Not sharing the poetry I wrote was a habit since I was fairly young. It was too personal. But now the personal and the private no longer need to be guarded.
This morning, as I cleared out the "junk" in my box bed - piles of papers, notebooks, files - I found several poems written a very long time ago. Much angst which, in retrospect, causes much amusement! But the most amusing of all was the file in which, over the years I had saved every bill, every receipt, every detail of monetary transactions... for YEARS! The one that topped the lot in terms of humour was a bill dated 1/9/1999 for a kg of mutton!
Absolutely marvellous, this ability to hang on to stuff.
At least some of it was worth hanging on to. Some of the poetry I found is offered below:
This was part of a play my Grade 12 students and I did in 2001 called "Janani". It was about women (of course!) and they liked this poem so much that they included it in the play. The poem is based on a contemporary report on infanticide in Rajasthan.
The Death of Innocence
Dumbfounded I watch
Images flitting across the screen.
Hear words tell of
The murder of innocence
Two houses in labour
Await births with hope,
Two cries of joy, announcing
"HELLO WORLD, I AM HERE!"
One house peals with bells of joy,
"A boy, a boy"
Rejoicing.
Silence in the other -
"Do you want to give
another dowry?" the midwife asks.
Frowns greet her question.
"NO."
The midwife disappears.
"Cover her face with
your dupatta, my dear."
The woman quells her mother's heart,
Takes one last look at newborn
Innocence
And shuts its eyes forever.
The tiny bundle struggles.
Its attempt to survive fruitless.
Fifteen minutes.
That's all it takes
To snuff out life.
******************************
This one is dated May 26, without a year. I guess it must have been written between 1988 and 1992.
Streams
searching out their paths
the deep gurgle
of others
somewhere within
the feel
the knowledge
of meeting
flowing together
and then the sea
the end
of individuality
and thus,
in dying (or the seeming end)
we find the
ultimate
truth
(with Supu and Ajay)
************************************
And a few pages later, in the same notebook:
From a dream about Dylan
The vision
they bring you
will be right
when
they bring
something
they haven't
taken from
someone else
**********************************
And another one at the end of the notebook, must have been 1991-92:
Can you imagine --
You and I
Rhyming our lives together...
Igniting passions long dormant
Loving and caring forever?
*********************************
Finally, this one from another notebook, luckily dated - 2 September 1993:
What do you do when
trudging long miles of
sand and gale
to reach home
You find the house empty
the doors and windows
gaping open
and still alone
The sweet comfort you imagined
the warmth you conjured up
to keep those dragging feet
still moving
Prove to be a mirage
not the oasis
and the gale brings in sand
inundating your hope
What do you do when
standing in the middle
of the gale and the sand
you find no one home?
This morning, as I cleared out the "junk" in my box bed - piles of papers, notebooks, files - I found several poems written a very long time ago. Much angst which, in retrospect, causes much amusement! But the most amusing of all was the file in which, over the years I had saved every bill, every receipt, every detail of monetary transactions... for YEARS! The one that topped the lot in terms of humour was a bill dated 1/9/1999 for a kg of mutton!
Absolutely marvellous, this ability to hang on to stuff.
At least some of it was worth hanging on to. Some of the poetry I found is offered below:
This was part of a play my Grade 12 students and I did in 2001 called "Janani". It was about women (of course!) and they liked this poem so much that they included it in the play. The poem is based on a contemporary report on infanticide in Rajasthan.
The Death of Innocence
Dumbfounded I watch
Images flitting across the screen.
Hear words tell of
The murder of innocence
Two houses in labour
Await births with hope,
Two cries of joy, announcing
"HELLO WORLD, I AM HERE!"
One house peals with bells of joy,
"A boy, a boy"
Rejoicing.
Silence in the other -
"Do you want to give
another dowry?" the midwife asks.
Frowns greet her question.
"NO."
The midwife disappears.
"Cover her face with
your dupatta, my dear."
The woman quells her mother's heart,
Takes one last look at newborn
Innocence
And shuts its eyes forever.
The tiny bundle struggles.
Its attempt to survive fruitless.
Fifteen minutes.
That's all it takes
To snuff out life.
******************************
This one is dated May 26, without a year. I guess it must have been written between 1988 and 1992.
Streams
searching out their paths
the deep gurgle
of others
somewhere within
the feel
the knowledge
of meeting
flowing together
and then the sea
the end
of individuality
and thus,
in dying (or the seeming end)
we find the
ultimate
truth
(with Supu and Ajay)
************************************
And a few pages later, in the same notebook:
From a dream about Dylan
The vision
they bring you
will be right
when
they bring
something
they haven't
taken from
someone else
**********************************
And another one at the end of the notebook, must have been 1991-92:
Can you imagine --
You and I
Rhyming our lives together...
Igniting passions long dormant
Loving and caring forever?
*********************************
Finally, this one from another notebook, luckily dated - 2 September 1993:
What do you do when
trudging long miles of
sand and gale
to reach home
You find the house empty
the doors and windows
gaping open
and still alone
The sweet comfort you imagined
the warmth you conjured up
to keep those dragging feet
still moving
Prove to be a mirage
not the oasis
and the gale brings in sand
inundating your hope
What do you do when
standing in the middle
of the gale and the sand
you find no one home?
