Categories
Poetry

A Tale of Every Night

By Shamik Banerjee

A TALE OF EVERY NIGHT 

By midnight, once his bottle's downed and trashed,
They sprawl out on the couch and talk of stuff
Still unresolved: which tutor for their son
Can make his Latin-fearing brain more tough,
Some loan-related duty yet undone,
Or which investments need to be encashed.

Amidst such things, if something unrequired
Sprouts like a weed upon a verdant yard—
Some past discordance or unfounded blame—
It makes the husband seize her, all off guard,
Distressing her with words that sear like flame.
No sense of fault can douse his evil fire.

And she, the lesser, stands there like a wall,
Mute to his waistbelt's whips. Perhaps, such wild
Savagery even beasts might pause to use.
She finds a little corner, and their child
Has ample proof before him to deduce
The weak's meant to be trampled after all.
Painting by Picasso (1881-1973)

Shamik Banerjee resides in Assam with his parents. Some of his recent works will appear in York Literary Review, Willow Review, Thimble Lit and Modern Reformation — to name a few.

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Categories
Essay

Metaphorical Maladies

By Satyarth Pandita

In her seminal work, Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag delves into the intricate realm of disease metaphors and presents evidence from the literary field that has employed metaphors for human illness, especially tuberculosis and cancer. Sontag draws on a rich literary history, referencing the works of Stendhal, Karl Menninger, Thomas Mann, Charles Dickens, Thomas Wolfe, Franz Kafka and others, to illustrate how metaphors for diseases have been ingrained in our cultural psyche. The two diseases, TB and cancer, discussed at length in the essay, are viewed from innumerable literary points of view. Fictional and real-life views of people surrounding these diseases have been put forward, which betray a cacophony of contrasting and similar ideas.

Sontag astutely dissects the contrasting metaphors associated with tuberculosis and cancer. Tuberculosis, she argues, has been romanticised and considered more socially acceptable and often viewed as a glamorous affliction. “Having TB was imagined to be an aphrodisiac and to confer extraordinary power of seduction. Cancer is considered to be de-sexualizing.” Sontag describes the tumour as “a foetus with its own will”. She further states that TB is a disease of poverty and deprivation, whereas cancer is a disease of middle-class life. She adds that cancer is associated with affluence, with excess. The metaphors associated with the diseases, she contends, not only affect the body but also shape societal perceptions and cultural narratives. The metaphorical attributions of TB and cancer in literature and society echo broader societal perceptions of class and status.

Published in 1978
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)

There is an aphorism by Heraclitus that men have devised gods in their own images, and as Sontag states, the nomenclature of ‘cancer’ is derived from the Greek- karkinos and the Latin- cancer, both of which mean crab. She clarifies by quoting Galen that since the external tumour’s swollen veins resembled a crab’s legs, that is how it got its name. This tendency to associate unfamiliar things with familiar ones is common; people often perceive shapes in clouds, drawing comparisons to known objects. Similarly, diseases are often viewed through familiar frameworks. Since diseases afflict and weaken us, they are often seen as adversaries. Thus, labelling the experience of battling cancer as a fight imbues individuals with a sense of hope, suggesting the possibility of victory amidst adversity.

Sontag, betraying the nature of cancer as a slowly progressing disease that suddenly manifests without any warning, presents the earliest evidence where it was first used metaphorically by Wyclif in 1382. “The word of hem crepith as a kankir”.She assembles the different metaphors associated with Cancer, which are as diverse as the number of human illnesses. For her, Cancer is a source for topological metaphors: “spreads”, “proliferates”, “diffused”, and “excised”.

The essay examines the mythologies and superstitions associated with these diseases and how metaphors sometimes wear the cloak of superstition, too. But metaphors make the understanding of the disease more manageable. Metaphors are a means of understanding the meaning of things. That which cannot be explained as such can be explained by metaphors. In his books, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley states: “It is difficult, it is all but impossible, to speak of mental events except in similes drawn from the more familiar universe of material things. If I have made use of geographical and zoological metaphors, it is not wantonly out of a mere addiction to picturesque language. It is because such metaphors express very forcibly the essential otherness of the mind’s far continents, the complete autonomy and self-sufficiency of their inhabitants.” The metaphors will exist, and educating the masses is the only way to stop them from becoming a stigma or superstition against that disease.

Published in 1954
Published in 1956

Quite possibly, the doctors refraining from revealing the true nature of disease inherently to the patient might reflect the notion of fear of death. The diseased person might perhaps think that death will come to everyone but him. Revealing his cancer to him might imply the idea of the inevitable approaching death. Thus, employing the metaphor of ‘battling’ with cancer provides a sense of relief to the patient of emerging victorious in the battle. A diseased man on the bed is akin to a newborn baby, with the only difference being that in one, the river of life has begun to flow, whereas, in the other, it is on the verge of drying. An afflicted man is as helpless as a baby. He craves for care. In this vulnerable state, directly discussing the illness may be too distressing, necessitating the use of metaphors to convey the situation. The patient’s understanding is limited. The only truth he has made a pact with is the slipping of time and the approach of death.

Regardless of how one has lived, everyone desires a death with dignity. Yet, why is it that some illnesses seem to afford this dignity while others do not? What criteria determine whether an illness is seen as favourable? Is it pain or time? The dilemma is akin to choosing between jumping into a well or off a cliff―Death awaits at both ends. As Susan Sontag herself ‘battled’ breast cancer, one cannot help but wonder whether the book would have been different had her affliction been tuberculosis instead. The essay appears biased, elevating tuberculosis and its sufferers while diminishing the dignity of cancer patients. It only examines these diseases from a personal perspective. TB has been presented as a glorified disease, whereas cancer is something that rots the body. Only briefly does the essay touch on the societal perceptions that label tuberculosis as a disease of poverty and cancer as a disease of affluence.

It is not only cancer and TB that have attracted metaphors or have been known to be identified with them. In fact, every other disease and illness is accompanied by metaphors, like an object and its shadow. And it must be noted that some diseases, apart from being associated with metaphors, are linked with gods and deities.

I recall a passage from the book The Monkey Grammarian in which the author, Octavio Paz, describes a scene inside the ‘Temple of Galta’ which is also known as ‘The Monkey Temple’ in Rajasthan: “The children leap about and point to the stone, shouting ‘Hanuman, Hanuman!’ On hearing them shouting, a beggar suddenly emerges from the rocks to show me his hands eaten away by leprosy. The next moment, another mendicant appears, and then another and another.”

The Mark of the Beast was written in 1890

When I first read this passage, I was immediately reminded of the story ‘The Mark of The Beast’ by Rudyard Kipling and a paper that I had read related to the story titled ‘Recognizing the Leper: Hindu Myth, British Medicine, and the Crisis of Realism in Rudyard Kipling’s The Mark of the Beast’. The author of the paper had woven the interconnectedness and drawn parallels between the story, the leprosy affected character and Hanuman-lila. In ‘The Mark of The Beast’, an Englishman named Fleete, in the company of his two friends, desecrates a statue of Hanuman inside a temple with his cigar and declares it as ‘the mark of the beast’ but is soon embraced by a “mewing” leper who emerges from behind the statue following which, Fleete begins to develop skin discolourations and starts exhibiting animal-like behaviour. In the paper, the author establishes a connection between Hanuman and leprosy to justify why the Hindu monkey god is often called ‘sankat-mochan’ or ‘liberator from distress’. Drawing reference from the study of Hanuman lore by Philip Lutgendorf, the author argues how Kipling’s story resonates with a specific Hanuman-lila that relates his manifestation as a leper before the 16th-century saint Tulsidas.

“Instead, he [the tree ghost] told Tulsidas to seek the grace of Hanuman and revealed that the latter came every evening to a certain ghat in the form of an old leper to listen to the narration of Rama's story; he sat at the back of the crowd and was always the last to leave. That night, Tulsidas surreptitiously followed the leper, who led him deep into the forest before the poet finally fell at his feet, hailing him as the Son of the Wind. As the ghost had predicted, the leper "denied a thousand times" that he was anything other than a sick old man, but Tulsidas persisted in his entreaties. Eventually, Hanuman manifested his glorious form. Raising one hand over his shoulder to point southwest, he said, "Go to Chitrakut," and placing the other hand over his heart, added, "I promise you will see Rama.”

 Illness as Metaphor should not be considered a caution about metaphors in their relation to illness but rather a critique of their misapplication, where these metaphors can morph into stigmas that persist in people’s consciousness. “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later, each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place,” Sontag states in the opening lines of her book-length essay. But, unless one is born in the mythical Shangri-La, and as long as humanity exists, illnesses and their accompanying metaphors will persist, evolving with each new malady that emerges. Today, it is cancer, just as yesterday, it was tuberculosis and COVID-19. Tomorrow will inevitably bring new illnesses, accompanied by a fresh set of metaphors that shape our collective understanding of the ever-present shadow of illness in the human experience.

Satyarth Pandita is a Junior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. He completed his dual degree of Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Biological Sciences (major) and Humanities and Social Sciences (minor) from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal (IISERB).

Links to Satyarth’s published works, email address and social media handles can be found here.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Stephen Philip Druce

Stephen Philip Druce
ADVICE IS FREE BECAUSE IT'S WORTHLESS

Go on a skiing holiday -- it will do you good.

You're a novice that doesn't walk with any
measure of style or grace, so fly off an
icy mountain at seventy miles an hour on
a pair on sticks,

olympic skiers get injured but you're exempt
from such physical injury because you're a
manager of a launderette,

ride a motorbike, it's the freest way to travel,
free to leave the road and land on your head
three fields away,

bungee jump! the ten second thrill 
is worth the trade off - whiplash and
long term spinal damage,

fly on an aircraft as often as you can,
you have more chance of getting struck
by lightning than crashing in an airplane.
Ignore the fact that unless the machine is
in perfect working order you could nosedive
from thirty thousand feet into an ocean bed
that is so deep the creatures there have teeth
shaped like tennis rackets,

undergo plastic surgery!

Put your blind faith in a bogus surgeon who
may consequently render you with half a chin
and no nostrils. Forget the post-op catastrophe,
okay so you entrusted a surgeon with the credentials
that extended to that of a pottery teacher -- he
fled with your cash and now you breathe through
your ears, but give it a go.

Ocean surf!

Take advice from the veteran surfers who lost
all their limbs and torsos to numerous shark 
attacks. They can still roll their heads onto the
surfboard. There is nothing more aesthetically
pleasing than watching a human coconut surf
on a giant pitta bread.

Get a tattoo!

The best way to pamper your soft, elegant, 
silky skin? -- deface it with ink! ink! A substance
that if spilt over your coffee table would spark
a major household crisis, but your precious 
velvety skin? -- screw it, you're good to go and
vandalise yourself with tacky meaningless ink stains.


THE BIG LIGHT

She made a candlelit dinner,
but without thinking he put
the big light on so he could
see what he was eating -- so
she left him,

keeping her happy was like
walking a tightrope for him,
and the night he put the big
light on, he fell screaming,

he hit the ground, unlike
the falling leaf he caught
when he placed it in her
palm and asked her to
make a wish,

he always forgave her, like
a bird forgives another for
stealing its bread,

and as he flew alongside her
he wondered how passing clouds
could find their way home,

he would talk about how the sun
and the rain could make pretty
rainbows - the colours of the flowers
on the mountain he climbed to pick
for her,

but without thinking he put
the big light on so he could
see what he was eating -- so
she left him,

finished her meal,

blew out the candles
and left him.


ANALOGY OF A POLITICIAN

Two schoolboys are summoned
to the headmaster's office for
stealing apples from a tree
belonging to a resident next
to the school field,

One of the boys admits to
stealing an apple, but tells
the headmaster that his friend
didn't take one -- though both
boys took an apple each,

one of the boys is given detention
but the 'innocent' boy escapes unpunished,

the 'innocent' boy tells the headmaster
he is profoundly remorseful for being
present at the scene of the 'crime',
and though regrettable he fully understands
the decision to punish his friend as it isn't
fair on the owner of the apple tree.

The 'innocent' boy is the politician.

Stephen Philip Druce is based in Shrewsbury UK. He is published in the USA, India, the UK and Canada. He’s written for theatre plays in London and BBC 4 Extra.

Contact: Instagram – @StephenPhilipDruce

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Categories
Slices from Life

Hooked for Life and Beyond…

By Ravi Shankar

I was hooked! It was my first exposure to a computer though I had read about these in the newspapers and seen them on television. I think it was a Spectrum personal computer popular in the 1980s. My friend, Sanjay and I did a few simple tasks and played a few games on the computer. The games of the 80’s were slow and clunky by today’s standards. In those days however they were interesting and enticing. BASIC was the most popular computer language then. We also had COBOL and a few others. My good friend, Sanjay Mhatre was a bibliophile and a free thinker, and I often used to visit his place and borrow from his vast book collection. However, even in the 1980s there was uneasiness and opposition to computers and the fear that it would replace people and lead to mass unemployment was often mentioned.

The rise of information technology (IT) and the important role to be played by Indian companies was still in the future. I expect artificial intelligence (AI) will also open new jobs in the future. At my medical college in Thrissur, Kerala, India computers were still rare. Communist Kerala had a love-hate relationship with computers and technology. Maharashtra (a western Indian state) was an early adopter of computers, and my tenth- and twelfth-mark sheets were computerised while my MBBS ones were handwritten. During my postgraduation at Chandigarh, computers gained prominence in our conversations. Our head of the department was gracious enough to offer the services of his secretary for typing our research manuscripts when she was free. The only other option was to pay for the service from outside providers. In those days WordStar and WordPerfect dominated word processing. 

Creating slides for presentations was a challenge. LCD projectors were not available, and we had to create physical slides with cardboard mounting. The slides were created on early versions of PowerPoint and photographed using a camera to create the physical ones. My co-guide, Dr Anil Grover (then a cardiologist) at Postgraduate Institute (PGI), Chandigarh mentioned how computers will become increasingly common and encouraged me to learn the Microsoft package of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. PGI also started offering email facility on a limited basis. You had to write down the details of your email and take it to the IT section who will send your message. We had modems then, which took a while to connect and made a series of sounds with flashing lights while connecting to the internet.

In Pokhara, Nepal at the beginning of the twenty-first century, internet was still a luxury. Manipal College of Medical Sciences used to charge 10 Nepalese rupees to send a message. Faculty could type their message in Outlook and twice a day, the IT person would send and receive messages. In those days, a floppy disk was the most common external storage device, and I soon had a large and colourful collection of floppies. Floppies were not always reliable and sometimes the data on them could not be read. CD-ROMs were another storage device, but CD writers never became commonplace. At Mahendra Pul in the heart of Pokhara, a new cybercafé came up in the early 2000s offering internet browsing at 150 Nepalese rupees per hour. Compared to what we were previously paying, this was a steal!

The college also had an LCD projector though it was not commonly used by faculty members for teaching-learning. This was a large and clunky device. Earlier versions often had compatibility issues. You create your slides and hope for the best. These may or may not open on the laptop and may or may not be projected. One had to have a backup of the lecture on overhead projector (OHP) transparencies, just in case. We did not yet have easy access to computers or laptops. This came only later when the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) set up a drug information and pharmacovigilance centre at the teaching hospital. We got two excellent Dell computers, and the hospital provided us with internet.

The early computers were slow with a big, bulky, and heavy cathode ray screen. They had a blinking cursor and words appeared slowly after typing. The Hollywood movie, You’ve Got Mail (1998), follows the romance between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks developed through email. The movie is a good introduction to the early days of the internet.  

We had purchased a home desktop computer in 2001 or 2002. This purchase was a financial disaster. The computer required frequent repairs and drained our finances. Google launched its beta version of email, Gmail in 2004, and I was one of the early adapters. I became a fan of Gmail right from the start. It offered significant advantages over the then dominant Hotmail, Yahoo mail and Rediff mail. The storage was larger and there was no need to delete your old emails. Kist Medical College in Lalitpur, Nepal had purchased Dell desktop computers, and these were among the best ones I had used. Fast and responsive with good memory and speed. These had LCD monitors and looked sleek and modern.  

Computer technology has made significant advances. I read that if cars had made similar advances to computers we could drive to the moon and back on a litre of gasoline. Chips started getting smaller and more powerful and are today fought over by the global technology superpowers. A variety of online applications started making their appearance with the spread of the internet. Some of these eventually became the internet giants of today. In India, internet became widely available, and the costs dropped significantly. Mobile technology also made dramatic advances. In India most people access the internet and carry out online tasks using their mobile phones. For around 12000 Indian rupees today you can get a decent mid-range phone. Today mobiles in the palm of your hands have greater processing power than the giants of the 1950s and 1960s. I remember reading a comic strip where a visitor from the future time travels to the present. He laughs on seeing the supercomputer, the most powerful one on earth. When asked why he shows a small ball and introduces it as a computer from his time with much greater processing power than the humungous supercomputer.

One of the major advances has been cloud computing and cloud services. We have Chromebooks that work on web-based applications and needs the internet to do things. Both Google and Microsoft offer a range of services including storage, meetings, messaging, and applications for text, presentations, and calculations. AI is now an integral part of applications. PowerPoint offers the designer option for slides and creates stunning backgrounds. I recently attended a workshop on Copilot, the AI support software from Microsoft that is fully integrated into all their applications. I like the transcribing option for interviews and focus groups offered by Teams and later by Zoom and this makes my life as a researcher easier.

Star Trek, Futuristic computing

When I was growing up, I had no clue about what would soon become commonplace. The world wide web, the ability to browse libraries and art collections, video conferencing, online work processes, applying for government and other services online, online fund transfer and remittance are now at our fingertips. The COVID pandemic shifted a lot of learning and even assessment online. Presently we mainly interact with computers using a keyboard. I am a fan of the sci-fi series, Star Trek, where people interact with computers mainly using their voice. Voice commands are already available and  steadily improving.

I was slow getting into social media. Their judicious use is to be recommended. Facebook keeps me updated on what my friends, acquaintances and former students are doing. LinkedIn is the professional face I present to the world, Twitter (now X) is a concise way to stay connected and YouTube is a major source of entertainment. Computers have changed our life for ever. At a basic level these are based on the flow of electrons through circuits and on the pioneering work in atomic physics done at the start of the twentieth century.

The last three decades have seen developments and changes at unimaginable speed. Who knows what the next three will bring? Will progress continue at an ever-accelerating pace or will we eventually hit a roadblock? We may have to wait for Father Time to provide the answers!

Dr. P Ravi Shankar is a faculty member at the IMU Centre for Education (ICE), International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He enjoys traveling and is a creative writer and photographer.

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Categories
Poetry

The Stone-Ribbed Lane

By Radhika Soni 

THE STONE-RIBBED LANE

This stone-ribbed lane is familiar to me,
I have traveled its air before,
Drawing the whiff of chamomile tea,
Brewing inside a closed door.

Stray notes of a piano in my ears,
Waft from the window across;
From the melody, it appears,
The strain that's playing, is one of loss.

The cars sitting atop the wheels,
Appear to have not budged for long;
The place resounded with laughter
In those times, when children thronged.  

How still and silent are its nooks,
Where you and I once strolled,
When stars gleamed from the sky's hooks,
As we sat under a dim lit pole.

The once bustling lane appears to sleep,
As in the distance ships set sail.
Though my feet desire to leap,
The heart still wants to prevail.

Radhika Soni writes in quest of harmony. She is greatly influenced and inspired by the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, W.H. Auden and William Butler Yeats to name a few. She loves nature walks.

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Categories
Review

Thus Flow the Verses…

Book Review by Malashri Lal

Title: Nadistuti: Poems

Author: Lakshmi Kannan

Publisher: Author Press

The title plunges us into the sacrality of resonant words, the Nadistuti sukta being a hymn in the Rigveda in praise of rivers. Poet, novelist and translator Lakshmi-Kaaveri equates the flow of the waters with ‘the flow of poetry’, the quiet mingling of streams of remembrance and phrases that shape into lines of verse. Her book is dedicated to Jayanta Mahapatra ‘who lives on’ and an exordium titled ‘Naman’ offers gentle tribute to H.K. Kaul, who was among the founders of the Poetry Society of India and passed away during the recent pandemic. Nadistuti is a brilliant and thought-provoking collection of poems that charts the timeless continuums while being aware of the fragility of human existence.

The book begins with a prayer to the River Narmada (meaning ‘the giver of pleasure’), which divides the north from the south of India. Yet the rippling waters have no boundary—a philosophical observation that I find marks much of this remarkable volume. Remembering Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu, Kaaveri, devotees recite the shloka[1] at their morning bath seeking the blessings of the rivers. Though such rituals are mostly forgotten in modern times, the climate crisis should remind us of the consequences of such amnesia. The invisible Saraswati is possibly a metaphor for such “forgetting” simply because of her partial invisibility. Lakshmi Kannan’s vibrant lines recall the disappearance of the river as also of Saraswati’s appearance in another form as a revered Goddess invoked by “students, writers, musicians, dancers, painters”. From the Nadistuti I learned the word— ‘potomologist’—the study of rivers, but the book is far greater than an academic enquiry—it’s a recognition of the civilisational bloodline that is linked to the ancient rivers which  were the earliest cradles of humankind.

Some extraordinary and innovative aspects Lakshmi’s book deserve special mention. First, the remarkable prose- poem called ‘Ponni Looks Back’ which stretches the boundaries of imagination in a charming manner.   Ponni is the name of the river Kaaveri in classical Tamil Literature.  It flows through Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and is always perceived as a woman. Lakshmi tracks Ponni’s autobiography as though writing a Bildungsroman, the education and growing up of an innocent girl and her experiences along the way. Therefore, Ponni is born as a small unobtrusive stream on the Mysore-Coorg border. Then she becomes prominent and significant, and a vital witness to history—the Hoysala kingdom, the classical arts of Belur, Halibid, Somnathpur, then carrying on further to wrap around the islands of Srirangapatnam and Srirangam and so on. I enjoyed the autobiographical voice of Ponni reveling in her centuries of testimony to all the changes she has observed and imbibed—till we come to the new politics that is destroying rivers and society today. Ponni says, “One day I heard different voices floating over my waters…they sit around tables, shout at each other and refer to me dryly as the Kaaveri dispute, wrenching my waters apart”. Like yet another goddess, Sita, she chooses to end her journey. Ponni merges with her mother, the Bay of Bengal —her love and amity having completed what tasks she could undertake towards humanitarian goals. The world of manmade disasters is a chapter River Kaaveri would rather not participate in.

My question here is: “Do poetry and politics merge?…  Can poets continue to be as Shelley called them ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world’?”  This brings me to another significant aspect of Nadistuti: Lakshmi’s brand of subtle feminism. Predictably, I am drawn to the poems that argue against son-preference, challenge gender stereotypes, and poke gentle barbs at unenlightened men.

Second, I cite a longish poem called “Snake Woman” from the section titled Chamundi, because it combines rituals, dream imagery, gender prejudice and the paradox of son preference. The ritual is called Nagapuja and has strict rules of abstinence from certain foods like snake gourd, and it entails hours of prayer—the chant being:

Please grant me a male child
Oh, King of Cobras
I will name him Nagaraja
In your honour.

Something strange started happening that the pregnant woman could never dare reveal to the world. She dreamt every night of a female baby cobra wearing jhumkies (long earrings) and a jeweled girdle and sporting a red dot on her forehead. Well, the baby born was female—and the happy mother, though a little fearful, called her Nagalakshmi. The mother-in-law showed acute displeasure: “She can have any name.  Who cares!”

Another pregnancy, again the rituals of Nagapuja—more stringent than before. No dreams this time. And an eagerly welcomed boy-child is born, enthusiastically named Nagaraja. And guess what? As he grows up, he ‘hissed at is mother’, ‘bared his fangs at his father’ and ‘spewed venom on his sister’.  These are poet Lakshmi Kannan’s vivid vocabulary for the revered son! And the snake woman sister, what happened to her? She sloughed off her skin seasonally, grew strong, capable and emerged as a “lustrous one”.

I selected this poem for more than just Lakshmi’s clever reversal of gender prejudice. Snakes have a central place in the folktales and folklore of India. The word used, “theriomorphic”,  denotes  situations, where animals and human beings interchange  bodies and identities. Snakes are not evil—they are often the progenitors of good deeds and the shapeshifting happens for many commendable reasons.  The figuration of the snake as exclusively evil does not derive from Indian mythology. Lakshmi’s poem, this one and several others, tread this beautiful territory of humans and non-humans sharing a common abode, the Earth, and there is an implied lament that we have ignored this vital connectivity.  

And finally, I am delving into the emotive, personal poems that end the collection. Called  ‘Fireside’, it invites   memories of WB Yeats’ classic lines:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book…

Lakshmi addresses many members of her family; they are named, thanked and remembered for their acts of love and compassion. Because Lakshmi believes in history and continuities, as we have seen in ‘Ponni Looks Back’, and the Nagalakshmi reference, these too are poems about lineage, heritage, respect and love—the attributes that make life worthwhile. Lakshmi’s mother (addressed in the poems as Amma) was Sharada Devi, an acclaimed painter in Mysore and Bangalore whom the daughter remembers with her easel-mounted canvas gently acquiring colours, the landscapes emerging from the contours of her imagination. Today, Lakshmi Kannan, the poet of Nadistuti, looks at a blank sheet of paper and compares that to her Amma’s canvas—the words will surely incarnate. Another poem has a redolent title ‘In Search of Father’s Gardens’, upturning African American writer Alice Walker’s book In Search Of Our Mothers’ Gardens, but for me it’s a tale reminiscent of Lakshmi’s early novel Going Home that I had reviewed decades ago. It was a book about ancestral homes and families breaking up. In the reconfigurations over time, Nadistuti’s final section presents poems to members of Lakshmi’s immediate family, named, but not too personalised, making this an exemplary template for those who hesitate to present the private in public poetry.  With beauty, grace, gratitude, humour, irony—each person emerges as a tributary in the flow of the poet and writer we know and love as Lakshmi- Kaaveri. The last poem ‘If You Want to Visit’ is deeply poignant.  It’s not a farewell poem—instead it’s an invitation to an eternal companionship:

Come
Visit me now 
I’ll not have a word of complaint
I’ll gather all of these and leave with you.

Here is the confluence of all that Nadistuti says: the day’s prayer in the morning, the Ponni River encapsulating history, the rituals that pass through many generations, and the legacy of a poet’s words embedded in the annals of time. An exquisite and meaningful collection of poems, Lakshmi has introduced concepts of poetic writing that are evocative of the ancient Rigveda and equally provide the guiding lamps for modern choices.

[1] Holy chants

Malashri Lal, Former Professor in the English Department, University of Delhi, has published   twenty one  books of which Mandalas of Time: Poems, and Treasures of Lakshmi: The Goddess Who Gives   are the most recent. Lal has received several research and writing fellowships.  She is currently Convener, English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi.

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Poetry

‘…The Young in One Another’s Arms…’

By Kirpal Singh 

SPRING IN INDIA

I arrive just as Spring begins —
There are the usual songs
And dancing which excite,
Especially, the merry young.

For oldies, like I, it’s nostalgia. 
I recall Yeats and his haunting line —
The young in one another’s arms —
What happened in my life?
Where did my youth go?

It’s okay mutters a soft voice — 
You have other springs to enjoy!
Excerpted from WB Yeats’s ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ (1927)

Kirpal Singh is a poet and a literary critic from Singapore. An internationally recognised scholar,  Singh has won research awards and grants from local and foreign universities. He was one of the founding members of the Centre for Research in New Literatures, Flinders University, Australia in 1977; the first Asian director for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1993 and 1994, and chairman of the Singapore Writers’ Festival in the 1990s. He retired the Director of the Wee Kim Wee Centre.

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Travel

The Storied Past of Khiva

Narratives and photography by Gita Viswanath

Entrance to Khiva

If you thought time travel was only a captivating concept in science fiction or theoretical physics, try experiencing it in Khiva! Located in the heart of the Kyzylkum Desert in Uzbekistan is the ancient city of Khiva, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990.  With its immaculately preserved city walls and stunning monuments, Khiva transports visitors back in time to the days of the Silk Route and the prosperous empires of Central Asia. When five of us planned a trip to Uzbekistan, we knew we would encounter history in every nook and corner of this utterly enchanting country. However, to see it all preserved with so much care and thought was another experience all together. The credit for this goes to Uzbekistan’s first President, Islam Karimov, who took up the task of restoring monuments and returning to the Uzbeki people, their rich and layered history and multiculturalism after years of Soviet rule.

Our guide, Murat led us through this treasure trove of history and architectural marvels with a quiet, thoroughly knowledgeable air. We set out after a hearty breakfast at Zarafshon Boutique Hotel, conveniently located within the walls of the Itchan Kala (Inner City), to walk for the next four hours through its mesmerizing, labyrinthine streets that reverberate with the sounds of a folklore ensemble’s traditional music, tourists’ chatter, guides’ narrations, and shopkeepers’ entreaties to buy their wares.

A city that goes back over two millennia, Khiva was one of the oases along the Silk Route. The Silk Route, an ancient network of trade routes connecting the East and West, spanning thousands of miles across Asia, resulted in the exchange of goods, ideas, faiths and convictions that ultimately transformed and defined history in a way that has an impact to this day. Ever since, Khiva thrived as a centre of trade, commerce, and cultural exchange. It became an important city in the region, famous for its wealth, power, and architectural splendor.

The skyline of Khiva is defined by its walls, reminiscent of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. Itchan Kala, enclosed inside magnificent mud-brick walls, packed with straw, dates back to the 10th century. Within these walls lie architectural marvels, including the Kalta Minor Minaret, Toshhovli Palace, the Muhammad Amin Khan Madrassah, and the Juma Mosque.

Kalta Minor minaret

The incomplete Kalta Minor, with its arresting turquoise minaret towers over us at 45 meters. Soon, the colour turquoise became so omnipresent in our photo gallery that we needed to use Google Lens to distinguish one from another! Muhammad Amin Bahadur Khan, the Khan of the Khiva Khanate intended the minaret to be the largest and tallest in the Muslim world at 80 meters, exceeding the height of the 73-meter Qutb Minar in Delhi. According to the historian, Mulla Olim Maxdum Hoji, the Khan could not have his way due to his untimely death in a battle near Sarakhs in 1855. Twelve of the sixteen verses inscribed on the minaret are those of Muhammad Riza Ogahi, a poet from Khiva, who was witness to its construction. The writings were pulled down during the Soviet regime, only to be restored after Uzbekistan’s independence. There is a belief that criminals were dragged up to the top of the minaret and thrown down, although there is no historical evidence to support this. It remains a tale told by the guides to tourists who go, “Oh nooooo!”

Tosholvi Palace

Moving on to the Toshhovli Palace, which means ‘Stone House’, we were captivated by the decoration comprising ceramic tiles, carved stone and wood. Built by Alla Khuli Bahadur Khan between 1832 and 1841, it has more than 150 rooms with nine courtyards. The high ceilings of the rooms are designed to keep the place cool in the summer months of this desert region.

Known for his impatience, Allah Khuli insisted that the royal architect, Usto Nur Mohammed Tajikhan, build the palace in three years. When the architect nervously said that it would not be possible, he was impaled and Kalender Khivaki took over along with the famous tile decorator, Abdullah Jin. It took eight years and the labour of nearly a thousand slaves to complete this structure that we, today as tourists, gape at in complete awe. The unfading colours of the glazed tiles owe their lasting quality to a technique called “ishkor,” mastered by the craftsmen of another era.

Embedded within the intricate tile work of the Toshhovli Palace is the hilarious story of how Allah Khuli picked a woman from his harem for each night. The region is known for its large pomegranates, with juicy seeds as red as rubies and Khuli is supposed to have flung one fruit into the quarters of the woman he desired. The fall of a pomegranate through the window, then, alerted the woman! Murat and the five of us had a hearty laugh and one of us even wondered aloud, ‘what if he didn’t have good aim,’ or ‘what if the window was closed!’ Murat shrugged his shoulders, a tad embarrassed.

Juma Mosque

The austere and monastic, yet splendid wood carved pillars and roof of the Juma Mosque stands as a contrast to the rich colour palettes of the other monuments. According to the Arabian geographer Al-Mukaddasy, the Juma Mosque was constructed in the tenth century. This one-storey brick building with a flat roof was rebuilt over the ruins in 1788 with 25 of its 212 pillars, made of black elm wood, recovered from the original structure. The roof has small openings to let in the light.

Beyond its architectural majesty, Khiva resounds as a living testament to the cultural heritage and traditions of Uzbekistan. In its stark brown desert landscape, the colours of Khiva’s monuments, ceramics and hats stand out in a sharp and endearing contrast. To this day, the bazaars of Khiva are filled with artisans who continue to practice traditional crafts such as carpet weaving, pottery, and silk embroidery, preserving age-old techniques and skills passed down through generations. The great artistic legacy lives on in the silent monuments staring down at you as well as in the bustling bazaars with warm, hospitable people who are especially partial to Indian tourists given their adoration of Bollywood films. In fact, fans of Hindi films, of which there are aplenty in Uzbekistan, rattle off names of stars ranging from Raj Kapoor to Shah Rukh Khan! Parts of the Hindi action film, Yeh Mohabbat Hai (This is love, 2002), directed by Umesh Mehra were shot in Khiva!

The rumble in the belly with all the walking we did brought us back rudely into the moment and we headed straight to a restaurant recommended by Murat.  Food is such an integral part of travel and we did full justice to the spread that consisted of fresh salads, bread called non, straight out of the wood-fired ovens, and the ubiquitous lamb. As Khiva continues to enthrall travellers, it remains a guiding light of history, culture, and heritage in the heart of the Uzbekistan desert. It remains a mute witness to a borderless world of yore.

Gita Viswanath is the author of two novels – Twice it Happened (2019) and A Journey Gone Wrong (2022), , a non-fiction book, The‘Nation’ in War: A Study of Military Literature and Hindi War Cinema (2014), and a children’s book, Chidiya (Bird, 2018). Her short films: “Family Across the Atlantic” and “Safezonerz” are available on YouTube.

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Categories
Poetry

Less Human Love

By Tapas Sarkar

LESS HUMAN LOVE 
 
In the early days of my young heart,
I fell in love like other lovers of history.
I saw beauty in a rose believing, ‘it cannot be un-pink’
Even if it is plucked.
Separating my heart from my psyche and self,
I believed in spoken love, desire, and darkness.
 
What the heart spoke, I agreed.
What love meant, I believed.
There were conditions in love,
Or love in the conditions.
It was like a bird in a cage,
Or a cage without the bird.
In between, I died a thousand times
To be reborn in millions…
 
From somewhere to nowhere or vice versa.
Still, I believed in fair promises against time.
With a definition of broken love
Eyes departed, lips dried...
Heart spoke less words, beauty spoke nothing,
And, I was blamed for believing in "less human love".
 
Today, the more I introspect on human love
Being less human,
The more I hear the echoing voices:
“There is always a pause in a journey,
An easy midway, to begin afresh.
There is always an end to an earthly path,
Which yet reminds us to begin anew.”

Tapas Sarkar is a researcher at Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Bihar. Along with his research, he writes poems, short stories, and novels. His debut poetry book is Dancing in Solitude: A Book of Poetic Sense (2023) and has edited a Bengali poetry anthology, Digante Canvas (Canvas on the Horizon, 2020).

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Categories
Stories

The Buyback

By Devraj Singh Kalsi

Ten years after selling the ancestral house, Anoop returned to his roots – to the small town he was eager to leave, to grow big and flourish where a plethora of opportunities lived. Finding a new building constructed on what was once his inherited land, he stood outside the entrance in awe, pulled out a postcard-size photograph from his shirt pocket, and tried to match the similarities between the past and the present. 

Gazing intently to observe the elements that stood firm despite the ravages of time and circumstances, the heavy iron-gate that guarded the grand entrance to the bungalow was the solitary link to his forgotten past. With a fresh coat of paint of a different shade, it looked ready to embrace visitors with the same warmth that it exuded earlier. As he pushed it gently to enter the premises, the creaking noise that used to irritate him was music to his ears now, capable of bringing a wistful smile to his face that conveyed a lot about his changed mindset.

Trudging along the cobbled path leading to the porch, Anoop decided to thank Girish, the present owner of the property, for showing the rare spirit of preservation. There were several similarities adding up, carving the image of a liberal owner who did not exercise the freedom to overhaul everything for a complete makeover. The jackfruit tree close to the boundary wall and the alcove with the tulsi plant stood green and abundant as it did in the past, offering ample evidence that he maintained a fine balance between legacy and modernity. 

Anoop was sequencing the thoughts he would share as soon as he was welcomed in. A dilemma prevailed over whether he should take time to unfold his actual purpose or quickly get to the agenda that had ferried him here. The tension was palpable as he pressed the doorbell with the arrogance of a feudal landlord who was still not ready to wake up and accept the new reality. 

His roller-coaster journey was a classic example of the story of an unexpected downfall, followed by a meteoric rise in no time. He felt it was his responsibility to erase the era of his decline because the lost ground was recovered. He made it a mission to acquire everything he had lost during the lean phase. With confidence in divine support, he knew a miracle was waiting to happen, to turn the tide in his favour and bestow upon him the status of ownership of this property once again. 

Not quite confident of an enthusiastic welcome, Anoop had come alone to strike a deal that did not carry the support or consent of his family though they shadowed him wherever he went. This would be the first occasion he would get full credit from his wife and son if he achieved success in what appeared to be a challenging task: buying back the house he had sold. 

The question that remained unanswered was whether Girish would agree to sell. Anoop was aware that such a proposal had rarely been made and was unlikely to be accepted. Even though the odds were high, Anoop was prepared to make it lucrative. As a businessman, he believed deals are sealed only when they are attractive and the greed for more money envelopes the wisest. 

Guests and visitors turning up without a prior appointment were fobbed off. The big bang of his arrival was met with a louder response as the afternoon siesta was disturbed. A mumbling, grumbling Girish opened the teakwood door and recognised Anoop standing at the threshold with folded hands. His expression of annoyance changed to a warm, receptive tenor, inviting him in with a quick shower of queries related to the absence of his family. Anoop was accorded the deferential treatment he deserved as a former owner of the property.

“Seems my arrival at an odd hour has impacted your rest,” Anoop apologised after making himself comfortable on the leather sofa.  

“Not at all, brother, I was about to go out for a stroll in the garden before having my evening tea. Now I will have your company,” Girish sounded courteous as he sat opposite Anoop who looked around to admire the aesthetic beauty of the interiors and could not resist asking him whether his spouse had done it all. 

“She is an artist, and whatever you see here is her choice or creation,” Girish attributed the pervasive beauty to his beautiful wife Amla who was waiting to be introduced with a glowing compliment. She emerged from the bedroom in her casual dress and flip-flops, flashing a radiant smile, and reached out to Anoop for a warm handshake. Anoop stood up to greet her while Girish sat cross-legged and kept his fingers crossed while watching their handshake that stretched unduly long. The connection was instant as Amla had a preference for well-dressed men wearing good perfume. His body language suggested he was far superior to the host in every possible way including mannerisms. 

Amla sat on the other side of the couch where Girish spread himself, adjusting her curls and waiting for Anoop to throw a question at her. Before he could ask for anything, Girish ordered Amla to bring tea and snacks for the guest. 

Anoop seized the moment with an offer that compelled Amla to remain seated. Employing sharp, concise language to outline his decent proposal, Anoop opened his briefcase and took out the cheque book. The couple, unable to guess what he was up to, looked at each other with curiosity that was settled once Anoop offered Girish a blank cheque and clarified, “Actually, I am here to buy this property. At the price you quote.”  

Having dropped a bombshell, Anoop waited for some time to see how they reacted. He put on his dark shades to prevent them from reading his mind, reposing full faith in the power of money to deliver the best deal in his favour. The swiftness of the episode was making it difficult for Girish to internalize it. But the reality of a blank cheque was nothing less than winning a lottery. It was a tough contest between the greed of ownership and the greed of wealth – the seller had to resist the temptation of growing richer and the buyer had to get the property at any cost. Anoop did not want to engage local heavyweights to apply pressure tactics on Girish, to compel him to sell. He chose to come to the suburban town to ink the deal with the most lucrative offer Girish could ever get during his lifetime. 

“Other than the price factor, there are aspects you must realise. For example, my willingness matters first. What made you think I was going to sell it in the first place? Did I buy this property from you with the condition of selling it to you after a decade? Even if you shell out the highest price, I will not sell it,” Girish made his decision categorically clear and looked eager to show him the exit door. 

Unwilling to lose the opportunity, Anoop tried to soften his stance with an emotional pitch, citing a bright future in the autumn years. “Stop being a fool. I am paying you as much as you want. Do you have any idea of how much this property means? I did not spend the money to buy in Mumbai or Dubai. This piece of land is of greater value to me. You can take the amount you want and buy a fancy penthouse in any posh project. Wake up and grab it,” Anoop rallied forth like an aggressive dealer. 

“I am well-settled here. My wife and kids are happy. Why should I sell it? Just because you are paying an exorbitant amount? Or simply because you need it now? It appears your memories buried here have become more important after you turned rich. If you did not have excess wealth, I’m sure you would not have bothered to come here again,” Girish went ahead with much greater conviction and candour. 

The abundance of wealth made Anoop keen to get back in touch with his past. Girish was accurate in his analysis and chose to defend his right to refuse the lucrative offer.  

“Let me be honest since you have put it right. I am here because the house, more than a century old, belonged to an illustrious family that had migrated from the Punjab during the British Raj and built an empire. Four generations lived here. Eleven members died here. Fourteen were born here. I am the last survivor with two kids with the burden to preserve the heritage. Something I cannot explain, and you cannot understand. You cannot rationalise a blank cheque for this property that was sold for peanuts to you because the circumstances were different then. You gained because of my misfortune, and you paid much below the market price but I am offering you many times more than the current market price. It is not just another piece of land for me,” Anoop put it bluntly, to make his position clear. 

Girish was a first-generation entrepreneur introduced to wealth in recent years. He rose from a middle-class family background and slogged hard to garner success. He was pricked by what Anoop said to make his accomplishments look tame.  

“You have come unannounced and thrown a blank cheque, with no regard for the thing called consent. This is undemocratic even if you offer the best price, thinking I will not have the choose to refuse because you offer the highest price possible. Remember, you were in debt when you sold this property. You accuse me of paying less than the market price but it was the highest price you got. Exploiting people in trouble is nothing new. We all do it to build our fortune. Before you add another word related to the memory of your ancestors here, just think that my kids are growing up and creating memories for themselves. Tell me, are the memories of the dead more important than the memories of those alive? No compulsion prevails in my life as my circumstances are skewed in my favour. Forget the idea of buyback. Scout for something else. You are possessed by the idea of fixing the past. But this property is not up for grabs,” Girish gave his final two cents.

The conversation was losing mutual respect, with a distinct possibility of unilateral withdrawal. Girish was not sure how long he would be able to essay the role of a good host despite being insulted and lured by the guest who had the singular agenda of securing possession of the property. Amla had been a patient listener throughout the exchange, without interrupting the flow with her opinion. Before Girish asked Anoop to leave the house, Amla chose to engage with Anoop without her husband’s consent. 

Sensing this as a god-gifted opportunity, Anoop took interest in her words. Unlike Girish, she wowed the offer and was glad to get it. Showing her hand to stop Girish from interfering at this point, Amla silenced him and took center stage. “I am his better half, and I must think better. He has grown attached to this house in just a decade and you are naturally attached to this property as you have spent almost your entire life. You have a valid argument in this regard. This is our first property as we lived on rent earlier. But I do not mind selling it since your offer is fabulous. So, let’s do like this. You can issue two cheques – in the name of the husband, and in the name of the wife. You can split the amount equally – 25 crores[1] for each.”

Anoop could not believe this deal would click with her intervention. He did not have to try coercion or anything like that. Amla co-operated and took complete charge while the argumentative Girish was now a meek lamb, unable to utter a word against her decision.  

Anoop wrote the cheques as he was asked to write by Amla. Girish was still unable to comprehend why she accepted the deal with Anoop. He knew Anoop was paying far more than the market price and Amla facilitated it without his consent. Girish had every right to ask her why she did so, but the aspect of marital turbulence weighed heavy on his mind.

“So, you got the property quite unexpectedly. It is a small price for something precious like the Kohinoor. Girish wouldn’t have agreed to sell. It is profit and gains for both parties. We should celebrate it,” Amla proposed, with absolute disregard for her husband who could not recover from the shock of his wife’s unilateral decision. He regretted making his wife the co-owner of the property. 

It would take a month to complete the formalities of transfer and the ownership would return to Anoop. He was eagerly looking forward to the day when he would become its legal owner once again. He had no changes in mind except the installation of the marble statues of his father and mother. He felt this would be the best honour as he thought the only child would make the lineage proud, thanks to the solid principles inculcated during his childhood years. To safeguard the future of the property from his own son, Anoop created a trust to maintain the ancestral property and deprived his son of the right to inherit it. Besides, the price he had paid for its buyback would never become the market price, even in the next hundred years.   

The entire town got to know about the buyback, and how Anoop had returned to strike a deal. Usually, the old gives way to the new but this was an odd case where the new paved the way for the return of the old. The revival of the past caught the imagination of the young and the old. He wanted to be ready with a convincing narrative for those who were interested to hear the story of his turnaround although there would be some skeptics who would never buy the idea of a vision that propelled him to rebuild his life.

The burden of guilt was off his chest and Anoop thanked Amla for making it possible. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she wanted to look at the world with new hope through a firmly supportive financial window. Her reaching out to Anoop helped her fund her dream venture and begin life anew while he got back the property without facing a struggle. The divorce from Girish would happen without a long-drawn legal battle as she would not have to claim alimony from him. Amla realised this was the best opportunity and encashed it. 

In her subsequent exchanges with Anoop, Amla mentioned she had moved to the West to pursue her dreams at forty. Anoop gave full credit for this buyback to Amla who wanted wealth and freedom at the same time. At times Anoop felt bad for Girish who lost his house and wife around the same time, but Amla assured him that Girish was not the kind of person worth shedding tears for as he had hurt many people in his life without a tinge of remorse.

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[1] Rs 250,000,000 – Crore is an Indian unit for ten million

Devraj Singh Kalsi works as a senior copywriter in Kolkata. His short stories and essays have been published in Deccan Herald, Tehelka, Kitaab, Earthen Lamp Journal, Assam Tribune, and The Statesman. Pal Motors is his first novel.  


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