
On my helpless shoulder —
Today, I fail
To let her lose herself for a moment
And tell her that it's okay to,
That today,
I'll be there to show her the way
When it's time.
***
Author's Bio: Ekta Dogra is currently on the edge of graduating BA in English Literature Honours from Karim City College, Jharkhand, India. She's an experienced freelance content writer, proof- reader and editor. She loves to steal time from her daily life to devote to fantastical lands and realistic emotions of the fictional world. Framing her feelings in verses and prose is the only way she can express them clearly. She hopes to hold people's hands through her creations.
Doma: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Encased in a room of mirrors he stood alone,
The hunt completed and the damage atoned.
He held the book but dared not open,
For fear his will be shattered and broken.
‘The price of knowledge’, he beckons his hand,
And opened the door to World of Man.
Then lights they shined, and beamed, and blind,
And showed the ways of humankind.
For such a World; so kind and bright,
Bore so much Cold, no place to hide.
These men were grey, some red, some blue,
And some had colors that no one knew.
They stole, they kill, they had no fill,
And left the World; in pain and ill.
He closed the book, with sights all blurred,
And focused ‘round the room he stood.
He finds a figure; senile and hurt,
And in his eyes, he sees the truth.
And as he turned, he finds it true;
“We all turn heads from evil”, do you too?
***
Songbird
I envy the songbird who has found its duet,
Fate has been kind to you, simple beings.
Maybe our fates too have crossed and we have met,
Maybe they’ve intertwined but never aligned,
Or perhaps I failed to see the little things,
And missed the chance to sing, like a Songbird in Spring.
***
Author's Bio: Lalduhawma, lovingly addressed by friends and families as Doma, is from a small state in India called Mizoram and is currently studying for a Bachelor’s degree while occasionally writing poetry as a means of self-expression.
Dishant Chourasia: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
I am not your morals
not your stupid chaos
I am not your label or sometime you need to think.
I am lava flowing upwards
screaming my way up the top sky
and come pouring down like Valkyries.
I am the everlasting omnipotent
I am the latent developing cell
that you don't see
but I exist.
I have brown, black, yellow faces
with small eyes, big eyes and no eyes
but I see.
I consume, mostly devour
every part and pore
I drink two gallons of the ocean
and call it mine
I dig two metres in the ground
and I oblige to kill everything over and underneath it
except myself
Kill, sell and consume
that's all I am
Kill, sell and consume.
I am the sunlight on your destroyed column
I am the fire setting my own skin ablaze
I am the tornado you never saw or will see
because it’s inside my
pair of odd clothes
and torn shoes
that goes through the empty cycles of bloom.
***
To hopes of despair
The light keeps me a prisoner
but I find dark on days
in its unmoving apartment
floating on my head
with soot dripping from the cracks above.
I drench my body in black
And soak my lungs in the soot,
The light starts looking for me.
I run inside bright halls of worship
a godless creation of the Gods
I hide under its light
with Furies, my only allies.
Each breath splitting my lungs into four,
I feel alive.
I run past oblivion
killing every kin
a creature of no creation,
I run home.
My lungs burn
as it waits at my door,
a bright formless horror
under crimson bulbs, smelly flowers and valleys.
I run inside and shut my door
still it finds me cornered.
My allies no more
and the apartment above
has had new tenants.
The light keeps me a prisoner
but I find dark on days.
***
Author's Bio: Dishant Chourasia is an aspiring professor, pursuing his Master’s in English Literature from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi. His poetry epitomises the struggle of a young, sensitive mind trying to translate both, the atrocities it encounters and the mental states in coming to terms with it, into art. It is drawn from the quotidian- the people he sees around him and their stories, observed from and contrasted with the vantage point of his own privilege.
Dipanjan Mandal: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Rafflesia can give you a bigger presence
But it can't give you a sweet smell!
Wolffia the smallest gymnosperm named
Though Eucalyptus can give you the height
But shorea is used in wooden frames!
Banyan is very large, but
Teak has the most tensile strength.
Rauwolfia ; the source of good drug
Coca leaves can give you a fake smug !
Someone like Baobab; which stores water
Insects must know pitcher plants better!
California has General Sherman; it must be the highest.
Methuselah standing there; must be the oldest !
What about Old Tjikko? 10000 years old
Facing all the climatic hurdles,
It must be ancient gold !
We must care about them, without wasting time
Destroying a tree is also an unforgivable crime!
Give it time; let it enlarge the girth;
Let's protect these wonders and save the earth !
***
The Legacy
I was born fair; with brownish hair
They wished to touch me, but didn't dare.
It was my father standing there.
I didn't go to play, that was his order.
My colour will fade away, the main thing to bother.
Friends used to call me; I am the unique
I must be from the city Munich.
My colour was protected, though time passed away.
Time came at last for; him to pass away.
Workload was like, I need a clone.
He was like a banyan tree, I was too alone.
Sun used to roast me, with photon currency
I was too alone to protect the legacy.
Rarely anyone notice me; calling " The Englishmen"
I then realised the legacy had gone in vain
I killed my shine what to do now
Nothing is constant dear; someone said.
I just wonder, wow!
***
Author's Bio: Dipanjan Mandal is a B.A English honours ( 2nd semester ) student of Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College, Kolkata. He is drawn to literature and is especially fond of poetry.
Debanjana Majumdar: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
I built a wall with sand
I built a wall with sand,
hid our love with impalpable curtain,
and carved your name with hand.
For these times are so uncertain
and love for once must go
to dust, leaving no sign behind.
Thousand mournings this morning and tomorrow;
but inamorato inamorata remain inextricably intertwined.
Beloved, speaketh not you love me
people love so long love last,
so long youth, beauty and money.
Is our clandestine love actually dwindling?
Our implacable love dwells in lust –
“Can love exist without lust lingering?”
***
Magic Moments
Take a sip of Magic Moments,
hold my hands each and every seconds,
step into the land of fairies
give me pansies and some berries.
See the golden deer run wild;
the weather’s pleasant, good and mild
a sip of raw Magic Moments
led us to the world of angels.
No paparazzi, no one to judge us;
step into the daylight, do a jazz,
Ball dance, Ballet and my white dress –
do not worry; it’s a state of grace.
We know no one, no one knows us;
a ubiquitous silence, no caste, no class,
no war, so far no means of treachery
this daydream’s dangerous but I know it’s worthy.
Take a sip of Magic Moments
fill your life with magical moments.
***Author's Bio: Debanjana Majumdar is a first year student of Loreto College, Kolkata. She is currently pursuing B.A. in English Honours. She started writing poems at an early age in her native language – Bengali. English country songs and Opera are her main interests besides literature. Other than poems, she also writes songs. She is currently working on a drama. Debanjana lives in Durgapur, India.
Charu Bahal: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces
Old Flowers and Memories
Like an old flower lost in the diary,
a part of me lies in wait,
to be re-discovered
to stir up memories,
and re-ignite emotions…
to make me feel alive again.
Maybe that is what we all need,
to not bury what we feel without feeling it first,
and later, safeguarding the sweet token,
to be re-discovered later…
reminding us of who we were and who we are,
of everything that has gone
but also, everything that has come.
Of course, there is a possibility
to get lost again in the memories
and feel the same old pain of loss,
But maybe we can also smile gently,
at the beauty of the moments passed.
Maybe both possibilities exist together,
and all we can do, is hope
that someday we revisit memories without overpowering pain,
and re-discover the part of ourselves that we wish wasn’t lost.
Here I am, blurting out words after ages,
not sure if they make sense to the world.
but happy that like the old flower, I found them again.
Words, that allow me to feel a little something,
to reflect and smile at all the times gone by,
and urge me to believe yet again,
Words, that make me want to hug myself
and soak in all the love my heart can hold.
***
The Diary and the Pen
An open diary,
blank pages lying in wait,
for the touch of a pen…
And a pen sits half-open,
longing for the fingers to hold it, yet again
to, to just get that one chance,
those few moments of intimacy…
The intimacy that it thrives for,
the love it is made for –
sweet, crazy, all-embracing, wild.
What is life devoid of love?
If not, an eternal wait for that one moment,
that instance of complete-ness,
however fleeting.
Who says love and intimacy are only for the living?
Here, two “objects” wait,
yearning for each other,
while the living merely survive,
as “objects” –
foreign to the touch,
the passion of love,
the food for the soul – lost somewhere,
undiscovered, un-embraced.
***
Author's Bio: Charu Bahal is currently pursuing MA in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. A feminist and an avid reader, she likes to play with words in the forms of poetry and articles on a variety of topics. Though she prefers to not restrict herself, most of her writing revolves around the themes of gender and sexuality, mental health and self-love. For her, poetry is a very intimate, and often cathartic, process of self-discovery.
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