Categories
Poetry

I Do Not See

By Tom Merrill

          I Do Not See
 

 I do not see the stars tonight
     Nor wonder if they shine,
 For many years have passed since I
     Wished any beauty mine.
 

 I do not seek the flowered wood's
      Unworldly hush and stir,
 Nor are there cherished haunts of mind
      As long ago there were.
 

 I find no sail to lull me now
      Away to courts of dream,
 And upward from the sod I push
      Blue skies fade out unseen.

First Published in The Hypertexts

Poems by Tom Merrill have recently appeared in two novels as epigraphs. He is Poet in Residuum at The HyperTexts and Advisory Editor at Better Than Starbucks.

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Categories
Stories

Shoes in the Forbidden Attic

By Vidula Sonagra 

Unlike kids her age, Kaju was never very excited about summer vacations. For her it meant no school, no math class, no meeting Rani and Pooja, no playing hopscotch. Several of her aunts and cousin aunts from across Madhya Pradesh and few from Maharashtra spend the entire summer vacation with their children. It meant more work for her mother and kakis*. Which in turn meant more household chores would be assigned to Meena didi*, Heeru didi and herself. Nonetheless she looked forward to meeting her cousins — Tina, Babli, Ankita, Neelu, Pintu, Rahul, especially Nikita and Avni.  Nikita and Avni were daughters of Chand bua, who was her father’s first cousin.

 Chand bua always received a grand welcome by her brothers, cousins, and sisters-in-law. She lived in Bambai (Mumbai) where Nikita and Avni went to English medium Convent school. They wore readymade clothes and always wore colourful socks with their shoes. Kaju was a year younger to Nikita and a year older to Avni. They had difficulty in adjusting with the toilet system, yet they seldom complained about it. They were a bit snobbish, but they were often bullied. Sometimes Kaju protected them and sometimes she participated in bullying them.  Kaju wished, she was just like them, some days she wished she could punch them in their face. 

 When they arrived, both wore lemon yellow dresses with black hair-bands and shoes with matching socks and mushroom haircuts. Kaju was thrilled to see them. But also, a tiny bit envious of them, especially of the shoes Nikita wore. Nikita wore the shoes all the time. The label on it said, ‘Made in USA’. To Kaju’s annoyance, Nikita without fail mentioned it to everyone. She bragged how her father got those for her when he went abroad. Truth be told, her father never travelled out of the country. Her mother had bought them from the flea market outside Ghatkopar station. After patiently exploring and skillful haggling, Chand bua had a knack of finding and buying classy clothes. 

  Kaju and her cousins spent the summer like most other summers. Playing, fighting, pulling each other’s hair, stealing dried berries and imli*, forming and reforming teams, plotting against each other, learning to fly kites, playing challas* and simply making memories that would someday be cherished by them or haunt them.  When no one was looking, Kaju wore the ‘Made in USA’ shoes. They fitted her so well.  She walked across the room like she was a movie star. She dreamt of wearing them to school and flaunting them to Rani and Pooja. She wanted them so much so that she hatched a plan to steal them and hide them till her school reopened.

 A day before Nikita and Avni’s departure Kaju took the blue shoes which she had thought of during the summer. She meticulously planned when she would steal them and also where she would hide them. The attic would be the best place to hide her steal. Except Seema kaki, Hiroo didi and Meena didi, Kaju had not seen anyone access it. She had seen them going to the attic only a few times in the wee hours. When she asked Hiroo didi and Meena didi to take her to the attic, both forbade her to go to the attic and spoke. They had only gone there to feed the monster who came in their dreams when he was hungry. They warned her against going to the attic as the monster was not fond of children. Kaju knew they were fooling her. But didn’t have the heart to go to the attic till that day. She had heard somewhere; monsters are only wake up in the night. If she went in the daytime, she could still hide it. 

 Just after lunch, Chand bua was busy packing for her return. Nikita and Avni were fast asleep as they were tired from meeting relatives all morning to bid adieu and have sumptuous meals and sweets prepared especially for them.  Kaju slowly entered the room where dadu* and Viju kaka* were napping. She picked up the shoes and went to the middle room hiding it under the frills of her layered frock. It was one of the darkest rooms with one clerestory window borrowing light from the kitchen. It had the door to the attic. Boo was lying on the bed. Kaju thought, Boo too was napping. But to her terror she was wide awake. Staring. Staring into nothingness. Boo has been that way since Magan dada* — her stepson died last winter. They were just eight years apart. She had taken care of him like a kid brother since he was two years old. She never doubted that she would be the first one to go. She wasn’t prepared to live in a world without him.  Kaju soon realised, even if Boo was staring, she wasn’t seeing anything.  

 Kaju slowly climbed the table that had the tailoring machine and unlatched the door from the top. She climbed the steps like a cat. The attic was stuffy and dusty with pigeon feathers all around. Proximity to the iron roof made the dung floor even hotter.  Window at the end of the attic was on source natural light. Kaju, three feet two inches, could barely stand straight in the middle of the attic that had slanting roofs.

On the one side there were two large, rusted trunks, with several bundles of cloth. On the other side there were heaps of stove woods, few chipped pots, a large rat cage, a string on which several stained cloth pieces were hung. It was nothing like she had imagined it to be. In her mind the attic was a room with a large bed for the monster, cupboard, table, TV, and a large pot of drinking water. Kaju was terrified with the setting and aura of the attic. Before she could find a clean and convenient spot for her shoes, Kaju heard some rattling from the opposite end of the attic, she hurriedly left her shoes at the window, and quickly climbed down the stairs. When she entered the room, Boo was still staring, Staring into nothingness. Kaju with a racing heart got on the tailoring machine table. Carefully latched the chain at the top. Dusted off her layered, frilled frock. Still a bit shaky, Kaju tried her best to pretend everything was normal.

 Next morning, when Chand bua with all her bags packed was ready to leave for the station with Nikita and Avni, Nikita frantically started searching for her shoes. While Laxmi dadi* and Chand bua were still crying, everyone else started to look for the shoes. About fifteen minutes later, Chand bua firmly suggested Nikita wear spare shoes, or else they will be late for their train. Upon hearing this Nikita threw a fit and started crying. But Chand bua was in no mood to waste time mollycoddling her. She slapped her instead and asked her to wear the spare shoes. Nikita tried hard to stop crying, but tears continued to roll down her cheeks.  She quietly wore the spare shoes and got into the tonga.  

 Kaju felt guilty. Not only did she steal Nikita’s shoes, but Nikita was also slapped by her mother in front of everyone. Though she couldn’t forget the crying face of Nikita for many days, she brought herself to confess the fact that she not only stole the shoes but had hidden them in the attic. She was terrified that her mother would thrash her for stealing. Stealing something from Chand bua’s daughter. Kaju was so petrified and ashamed of her act that she could never muster up the courage to take another trip to the attic. Not until the incident had faded in her memory.

Glossary

Kaki – Father’s younger brother’s wife

Didi – Elder sister

Bua – Father’s sister

Imli — Tamarind

Challas – Ludo, a board game

Dadu — Grandfather

Kaka – Father’s younger brother

Dada – Elder brother

Dadi – Grandmother

Vidula Sonagra is an independent researcher, writer and translator who is interested in society, literature and music and loves reading fiction and petting street dogs and cats. 

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Categories
Essay

Beyond Ideological Borders

By Anu Karippal

I was doing an interview with a retired college professor and Bharatanatyam dancer a few weeks ago for Humans of Kerala Instagram page. The interviewee, a teacher by the name of Gayathri, learnt to dance as a child, is a single mother and teacher, and when she was about to retire, resumed dancing and has performed widely in the last four years. Her voice was filled with the affection of a teacher and humility for her achievements. Something distinct in the interview was that, she was not a product of any -isms and ideologies that define our generation today — feminism, liberalism, environmentalism, activism, atheism etc. Gayathri was different. She belonged to another era when there were no burdens of ideologies for a layperson to attain something or establish an identity. She became a professor and a dancer and accomplished everything unbound by any ideological objective. She was only bound by her passion. Doing something or defining ourselves within an ideological framework was not popular back then as it is today.

This is not to discount the values such ideologies have enriched our lives with. Feminism empowered women and men. Liberalism opened up the rights discourse. Environmentalism educated us to own up to our responsibility towards nature of which we are a part. Activism taught us that we need to be a collective and make a little noise to stir meaningful and useful changes. I, as a girl, was sent to school just like my brother without a second thought because of the years of the struggle by the women who fought for it in the past.  Labour unions can challenge the exploitative and environmentally destructive changes because ideologies provided us with the sense of awareness of the power dynamics. To forget this is to undervalue the achievements of such struggles that have now given us a comfortable life. While it empowered us and made us better people in many ways, they also came with their limitations.

One must be aware of all of the above ideologies and question power in our daily life, what if in the attempt, our life becomes ideology-centric? When an environmentalist sees everything solely as an environmental issue or an activist sees everything solely as an issue or propaganda by state or corporate, one loses out on the other perspectives of seeing life and makes life a war to be fought. An old saying is worth remembering here, “If you look with yellow eye, everything will look yellow”. This can turn dangerous. Probably, this is something that the dance teacher, Gayathri, could have taught our generation — that we can do good, accomplish our passion without being ideologically assertive and let our life speak as our identity/ideology.

Perhaps, the rising interest to define our lives within dictates of any ideology has intensified with the intrusion of social media into every aspect of our lives, acquainting us with several ideas. I can vouch for it because I have done it too, and continue to do this over and over again. The way ideological battles are fought out in politics and public domain shows how listening to an opinion that is not in agreement with our ideological orientation is becoming an impossibility.

While opinions regarding public matters were left to a few earlier, it is in the hands of anyone with a phone and internet now. This has promoted inclusion of opinions, but it has also led to polarisation of identities and ideologies. Internet was supposed to uphold the spirit of democracy, but it has actually made people intolerable towards each other. There is a continuing loss of intimacy among people in the name of ideologies, easy judgement of people and the constant use of “unfollow” button that we easily press when somebody does not agree with our ideological thoughts on social media. We forget that we cannot press a “delete” button in the real world and that the world is always made of different people with different perspectives.

It took me three year-outside-academia life to begin to understand that life and its ways cannot be contained in any ideology. During my three-year stint at ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore, India), my dear friend Kumar taught me several things on our post-lunch walks. Once our topic was feminism, its possible misinterpretations among men and women and how it might be taking the wrong track. I was immediately angry and asked him why.

He said, “These days sometimes women want to do something because men are doing it. The fact that you want to do something should drive your goals and not the question whether or not men are doing it.” He added, “Do you want to dance, sing, jump, swim, be a CEO, pilot, doctor, anything? Go do it. But do it because you want to and not because men are doing it.” It took me months to understand the gravity of what he was saying. This is not to imply that we shouldn’t ask questions regarding why men and women do different things or why we are different. Our question should be a quest to understand than to react. And our goals should emerge from our passion.

As I was sharing these thoughts with a friend, she told me that doing something for the sake of any ideology gives a “restricted contentment”. When you do something because you like it, it is a fulfilment, a larger contentment of inner peace and elation that cannot be fit into any ideology. If you don’t want to buy a pink doll because pink has largely been associated with feminine, that is a vain battle to fight. If you like a pink doll, buy it. If you want to reduce plastic use because capitalism has been environmentally drastic and overpowering, then it might not give you enough contentment. Reduce plastic use because you care immensely about nature and you want to do your part. If you decide to grow long hair because men have primarily been associated with short hair and wants to break the stereotype, that is a limiting happiness. Grow long hair if you like long hair. If a husband and wife begin to look at everything in life through rights and equality, then marital life might create tensions and frictions. One who mocks arranged marriages as traditional and one who mocks love marriage as modern both know that despite the nature of acquaintance before marriage, married life anywhere is filled with adjustments and compassion. Life is always beyond ideologies.

Once, as the man I first fell in love with and I were walking back after our class. I was walking on the pavement to his right, touching the road. He held my hand and moved me to his left side, away from the road. He wanted me to be safe and if anything happened, that I would be spared. We were just friends at that time, so I smiled inside, enjoyed how my heart had felt a free fall and walked with him. If I were to call this as an instance of benevolent patriarchy and tell him I can take care of myself, I would be being so unfair to that act of love and destroy my happiness and his.

Even if it were a power relation, can it be scraped off with a reactionary attitude like a stain on the plate? Probably we are then replacing one form of power with a politically correct, elegant looking form of power. How ironic! And this is one of limitation of any ideology. If we begin to look at every little thing through liberalism, feminism and rights discourse, then all we might see is inequality, power and our life can get burdening. If we look at it through love, respect and kindness, life can be easier to live.

How easier said than done, right! I try to let go of my personal ideological thoughts, but it is one of the most difficult things for me to do. In the few retrospective moments of thinking and writing, it is easy to appreciate that one must go beyond the ideologies to understand life. Difficult as it may be, we must still try to not let ideologies influence all our actions. Life can best be viewed in simple terms. At the end of the day, environmentalism, feminism, activism and liberalism can turn as restricting as capitalism and fascism if we don’t treat them carefully. Even the idea of freedom can be limiting and can bind us. Ideologies are as transient as anything else in this world. Yuval Noah Harari shows how the world has gone through different historical epochs such as imperialism, communism and now liberalism in 21 lessons for the 21st century.

Let’s ask questions to understand and not to react. If we approach anything with a predisposed reactionary attitude, we will merely spread our opinion on the matter before understanding it. If we do something in the name of an ideology despite wanting something else, our life wouldn’t be as fulfilling. This self-fulfilment is not be misunderstood as selfishness, but as the open-mindedness to see life beyond ideologies and live a fulfilling life.

An ideology can get twisted and turned and corrupted in no time. But staying true to your passion and dedicating your time and effort,  will give a certain contentment that is unparalleled. In one of his lectures, the Indian mystic, Sadhguru, despite his biases, refers to the thought that our minds are becoming a market place, where we weigh everything. The thought struck me. If we give something and expect the exact quantity in return in friendships and romance, we might end up being disappointed and angry at everything. Moving beyond ideologies; feminist, liberal, capitalist, activist, right-wing, left-wing etc. can probably lead us to a satisfied life. 

Social media is all intrusive. While it brings lost friends and families together and keeps the world functioning even as the pandemic struck, it also catalyses polarising identities and proliferation of ideologies. While we imagined our house or immediate locality to be the world before, now we imagine our self-curated social media to be the world. We follow and unfollow people to create a desirable world of similar ideologies that we can easily agree with and offer a collective critique of ideologies we disagree with. And we become intolerable of the vast differences of opinion in the real world. Paying attention to passion is probably more important and fulfilling than assembling a life out of ideology, only to be discounted by another ideology of sound arguments. Writer Howard Rheingold wrote: “Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention”.

Anu Karippal is a student of Anthropology and Sociology at Graduate Institute, Geneva. She is from Kerala and she writes personal essays, movie reviews, short stories and poetry occasionally. 

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Categories
Poetry

Nature Poems

By Sangeeta Sharma

 The flying clouds
 A cloud like a roaming idler
 Dawdling reaches the highest peak 
 Envelops the mountain 
 In its folds
 Caresses and kisses causing shivers 
 In its bosom
 And lightning, thunder and showers 
 Leap over each other like wildfire
 Floats away and evaporates
 As quickly as it had formed
 Impregnating every small and large
 Womb of the earth
 With puddles of water and 
 A citric, tangy scent
 That clings to 
 The swooning wistful lasses.
  
 Hawk Cuckoo (Papeeha)
 The cuckoo’s mellifluous song
 Excites the maiden
 Who drops the work in hand
 Sprints into the open
 With a joyous heart 
 Looks up towards the cloudy sky
 As expectantly 
 As the cuckoo who sits with its beak ajar
 At the topmost bough of the mango tree
 Half-concealed, longing for the first drop of rain.
 Like a clarion call -- the refrain
 Ignites the pining heart
 Of the lass 
 For her sweetheart
 Who has been away so long
 And has promised to return 
 With the first shower of the monsoon!

Dr. Sangeeta Sharma, a senior academic, is a widely-published critic, poet and writer. She has authored a book on Arthur Miller (2012) and an anthology of 76 poems (2017). She has jointly edited five anthologies on poetry, fiction and criticism and two workbooks on Communication. A free-lance journalist, she is also a Ph.D guide appointed by the University of Mumbai. One of her books is listed as a reference in the department of English, Clayton State University, USA.

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Categories
The Literary Fictionist

Love Beyond Words

By Sunil Sharma

It is raining!

 Such afternoons become depressing. It is a time when bare daylight is sliding into darkness of early night.

You are trapped in a grey zone.

 Winter rain triggers sadness…especially December rains when clouds, cold and gloom create overwhelming melancholy.

Rains add to misery. You cannot step out. Cooped, looking helplessly at the falling rain on empty roads…and the puddles.

It is the same depressing afternoon, my dear!

Can you hear it? Can you feel it? The pattering rain?

The icy drops. I can sense them on my skin. Big diamonds from the sky, grandma would say.

Grandma had this habit of muttering!

Creepy!

Short, frail, half-blind, she would talk in the deserted last room. In the darkness, snow-haired granny looked like a ghost!

Being young is always scary in a house of working parents.

“Why do you talk to yourself?” I had asked.

She smiled. “I have friends you cannot see.”

“Friends?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the room.”

“Why do I not see them?”

“Only I see them. Nobody else cannot. They follow everywhere,” said grandma quietly.

I got the creeps; her eyes wore the glazed look.

I slept in the corner room; her muted screams and mutterings would wake me up, frightening me.

She and her friends! Strange!

Now I understand better.

We are becoming the frail grandma. When I am alone, even I have started talking to myself . When I hear steps, I grow silent and pretend to read the newspaper. Or do something else.

The rains bring back childhood. No other Indian season has got such power of recall and magic. I see my grandma standing there in the lonely corridor and gesturing and talking excitedly, after a gap of almost sixty-five years.

Diamonds! How they sparkle in the courtyard!

The rain drops.

Hear them, my dearest! Feel the wind in your hair, coming in from the open window.

The wind caresses your sunken cheeks. They tingle…like my fingers on your bare back.

You always loved the outdoors. The wind in your hair. Rain on the bare skin. Catching the diamonds from the sky in the outstretched hands, water drifting from fingers of the cupped hands, your oval face blissful, eyes half-closed, chin raised, water coursing down your body…like a stream flowing in the soggy brown fields.

Are you listening dear?

You would run in the open ground, chasing the rain…a child…with the same delight and spontaneity.

“Come on!” You would say during our occasional tryst with Indian monsoon in the outskirts of Goa. I would smile, photographing you and the retreating rain over the undulating plain…a wet slim figure in white, your favourite colour, against a bleak quivering green backcloth.

 The Goan churches fascinated you. You would stop and insist on being shot against the imposing facade of the Church of St Francis of Assisi, reverential eyes soaking in the material and spiritual grandeur on display.

We would drift in and out of Goa or coastal Kerala.

Rains. Backwaters. Kerala looked magical during monsoons. I have five albums of you against the sun-washed horizons in various poses, with dimples and shy smiles.

We were so happy!

But that was more than four decades ago…a rare period of pure happiness that came from intimacy and togetherness.

Later those grew into mere memories.

“You have changed!” you would say.

“Even you have changed!” I would retort.

We would bicker and fight and sleep in different rooms.

Even if we slept in the same room and the same bed, distances would intrude.

You had exclaimed after a fierce fight over a trifle. I had shouted at you. You had pursed lips, puckered up brows and gone on to watch TV– calm and remote.

I could feel your increasing frigidity towards me. I thought I did not matter anymore.

We were turning into close strangers, from lovers into mere actors.

Our earlier romance looked a caricature, a ghost.

My increasing paunch and odour was a constant turn-off.

I could not help that.

Now, at this moment, all this looks so trifling, irrelevant, when you are slowly drifting into another land of forgetfulness.

I miss you. Our bickering, patched up silences.

Now you are beyond all this!

Are you listening dear?

What a life!

Never thought you would lie strapped, a prostrate figure on the cold metal of a hospital bed in a South Delhi private hospital, surviving on drips and tubes; eyes dilated, fluttering — when a visiting family-member calls out your name softly. Otherwise, you seem to be in total amnesia.

So near, yet so remote!

 Here comes the lightening. That always scared you. It is ominous. Thunder echoes. Darkness heightens. The darkness in the afternoon amplifies your helpless despondency.

I do not like sunless days. Now, with you strapped down, with the monitor on, breathing hard, I am drowned in loneliness.

Alone on this teeming, violent, mad planet!

My God! What would I do?

We were companions for more than five decades and fought and made up like other couples.

I never thought we would also age and reach expiry dates.

Human vanity!

Death and sickness were for the others. We were immortals. What a vain and false assumption!

Now, you and I, in this semi-private room. I am holding your hand in mine…as we did, when we visited the Vasai Fort, near Mumbai.

You always loved ruins. Particularly, the monumental ruins. Ruins of forts cast a spell on you: the citadels, ramparts, bridges, minarets, barracks.

“I can hear history.”You said that visiting the Red Fort in Delhi. “The Mughals, the British, the Indians. I can hear the cannon balls booming, the massacres, the war cries, the blood-bath.”

“Crazy!” I thought. “How one can hear the dead!”

I was wrong!

The dead never leave us. They hover over us.

One can never bury their dead permanently.

I can see the dead. At my age, the past suddenly becomes real. Like a hazy afternoon, it links a dying day with an upcoming night…a threshold to connect the present to past.

Ruins, decay, and a few lessons in life.

Nothing remains as it is. Things change. Empires decline…and new ones rise on those ruins.

Ruins!

We would see the young couples escaping the oppressive city in the ruins of Purana Quila in New Delhi on winter afternoons. Couples, linked, sitting under shades or lawns. The library of the Emperor Humayun, the staircase leading down from it, from where he tumbled and died after three days of the fall, looks desolate on windy afternoons. Structures survive as symbols of lost cultures.

“We are left with ruins!” You had commented, sketching the library, from the lawn.

“What?” I asked.

“The debris of relations only,” you had said and smiled mysteriously.

Again, I had lost you and your enigmatic personality.

Was it about me?

Now, holding your soft hand in mine, I understand.

We are left with the debris of our relationship only. Nothing is left except the departing shadows, fleeting outlines.

See, it is raining heavily.  Gloom has gathered and intensified. A rough wind escapes inside, ruffling your hair again.

What! I see my grandmother and mother clearly before my startled eyes, two figures tentative, quivering shadows.

Believe me. Each morphing into the other and then into you….

Even Maa had stopped talking to us before she died. She would also talk to herself in her dying days, few days of great agony and pain. She talked to her Maa and granny. At that point, I thought the disease could infect you too. But, it did not. In fact, busy as we were, we hardly talked. After a point, elderly Indian couples perhaps do not talk much, withdrawing into shells.

Work separated us.

You toiled in your office, commuting long, working late.

I did, in my office. We sacrificed for the family.

Some of the family does not understand us now. What an irony!

The kids are happy with their families.

We are alone; two of us, despite their living close in proximity. They hardly call us or come to meet us.

And now you are in coma!

Can you hear me darling!

I feel terribly lonely!

Who will care for me after you are gone?

Your absence, though painful, reminds me of your sweet presence!

In fact, I have begun noticing you in last few days only. Days when you were wheeled into the ICU, then moved to general ward and then back to a semi-private room. I began feeling your phantom presence hovering over me, your silent love, your sacrifices that remained unseen.

The way you cooked, washed, shopped, cleaned and cared for all of us.

I could never gift the advertised diamond necklaces or silver rings because we both were poor middle-class Indians working as slaves for surviving in hell! No respite. No money to spare. You dressed modestly. I did humbly. We walked, skipped Dutch parties, in order to meet educational expenses of a growing family.

When the maids would not turn up, you toiled on holidays and Sundays. In the last decade, we avoided long-distance trips and cinemas to save money in a country where all food items cost more than even gold!

We had evolved into mere automatons!

To-day, holding your hand, I reminisce and understand the value of love and togetherness.

Now, it is too late.

You are beyond all this humbug.

The doctors say you will not live long.

You are in coma. On life support.

How fragile is life!

It mocks our ambitions, unbridled desires.

How vulnerable!

Medicines can delay but not prevent decay and death.

After you move out of this bond, I will remain stuck, alone.

Your memories might help.

Now I realize your value. You were created as a superwoman to satisfy our selfish needs. We defied you and used you as a woman, my dear.

I wish I had talked to you more, walked into moonlit courtyards with arms linked. I could have laughed with you more and more…run with you on the open grounds in Goa or admired the heritage sites or listened to your songs…things that made us both human and artists.

Let me tell you, my dearest wife, you mean so much to me. Now, with you sinking rapidly into the oblivion, I realize this bitter fact.

Debris. I wander in the ruins.

And once we had almost split up!

Remember that?

I had seen this message on your cell-phone in the late night — woken by the beep in the dead of night, while you slept like a log. A short message of remembrance at 12.30 am. The next day, I secretly followed you to the bus-stop and saw this tall well-sculpted younger man talking to you. Both of you boarded the same chartered bus to NOIDA and in the evening, I saw both of you alight from the same bus. I watched, for more than seven days. Your smile was divine, your gait light and eyes beaming.

When later on, on Saturday night, I confronted you, you denied everything. When I persisted, you said cruelly, “Cannot a woman whose husband is not working for the last three months, talk to a friend working in another office?”

I was stunned! How you had changed!

“Leave the job,” I had thundered.

“Who will look after the bills?” You were cool, distant, triumphant.

“Who is he?”

“A fine man…kind. Nice. A friend.  Things forgotten by you.”

I was devastated by these icy remarks.

Oh! I could barely manage, a pain bursting inside and sundering my heart.

“He is so fine!” I had remarked viciously, a loser.

“He is a polite guy, a co-traveller. That is all.” You had concluded firmly and moved to your side of the bed.

I had continued to toss. A down-sized man, unwanted by the system. You had become more brazen and often praised him in order to insult my joblessness and enforced stay at home.

Home!

It had become a battleground!

From lovers to enemies.

You had begun to move away…in subtle ways, ignoring me. I was left with no option but to put up with the situation. Once I fell down on the wet floor of the house and you did not react beyond mere lip-sympathy. I saw a mocking smile on your face.

At that moment of coldness, I knew I had lost you forever as my beloved. Only, a spouse remained. Enacting fixed roles for the family and to reinforce our middle-class respectability and image.

We had evolved into perfect strangers. Whenever I raised the topic, you would say I was paranoid, a suspicious man. A cruel man.

Look after the bills and I am happy to look after the family. These two roles and your slurs, suspicions…they were too much for me to handle

You would taunt me. We stopped talking.

I did not have any evidence of adultery. Only my suspicions.

“Your insecurities!” You would laugh and say, “He is my good friend, not lover. Cannot a working woman have a good male friend? He is married…happily…with two kids.”

I had no answers. Perhaps, you were right. I was reading too much into a normal situation. A working woman. A courteous co-traveller. A common chartered bus going to the same locality. A simple fun-loving decent man! A good singer also. You loved singing. I never sang. You loved outdoors. I hated it. You loved travelling. I avoided travel. You loved reading and history. I was a Chemistry student.

Our worlds, exclusive, were held together by an arranged marriage. Subsequently, by the children only…like rest of the middle-class Indians. Two perfect strangers brought together by common practices, who had discovered each other in initial years of marriage. Then, pressurised by work and anti-romance conditions of our living in an Indian metro, we drew apart.…like others of our ilk.

Once you stormed out, remained away; then the children united us again. Then the hasty departure of the other man in our marriage — with a promotion — to Bangalore, cooled the anger and we somehow reconciled.

You became quiet and lost. Hardly sang or read for months. I checked your cell-phone and expectedly found no messages from your decent kind friend, the co-traveller.

I knew you were feeling used again. People had seen you dining and coming out of malls but you denied and threatened to quit always and my long unemployed status increased my humiliating dependency on you. Occasionally, I tried to sing a song and applied a talc powder but both acts of gallantry repelled you further.

I could not live up to the romantic image promoted by Bollywood. I was a Chemist working in a factory located some sixty kilometers away from home and I had no training or patience with sustained courtship.

How can a battered man be a perpetual romantic hero in life?

For me, life was never a constant candle-lit dinner party. It was a constant battle to survive in hell!

My idea of romance was — and is — holding hands and speaking silently.

Love is an emotion transmitted non-verbally.

Love is beyond words. A telepathic experience.

Hope, dear, you understand my love now, as I hold your hand and cry silently for having missed out so much in life simply because I could never afford those expensive signs of media-promoted notion of love and romance.

I loved you from the bottom of my heart. I still do. I could never tell you in these terms — not everybody is a born poet!

I might have mistreated you or neglected you as the long commutes drained me completely but my heart always with you.

Are you listening my love?

Listening to my heart?

Lo, here comes the thunder. And the darkness is increasing…

Sunil Sharma is the editor of SETU. He is a senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 21 published books, seven collections of poetry, three of short fiction, one novel, a critical study of the novel, and, eight joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. 

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Categories
Poetry

Book Writing Contest

By Vatsala Radhakeesoon


 
 Book Writing Contest
 
 During the time when the dinosaurs roamed freely,
 Smiling Sun had a sunflower mic (microphone).
 On one tropical summer morning, 
 it announced a book writing contest
 open to all visitors and residents
 of Above-Ground.
 
 Flying Dragon sent his Book of Fierce Fire,
 Red Birds submitted their Anthology of Wavering Winds,
 Water Bearer (Aquarius) flew his Book of Lofty Lyrics
 attached to an airy string;
 However, when Sky submitted his book, 
 it slipped like sand amidst Sun’s fingers.
 
 Smiling Sun requested Sky to re-submit his work,
 Days went by but nothing was heard from him.
 
 As a matter of principle, where Fairness ruled
 each participant received an award
 and when Sun glanced at Sky and frowned,
 above the clouds, shone Sky’s Book of Ha-Ha – 
 a humorous musical book that sang,
 “Catch the blue, catch the blue.
 Sun, I wrap you within me.
 Here’s a golden flower for you.
 Please wear it as a ring,
 It will strengthen your grin.”
 
 Smiling Sun beamed and hugged Sky,
 It promised him never to doubt his deeds,
 And together for eternity they would live.

Vatsala Radhakeesoon is an author/poet and artist from Mauritius. She has had numerous poetry books published and she is currently working on her flash fiction/short stories book. She considers poetry as her first love and visual art as a healer in all circumstances. Vatsala Radhakeesoon currently lives at Rose-Hill, Mauritius and is a freelance literary translator and an interview editor of Asian Signature journal.

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Categories
Stories

The Beggar

By Shouvik Banerjee

Madhu and the children had been insisting on a family outing for a long time. So last week, we finally decided to watch a movie at New Empire. We would later shop at New Market and then gorge on spicy street food from the nearby food stalls. The children also insisted on visiting the museum. They had always wanted to see the ‘mummy’. This time I complied.

When we reached, a thick crowd of curious souls greeted us. They huddled around the 4,000-year-old dead body and inspected it from every angle. Madhu and the kids joined them while I stayed by the swinging door and watched.

As I scanned the room, my eyes rested on the guard standing in a corner. He was wearing his emerald uniform and his right thumb dangled from his belt. Under the cap, his face was clean-shaven, and his eyes moved quickly around the room. He was invisible except for the way his wrists flicked. It looked familiar.

For a moment I paused and denied the thought. It could not be. But I had to know. I edged along the wall until I was standing beside him. I inched closer and tried to meet his eye. My suspicion and the thought I had been denying were now a fact. He pretended not to have noticed me and continued to avoid my gaze. Finally, I said, “Excuse me, I have seen you somewhere?”

This time, he looked at me. The expression of mild surprise on his face hinted neither at shock nor bewilderment. Instead, he went into a denial mode, “I’m sorry but I don’t know you.”

What a rascal!

“Remember you were in Dalhousie, near the chowmein seller, you wanted to eat some chowmein? Remember?”

“Dalhousie? Chowmein? I’m sorry sir but I do not understand.”

He slithered through the thick crowd and disappeared.

Of course, he understood!

The week before, I was sitting at one of the innumerable fast-food stalls spread around Dalhousie when he had approached me with a yellowish toothy grin.  Except then, he was a beggar and not a security guard.  He was bare-chested and held up a corner of the torn khaki trousers with a dirty hand. It dangled from his slim waist, threatening to fall any second. In his other hand, he held a small bowl which jingled with a flick of his wrist.

The shopkeeper rebuffed and shooed him away.

It was hard to recognize him in the museum since the beggar’s face was a mess of dark repulsive hair. But I knew it was him. There was a spark in his eyes which was hard to ignore. It was not the eyes of someone who should be begging. That was what intrigued me about him.

The next day when he arrived, I bought a plate of chowmein to appease both parties. He sat down against the wall and devoured the food from an old newspaper.

“Do you live nearby?” I asked.

The beggar shook his head. “I don’t live anywhere.”

“So, you never had a home?”

“I had one, a long time back. My brother used to beat us – my mother and me. My father had already died. Then one day, he came home drunk and pushed us out of the small house. My mother died in a ditch and I kept wondering. You know, I have a BA and was part of a theatre group. But no one cares about degrees or talent. All they care about is money. Money, money, money…”

Under the mess of dirty hair, he did have a young face and was perhaps in his mid-thirties.

After that brief encounter, I had not seen him for many days. But I, too, was partly responsible for the disunion. Madhu was packing lunch as retaliation against my growing blood pressure and waistline. I was now spending my afternoons with colleagues. I listened to their gossip, and occasionally took sides in office politics. My workload had also increased. So, I found less reason to visit my beloved food stall.

The other day, Mahesh, the office peon, had piled a stack of files on my desk. “Dutta da wants this by tomorrow,” he had announced fastidiously before scrambling off. After working for six years, I had acquired one vital piece of knowledge about my boss – Raghubir Dutta. When he said next week, he meant this week; If he said tomorrow, he meant today.

Sometimes, when files were not coveting for my attention, I wondered why I slogged so much for so little. Other times, I romanticised the impossible idea of finding a better paying job. But almost immediately I dismissed such thoughts, remembering well that my father never had the luxury to send me to a business school.

I needed money to make money.

*

The next day, I took an early leave during lunch. I cited an important meeting with a customer as an excuse. Thankfully, Dutta was too preoccupied to have noticed the lie. I went over to the same stall and hid behind a bunch of bodies. His appearance, though, made me doubtful after my confrontation.

I was right. After waiting for half an hour, I went to lookfor him. I scanned the countless stalls, shops, and the streets packed with people.

It was a futile search. But just as I was about to board a bus, my eyes fell on a sugarcane juice seller at the far end of the street. And there he was, hunched on the ground, relishing the sweet juice and ecstatically smacking his lips!

I waited. He got up and dumped the plastic vessel in the dustbin. Then, he briskly walked till the end of the road and turned a corner. I followed. The beggar entered a small public urinal that was surprisingly clean. A few minutes later, the museum guard emerged in his crisp green uniform and cap, looking sharp and, I suspected, perfumed as well.

I ran and caught him by the shoulder as he waited for his bus. He turned around with a flabbergasted look.

“I know about your dual life,” I said, agitated and angry that he still feigned surprise. “The police might find it interesting. Why are you acting and fooling people?”

The guard gave me a wide smile and politely replied, “Aren’t we all?”

The bus arrived. He got up and I watched as the vehicle roared away leaving a cloud of black smoke in my face.

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Shouvik Banerjee is the author of Seven Sundays (Hay House, 2019) and has been published in literary magazines and journals like The Bombay Review and The Universe Journal.

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Categories
Poetry

Seasonal Whispers

Poetry by Jared Carter

  
 Visitant
 
 What is that calling on the wind
           that never seems a moment still?
 That moves in darkness like a hand
           of many fingers taken chill?
 
 What is it seeking when it flows
           about my head, and seems to wrest
 All motion from my heart, as though
           I still had something to confess?
 
 How can it be it knows my crime –
           this troubled whistling in the air?
 'Tis true, I left her long behind,
           but this is dark, and she was fair.
 
 (First published in The New Formalist)
  
 Snow
 
 At every hand there are moments we
 cannot quite grasp or understand. Free
 
 to decide, to interpret, we watch rain
 streaking down the window, the drain
 
 emptying, leaves blown by a cold wind.
 At least we sense a continuity in
 
 such falling away. But not with snow.
 It is forgetfulness, what does not know,
 
 has nothing to remember in the first place.
 Its purpose is to cover, to leave no trace
 
 of anything. Whatever was there before – 
 the worn broom leaned against the door
 
 and almost buried now, the pile of brick,
 the bushel basket filling up with thick,
 
 gathering whiteness, half sunk in a drift – 
 all these things are lost in the slow sift
 
 of the snow's falling. Now someone asks
 if you can remember – such a simple task –
 
 the time before you were born. Of course
 you cannot, nor can I. Snow is the horse
 
 that would never dream of running away,
 that plods on, pulling the empty sleigh
 
 while the tracks behind it fill, and soon
 everything is smooth again. No moon,
 
 no stars, to guide your way. No light.
 Climb up, get in. Be drawn into the night.
 
 (First published in A Dance in the Street)
 
 
 School of Ragtime, Exercise No. 6
 
 Saw you first one April day
           king, queen, sun, moon
 Whistled you outside to play
           right, left, fork, spoon
 
 Took you down to the river’s edge
           penny candy, paper doll
 Showed you bullheads under the ledge
           butterfingers, jackstone ball
 
 Say goodbye to your last dime
           up, down, cat, dog
 Gonna rag that tune this time
           leaf, tree, axe, log
 
 (First published in The Devil's Millhopper)


Jared Carter’s most recent collection, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia. His Darkened Rooms of Summer: New and Selected Poems, with an introduction by Ted Kooser, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014. A recipient of several literary awards and fellowships, Carter is from the state of Indiana in the U.S.

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Categories
Stories

Orang Minyak or The Ghost

A Jessie Michael explores blind belief in a Malay village

The nerves of Kampong Semut were aquiver with anxiety, fear and excitement, all melded together. The haven of wooden houses several miles from the nearest town and surrounded by coconut groves and padi fields, which were more and more a rarity, now had its slow, meandering peace shattered and its people shaken awake.  Adrenalin flowed fast and they jumped at shadows.

A hysterical village girl claimed that she had seen, against the light of the moon, the shape of a naked man climbing through her window. When she sat up, the shape slid out again and vanished. The village religious body initially put the claims down as the imaginings of a frustrated young woman but when more girls made similar claims, the villagers decided that there might be some truth to the matter. The village elders claimed the sightings could be that of an Orang Minyak, (Oily Man) — that grease covered, naked, dark, male malevolence that prowled villages, seeking to molest and rape virgins. This entity had long been quiet in the whole country and was beginning to be dismissed as myth.

 The village police first looked suspiciously at the village boys but could find no evidence. No fingerprints, no grease trails. Their parents, some of whom were in the police force too, could vouch for the male members of the family being home on the nights of the intrusions. It must have been a male from a neighbouring village; but, increasingly, by the very nature of these apparitions, they were prone to believe the old myth. The apparition came on moonlit nights and never in the rain. The police could only advise stop-gap measures. The girls were told to sleep close to their mothers or grandmothers and barricade all the windows. The men set up night patrols.

The ‘prowler’ stopped for a couple of months and then struck again when the villagers had dropped their guard a little to enjoy their evenings with family meals and chatter. This time, the Oily Man attacked Pak Din’s daughter as she was going to the outhouse nearby late at night. The light of the moon was bright enough so she carried no torch or lantern. The outhouse was clearly outlined as were the clumps of vegetation around. She could leave the outhouse door open for the quick visit.

 He succeeded in raping her as she was returning. Her family could only glean scraps of information from the shattered girl — a naked, oily, masked, man, the whiff of a strange incense and passing out. By the time she recovered to find herself half naked and screamed, the intruder had disappeared without a trace.

As usual the village descended on the village headman’s home. As usual Tok Baharuddin was not yet home. Tok Baharuddin was village headman, businessman cum politician, all rolled in one, who had to travel to town daily to drum up grass root support as well as business. As everyone knew, politics and business go hand in hand; one cannot exist without the other. He was good for the village, getting them a decent clinic, school, roads and always writing job recommendations for school leavers even if most did not land the jobs. He was so busy with meetings that he was out every day and often travelled out station for a few days. He was a feather in the village cap for the mention of his name put Kampung Semut on the local map.

When he returned that evening, Tok Baharuddin was apoplectic that the police were so negligent as to let this crime happen and not have any clues or suspects. He visited the victim’s house for a first hand version of the incident. “I’ll talk to the Police Chief,” he declared. “I’ll make sure this criminal hangs.”  As village chief he must be seen to take action to secure the safety of his village and naturally his own effectiveness and reputation.

The villagers listened to him respectfully. He was a good leader but he straddled the old world and the new and more and more he leaned into the new. He tactfully avoided, meaningless rituals and shunned dabbling in the occult.

The village men gathered again in each other’s homes to study the situation from another perspective.  Ariffin, a retired police officer who had served in other states, gave some hair-raising information. “You know, the Indians and Chinese also have this spirit phenomenon. Another being or spirit can enter a person and completely alter the personality and behaviour of that person until the spirit decides to leave. The spirit can speak in strange languages, make the host sick and harm others. When the episode of possession is over, the person reverts to normal but cannot remember anything of what happened.  In the most idyll of places, evil preys; it roams to feed its primal lust.”

Ariffin’s audience looked at each other. Was he saying it could be any of them? Perish the thought. One of the men burst out, “This is evil let loose. It is not human. The police can’t do anything. We will have to call the bomoh (local shaman /medicine man) from Trengganu to exorcise this village”.

Such practice was publicly declared to be pagan and unIslamic, so, a little argument arose if this was even allowed. The village Imam was soon outvoted and persuaded that all old customs could not be thrown out at the risk of harming their daughters and that they were to resort to this without blaming God for what was going on. The Imam bowed out gracefully, since his prayers all these months had proven ineffective. They did not worry about the headman who they knew considered himself a little too advanced to believe in shamans and bomohs. So, he could be expected to close an eye to their plans and not attend the exorcism exercise out of political correctness.

The exorcism was to be an expensive affair, for even a bomoh needed to make a living. And he had to exorcise the evil entity not only from the victims but from the whole village as well, which meant a visit to each house and building and there must have been fifty buildings at least. Every household contributed; at least RM200 each. Life was disrupted for two days over the weekend. The bomoh arrived from across the state border with his paraphernalia of keris (dagger), frankincense, pots, roots, oils and herbs. The village women sourced flowers and limes to make large pots of infusions.

Tok Baharuddin tactfully took a two-day business trip out of state, leaving his wife to attend to all the rituals.

 The main ceremony began at the village hall where the bomoh lit a small bonfire in a pot, fuelled with the herbal leaves and roots. He held a silver keris hanging on a chain over the flames and declared that the swing of the keris indicated the presence of an evil spirit lurking in the village. Someone had sent this entity from the nether world and it was unlikely to leave until it had claimed its prey of seven virgins to satiate its lust if the exorcism was not performed. The bomoh threw incense into the flames and a great cloud of smoke enveloped him and most of the room. While the smoke billowed and the attendees choked on the pungent odour of the incense, he muttered incantations and occasionally gave an almighty shout, commanding the evil spirit to leave the village.

The exorcism in the hall lasted an hour, ending with the medicine man sprinkling water infused with flowers and cut lime and into which he had blown and spat vehemently. No corner of the hall was spared. A similar but shorter, smoky ceremony was enacted at every house after which the occupants were instructed to bathe in the flower and lime infusion which they had prepared and into which the Bomoh had blown spells. Unmarried girls and women were given amulets to wear around their necks to ward off all harm. The following day all the public buildings were exorcised – the school, clinic, the police station, and as an extra precaution, the little mosque too. The villagers gathered at every building, the older ones, nostalgic for the practices of their forefathers and fearful of missing out on something, the younger ones fascinated by these old rituals they never knew existed in their culture. It was quite a spectacular performance at each stop. When it was all over, the bomoh was gratefully sent off with his tools and stash of cash. The villagers finally breathed in relief.

The exorcism gave the village two weeks of peace. Then the bold, daring, greasy phenomenon struck again in the dark, to attack Muna, the twenty-year old only daughter of the widower Pak Som.  Fortunately, Pak Som had not let his guard down. He boarded the windows and doors and kept a long pounding stick next to his mat. He gave a knife to Muna to keep beside her. They regularly burnt incense in the house to ward off evil. But that night Muna felt a slimy hand smelling of car engine oil trying to smother her. She could not scream but her hand clutching the knife obeyed her father instructions. She swung the knife hard against the thing’s back and it yelped. Her scream had her father out, swinging the pounding stick but he hit only air. The thing was gone. He rushed out and could not spot anything. The moon was shining full and looking up he saw, silhouetted against the silver orb, a black dog flying.

“Allahu Akbar,” he muttered repeatedly. The neighbours were alerted and they came with their lanterns. They could only see the gap on the floor of the raised house where the Orang Minyak had removed a plank, and traces of blood on the knife, nothing else.

It was mid-day by the time Tok Baharuddin rushed over. He had been delayed arriving home from one of his late-night meetings in the town. A crash between his car and a buffalo had landed him in hospital to tend to his minor wounds while a mechanic tended to the car’s wounds and made in drivable. The villagers were too distraught to bother with his misfortunes. They were on a warpath. “The bomoh has been useless — not powerful enough. This evil had to be fought with evil. Someone has set a curse on the village and that person has to be found and destroyed by a stronger evil entity!”. Muna’s father was distraught. Black magic had the propensity to attract all the jinns and dark forces to the place where it was practiced and to the people who practiced it. Already he felt its tentacles tightening around his chest. He was quite sure his death was imminent. He had seen the ominous sign – the flying black dog.

The headman complied with their request. There was no other way to appease them except to let them fight fire with fire. He also had to show concern for his daughter just returned from the University in the city. Her polish and elegance might make her the next target. His wife was super vigilant, barricading the doors and windows, covering the wooden floors with linoleum and nailing planks against the eves so there was no entry to the rafters. What more could one do?

Tok Baharuddind’s daughter, Hasinah, while respecting the fears of the villagers was thoroughly bemused in private. She was quite sure it was a case of mass hysteria, the kind that occurred with village girls confined in boarding schools; only here they were confined to their village. To appease her mother, she agreed to keep a big stick next to her. As a precaution, despite her doubts, she took her camping flick knife to bed too

“I’ll be back at midnight. Be careful to lock up properly,” Baharuddin announced to his wife and children as he left for yet another business/political meeting.

His daughter played with the flick knife while waiting to sleep. She imagined the many ways in which she would attack an intruder and surprised herself with her imagination.

It was at midnight, when she drifted between sleep and wakefulness that Hasinah felt a hand slide up her thigh and another smother her. As she struggled against the naked being mounting her, she flicked the switch knife clutched in her outstretched hand and transferred all her strength into plunging him deep in the neck.

It was definitely blood, not oil, that spurted out of the Oily Man, warm and musty, mingling with the suffocating smell of grease and oil. He sprang up and ran to the front door, stumbling. She chased him and grabbed his arm but he slid from her grasp as the grease was intended to allow. She followed him out, shouting for the sleepers to awake. She looked around and saw a black dog flying, silhouetted against the moon.

The neighbouring men brought out torches and hurricane lamps and followed the clear trace of blood but could not track it beyond the front door. Still they persisted, fanning out their search. No one could bleed so much and go far, and spirits don’t bleed. Half an hour later they found the village headman, naked, oil covered and masked, bleeding to death in a ditch. Next to him, a dead black dog.

A. Jessie Michael is a retired Associate Professor of English from Malaysia and a writer of short stories and poems She has been published in anthologies and literary journals online.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry from Nepal

Written by Krishna Bajgai, translated from Nepalese by Dr. Rupak Shrestha          

             

Krishna Bajgai
Alphabet Adoration

Since the thirst of alphabets 
Was witnessed in his young eyes,
The illiterate parents made him 
Swallow all the alphabets,
Forcing him to memorise.

As soon as he was strong enough
To carry on his back 
A bag of alphabets,
His teachers forcefully fed him 
Tough words from books.

As he grew, 
He started to learn by rote 
History and politics,
Finally, philosophy,
From the professors' antiquated notes. 

He grew up with alphabets,
Learned to play with them,
Understood layered
Meanings of words and sentences,
By days and by nights.

He stuck on his routine life,
Made books his pillow at night,
Surrounded himself with the alphabets 
In classrooms and libraries 
For hours and hours, days and nights.

One day, 
All of a sudden,
A gigantic price was put on his head,
Charged for playing with 
Weapons made of alphabets.

The next day,
An arrest warrant was issued in words.
Soon he was freed 
by the rallying of sentences.

Again, he wrote 
More and more with alphabets
While he continued to live,
Till the last sentence he wrote was –
‘’I adore alphabets.’’

Krishna Bajgai leads the Samakalin Sahitya Pratisthan that he founded in 2014. He publishes and edits www.samakalinsahitya.com. He has thirteen published books, three of his which are taught at the Universities in Nepal for Bachelors’ in Arts degree. Two have been part of research for the Master’s degree curriculum at Tribhuvan University. Decorated by seven prestigious awards in his literary career, he is also affiliated with many literary institutions.

Rupak Shrestha, a renowned figure in the Nepalese Diaspora in the United Kingdom writes free verse, ghazals, songs, muktaks (quatrains), and haiku, does literary criticism and translates. He has been felicitated by different literary institutions for his contribution. He has authored Big Ben ra Samay (Poetry Collection) 2011, Pokhtak (Muktak Collection) 2014, Butte Kimono (Haiku Collection) 2017, and Rupak (Songs’ Album) 2018.

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