Special Edition: Winds of Summer
Special Edition Authors: Winds of Summer
Shikha S. Lamba (Poetry+ Visuals) Meena Chopra (Art+Poem) Nivedita Roy (Photo Album)
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Showing posts with label Summer 2024. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summer 2024. Show all posts
Setu Special Edition: Winds of Summer
Summer 2024: Jerome Berglund
Jerome Berglund has published book reviews and essays on poetry and poetics in Fireflies’ Light, Frogpond, Haiku Canada, Hooghly Review, the Mamba, North of Oxford, Setu, Valley Voices, also frequently exhibits poetry, short stories, plays, and fine art photography in print magazines, online journals, and anthologies.
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| Jerome Berglund |
Summer 2024: Tim Poe
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| Tim Poe |
Cool crisp caress
Basking umbrella sways –
Beach breeze
Unhindered winds
Sunscreen and reflected sun –
Bald scalp
Rectangle red dragon
Floats left to right –
Left to right
Breezy window
City summer sounds –
Sirens blow by
Sandy wafts
Streaks run down my face –
Teary eyed
***
Bio: Tim Poe, a self-taught poet hailing from Canada, passionately weaves words into tapestries of emotion. His verses reflect a soul attuned to the rhythm of life, inviting readers into the intimate dance of his thoughts and feelings.
Tim Poe @TimPoeThePoet
Summer 2024: Snigdha Agrawal
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| Snigdha Agrawal |
Summer of discontent
I was ten, that summer of 1962. Like every other year, the khus-covered bamboo blinds in the veranda, were down from dawn till dusk, during those three months of April, May and June, serving to block the glare and heat. The garden hose pipe sprayed on the khus, releasing a rich, earthy, and woody aroma with a cool undertone, was a time-tested practice for cooling homes. Two tall stand fans facing the chicks (blinds) aided in stirring a breeze which accelerated the process. The khus perfume lingering in the air, conjured images of playing hide and seek amongst the tall grasses growing on the fringes of the gated community. That year, nothing helped. Nothing could beat the heat and dry winds from making its presence felt.
Being grounded indoors for the entire day was hard to deal with- especially for the ten-year-olds. Interacting with friends halted which added a further dampener. Of course, that did not stop little notes written on ruled pages, torn from exercise books, being sent back and forth between homes checking on each other. As the heat hit with greater force, blistering the asphalt on tarred roads, I was the first to break out in blisters, with the cursed chicken pox. Painful and energy squeezing. And though I was kept in isolation, soon my siblings followed, and then friends. It seemed the air-borne virus was visiting homes uninvited, to cut down our vacation fun times. A killjoy. With the constant comings and goings of domestic staff, no one had a clue as to who was responsible for the spread. The Community doctor sent out a “do’s and don’ts” pamphlet to contain the spread. Room coolers did little to alleviate the discomfort. Nor did the skin itching cease. Ma spent hours stroking the affected areas with neem branches in an attempt to soothe the inflamed skin spotted with pustules. Her hands were more than full, that dreadful summer having to deal with whining kids and coaxing us to eat. Drinking glasses of homemade lemon/barley juice diluted with water had a soothing effect on the throat and stomach. Otherwise, the tummy rebelled, rejecting any solids that came rushing up the gullet. Soaked flattened rice mixed with yoghurt to a soft consistency, and drizzled with sugar, became the staple diet for all three weeks of the isolation period, compelled to swallow under threat of being locked, beyond the prescribed period.
Lying in bed, the sudden dust storms in the afternoons without any warning, would give me gooseflesh, sounding like the symphony of a thousand hissing snakes. On one occasion, out of curiosity, I watched in awe, an approaching dust storm. Dust rising from level zero, swirling and twirling up and up, its mouth widening, resembling a kerosene stove funnel, gathering speed as it grew. And carrying with it all the debris, dried leaves and trash strewn around. A spooky sight. The only comfort was in reading books and disappearing into the world of the ‘Famous Five’ characters of Enid Blyton…racing with them across meadows with the wind on my face; jumping across little gurgling brooks running between the cottages.
These dust storms accompanied by hailstorms were responsible for wiping out the mango blossoms and with it the promises of a good yield. Trees that bore the green unripe mangoes, met a worse fate. The velocity of the wind shook the tender fruit hanging from branches onto the ground, dashing hopes of enjoying the ripened yellow mangoes. The King of fruits. Whatever could be salvaged of the green mangoes went for making green mango pickles. That year, the pantry wore a vacant look, with fewer ceramic jars of pickles on shelves. Likewise, other fruit-bearing trees in the garden bore the brunt of premature death; mulberry, papaya, and Jamuns (Java plum) trees, were stripped naked of their fruits, lying on the ground, dust-covered. The scattered black seeds of the papayas split open on impact resembling an old woman’s paan-stained teeth seemed to be smiling mockingly, at the immeasurable damage wrought. Pets, birds and wildlife were not spared. We lost a few Budgerigars kept in the cage. Pained to find them lying upturned, wings open, their fluttering eyelids stilled forever. The heat had taken a heavy toll. Most homes followed the practice of leaving water in clay cups on balcony ledges, for the pigeons. The lack of avian visitors suggested the worst.
That horrible summer, the Club swimming pool was drained and closed. Too risky they said. News of the chicken pox outbreak had alerted the management. Another wet blanket to add to the woes. The club premises were closed for fumigation, which meant all sports activities, indoors and outdoors, were suspended. Recall Baba sounding disappointed when he broke the news to Ma. The expat community, mostly Britishers, were impacted the most. The old proverb, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” applied more to them, at not being able to sit in the Club bar in the evenings, guzzling chilled beer, in between breaks of a billiards game.
The water scarcity was evident, with the reduced water pressure from taps. Residents were advised to be jurisprudent on water usage. The luxury of soaking in the bathtub called off till the water level rose in the reservoir from where pipelines were drawn, providing water to houses. No one resisted. Hard times call for hard decisions. Moreso, when some were dependent on water from the river for domestic purposes. With the lowering of the water table in the Khudiya River, they acutely felt the shortage, hardly enough to fill a bucket. Water that smelt putrid with dead fishes floating around, raising an unbearable stink. Wells had run stone dry. The clanking of buckets against stone, reminding of how cruel summer can be for the underprivileged.
that year of discontent…
summer logged in
putting filters to keep out the rains
and logged out
leaving devastation and pain
corrupting the landscape
till monsoons arrived
restoring life and faith
After a thirty-day of no rain in April this year, with temperatures peaking at 38.1 degrees Celius at Bangalore on 2nd May, the hottest day in forty years, opened long-forgotten doors in my memory, to that summer of 1962, when I was ten!
Summer 2024: Meena Chopra
My eyes tinted with moon-shadow
summer sun rises in the east
glittering through my window
golden tendrils softly graze mylashes.
Face radiant with a luster
dawn pours a liquid gold
hearts melt.
A warmth swirls my blood
my breath expands
a silicon soul circulates in my veins
shaping a new rhythm to my days.
My vision shrivels
the sun dips into the cyberspace
dusk unfolds on the window screen.
Night falls, churning algorithms
sky loops in the moonlight
fading shadows float
within the computing clouds.
Digits beat in my heart
my body dehydrates.
I become a nocturnal sprite
a native of a dream space
soaring in a lunar land
leaving no data to process
No black dust, no traces behind.
No shadows of networks to find.
Link to Video art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T06D3roj2Oo
***
Meena Chopra is a Canadian Indian poet, a visual artist, art curator and a producer of art and literary events. She lives in Mississauga. She writes both in English and her native Hindi language. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines and anthologies and also has been translated in Urdu, German and Punjabi. She has authored several poetry and art collections and co-edited an anthology. Driven by power of the abstract imagery, many times her art and poetry blend into each other. Meena advocates discovering collaborative experience between the literary arts and other art forms in order to give the audience a comprehensive and vibrant artistic experience and has a successful trail of producing such art and literary events behind her.
Website: www.meenachopra.art
Summer 2024: Antara Mukherjee
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| Antara Mukherjee |
That
summer
unbridled
a kalbaishakhi
on
our delta door
and
three terracottas landslided
a
quarter of the sky
over
my bed,
soaking
with petulance.
I
gazed above
at
that biasness of an open eye
crackling
a threat
on
our soggy sorrows
perimetered
by our tribulations
while
the fronds outside ruffled
and
wrestled the jargon of electric poles,
bird
nests, and langurs,
driving
them away
jubilant.
As
the wailing wind
lashed
hailstones
that
turned water on my tropical skin,
our home floated in broken pots.
But
then you entered,
a
greasy hurricane in hand simmering
a
purple distraction
wide
as
your silent promise.
***
Meandering Murals
This
afternoon scuttled
in a trail of carpenter ants
is bailed
by a floating market
of cirrus
clouds
unravelling
cities and worries
curating
murals calico
fleeced into songs,
carousal, tapestry
calling out to my summer window
where it unpacks a mane, hooves,
withers
running
into a woman on her haunches
stirring a pot mingling
with the muzzle still prominent
making
her more an animal
she
wants to mount, ride
those
edges fraying a little
her chore
disintegrated
as they
come apart
drifting into another
tale
***
Negotiations
A warp of wild grass in
our purple kanakambara
tangles
the hack of garden shears
into a weft and woof, wild;
for another waft.
A dog named Sindoora
by the color of her red collar,
or her hematite curl on the floor,
or her clotted wounds,
licks water heaving her last.
Our spell of summer
dissolves into the night
with your resolve
to hold us together, longer
as you leave behind
a string of purple kanakambaram
—weightless on my palm.
***
Bio: Antara Mukherjee is a writer based in
Mumbai with an interest in the human experience and its dichotomy. Her short
stories and poems have appeared in Kitaab,
Muse India, Sahitya Akademi, The Chakkar, Usawa Literary Review, Joao-Roque
Literary Journal, Verse Of Silence, The Alipore Post, Madras Courier, Hakara and
the Yearbook of Indian Poetry, among others. She has co-written a play that
premiered at the Bangalore International Centre in 2022 and she was one of the
participants of the Kolam Writing Workshop in 2023. Her manuscript was selected
for a mentorship program by Asian Women Writers, a platform by US&UK agents
to recognise upcoming women writers from Asia. Recently, she has been selected
as one of the writers for a fully funded residency program at Himalayan Writing
Retreat.
She is represented by Jayapriya Vasudevan.
She is represented by Jayapriya Vasudevan.
Summer 2024: Avantika Vijay Singh
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| Avantika Vijay Singh |
Pride
of India/ Jarul/ Queen’s Crape Myrtle
A palette of
purple
Displays the
Queen’s Crape Myrtle
Blooming like the
silver mist
Amidst April’s
hues from light to deep amethyst.
With petals that
typically crinkle.
Lilac hues adorn
Hushed whispers on
the morn’…
A tea brewed from
its leaves…
Holds the cure for
diabetes.
Such power to it
is born.
Its heart holds a
calyx
of a star with
points six
A Shatkona…
That in Hinduism
has grown
To symbolise
balance in its mix.
Between Shiv and
Shakti…
The unity of
opposing energy.
Between heaven and
earth…
A balance convert
The symbol of
balance and harmony…
Is it any wonder
then
That gazing upon
the Jarul brings content.
Aligning the mind,
body and soul,
In a complete
whole…
At peace immense.
***
Jacaranda
Lavender trumpets,
Trumpeting spring,
Springing through
early summer…
Jacaranda.
Amethyst arbour
Lushly loom
Storming sapphire
skies
Amaranthine…
Eternal… wisdom
brought from the moon by a priestess
On the Jacaranda
she lands with the Mitu bird
According to
Amazonian legend,
Shares her
knowledge with the people and then returns
From the Jacaranda
The staircase to
the moon…
Violet in the
vault of heaven
Trumpeting His
glory.
A sigh from the
soul
Peace.
Tranquillity.
A native of South
America,
but now a global
traveller.
Travelling
continents,
creating a
tropical storm.
A tropical storm
that calms…
Calming is the
effect it generates
Generating a
cosmic symphony
Breezing through
my consciousness.
***
Gulmohar
Flames of fire
Dressed in a flower’s attire
Rise higher
With summer’s ire.
Travelling from
Madagascar
It arrived into an
Indian summer…
A vibrant stunner,
Is summer’s
drummer.
Flamboyant in
their ferruginous
With gold-tipped
filaments numerous
Waging wars
illuminous
On the morning
mutinous.
Crimson
tongued-petals converse
With the universe
In heroic verse
And I in their
glory immerse.
A crimson lake
increases
Beneath the trees
With the morning
breeze
As the flowers
fall with ease…
My feet carry me
through this tapestry
That remind me of
a soldier’s gallantry…
On the battlefield
for his country
And the subsequent
honour in a grand pageantry.
***
Rangoon
Creeper/ Madhumalti
Madhumalti…
A dressy flower
Changing colour…
white to pink to
red.
Shy and demure…
flowering in
bunches.
Gazing downwards
On the vine she
grows.
Madhumalti…
Reminds me of the
ashta nayika –
the eight types of
heroines
in ancient Indian
literature.
Bedecked in
vibrant hues
she is Utkanthita nayika …
the one
who awaits her beloved
in shringhar
rasa…
Her
long tresses perfumed
with
flowers beaded amongst them
and
jewellery adorning her…
Her
face aglow with expectation.
Like
Radha waiting for Krishna…
Incidentally,
ancient tales
Compare
the pink flowers to Radha
And
the white ones to Krishna.
And
together they dance the raas leela…
celebrating the
eternal bond
of love
in the sea of
devotion.
***
Gulmohar
the dancer
Tak dhina dhin
dhin
dhin dhin tak
The sound of the
mridangam
resonates in my
ears as I see
in full bloom…
the Gulmohar…
The flowers
sway gently in the
wind
decked in
brilliant crimson and gold
like a
Bharatnatyam dancer
tak dhin dhin
dhin dhin dhina
tak…
The five-petalled
gulmohar
with its four
crimson petals
and the fifth one
cream
with splashes of
red
akin to the
pleated fan of
a bharatnatyam
dancer’s saree…
The red magnifies…
with red petaloid
sepals
below the red
petals
like the
underskirts…
While their
undersurface
remains green.
Their sinuous scarlet
stamens
like maidens in multiple
mudras.
I am enchanted
with their beauty
and grace
and their innate
rhythm
as they dance upon
the breeze…
And my heart
dances with them.
***
Bio: Avantika
Vijay Singh is a writer, editor, poet, researcher, and photographer. She is the author of two solo poetry books i.e., Flowing… in
the river of life and Dancing Motes of Starlight (her
debut ebook). She is the winner of the Nissim International Award Runner Up
2023 and has been published in national and international journals. She also
writes the blog “Ordinary People, Extraordinary
Lives” in the Times of India.
Summer 2024: Hema Ravi
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| Hema Ravi |
Bald, not bad…
A warm temperate summer afternoon.
This Mom sat at the edge of the nest, ‘eagle-eyed.’
The baby was flapping its wings constantly, eager to
explore the world around it.
Whenever any other species was spotted at a distance, Mom
let out the ‘territorial’ scream, to keep the intruders away.
Who thought human moms were the best?
These raptors have a ‘motherly’ heart – an undeniably
inherent goodness in caring for their offspring.
Interestingly, bald eagles are majorly monogamous,
divorce rates are impeccably low. There is a just and judicious division of
labor and the pair work together to build their nest; while males bring the
‘materials,’ females do the ‘assembling.’ While the female is busy incubating
the eggs, the males hunt for themselves, their partners, and the chicks when
they emerge.
Now, isn’t that what caring and sharing is all about…
After caring for them when they are fledglings and until
they are juveniles, the parents let go!
The young eagles explore and fend for themselves.
No ‘over-protecting,’ or ‘over-perfecting,’ just
‘responsible parenting….’
Breeding usually occurs between October and May. Eagles usually choose tall trees near water
as roosting sites. Their nests are lined
with twigs, grasses, and other soft materials as seen in the picture below.
Summer 2024: Santosh Bakaya
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| Santosh Bakaya |
Dissonance and Consonance of Summer
There is a cascade of Gulmohar flowers on the old, rusted, dented Maruti 800 of the neighbor. A profusion of red on white. I wonder why he has retained it, although he owns a brand new car now. Maybe for old times’ sake. Magically, the car looks bright - as bright as the faces of the school kids having their surprise summer break- because of the intense heat wave.
Capacious clouds cheerfully cruise crisscrossing the sky and a light drizzle starts falling.
Ah, what a heartwarming sight! A scorching hot day is miraculously cooled, punctuated with excited peacock calls. Platoons of pesky parakeets take off every few minutes into the sky, get lost in the clouds, swoop down again, and settle down on their perches.
A sudden gust of wind zooms past and a standee falls flat, almost crushing an emaciated cat. But she is saved, not from the heat wave, but from death. With an anguished meow; she scurries away in a safe corner, licking her wounds. An old man passing by wipes beads of sweat from his wrinkled forehead, glaring at the scorching sun and looking kindly at the just-saved cat.
But the cat is a wicked one. She dashes off towards a spot, from where she growls at the nest hanging precariously from the discarded cooler in the neighbour’s house. The pigeon couple hovers protectively over the nest. The cooler is silent, but the feline is not. She is growling in anticipation of food, but the neighbour’s son shoos it away. But the overhead sun has again come back.
The month of May in Jaipur is the season of amaltas (Indian Laburnum), gul mohar, lots of blazing sunshine, and dust-storms, malevolent enough to destroy thatched huts, and trees.
A soft, soothing lullaby drifts from across a shack near the construction site. A group of women, flamboyantly attired in ghagra choli vociferously beat drums hanging around their necks, going from house to house asking for money in loud voices. The sound of the lone koel gets lost in the drum beats, so does the sound of the lullaby. There is life everywhere, dissonance and consonance go hand in hand.
Coleridge had rightly said," No sound is dissonant which tells of life.”
There is vibrant life in every mote, every rustling leaf, every pulsating petal, and every sizzling stamen. There is musicality in the sounds of summer and a resplendence in its sights.
Kids romp under the protective yellow canopy of the dangling Amaltas, befooling the rays of the scorching sun, sabotaging its plan of singeing the ground. Round and round they go, as the loo becomes hotter. I recall a friend who always used to carry an onion to school, to ward off the evil ‘loo’. But the 'loo' has its own unique sound, and it comes stuffed with memories- of nimbu paani, lassi, of water melon juice lovingly prepared by dad and mom, when we returned from school in scorching summer months.
Then came the summer break - what a melodious sound the very mention of it created! Loud screams, louder guffaws, indoor games and late evening bluster and bonhomie!
Indeed, No sound is dissonant which tells of life.
The shades of green add color and coolant to the tired eyes and sweaty souls.
I am reminded of the ice-creams that granny slurped in those long gone summer months and dad lovingly asked her not to make those sounds. But she insisted in flawless Kashmiri that one cannot enjoy homemade ice-cream without making those sounds! Sometimes on a blazing hot day she would go where the road was rutted by the heavy wheels of tractors and camel carts, and there was a profusion of hillocks on both sides of the road. There, she would sit on one of the hillocks, listening to the rustling sounds of a scintillating memory collage of her homeland, Kashmir. Scenes would come to life -crystal-clear lakes reflecting the cerulean blue skies, blooming gardens splashed with myriad hues, and mountains draped in a verdant green outfit. Nature, a proud fashionista, flaunting its assets, unabashedly. Her ears would be riveted to the honking Geese, cuckoos calling, golden orioles’ trilling, and boatmen singing, in a haunting pitch.
"Granny, do you know, the dust storms make the hillocks disappear? What if you had disappeared along with the hillock?"
Yanked from her reverie, she would throw back her head and laugh, and laugh. I believe that the sound of that sing-song laughter is still ricocheting in the Jaipur air.
“I am too deeply entrenched in my roots to be uprooted.” She would remark with a far off look.
As I cap my pen, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead (there has been a power outage) I hear my mom’s voice, "Baby, do drink that nimbu paani lying on the dining table."
The sound of my mom’s voice is there. But does it tell of life?
Yes, it tells of a life - that was!
I head towards the kitchen to make nimbu paani.
A sudden drizzle has again started – ah, what a refreshing sound!
A flash of lightning
Raindrops on the window sill
A happy songster trills
Summer 2024: Roopam Chadha
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| Roopam Chadha |
Winds Of Summer
Winds of summer blow
to the chimes of her silver anklet
when she walks over the sands of dried rivulet
where once gushed the crystal flow
Winds of summer blow
ripening the mangoes from
emerald to amber
swaying the fields of hope where
vibrant marigold and sunflowers grow
Winds of summer blow
across the lush verdant hills
to unfurl the hues of winter
under the warmth of the azure sky
melting the pearls of snow
Winds of summer blow
to meet the scent of petrichor
where cuckoos sing on soaked branches
and peacocks dance in mirth below
Winds of summer blow
to the rhythm of guffaws
when the kin gets together
on the terrace, on jute charpoys
and silver spangles of the cosmos
shine and glow
***
BIO: Roopam Chadha is an award-winning bilingual poet. She is a graduate in Economics (hons) from Delhi University. She has authored two books of English poetry. She received an award for her debut anthology ‘And the Canaries Sing On’ from ‘Autism for Help Village Project Trust” (2021). She has also won the best English collection award for her second anthology ‘Blushing Candles’ from The Literary Warrior Group at Sahitya Akademi New Delhi (2023). Her poems share space in several national and international anthologies. Besides writing she also pursues her passion for painting.
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