Some mornings, the air feels rehearsed. The sun rises on cue. Even my breath sounds like someone else’s prayer.
I want something less tidy — a god with a scar, a truth with bad grammar.
What is this ache that won’t name itself? It hums under the skin, a small rebellion against stillness.
I’ve tried silence. It behaves well until it starts to echo. I’ve tried love. It arrives barefoot, then asks for shoes.
Still, something in me keeps choosing the risk of aliveness — the heartbreak, the astonishment, the tremor in the voice that says nothing, but means everything.
Maybe that’s enough — this pulse that refuses to explain why it’s still pulsing.
Annwesa Abhipsa Pani is a poet, a Senior Manager in Organisation and People development and a student of English Literature based in Pune. Her work explores silence, belonging, and the delicate negotiations between inner and outer worlds. Her poems often linger at the intersections of tenderness and restraint, drawing from everyday moments to uncover quiet revelations.
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My spouse was chopping vegetables in the open kitchen, preparing for an evening soup. I was in a hurry to have a quick shower in the meantime. Picking up a fresh towel from the clothesline, I rushed to the bathroom. When I tried to open the door, I found it shut. Through a small gap I peeped in just like that. The sound of water gushing forth reached my ears – along with a faintly audible humming strain of a popular Hindi film song. I pushed it hard, then harder, and finally I realised it was bolted. The sound of music and water stopped ringing in my ears. All I heard was a distinct click of the door lock and it opened on its own. Nothing moved. Nobody emerged. Nothing appeared in sight. But the creaking sound of the flush door created an aura of suspense. I stepped inside and looked around carefully like a cop chasing a killer. The exhaust fan was whirring. The ventilator was half-open. The geyser light was glowing. The floor was wet and the shower was still drizzling. Who was having a shower in the bathroom when there were just the two of us inside the apartment at that time?
I alerted my wife about what had just happened and asked her to examine the spot. She confirmed the presence of a ghost lurking inside the bathroom without moving out of her domain, without a trace of seriousness in her voice. I struggled to maintain my balance on the slippery floor and came out quickly in the fear of getting trapped inside the bathroom with an unfamiliar ghost after another sudden click of the door. When I reached the kitchen, I clutched her hand and sought to know why she had not informed me about the scary entity. Now it was her turn to feel alarmed as she gathered that I was not joking with her all this while. The threat was real and right inside our house.
Clutching my shoulder for physical and emotional support, she held the kitchen knife in one hand and showed the willingness to follow me to the bathroom, fully confident of slaying the ghost by launching a full-frontal attack. I calmed her down and offered a glass of water, to help her regain clarity and focus required to understand the paranormal experience I had just been through. With both of us looking disillusioned after an hour of intense discussion regarding the infiltration of an unidentified entity in our private space, we came to the hasty, premature conclusion that we must vacate this haunted residence or else such encounters would multiply and impact our restful sleep and peace of mind.
This was not the time to argue about permanent solutions. At the earliest, we needed to ferret out the truth and the first brave step in this direction was mine.
We tiptoed to the bathroom. I sang the same lilting song to attract the attention of the invisible bathroom singer. Nothing seemed odd, nothing felt out of place. The door was open. The floor was dry. There was nothing scary. The possibility of a singing spirit residing in this house seemed remote. There were no other residents here and there was no case of murder or suicide recorded in the past. We checked online resources for relevant information about spirits and ghosts – along with their bathing schedules. They were most likely to freshen up in the middle of the night – when the world was yet to wake up from deep slumber.
We tried to remember the names of guests who had visited us in the recent past. But jogging the memory revealed no prime suspects. My wife sprang up with a sudden flashback. She remembered her mother talking about spirits being sent through air during her last phone call with her, almost a month ago. So, this could possibly be a despatch case from my in-laws who wanted to scare me before my wedding anniversary with a Halloween gift.
The most likely reason for this sinister move was unknown and my wife did not provide any inputs. We settled down to our chores. She returned to her soup preparation while I sat down to write something. While I was typing out a new chapter, I heard the sound of anklets. My wife had not worn anklets for years. I tried to concentrate again but the sound became clearer. I was distracted by it so that I trudged to the kitchen and asked my wife if her anklets had been stolen or gifted to any person. But she stated it was kept in the bank locker.
The sound of anklets and the singing inside the bathroom suggested these were attributes of the same spirit and it was definitely female. Was the spirit sent to distract me from writing? I chose to study the pattern and within a few days I found that the spirit was indeed distracting me in multiple ways whenever I was writing while it did no harm to my spouse. I was the sole target of the spirit.
One morning I was typing on my computer and there was a tap on my left shoulder. I turned around expecting to see my wife but she was not there. And later I remembered she did not have the habit of tapping to draw my attention. Her shrill call would suffice. I went inside the bedroom and found her asleep. So, who tapped me?
The phone rang and my mother-in-law sprang up on the phone screen. I woke my wife up and gave the buzzing phone to her, asking her to find out what disturbed her mother so early in the morning. What was the bad news she was keen to deliver? What was the bad news she was eager to hear — whether the spirit she sent was doing a fabulous job or not? My wife decided to call up later. This made me anxious.
An hour later, she came to me and reported that her mother was worried about my writing life. She wanted to talk to me. During the entire chat, the old lady was focused on me rather than her daughter. There must be a strong reason for this odd behaviour. Even though there were many generic possibilities to consider, we were not aware of those negative ones yet. Getting to know that I was doing fine and the writing gig was progressing well, frustrated my mother-in-law and the enthusiasm in her thunderous voice waned all of a sudden. “Has he completed the new novel?” was her main query that went without an answer.
My wife was speechless, clueless. She reiterated she had not revealed it to relatives yet and wondered how her mother knew. I had not revealed to my wife that only two chapters were done. Besides, how did her mother get to know I was working on a novel, certainly more specific than manuscript? Oh, it must have been conveyed by the spirit tapping my shoulder – the medium of transfer. It must be a powerful one indeed, hired with the specific motive of receiving updates on my writing career.
Pensioners spending a hefty amount on purchasing this entity from a black magic expert was not without an ulterior motive. My wife said she had never discussed the details of my upcoming book as she herself did not know much about it. Even I was stunned to know the specific information from her mother.
I could go mad thinking my wife was an accomplice of my in-laws and ruin my mental peace. The spirit knew not just the chapters but also other details of my book. I asked my wife to wait for some days and see the kind of questions her mother raised. My gut feeling was right. When she called up next, she was curious to know about the plot and the characters – the genre of the book. I had advised her to misinform that I was a writing a horror novel. Though my mother-in-law did not know I had no prowess in this genre, I knew she would not be convinced as the spirit would have revealed the actual content. I deleted the working title of the novel from my computer and gave it a different name to hide the truth. The spirit had to be a well-read fiction-lover to offer the details of my ongoing literary exercise.
My wife read a few online tips on how to control the presence of spirits and shoo them away like a pigeon from the parapet. She lit fragrant candles and burnt incense sticks to cleanse the aura. The smell slowed me down and made me drowsy and less energetic at times even though it was supposed to drive away all forms of negative energy from the surroundings. She placed a peacock feather on my writing desk to attract positive vibes even though it distracted me.
My wife said she would offer protection and companionship whenever I sat down to write but I preferred to write in solitude. Using a fake file name, I kept my content safely hidden as the fear the hovering spirit deleting it weighed heavy on my mind. I used a pen drive to save the document as an option. A week of zero disturbance meant the spirit was gone after completing its assigned task. I felt I could breathe free now. I sought the opinion of my wife and she urged me not to jump to any conclusion. Perhaps the spirit had changed its strategy. There was wisdom in her words I could not disregard.
One fine morning, my father-in-law called me up, which was quite a surprise, and wanted to know authoritatively what I was doing these days. That I was contemplating quitting advertising to pursue full-time writing was never disclosed to any person so it must have been the spirit deployed to read my mind: “Have you written a humorous novel?” How did he know I was writing a comic novel of sorts with some bit of romance thrown in? This shocker confirmed we were still under the surveillance of a paranormal kind. We were being monitored. I needed to know why the entire family was so obsessed with my writing career.
Was my device hacked or something like that? Was I being tracked? I did not find any suspicious object attached to my computer but the lizard on the bookshelf staring at me whenever I wrote came under suspicion. It was a regular, routine development and its presence made me fearful. It rarely moved out of that space, making me wonder why it remained so still. To observe my pursuits, to see what I was doing? How could a lizard tell them what I was writing? It was crazy. I decided to trap the lizard one day in a basket, and it went flying into the garden through the open window. It fell on the grass and moved swiftly. Reached for the cemented bench in the garden and sat on top of it, possibly planning how to get inside the house once again.
The phone rang as if in reaction to the violent expulsion. My sister-in-law was on the other side, urging me to stop writing romances since I did not have much idea about the shades of love. The grey shades she meant perhaps. For a man who had not been very supportive of her choices, I was expecting opposition in a big way. She accused me of being anti-love, anti-modern and whatever anti she could add, calling me an outdated, traditional, frivolous, backward thinking loony who faked to be liberal in expressing thoughts but was not practicing anything like that in real life.
If writers started following all that they wrote, all the crime and horror writers would then be behind bars. As a reader, she thought she was in step with the present trends. She knew which books were easy to digest whereas I was difficult to read. She said I talked big and wrote fanciful things that held no significance in life. The toxic outburst silenced me and the connection snapped. I told my wife that her sister had called me to warn me about my poor writing skills. But my wife said she was not interested in wasting precious time on her. If she was unruffled, I decided I should emulate her and let it go.
I looked out of the window to look for the lizard on the bench but it was not there. I opened the door and went out to check the garden area. When I came back to my study room after a futile search, I found it was relaxing on the same shelf, in the same perch. Perhaps the opening of the door gave it the chance to slip in. The smart lizard knew the right moves. The lizard looked at the wall, as if regretted staring at me all day. That it was back meant the lizard would do the same stuff again.
I lost interest in the lizard for the time being as hunger, thirst and new ideas developed all together. I took a break and enjoyed a smoothie first. My wife came to tell me that the lizard was definitely the culprit and the spirit was trapped inside the lizard – something I had suspected from the very beginning. She added this was the lizard bathing and singing songs. Maybe the lizard and the spirit were both inside the bathroom and the spirit came out of the body to have a quick shower? And during such special breaks, it wore anklets and satisfied its urge to practice some classical dance form, a long–suppressed desire the spirit could not fulfil in her past life. I found this construct quite imaginative and gripping.
“After the shower, it went back into the lizard’s body. Lizards are cold-blooded you know,” she added. I was getting derailed from writing my novel and trekking along a different territory. If distraction was their goal, then they were successful. At this critical stage my wife revealed a long-buried secret she had forgotten over the years: her family had urged her long ago to make me end my writing career right after marriage, calling it self-indulgence and unprofitable.
I made it clear to her that I couldn’t leave writing. The lizard looked up when I said so with total confidence. As if shocked to hear this declaration hundreds of miles away, my brother-in-law called me after a decade and complained I was not listening to my better half, always arguing with her. The truth was that my decision to continue writing was communicated by the spirit and they were heavily disappointed they could do nothing to make me obey. The entire family had contacted us in less than a month. It was nothing less than a miracle.
Now was my turn to act smart. I laid a condition to trap him – by saying I would contemplate stalling my writing project if he could explain how they got to know the minute details so fast. I wanted the proof of disclosure from them. Excited, he spilled the beans instantly. He said there was a spirit trapped inside a lizard that tells them everything – including what we eat and drink every day. A singing spirit, a bathing spirit, those anklets and every other disturbance created in the house was deliberate. I was furious to be fooled in such a big way.
He further disclosed that the events were preplanned to trap me. The story of a planted spirit to monitor my moves and curtail growth and everything else came as a real shocker. He said that a professional black magic expert was hired to conduct this mean task, and the motive was to block my literary growth and close all doors. The best literary efforts should fail and vanish without a trace.
His response was weird: nothing fair in love and war. I was clueless who was in love and who was at war with me.
I was curious to know how these things worked in the dark world. He said though it was not meant to be revealed, he would do me a favour: the book cover image and title, the author’s name and the publisher’s name would be the basic details required to ruin the fate of the book. I was still clueless and laughed it off. He said the book cover with a devil spirit attached to it was enough. The potential reader who picked up the book would be eager to drop it right there due to the black energy radiating from the cover even if it was white. This sounded scary and it meant the words and thoughts contained inside the book did not matter at all in boosting the sales potential of a book.
I was curious to know why the entire family was desperate to stop me from writing. Then my wife pitched in with another sensation – the disclosure that her grandfather was a writer who divorced his wife after he found success with his first book. That meant they fear I would do something similar? She said a slow-churn ‘yes’ and it explained why they blocked my journey as a writer: to keep me married.
Isn’t it too much of an injustice? I think the entire family had a lot to explain. They placed the complimentary copy of my debut book inside a grave to bury it forever right after it was born. They conducted devilish rituals, just to ensure it was never resurrected, never found home.
I shared my grief with my wife and the loss of hope. I felt I couldn’t write successfully. She came up with a quirky plan that included a condition that I would end the marriage if I did not click as an author. Would this not scare them that failure, instead of success, would deliver the same outcome they feared?
The monitoring spirit went and updated them about our plan before my wife communicated anything to them. The withdrawal of the malevolent spirit meant that the house was safe now and they had caved in to our threat. Now there was no spooky feeling inside, no heaviness or lethargy. I was full of energy to write fast.
Yes, the novel my readers are about to hold in their hands is an outcome of that labour. Assured that the marital bond is safe, my in-laws called up to find out if everything was fine. I told my wife to scare them by saying there’s a new girl in my life, but she should tell her parents it’s one-sided, unreciprocated love. If they send a spirit to find out the truth again, I am sure the truth wouldn’t be different from her version.
When success arrives late in life, then the chances of temptations and distractions are also limited. My wise wife thinks I am well past my age to stray now. And I am of the view that the person who stays with you in your days of struggle – and shares your dreams – surely deserves to be with you in your good times as well. If there is a monitoring spirit sent again, it should go back and report to my in-laws that the bond is strong enough to last forever.
Perhaps they have learnt their lesson in a big way. Perhaps they have not. But now the bathroom door does not get locked from inside. I do not hear the sound of anklets and there is no tapping on my shoulder. However, when I look at the wooden bookshelf, I miss the presence of the lizard. The spirit that deterred has disappeared but the spirit to write remains very much in place.
From Public Domain
Devraj Singh Kalsiworks 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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“I don’t know,” his mother says, fiddling with the radio.
Outside the window, a cemetery rolls by.
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“What happens when you die?” the boy asks.
“The worms eat you,” his mother says.
His father joins in, singing: “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out…”
Inside the boy’s chest blooms a fear that wasn’t there before.
DOWNTOWN, FUNERAL HOME, 6PM
There’s a wake tonight. About now the few mourners will be dusting off the black dresses and navy suits they save for these occasions, wondering how quickly they’ll be able to leave without being rude. Meanwhile, I’m digging through a shoe box looking for a photo to prop on the easel by the coffin.
Nothing jumps out.
He had no Golden 50th, no Viking Cruise, no banquet with veal parm and chardonnay. So I’ll stand around with my hands in my pockets and watch the headlights of the passing cars pierce the lace curtains, unsure whether to smile or look sad while the guests mingle in drab clusters trying not to glance toward the front of the room as they edge their way to the door and out into the night where they’ll sigh with relief, order pizzas, and drive home to binge Netflix.
CAVERNOUS GLOOM
water echoes— quiet corridors of cavernous gloom
EARLY BIRD
I used to stay up late looking for grit, for neon, for blood until you brought me to the hour when the water is at its bluest, taught me the difference between the flicker and the woodpecker, showed me how the leaves are greenest on a cloudy day, and now I look for the light as it leaches into a lifeless sky, taking your hand and welcoming the lessons of the day.
AFTER THE PARTY
For me, the real party starts after everyone has gone, after we’ve washed down the pizza and sheet cake with cheap decaf and hauled out the black bag of paper plates, hats, and napkins into the February night and finally settled in the quiet dark of your room to listen to Johnny Cash and admire the blinking lights of Boston in the distance and promise each other to visit a lighthouse once the spring sun melts the icy crust of Maine, a promise that keeps me warm as you charge into your third year with blind joy and wisdom far greater than mine.
Daniel Gene Barlekamp writes poetry, fiction, and audio drama for adults and young readers. He lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts, where he practices immigration law. Website: https://dgbarlekamp.com/.
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Title: The Devil Take the Blues: A Southern Gothic Novel
Author: Ariel Slick
In her newest book, The Devil Takes the Blues, the Texan novelist, Ariel Slick, takes on a journey into the deep South. Her novel is very well written and crafted. It has been substantially enriched with blues music and its mythology.
The novel centres around Beatrice who learns of a threatening prophecy about her beloved sister, Agnes, that can only be prevented by making a pact with the Devil. The protagonists are joined by the handsome blues musician, Angelo, a mysterious voodoo practitioner, and the unlikeable husband of Agnes. The plot is superb as is the writing style. Slick is able to paint an immersive picture of the (fictional) rural town of Azoma in the 1920s. She knows how to write breathtaking action scenes as well as solemn moments and includes a lot of philosophical and ethical considerations. It is an entertaining read that also gives you food for thought.
The main reason why I picked this book was that blues is part of the title. I’m very much interested in the history of blue music, and if it is combined with (supernatural) Southern Gothic I am basically sold. Alas with many tales, blues is just some spice added into the mix and all too often reduced to a bleak cliché.
Ariel Slick approaches it differently. The novel is set in the 1920s, the period where blues was born as a popular genre of music. Victrola record players became relatively common in the US and mail delivery made the records available to the newly emerging customer group of African-Americans, even in rural regions. Slick also does not choose the obvious Mississippi Delta as the place for the story but a fictional small town in Louisiana. Slick’s book is no history class though. If you did some research on the origin of the blues you will find some errors, such as records with multiple tracks or that it’s a year too early (1924) for consumer phonographs. If you are into the history of blues music, you will also note how blues and jazz are somewhat conflated, which, by the way, is not always a problem, since genre boundaries are usually drawn in retrospect.
However, the novel tries to take on the culture that surrounded blues. The whole book is fundamentally informed by a world view apparent in pre-war blues. While there are minor flaws, Slick is able to present a much more complex picture of the blues than is usually present in fictional works. It is not about downtrodden “authentic” Black geniuses expressing their pain – a story that is too often repeated and tends to cater to expectations of a White audience – but about blues in all of its nuances. It’s about pain and racist experiences but also about love, joy and the very unique sense of humor and quick-wittedness prevalent in blues music.
What’s the deal with the devil?
As the title promises, the Devil plays a big part in this story. That comes as no surprise as the Devil is one of the core elements in the pop cultural view of the blues. Even if you don’t know a thing about the history of the blues, it’s likely that you have heard of Robert Johnson’s deal with the Devil. Fortunately, Slick doesn’t go down this path. She mentions and debunks the hurtful myth in passing and is absolutely on point in her ‘Historical Note on the Blues’ when she states, that “„[i]t’s probably a testament to racism that we’re more likely to believe a Black man sold his soul to a supernatural being rather than was a musical genius.”
Rather than solidifying the myth that the blues is the Devil’s music, she embeds it in the cultural discussion of its time. For example, she addresses the fearmongering against the alleged sins of the Devil’s music, while the actual terror was not the excess or the sexual promises of a juke joint but the lynching of human beings.
Instead of the Johnson myth and some crude idea of evil, she presents a Devil inspired by Papa Legba, that is not evil, just the guardian of the crossroads. Furthermore, this Devil is not only a concept but takes an active role in the story and even narrates parts of it. Most interesting and original is the fact that the Devil doesn’t follow a clear agenda. He is himself conflicted about his role and ethics. In some ways it’s the most human Devil I know, and for sure, more human than some of the human antagonists of the book …
Just as with the Robert Johnson myth, the book is also careful in catering to clichés when it comes to blues music. There are still some passages that put too much emphasis on a supposed immediate expressiveness and disorderliness of the genre, but the author clearly knows, that this is only a part of the blues at best. She knows that it is also an outlet to deal with hardship, by having a good time and laughing to keep from crying. Most importantly, Slick never mistakes poverty and discrimination for authenticity: “There [is] no nobility in suffering.”
Not limited to blues, the difficult topic of racism of the era is at the heart of the book. By that the book faces the particular challenge of reflecting worldviews and language from the 1920s without reproducing racist stereotypes and language itself. The book indirectly addresses this issue, when describing a situation as awkward as “a white author writing first-person perspective of a black character.” As a non-native speaker, I am not in a position to judge whether the book always succeeds in this task. There are passages where I find the choice of language problematic, but I can plainly see an anti-racist stance throughout the whole book.
The Devil Take the Blues is a unique Southern Gothic novel that stands out by seriously involving (the history of) blues music. Even with some flaws in historic accuracy it is able to present a nuanced picture of blues music what gives the story an interesting twist. For all my focus on history and the treatment of blues music and cultural sensitivity, it should not be forgotten that the book is simply a well-crafted, entertaining read. It is compelling read from page one to the last sentence. This novel’s a good read not only for blues enthusiasts but anyone who is looking for a well-crafted story with a special twang.
Five poems by Satrughna Pandab have been translated to English from Odia by Snehaprava Das
Satrughna Pandab
SUMMER JOURNEY
Does this journey begin in summer? After the mango buds go dry And the koel’s voice trails away… When simuli, palash and krishna chuda Blaze in red? Does it begin when the blood After reveling in the festivities of flesh Crosses over the bone-fencing And gets cold, When the burning soul yearns for The fragrant and cool sandalwood paste?
And the soothing monsoon showers? Where lies the destination -- At what border, which estuary, Which desolate island of wordlessness? The journey perhaps itself decides The appropriate hour. You embark upon this journey alone -- Without friends, without kins, Without allies without adversaries.
You yourself are the mendicant here. You are the violin, you too are the ektara. You are the alms too. And what are the alms after all? At that ultimate point, When the end would wear the Garb of blue ascetism, The scorch of summer Turns to Sandalwood paste, Besmears the breath that Leaves you overwhelmed With its exotic fragrance.
A SKETCH OF FAMINE
The white wrap of the clouds Is ripped into shreds. The pieces are blown away in the wind.
The sky spreads out like A grey cremation ground, Where the sun, like some kapalika Performs a tantric ritual A sacrificial act, And slits the throat of a virgin cloud -- Moon: The skull of a man just died, Constellations: A crowd of beggars, Night: A Ghost Land Fissured farmlands: Human skeletons.
Flames leap. Green vegetations char. The blue of the sky turns ashy. The tender earth Lamenting its bruised honour Sprawls in a pathetic, arid sprawl.
WAR (I) (FROM KURUKSHETRA TO KUWAIT)
All the Dhritarasthras Between Kurukshetra and Kuwait Are blinded kings, Pride boiling in their blood,
Not a single weapon misses the target Each Ajatasatru fights another Ceaselessly, Neither of them returns from the battlefield,
The weapons have no ears for The mantra of love Or of brotherhood, Nor does the blood recognise its kinsmen. The battlefield does not care to know Which warrior belongs to which camp.
Not a soul could be seen on the bank of The bottomless river of blood That flows across the battlefield Desolate and forlorn.
And there is always an Aswatthama, Ready with his Naracha, the iron arrow, Awaiting the Parikshitas yet to be born.
AUTUMN
Is this river your body Flowing, calm and pristine, A translucent green? Are the dazzling streamers of sunlight Hanging from the sky of Your glowing skin? Are the rows of paddy fields Stretching to the horizon, Your sari? Do you smell like the paddy buds? Do the delicate murmur of the river waves Or the cheery chirpings of the birds Carry your voice? The glimmering stars of the night -- Are they your ear-studs? Do your eyes sparkle Like those of some goddess? Do you ever cry? Really? Are the dew drops clustering On the grass your tears, then?
And the pool of blood under your Lotus-like feet -- Whose blood is that? Ripping apart the night Coloured like the buffalo’s skin, Your lotus-face gleams like stars, My breath smells of the lotus, too.
A FAMILY MAN’S DAILY ROUTINE
The man stands His back turned to the sun, Or is it the wind?
A bare back, always Rough hair, dry, windblown, May be there is a hunch on his back, Or, is it a load of some kind? Heavy and sagging, His toils do not show on his face.
He stands like a scarecrow, Waving aimless, hollow hands Warding off the emptiness Around him, or the void within?
His face does not show it, Or he does not have a face at all? Just a headless body Moves about here and there, Brushing the dust off, Mopping the sweat beads away. The cracks on his palms and his heels Could be seen, indistinct though. There are, however, times, when A face fixes itself to the headless torso, When he comes to know About the pregnancy of his unwed daughter, Or, when he has to carry his dead son Over his shagging shoulders, The pair of eyes in that face look like marbles Deadpan, stiff and blank.
How does a family man take it When the harvest succumbs To the tyranny of flood and famine, When a dividing wall is raised In the house or in the fields, Does it matter to the family man? May be, A dagger rips his heart apart, The pain does not show on the face.
Sometimes one can see something like A basket on his back -- Who does the family man carry in that? His blind parents? His kids? Perhaps his name is Shravan Kumar And he is on a pilgrimage, Perhaps not!
He buries his already sinking feet Some more under earth, Beads of sweat shine like pearls on him. His beards hang off his face, Like the aerial roots of a Banyan tree, Does he move on carrying A dead sun on his back? His face reveals not much.
Who does the man stand Showing his bare back to? To the sun or to the wind? Who knows? Nothing shows clear on the family man’s face.
Satrughna Pandab is a conspicuous voice in contemporary Odia poetry. A poet working with an aim to define the existential issues man is confronted with in all ages, he adopts a style that embodies traditionalism and modernity in a proportionate measure. Highly emotive and poignant, his poetry that reveals a fine synthesis of the experiences both individual and universal, are testimonies of a rare poetic skill and craftmanship. A recipient of the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award, the Sarala Award, and several such accolades the poet has nine anthologies of poems and several critical and nonfictional writing to his credit.
Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit.
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In the town of Seethanagar lived Ramayya and Seethamma with their son Madhu. Though Madhu was twenty-five years old, he did not work at all. He spent his days lazily, eating well three times a day and sleeping soundly, without caring about anything else. His parents were tired of advising him again and again. Sometimes they scolded him out of anger, but Madhu remained indifferent and idle.
One day, Ramayya and Seethamma decided to teach him a lesson. They said firmly, “We will give you food only if you work. Otherwise, you will not get anything from us.” Not liking this condition, Madhu left home secretly.
He went to a nearby town and decided to beg for a living. Sitting on the temple steps, he planned to live on people’s charity and the offerings of the temple priest. To gain sympathy, he wrapped his left leg with a bandage from foot to knee and smeared it with red color to look like blood. He stretched that leg forward and begged from the devotees, pretending to be injured.
One day, a rich man named Subbayya came out of the temple after worship. Seeing Madhu, he stopped and said, “Why have you wrapped your leg? You are young and healthy. Don’t you feel ashamed to sit and beg instead of working?”
Madhu lied, “Sir, my leg is diseased. It always bleeds, and I have no money to get it treated. That is why I am begging here.”
Feeling sorry for him, Subbayya said, “Come with me. I will feed you and take you to a doctor.” Madhu followed him, limping and rejoicing secretly that he had found an easy way to live comfortably without work.
That day, Subbayya served him a full meal and asked him to rest. In the evening, he called his family doctor to examine Madhu. The doctor carefully checked Madhu’s leg and realized he was pretending. He told Subbayya that Madhu’s leg was perfectly fine and that his laziness must have made him act this way.
Subbayya then requested the doctor to teach the lazy boy a serious lesson.
Following Subbayya’s advice, the doctor returned to Madhu and pretended to examine him again. As Subbayya entered the room, the doctor said loudly, “This disease is very strange. It cannot be cured easily.”
Hearing that, Madhu felt happy. He thought he could stay in Subbayya’s house forever without doing any work.
Then the doctor added, “There is only one solution …. surgery. If we remove the leg, the disease will be cured completely.”
Subbayya replied, “If that’s the case, go ahead. Do the operation tomorrow. I will bear all the expenses.”
The doctor said, “But if we remove his leg, how will he live?”
Subbayya answered, “Anyway, he is used to begging near the temple. That’s his habit. People who refuse to work for their living can survive like that.”
The doctor said, “Alright, then tomorrow itself, I’ll remove his leg. Till then, don’t give him any food.”
Madhu overheard their entire conversation. His heart sank. His deception could cost him much. Out of fear, he could not sleep. After deep thought, he understood that no one feeds a lazy person for free. If he could do some work at home, he would never need to struggle like this. Leaving home was a mistake.
That night itself, he quietly slipped out of the house and ran away. By dawn, he reached his village. He met his parents and said, “My laziness is gone. I promise to obey you. From tomorrow, I will work sincerely as you say.” His parents were overjoyed.
From that day onward, Madhu gave up his idleness and began to enjoy the happiness that comes from honest hard work.
Naramsetti Umamaheswararao has written more than a thousand stories, songs, and novels for children over 42 years. he has published 32 books. His novel, Anandalokam, received the Central Sahitya Akademi Award for children’s literature. He has received numerous awards and honours, including the Andhra Pradesh Government’s Distinguished Telugu Language Award and the Pratibha Award from Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University. He established the Naramshetty Children’s Literature Foundation and has been actively promoting children’s literature as its president.
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Solitude, a warm fuzzy baby blanket gifted to me at birth, that I never outgrew, but forgot about during the noisy years of childhood, adolescence and youth; it gathered dust, faded like a distant memory, waited patiently for me to reclaim it as my own.
An inheritance from my father, it came to me on his passing -- a source of comfort, a companion that had helped him when my mother left. At forty-five, I drag it along with me like a child, on my walks in the park. Together, we watch the wagtails in the mornings
dipping their heads in the green grass searching for food, the yellow-throated warblers flitting from branch to branch surveying the world, the wild geese that fly home when the sun bids farewell, and the gardeners busy at work, trimming hedges. We breathe in the fragrance of honeysuckles and admire the hardiness of geraniums.
It sticks to me like skin, protecting me from the glare of a crowd; together, we listen, laugh, make conversation, and when alone, string it all into poetry; so much like dad, I think. Only his were stories of monkeys and foxes, chickens and bees, flies travelling to Sicily, Azerbaijan and Lyon,
carrying a wealth of information on their gossamer wings. The sparkle in his eyes when he shared the world with us and how it glazed when in a crowd -- I had blamed it as a quirk, felt sorry for him, not quite understanding that he wasn’t lonely or anti-social, but enjoyed the company of Solitude.
I understand now when on my own I sit, and it rests its head on my lap, I run my fingers through it, its familiar touch making me feel closer to dad and grateful that I inherited its quiet contentment from him.
Smitha Vishwanath is a writer based in Kenya. An ex-banker, she enjoys painting, writing poetry, reading, sharing book reviews, nature and travelling. Smitha has co-authored a poetry book, Roads- A Journey with Verses and a novel, Coming Home.
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Ratnottma Sengupta revisits an exhibition full 25 years later
Images from exhibits at Anadi . Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
On November 1 of 1956 was born a state in Central India called Madhya Pradesh. And 44 years later, on exactly the same day of November 1, in the year 2000 it was remapped. A new state — Chhattisgarh — was carved out of the land that had been home to the oldest Indians: the men and women who had peopled the caves at Bagh and Bhimbetka.
Standing at the threshold of that new beginning, I had curated an exhibition titled Anadi – that which has no beginning and, therefore, no end. The exhibition card was designed by M F Husain who came on the inaugural day in Delhi. The next day was graced by the presence of Madhavrao Scindia, scion of the royal family that continues to throw up political leaders. I was fortunate to have friends like collectors Anand Agarwal and H K Kejriwal, bureaucrats Bhaskar Ghose and Sarayu Doshi, art lovers like poet Gulzar and artists like Yusuf Arakkal. Happily, then, the exhibition travelled to Birla Academy in Kolkata to Chitrakala Parishath in Bangalore to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai. And with it travelled a batch of youngsters who were soon to be among the most sought after names in Indian Contemporary Art.
What made that exhibition so special? The card? The multi-venue display? The star viewers? The exhilarating combination of tribal paintings, figurative sculpture, and abstract images? Twenty five years later, I will look back to find an answer.
Images from exhibits at Anadi . Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
At the intersection of two millennia I was amazed to note there was no rupture in continuity. Anadi offered a fresh look at a continuum that lives on beyond the geopolitical redefinition, because it began at a time when Chhattisgarh was not Madhya Pradesh, nor the Central Province of the Raj. Bhopal, Indore, Raipur, Jagdalpur, Sanchi, Vidisha, Malwa… these cities had no chief minister back then, nor a Prime Minister. Why, there were no Begums nor a Buddha. No Baj Bahadur loved a Roopmati nor did Kalidasa send a Cloud as Messenger. It was a time when the intrepid fingers that harnessed stones and hunted hides also painted rocks to sing of life. In the process – around 10,000 BCE – they crafted the rockbed of Indian Art at Bhimbetka, the UNESCO World Heritage Site mere miles away from Bhopal.
Bare lines that captured with only a twist and a turn the vigor of hunting and the verve of dancing, rock art is that elusive genre which is narrative, figurative and abstract – all at one go. And that is a characteristic common to the tribal stream of art which flourishes in the state from a forgotten past. There is a story in every figure painted by Bhuri Bai or Sukho Korwa. She paints a cart and tells you of the festival day when on its wheels it goes round habitats, collecting all the bimari and driving illness out of the village. He paints a bird that pounces on a snake which devours a rat, recounting the lifecycle that sustains ecological balance. But where is the third dimension? Where’s the likeness to the world of five senses? We see no effort here to evoke either. Instead, there is a stylization which is unique to the region that is home to the Bhil, Gond, Sahariya, Baiga, Saur and other tribes. A stylisation that abstracts the essence of the physical reality they celebrate through colour and line.
Images from exhibits at Anadi . Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
Dots and crosses, circles and squares all come into play as the vivacious blues and reds, yellows and greens acquire life. A line is not simply a straight line or curve: that would be an unappetising repetition. The quest for variety and individuality finds Kala Bai, Lado, Sumaru break up the lines into an intricate arrangement of countless motifs. When the subject is the same, as too the colour, it’s the dots and crosses, dashes and stars that give the work the imprint of individuality. In the process, these artists who work in a community and send off their creations to markets in distant cities, have worked out a way of ‘patenting’ artistic property. Tradition did not require them to ever sign off a work with their names. In the age of copyright awareness and intellectual property rights, they might put their signatures on the canvas – but the unmistakable imprint of the artists lie in the manner of their assembling the familiar patterns.
That, make no mistake, is the sign of a master, be he in the tribal mould or a modernist. For corroboration, we have only to look at a painting by Maqbool Fida Hussain, N S Bendre or Syed Haider Raza. Madhuri or Mahabharat, Gandhi or Indira, M F Husain constantly painted figures. Eminent and easily recognised ones at that. And yet, they lived not in the details of their features but in the lines and colours that spelt ‘Husain’ to seasoned viewers. Likewise Bendre’s forms had little concern for photographic realism. In Raza’s case, it is the arrangement of colourful geometrical bindus (circles) and squares alone that speaks of the artist. So, regardless of whether or not there is a ‘McBull’ or ‘Bendre’ inked on the canvas, we readily identify these masters who, incidentally, all came from this same state of Madhya Pradesh.
Images from exhibits at Anadi . Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
Note one more thing about these names. Each of them had set new watersheds for Indian contemporary art. All of them had opened up new avenues for artists who came after them. Bendre, the first to head the art education at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, gave not just one more centre for mastering the brush. He gave shape to an institution which still assimilates the best of the home and the universe, giving the MSU artists a rare acceptability in India and in the West. Raza, who lived in Paris for years and years, did not sever his umbilical cord with this soil, yet carved a niche for Indianness in the Mecca of contemporary art. And Husain? The life as too the art of this ‘Picasso from Indore’ had become a legend in his own lifetime. Who else but MF could raise the high water mark at auctions, again at again, at home and abroad? Who but him could open up the markets for Indian artists, including those who preceded him like Jamini Roy?
Images from exhibits at Anadi . Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
Talking of the masters who opened vistas, especially in the context of Madhya Pradesh, one comes to J Swaminanthan who facilitated a two-way transaction. While holding the reins of Roopankar Museum in Bhopal, he assimilated tribal art to such an extent that he could understand it, explain it, talk about it, write about it and paint after them, using their earth colours, and the bareness of their lines. At the same time, the outsider who became an insider gave, through Bharat Bhavan, all of Madhya Pradesh a new standing in the realm of contemporary art. Artists from all over the country would congregate in Bhopal with their art, exhibit it, discuss it threadbare in seminars, impart it to those keen to learn. Small wonder, the state boasts a host of artists like Akhilesh and Anwar, Seema Ghuraiya and Manish Pushkale, Yogendra and Vivek Tembe, Jaya Vivek and Jangarh Shyam. Artists who steal the attention of the world today.
This breed, which was born with the emergence of the state, came of age in artistic terms as the province consolidated its presence on the marquee. And an overwhelming number of them express themselves in just lines and colours. They care not for things like market – which seems to have an insatiable appetite for figurative art. Nor for the narrative tradition of the forefathers who painted on rocks. These neo-masters are all distilling forms, extracting experiences, working out their own equations with abstraction.
But, come to think of it, isn’t this exactly what the original artists of this land – and every other land on earth – set out to do when they picked up the sharpened tool that was millennia away from the paint brush?
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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Festivals are affirmations of joy and love that bind humanity with their sense of hope even in a world torn by violence and climate change. As the end of the year approaches, we invite you to savour flavours of festivals past and, a few, yet to come, before the cycle starts again in the new year. The colours of celebrations are vibrant and varied as shades of nature or the skies.
We have new years spread out over the year, starting with January, moving on to the Chinese New Year around February, the Bengali new year in April to festivals of environment, light, darkness as in Wiccan beliefs, Tagore’s birth, more conventional ones like Deepavali, Eid, Durga Puja and Christmas. People celebrate in different ways and for different reasons. What we have also gathered is not only the joie de vivre but also the sadness people feel when celebrations are muted whether due to the pandemic, wars or for social reasons. In some cases, we indulge in excesses with funny results! And there are of course festivals of humanity … as celebrated by the bauls — the singing mendicants of Bengal — who only recognise the religion of love, compassion and kindness.
Ramakanta Rath’sSri Radha celebrating the love of Radha and Krishna have been translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.
Bijoya Doushumi, a poem on the last day of Durga Puja, by the famous poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.
A Clean Start: Suzanne Kamata tells us how the Japanese usher in a new year. Click here to read.
Shanghai in Jakarta: Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to Chinese New Year celebrations in Djakarta. Click here to read.
Cherry Blossom Forecast: Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Pohela Boisakh: A Cultural Fiesta: Sohana Manzoor shares the Bengali New Year celebrations in Bangladesh with interesting history and traditions that mingle beyond the borders. Clickhere to read.
The New Year’s Boon: Devraj Singh gives a glimpse into the projection of a new normal created by God. Click here to read.
A Musical Soiree: Snigdha Agrawal recalls how their family celebrated Tagore’s birth anniversary. Click here to read.
An Alien on the Altar! Snigdha Agrawal writes of how a dog and lizard add zest to Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday) festivities with a dollop of humour. Click here to read
Memories of Durga Puja : Fakrul Alam recalls the festivities of Durga Puja in Dhaka during his childhood. Click hereto read.
KL Twin Towers near Kolkata?: Devraj Singh Kalsi visits the colours of a marquee hosting the Durga Puja season with its spirit of inclusivity. Click here to read.
Hold the roast turkey please Santa: Celebrating the festive season off-season with Keith Lyons from New Zealand, where summer solstice and Christmas fall around the same time. Click here to read.
Odbayar Dorj writes of celebrating the start of the new school year in Mongolia and of their festivals around teaching and learning. Click here to read.
Naramsetti Umamaheswararao gives a story set in a village in Andhra Pradesh. Clickhere to read.
Feature
A conversation withAmina Rahman, owner of Bookworm Bookshop, Dhaka, about her journey from the corporate world to the making of her bookstore with a focus on community building. Clickhereto read.
Borderless 