Gayatri Majumdar (Voices Within 2023)

Gayatri Majumdar is founder, editor, publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout, I Know You Are Here and The Dream Pod and A Warm Place With no Memory; The lotus of the heart (non-fiction) and ‘Home’ anthology (co-editor). As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, she has been curating the beloved annual Pondicherry/ Auroville Poetry Festival apart from several other events around the country. She often features poets/artists on the Brown Critique YouTube channel. Gayatri is associated with Sri Aurobindo Society and lives in Pondicherry.

 

 

Still Life Yellow, MatriNiketan

 

Yellowing around the heart of a circle of chirpings
and hint of blue breezing the evening green
                        blushing…

They bow, swing with merry abundance
everything flux –
the form frail-ing to hold the beauty and wisdom….

The rage continues – uprooted, shackled, un-wild
they will not succumb. Still undeterred unashamed –
they continue slow breathing – an artist’s implosions…

Once sunflowers, they still under Vincent’s stars;

not withered yet as if trapped waiting,
charmed by the light in ink and crayon
arriving in their brown hearts, gazing up
with lowered heads – rebellious;

somehow held together
in search for other realms,
on a stoic wooden chair,
the green-brown day wrapping around
distant sounds of ancient chants;
resigning to random occurrences
and of being sketched or placed in an altar.

The sacrifice imminent – the light, fading,
but held still as eons collapse and bend –
the vase wobbles, but will not break.

In a symbiotic dance of human screams, violence –
undercurrents of sweet love –
the hour holds together
all that lights up
a moment, unshakable belief in
that which cannot be seen, only dreamt.

And they nod their brown-centres at once
with the rhythms of the day, speeding bikes
and deep concentration.

The colours smudge the art-paper –
everything yellow
in the ebbing light
of play and ignorance,
how is it do you wish me
to appear?
What is the shortest way to your heart centre?
What is the best way to surrender
this hour, this dying to you?

I can see your solemn eyes –
lie lines cutting across your defences,
when do you begin to yellow,
green and sun flower?
Wait for nothing in particular? No one.

Unmindful of this outward house of
appearances, secret passages, tall doors,
with heads bowed, wind in your frail-petal,
the troubles, my child, She says,
will surely abate –
measured in unmapped distances and timelessness….

In the hour of absolution,
embracing the love in your lightening looking away,
we wait,
not for you. Nothing.

Shifting colours of the various shades of silence,
the heart sheds pain –
love intensifies.

Each petal a story – each slow
gyration, a lifetime spent in acquiescence.

Mango Tree-ing Against the Yellow Wall

 

The tree was raising itself
when they built this giant human yellow –
unmindful, as they tend to be.

Cornered, cursing, undaunted,
it made its green-headway toward the sun
and other deliciousness of a rooted existence –

head-butting elbowing kicking it
positioned
            to scour the sea –
trawled boats, other human inventions
with the wind in its hair,
twinkling into the pink starlight and old melodies.

Scarred, bruised, the wall is unmoved –
a clever someone (as humans are)
thought of fence-wiring cutting into its
darkening brown and bark,
and the two just wouldn’t give in!

Swinging shadowed light-patterned dreams bruised,
sick to the stomach, calming before the impending overhead
storm, this love story is not over yet.

The inebriated moon waxing forgetting all about time
light up hideouts of untold secrets;
revelations!

 

To Be (That Is Perfect)

 

White Spider Chrysanthemum against
a lavender evening, with a hint of fire
a whirling dervish overhead
the cat pretend-nap on the morah

short-eared owls landing noiseless.
The eerie chime from Svarim inevitably
skips several beats of my heart
hanging on the wall – assorted gods
typically whisper mostly to the dead – and
at the soul’s entrance – no allotted number,
or even sidekicks.

Someone somewhere is hurting still
wreathed with ravishing colours
a tombstone for a head
tuberoses, Italian asters, lilies,
peace in the belly – simple sincerity.
The azure within with a wisp of ether white
the mynah perching on the highest branch nods,

this conversation is about to commence

same old over several lifetimes,
habitual deliriums – ending with nothing,
phantasmal; ruminative, still what can I say!

Did I say, this all means so much to me.
I meant to.

At best, be.

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Setu, November 2023 :: Voices Within 2023

This Day: Gayatri Majumdar

Gayatri Majumdar

The day is becoming

A poem – a little light
unfettered behind the shadowless sun.

The little light dances, at other moments
a steady ballerina pirouetting a storm –
carrying within its slow death,
a thousand petals, many hues,
little red books, Darwin’s theory
and heady fragrances of spices
in a bazaar somewhere in Ernakulam.

The day tosses, turns
unable to shake off fables
of little or no consequence –
Aladdin’s lamp, beauties, beasts and such.

Words become the day
working their cleverness
around twisted empty hallways, sepia photos
hanging by a string –
to make nothing of it,
half-truths and silver sleep.

The day finally enters into
a pact with a poem:
falls in love, unable to recall the vows
of forevers and undone laundry.

The day MUST die
for coded in its birthing
are cries and thunders – remembered rain
wafting the Kadamba breeze
mixing up the saddest of those
purples, fuchsias and creams.

***

 

Dakshineswar – Chasing the Light

He sat there all lit up . . .
looking steadfastly at Himself;
He knew we would arrive. Late, but
He waited, of course, because He always does.

At the hour of the last mini bus
as it leaves for Dharamtala,
when lamps canopy mellowing the frantic
highs for this holy Hoogly, fervent prostrations,
other worldliness, hing kochoris;
the love heavy with
malai-milk-infused cha in khullars
with not one Ola in sight,

he abruptly says, a tad irritated,
‘chairgulo khali korun*’!
We obey like we would a schoolmaster,
vacating the long rickety longish ancient bench
quickly hoping in our hearts to stay.

In a hurry
not to have us leave this easy, Kali shuts
the hundred-year-old door
with chipping white-painted lotuses
ornamenting the eye – incense,
cobwebs, dust, flame-tongues hang
about a dim-lit entrance –
‘daran, aadh ghonta lagbe^’
(This time, you can gauge the guard’s resolve!)
Not a soul budges; where could we go?
What lay beyond this dream of various shades of gold?
Which consecrated water will we dip our toes into?

So, She will make us wait humming drumming
shiny steel railings, braiding little girls hair.

The drunkenness evident:
traversing centuries, leaving lovers,
is this what we bargained for? What we get
crossing rivers, skywalks and bridges
chasing the light across forests, stars?

No japa, not even piety, 
giddy robustious dance this?

 

*Vacate the chairs!
^Wait, will take half an hour more!

Poetry because everything else seems to have evidently failed! – Gayatri

 

Bio: Writer, editor, publisher Gayatri Majumdar is founder-editor of Brown Critique, the critically acclaimed literary journal and has authored six books including three volumes of poetry. She curates the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival and is associated with Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry.

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Setu, April 2023

“Open Sky and Earth”: a review of Home Anthology

Title: Home Anthology
Author: Gayatri Majumdar, Sekhar Banerjee & Gopal Lahiri
Page: 120
ISBN: 978-93-84216-05-4 (Paperback)
Edition: (2022)
Price: ₹ 300 INR
Published by Brown Critique Books

Reviewed by: Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

       When a creative journey of three poets unfolds in a retrospective, its poetic resonance lingers. Edited by Gayatri Majumdar, Sekhar Banerjee, and Gopal Lahiri, The Brown Critique Home Anthology includes works of fifty poets from home and the world. The volume excavates the concept of ‘home’ through a contemporary lens. As goes the popular saying ‘home is where the heart is. A cozy corner in a room or a hot cup of tea at the end of the day or a smile on the aged lips of a mother makes up the home.

      The introductory poem “When my Breath becomes Air” sets the tune, Abhay K. writes “don’t care/ to build a shrine/ read my poems/ I live in them/ they’re my home”. In “The Voice” Amanita Sen redefines home as the primary connection between us and the rest of the world. She writes, “hold on to, cuddle, be lost into it, / be lost unto it to be found again, like/ it is not merely a voice, but a form”. Aneek Chatterjee delves into the sense of ‘homelessness’ that can perhaps be attributed to the distance—of realities, class, lifestyles—that separates the poet from the subject, “Shattered railings on the footpath/ are perfect shelters for amused clothes. & the rice boils in tandem/ with the anger & anguish of the lady” (“Home”). In “Tonight” Anu Majumdar has keyed in visual narratives in a colourful, animated, and innovative manner “but tonight I am still/ a wave in the heart/ a feather grown free”. Anju Makhija In “Sometimes it is a bird” writes of dark thoughts for the mind to battle as the concept of ‘home’ is becoming illusive. “Why then/ Must we still remain/ So human?” Ayaz Rasool Nazki is “In Search”  “of my home/ in the rubble/ Of memories/ Among the debris / Of time”. Thus he makes it clear that ‘home’ is an idea, a social construct, a narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and who and what we want closest in our midst. In “This Dark House” Basudhara Roy further explicates this idea. She writes that there is no place like home because home is not a place. “The house looks different all the time, they whisper. / I tell them it is growing steadily each day. / They are bewildered”.

     “Home could be a place with no walls; a place of unimaginable horror, a room without a view or emptiness without belonging”. This is echoed by Candice Louisa Daquin “but when night pulls her skirts down and darkness envelops/ the quiet, I wonder how/ anyone survives/ a home without/ you”. In “Elegy on the Way Home” Dustin Pickering writes about a sense of alienation and purposelessness, thus providing us with an alternative concept of ‘home’, “after the initial shock of the fall,/ i looked where i landed/ but,/ like Icarus,/ I was alone to suffer my fear…” “Dasvidaniya” in the Russian language means ‘until (the next) meeting”. Gayatri Majumdar goes down the memory lane “ Remember the forked-tongue propaganda/ at home those days?—Hissing static blue 45 rpms-/ while Soviet clouds, gorgeous folk dancers/ floating about our rooms; Span, Vogue from America?” and brings a chunk of the yester years in an evocative manner. Perhaps the entire idea of ‘home’ is metamorphosed. Nostalgia casts a spell as one reads Gopal Lahiri’s “One Evening” where “in break of day, at least one evening you feel/ home is only a white pillow, a murphy radio,/ an old wall-clock and those blue white rubber slippers”. Thus the poet has interpreted the theme of ‘home’ in a variety of ways including the physical characteristics.

      Jagari Mukherjee has an altogether different take on ‘home’. “My room is a poem/ written in a garbage can./ My double-bed is a library/ of books and handmade diaries/ that have stone-embedded magic covers”. The city of Bombay has ensnared Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca as she feels the pulse of the city every day : “This is the city that haunts me day and night/ This is the city of darkness and light. / This is the city with the octopus arms/ It has me ensnared forever with all its charms!” A pair of birds find a home in an empty house while the rightful owners were away “just a week”. Once the owners came in the bird couple gave them “jaded looks/ Like old men at a village chaupal”, Lina Krishnan thus weaves a story in “Bulbul”. Megha Sood on the other hand has “called many places home/ I have yet to make one though” (“I have called many places home”). Raja Chakraborty’s “Whitewash” is a layered, cerebral exploration of the concept of ‘home’. “Only memories knew it was a place where they/ could forget themselves, in quiet arrogance of a / whitewashed past”.

     “Yet, it can always be argued that Home is not always a sanctuary of hopes and dreams, an abode for peace and tranquility,” as echoed in Robin Ngangom’s “My Invented Land” where he writes, “My home is a gun/ pressed against both temples/ a knock on a night that has not ended”. “With constant reminders to stay home since the pandemic hit this planet nearly two years ago” this volume delves deeper into the very concept of what constitutes a home. Sanjeev Sethi’s “Home Truth” is a reminder of the dark eerie days of Covid-19, “when I realize there is no call, no email. / C-19 hasn’t revived us. / The whirligig of wooing is behind me. / I’m home-bound”. As one reads Sekhar Banerjee’s “In a Gooseberry Forest”, “Now I don’t know who is lost./ It might be you, / the moon or all of us; / Home is never a mutual world’; one understands that ‘home’ is perhaps more than a physical domain, it is a psychological/imaginary concept. Sharmila Ray writes, “home” is a manuscript framed, beaten out of/ love spent and unspent…” Thus these modernist poems with their unique identities and idiosyncrasies look at ‘home’ through an up-to-date lens.

      In “The Houses of Nattalam” Sonia Nair plays with the old memories that are in sync with the form of the poem that is peppered with idyllic breaks, the skillful maneuvering of the village (Nattalam) conjures up a remarkable verisimilitude with the real ‘home’ which of course, is instrumental in stirring the emotions of the readers.  The concept of ‘home’ is beyond ‘home’ as envisaged by “the homeless duo on/ the pavement, under a broken/ awning, / claim the open sky and earth as the/ original home” in Sunil Sharma’s “An Unacknowledged Cell…And Freedom Reclaimed”. For Vinita Agarwal “Home is a crusade” and “good to believe in/ good to lean on/ good to bleed into, every single day” (“I have Five Homes”). . The Home Anthology is thus a seminal work on the ‘concept of home’. The editors deserve all praise for putting together the myriad hues that are kneaded into one haven and one heaven called ‘home’. The cover design by Kavita Dutta and the subtle illustrations on each page speaks volumes.

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Setu, October 2022

Gayatri Majumdar (Colours of Love and Barriers)

Gayatri Majumdar

Gayatri Majumdar is founder, editor, publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout, I Know You Are Here and The Dream Pod, The lotus of the heart (non-fiction) and ‘Home’ anthology, which she co-edited. As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, she has been curating the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival. She often features poets/artists on the Brown Critique YouTube channel.

Blues for Brothers

1.

So said R, all of 14, alighting from that rickety green old bus – 

about the turn at Moulali in 70s Calcutta,

“the Beatles will outlast Abba, I promise you this”,

like I was the dancing queen. I shook a leg.

He then attempted to climb a few mountains – whipping up

egg-white-coffee dreams to keep himself warm,

waiting with yaks beside the pebbled bank of no-place.

R then settled in Shantiniketan, I hear, 

with a homicide and the mania quite dead – 

a long way from Steely Dan, the moon

with Lennon buried in his queen-size bed.

He prophesied my entire life in two crisp sentences;

somewhere in between the mater and pater,

the edifice disintegrates – I rest my case.

2.

Sure, S had a deep philosophy,

I’ll give you this

which finally consumed his belly toes 

leftover hours (no, not his soul), in tiny bites.

He frequently shifted his thought-furniture about,

his Kintsugi-heart bumping against cracking walls, relationships . . .

Now S could never step back, now could he

on this star-speckled mission to space,

smoke billowing his reckless convictions?

I was not going to be the one to convince him

he was always where he wanted to be –

looking for solid ground to hoist the blue flag that high

even as he chipped at bones barricading his home –

always dependable, staying – never leaving, never there.

He preferred walking along Bandra Bandstand

with midnight-chai blowing smoke rings to sea,

his purple heart at bay, still bombastic – 

unlike Alan Parson Project’s ‘Raven’ long playing his windowless bed

sinking into the afternoon rain of this Saras Baug . . . 

What I would do to return to S’s exuberant Bombay ways – 

gazing with wonder at make-believes, prancing about Colaba

taking the Harbour Line inching home…

Chasing a life, we pleased?

3.

Now B was a mystery – I should have granted him that;

unable to decipher the codes of his mind

or what I thought was his cold heart, I let him be.

Early on, he recognized the utter futility of all this – 

the chasing butterflies, the stomping around trees.

He lived off the glory of a dead century – 

alma mater of hard-working men with striking plumage,

who knew what mattered most

plaque-d on walls to prove it.

Now nothing ever mattered to B.

He went about his grand and jagged streets,

demanding little – cradling by the sidewalks

of this illusion sure-footed, reading faces 

scurrying to the beginnings of theories and a hearty Bangla meal.

Like that proverbial old monk – the bottle and the man,

he shied away from petty transactions 

bartering dreams for solitude – 

for that’s what he could afford . . .

so much for small talk, sci-fi eyewear, Darwinism.

Minimalism couldn’t even begin to sketch his sanguine heart

at once fearless yet cowered gasping as if frozen.

B gulped down his last peg to remember 

and forget he ever belonged to this city,

this sacred nowhere – ten rupees still tucked in his pajama pocket.

For what is this but a lila, distorting images 

on the mirror reflecting uncertain arrivals, hurried departures.

---

Colours of Love :: Setu, July 2022

Poetry: Gayatri Majumdar (Tagore Special)

Gayatri Majumdar

Remain – Silently
 (For Ma)

Gizmo-ed as I am in these hours of
unveiling exoplanets, space X, mass exodus, almighties,
I return to the idea of You

Feeding on your songs periodically –
they shore up as if accidentally in melodies strung
by random pied pipers, distant ship-horns, dancing shells
and those delectable one-stringed instruments –

At close proximity (actually, inside my head)
to your villa of palash, shimul, fall colours,
a separate Dushtabudhi incubates
righteousness and other grim burdens,
theirs is a brotherhood (and probably sisterhood) of puny beliefs
resulting from reptilian fear – they claim, from many universes ago,
unable to bear the rationality devoid
the nectar of dreams slow waltzing death.

Because they attended wrong schools, seeds
tilling their fragile beings bear markings of mistaken identities
with no sonic hum of bees or blooming to spring.

And in the end,
still dragging kheya toris* to ghats
sun-tinctured vermilion perpetually setting
and to other banks of transactions of the living.

Paradoxical colours strait this emptiness
You stencil with utmost care
rainbowing lotuslands, peace, other brutal endings;
they still ashen our bodily remains with undying blues,
our hearts origami – sprouting greens.

Unstrung, I return this hour to You – another high,
here – re-shell this birthing of lost causes
centuries labouring on what never has been . . .

Unshackle us to be free again;
steer my kheya tori toward the land of forgetfulness . . . forgiveness –
of unending, unsoiled melody

Where nothing more need be uttered,
nothing is . . .

Remain – silently
never leave.

*kheya tori: ferrying boat

 

Bio: Gayatri Majumdar is editor, publisher and founder of the critically acclaimed Indian literary journal The Brown Critique (1995–2015). Gayatri began her career as a journalist in the Press Trust of India and The Independent in Mumbai. She later worked as assistant editor of Indian PEN (then edited by Nissim Ezekiel).

Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout, I Know You Are Here, The Dream Pod, non-fiction The lotus of the heart and The Brown Critique Home Anthology which she co-edited. She is on the Review Committee of Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2021.

Gayatri is co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’ and has been co-curating the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival. She lives in Pondicherry, India, and is associated with Sri Aurobindo Society.

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Tagore Special :: Setu, May 2022

Witness to Life: a review of The lotus of the heart: realization stories 1

Reviewed by: Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

 

The lotus of the heart: realization stories 1

Author: Gayatri Majumdar
Page: 104, Edition: (2021)
ISBN: 978-93-84216-01-6 (Paperback)
Published as a Brown Critique Book.
Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry, India.

 

Gayatri Majumdar

    In his essay “The Decay of Lying” 1889 Oscar Wilde had opined that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. Gayatri Majumdar’s latest non-fiction book The lotus of the heart: realization stories 1 truly resonates with Wilde’s thoughts. The Preface is written by the award- winning poet Vinita Agrawal. The trials and traumas of the pandemic—the utter bleakness of isolation, the fear, the loss is cuddled in these stories. In the introductory note, she writes, “ I began to write these ‘realization’ stories just before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit Indian shores…It was a way to get back to the thick of things and complete the circle”. She thus gives her readers a subtle message that man is not answerable to Nature alone for his action, but to man as well. As one goes through the stories one realizes that it isn’t just Covid. Her realization about this fragile life, her philosophy, the journey of self-realization is cradled in a stand as though it were some sacred manuscript.

Sutanuka Ghosh Roy

    “You will share a cup of Cappuccino with yourself at this dream café where a thirsty fatigued broken ‘self’ meets Self –and in that grand peace-making rendezvous, you can literally melt in Self’s arms. That for you is the ultimate moment of recognition. The final cut”.  This journey within is the key to life. Her readings of various divine texts are kneaded with her own experiences which hold myriad hues of life. She does not renounce life rather she embraces life but shuns away from the extras that trap us. She writes, “I’ve struggled to discover this for a millennium: trying myriad ways to get here—from service to love to sacrifice to sex to hard labour to fame and hurt to altruism. And all that time, it sat quiet frozen with its Monalisa smile, never with urgency for it had the confidence that one day it would surface like a good penny and my whole world (as I constructed it) would come crashing, landing me with ‘pure nothing’ but for this indescribable moment—and the sweetness of it; the sheer bliss of it” (“You Are Safe Everywhere”).

       An implicit angst pulsates as the chilling subtext of contemporary life itself: the mind is a whirlpool of thoughts and no Guru can teach how to quieten the roller-coaster ride of the mind. One has to look within one has to embark on this journey to discover one’s self. Majumdar a clairvoyant, writes, “So, only on the path of ‘self-knowledge’ can you take the ‘spiritual journey’—being quiet and in an environment which is conducive for such recognition.” (“Tranquille, a Farmhouse Near Pondicherry”). Tranquillity is not a ‘noun’ it is an ‘adjective’ for life. Nobody can define ‘peace’ for ‘peace’ is self-realization. The collection of stories will make one think deeply about life and will offer the readers a holistic approach to life. Majumdar has been successful in creating a new genre of short stories—‘realization stories’. The language is simple yet deep. Each of these ‘realization stories’ bears witness to life, simple structure, claustrophobic mindscape, confinement, and the revolving door of life. “There is so much more pain in ‘escaping’. Stay. With the sun and the roses and the brothers and birds the babies and the lovers and the distant horns and the grass and the expanding universe; the silence and the love. Grab this moment. Live” (“Zakir Rose Garden, Chandigarh—The Great Escape”). In life, distress is a recurring theme--things fall apart no doubt but things can be put together too. Thus ‘living’ is more important than ‘escaping’.

    The titular story “The lotus of the Heart” is intensely personal. Majumdar writes of her grandmother Charulata the wonder-woman who held the fort with grace and élan. It was she who named her Poddo (Padma) –Lotus. In many different cultures, the Lotus flower is regarded as a symbol of purity, rebirth, self-regeneration, and enlightenment. Its traits are a perfect analogy for the human condition: even when its roots are submerged in the murky waters, the Lotus produces the most beautiful flower. “Charulata’s was the lotus of the heart”. “With life’s distractions and urgencies, we have missed or overlooked simple joys.” “Yet, once we start taking those steps, we find so much to smile about and look forward to waking up to this dream every morning. The new day begins and the universe is flooded with light” (“Conversations in Wonderland”).

     Majumdar’s stories have a soothing effect on nerves frayed by the stress of these fraught times. One can almost hear the rustle of the grass and the murmur of the clouds. This book of non-fiction is sure to make an indelible mark in the literary world.

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Setu, March 2022

Voices Within: Gayatri Majumdar

Gayatri Majumdar is founder, editor, publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout (Sampark), I Know You Are Here (Red River) and The Dream Pod (Copper Coin), The lotus of the heart (non-fiction) and ‘Home’ anthology (both by Brown Critique Books), which she co-edited. She is on the Review Committee of the prestigious Yearbook of Poetry in Indian English 2022. As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, she has been curating the annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival. She regularly features poets/musicians on 'The Brown Critique Gayatri Majumdar' YouTube channel.

Coffee Philosophy

If it were not so easy to find,

I would go crazy trying to locate it

in twin rainbows and brass goddesses.

Then over a cup of coffee you convinced me, 

kind of nonchalantly,

the earth and its luminaries

sprung from a seed

of time and space not of our making;

I didn’t believe you.

Look, how we fall over each other?

Getting high with incense smoke raising our ceilings,

wanting to die again, storm dancing uprooting,

collect rain in a bottle,

give a rain check to a reckless prophet

of a lazy hour stroked with dreams.

The Mother plays the organ –

Jesus points to his sacred heart;

we carry river pebbles in our pockets,

some slip through old holes 

in this collision of time

I sit here writing – not sure why – 

waiting for that coffee with cream

restless, I shift around artefacts and memories

in empty space crammed with myths.

***

Any Given Day

This time I refuse to capture

what is not there – 

let me instead list what is!

The hum, the buzz, the gurgling; 

the overcast sky and the breeze –

bamboo groves and little girl’s dreams.

Unmeasured time continues to tick

around a wooden clock 

with a slight tilt, mimicking as if

the earth’s axis. 

The laptop sinks into sea,

messages from other galaxies float 

losing their way,

looking for other destination.

Now my mind is agitated as small talks

and pink carnations get caught

in the spider’s web. I cannot sleep!

Across the heart, a little sun calms the eye,

warming empty talks and hatching eggs –

My body arches waxing – the sea swells;

my mind still deleting messages.

This time when I return,

I vow to crack the code of a potter’s dream.

***

John Reese

It’s been raining so hard here all day

the muddied sea lashing

stunned crows freeze on the ledge of sky

raindrops diamond the windshield 

of John Reese’s car;

someone’s life lays broken on TV

Rainwater continues to drench

the wrinkling afternoon

as salt-caramel ice-cream melt around our mouth

as we try to make this impression 

talking about the universe collapsing

in a bowl of celery and aparijita soup

The eyes tear up with the relentless rain –

all our dreams hacked in a dream

dreamt by nobody

So finally, this situation makes so much sense – 

‘stay tuned for scenes 

from our next episode …’

episode after episode – same soundtrack

Who will now save superhero John Reese?

***

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Setu, February 2022

FLASH NARRATIVE: Dreamscape

Gayatri Majumdar

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today…”
– David Bowie, ‘Space Oddity’

I had a very pious aunt, Minati Roy Choudhury, mother’s elder sister. She had a generous heart and a large house which had a small room dedicated entirely to her various gods and gurus – what they call thakur ghar¹.

Although she never talked about all the trauma she lived through her young adulthood as a wife and mother, I heard about them from numerous sources. Perhaps she could not recall what they were.

She had an unusual glow and infectious smile and seemed to remain unscathed by all the scars life inflicted on her. She had a soft corner for me as I was one of the few girls growing up in that household in Calcutta. Like so many others, her family of ten brothers and sisters were forced out of Chittagong in erstwhile East Bengal (now in Bangladesh). (She visited her hometown where she grew up with her son, Nabarun, in later years).

There are many precious memories with BoroMashi², but one particular event has left an indelible impression on me.

When, as a young wife and mother, BoroMashi was having to face unbearable cruelties, when, as the legend goes, she had a dream.In this dream, an elderly woman with grey hair and red-bordered sari gave her directions to a house in Calcutta; meaning she was given an address and asked to visit. And so Mashi did.

And that ensued a lifelong bond between her and her GuruMa. In the process, her entire extended family got involved with this tie. Guru Ma was a Yogini³ and devoted her life to prayers and bringing blessings on others. She was often surrounded with a handful of devotees.

I was around nine or tenyears old when BoroMashi started taking me to see her. There was something very becalming and restorative about the cool surroundings of the house with red floors during harsh summer days of Calcutta. God knows I needed to be there then, but apparently Guru Ma’s blessings were with me from the moment I was born. I visited Guru Ma a few times, sat along with her devotees engrossed in prayers and chanting.

When I was born, Guru Ma gave me a special name – PoddoKoli (lotus bud). I find it quite intriguing, pleasantly so, how two seemingly unrelated women (the other being my grandmother), but very close in their devotion and spiritual aspiration, called me by the, well almost same, name – Poddo or Padma (lotus flower). Was it just a mere coincidence?

This journey has been about persistentexcavation and discovering hidden treasures that lay buried in us – where time and space collapse and dreams and reality coalesce. Who is to say when dreams end? What is this dream made of? What’s its substance? Who indeed is it who is dreaming?

Where does reality begin? Is this also someone’s dream? Or is this a collective dream?

Do bald eagles, dolphins, butterflies dream? In whose dreams are they in?

I often get vivid dreams wherein I’m floating in space with Jupiter and Mercury brushing past me; I’m able to resolve complex emotional issues in my dreams; hug a friend in distress and who is thousands of miles away; have perfectly sensible conversations with my parents and other relatives who have passed on long since. Are they any less real? Not to me. For where should we draw the line?

Are we still human and in a human form, or remember we are, when we are dreaming? Or are we in god’s dream formless experiencing a human existence? For how is it we can fly when we step to the other realm?

Do we continue to dream when we die?

 

 

 

¹Thakur ghar is a room dedicated to the gods in many Bengali homes.
²BoroMashi: Elder aunt.
³Yogini is a woman who practices yoga.

 

 

Waking Up From Deep Sleep

Tat Satyam Sa Atman
Tat TvamAsi

(“That Reality is Atman
That Thou Art”)
– Chāndogyopaniṣad

At first the concept appears preposterous and perplexing; this idea of dream which I will describe in a bit.

The MāṇḍūkyaUpaniṣad¹ explains three states of “consciousness” which are “sleeping, dreaming and deep sleep”, and the fourth state is called “Thuriyam”². Just as we dream when we sleep, the waking state, this Upanishad goes on to say, “is a dream”. Only most of us erroneously consider it as “real”. How is that possible, you might object, especially when I can see, discern everything so distinctly around me? But then, we also do so in dreams – see the world as vivid as day.

“Everything is experience”; and I believe it’s never easy to grasp this concept unless it becomes experiential. And that’s what I mean by ‘downloads’ or recognizing your true ‘Self’. When one becomes intensely aware that all that there is is consciousness and all so-called objects we perceive are but appearances, it’s magic!

This phenomenon has been described variously as “emptiness” or the “neti, neti³” process – which all lead to the same place – the Self.

By no means does the story end here with the imminent collapse of space, time and ego, but it transmits you to that great expansive never-ending peace.

You then walk around this make-believe bazaar as if your life depends on it; it really does not! You are free to drop this structure this instant and, well, do whatever you please.

As our rishis⁴ have been indicating for centuries, we are the “drishti-shristiwallas⁵”, making up this creation as we go; just in our dreams, everything is as real as we believe it is. So in our waking state, this ‘reality’ is as much a dream. We call ‘objects’ around us by names and render certain attributes to them thereby solidifying the dream, as it were.

Then we go a step further cementing our collective ‘dream’. And god knows, we’ve messed this dream up, the reason why many of us suffer so.

Bhagavan Shri Ramana Maharishi says, “All that one gives to others, gives to oneself” and continues, “If one knows this truth, would one ever remain without giving?”⁶

When all that one perceives, becomes a part of the ‘Self’ – the light and stillness – who are we going to blame? Besides, who exactly is it that is going to do the blaming? Where did that doer (jiva) originate?

What form does it take?

Shankaracharya, in his AtmaBodha (‘Self-knowledge’) says, “…the moon shines as the sun’s light is reflected on it; where does the sun get its light from?” – “that Brahman should be realised”.

 

 

¹ The MāṇḍūkyaUpaniṣad is the shortest of all the Upanishads and is assigned to Atharvaveda.
²Thuriyam or Turiya is the state of liberation, where according to the Advaita school, one experiences the infinite (ananta) and non-different (advaita/abheda), that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended.
³Netineti is a Sanskrit expression which means “not this, not that” or “neither this, nor that”.
⁴Rishi: Enlightened person.
⁵Masters of simultaneous creation.
⁶A. Devaraja Mudaliar. Gems from Bhagavan (Chapter XIII); Sri Ramanasramam 1965.
 ***

 

Gayatri Majumdar is founder-editor, publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. Her published and upcoming books include A Song for Bela (a novel), poetry collections Shout, I Know You Are Here and The Dream Pod and non-fiction The Lotus of the Heart. She curates the three-day annual Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival.

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Setu, April 2021 :: Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire

Gayatri Majumdar: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Gayatri Majumdar

Gayatri Majumdar is founder-editor and publisher of critically acclaimed literary journal, The Brown Critique. She began her career as a journalist in Mumbai and her career encompassed leadership in the publishing industry.Gayatri’s work has been published in major journals and anthologies. Her books include A Song for Bela (a novel) and poetry collections Shout and I Know You Are Here. As co-founder of ‘Pondicherry Poets’, she curates the annual three-day Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival and other literary events. Her third volume of poems and a non-fiction book titled The Lotus of the Heart are due to be published in 2021.

 

If I Should Die Tonight*

It’s a cruel summer,
my measured breaths evaporate
turning my melodramatic heart into red Gladiolus.

I wade as if through this dream
collapsing at street corners, holding up fresh tomatoes,
a box full of fairy lights and a book;
waiting for nothing spectacular
only seasons change, butterflies migrate.
In dreams, there are no destinations.

I watch all my loved ones stoic like always
queuing to receive me with jewellery, complaints
and payash^; little nods here,
disapproving looks there
in corridors of infinite nothingness.
I join the feast and congregation of
these colourful shadows of my soul.

My finger dialling long-distance calls
to someplace else.

After all the weight of giving, receiving,
a pat, a few pranams, stories
of ghosts hoist beneath mango trees,
decades slip from my tongue.

When you passed away and away,
I should’ve grasped your hand –
whispered a poem into your ear
about journeys across captured lands
leading us to troubled shores, empty suitcases;
of contentious ideologies, MF Hussain and Madhuri Dixit.

If I should die tonight,
we will embrace this utopia
of aporia, repartee and unshackled
soliloquies – repeating tall tales
enough to make them believable;
gather again at funerals, Nandan, Waldorf;
listen to songs by Paul Robson and Suchitra Sen,
discuss Vivekananda, Robert Redford, Sukanta, Ganesh Pyne;
take jeep rides to Jalpaiguri –
I could go on.

If I should die tonight, rest assured
the message will beep across the Queen’s Necklace,
cricket fields, skywalks.

Shake your head a bit, share a photo
just as I did.
Find the peace. I did.

*Dedicated to all the loved ones I lost through 2020 especially between 3 April and 4 June
^Rice pudding

 

Absence

Busy morning,
I think it may rain.
The bells of the red & white church
toll at odd hours,
and b&w posters of long-forgotten smiles
now abound my busy streets.

Who would want to leave in such a hurry?
What is the urgency to converse now
about colours of sunsets and curries?

A lady draped in a sari
gathers flowers and farewells;
she tries to recall where she needed to be
with the park’s benches empty,
vacant chairs gathered by the sea;
flamingos calling out to the sky
losing their way.

Still so much to do;
and the coffee tastes like saw-dust,
days and clock-hours drift to unknown shores.

The lady now convinced she’s here for a reason,
wildly waves a white piece of paper at no one
in particular. No one is there.

She touches the morning’s face,
her days scattered to the blues and aroma of the living
and memories of brisk walks and arguments
in a dream park beside her slowing heart.

Generosity Fair 

At this Generosity Fair,
there’s large-hearted display of Ragi, raison & lemon cakes;
mandalas, cartwheels, vegan pasta,
Ming China, tea ceremonies, divine talk.
Sergei, a pied piper from Russia –
wandering keeper of lost ways of serenity
does not know the local language,
and so plays his flute all afternoon.

Someone decides the value of sentiments, our breaths,
what we should abandon, blow up in a minute!

A Swedish boy swings a rose crystal pendulum
dangling every struggle, every victory;
up for grabs are other vagaries and scars of time.
He mutters, you can rise from this deep sleep, re-imagine reality,
watch how the crystal always hangs around all that’s precious to me.

From the edge of a b&w sketch, a spirit bird rises
just this once again slipping away
from the edge of the picture frame, from my palm
flying beyond the walls, paintings, the trees and clouds.
Who would tag a price to this?

A little girl from Italy has her eye on my blue-silver empty chalice.
I give it away.

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Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021