A Little Wit. A Little Wisdom. Lots of India.
By Divya Rajan
I drive by narrow lanes called eda
in colloquial malayalam, the walls hoarded with large
posters of Mohanlal and some teenager heroine
(who won the National Award for Best Actress,
I’m told, for carrying on precariously well
as a mother of an eighteen…
By Nitoo Das
Beloved,
I’m tired
and this drying body
remembers the crane-
white of your nails tonight.
The widows come in
limp droves everyday
and my ears scorch
with their words.
Today, Shanta told me
“They gave me powders
to choke my daughter.”
Her hands kept
fluttering to her head
as if to…
.
…By Anasuya Sengupta
Too many women in too many countries
speak the same language of silence.
My grandmother was always silent -
always aggrieved —
only her husband had the cosmic right
(or so it was said) to speak and be heard.
They say it is different…
The Lady makes a case for confusion in a short, bittersweet poem.
We spend our lives looking for answers,
Because we think the next answer will change something,…
By an ancient river meandering through an old city
Every once in a while
Wandering souls will pause,
In a timeless moment of togetherness.
Anil pens a short and sweet ode to the Taj Mahal.
Sayesha reinterprets the poet Kabir’s dohas, or rather condenses his dohas into snappy one-liners. For all you fans of Kabir, and all those who have never had a chance to read Kabir, this is a must read.
Keson kahan bigadia, je mooned sau baar
Man ko kaahe na moondiye, jaamein vish hai vikaarRough translation: What harm have the hair done, that you shave them a hundred times?
Why not shave your mind, which is filled with poisonous thoughts?Executive summary: Think positive.
Chennai Ramblings beautifully describes a relationship gone bad. Lovely verse.
Mayhap I faltered somewhere
When I told you
That I loved words
Any of them, all of them;
Forgetting that you were a magician
A Byron, Shelley, Keats and Tennyson
Rolled into one
Sadly, the poet seems to have taken a break from blogging. But you will find other beautiful poems in his archives.
Anitha pens a sweet and touching poem on moving from an old home.
The feast is over,
we tell the silverfish
and we raise a storm
of cleaning,
scouring old scars
that won’t go away
with the trickle
of tears…
temporal has a heart-wrenching poem describing a silent, hapless spectator in a hospital.
the patient is slipping,
will not see another dawn
if i speak up now
wailing will start
if i hold my peacethe night in quiet
will pass
There’s a triolet competition over at ammani’s place. What’s a Triolet?
It’s a short 8-line poem in which the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines and the first line is also line 4. Lines 3 and 5 rhyme with line 1. Line 6 rhymes with line 2. It will all become much more clear with this…
Oh, and this isn’t free. Be prepared to fork out an entry fee with a difference!
