Sitting outside our #HouseInTheHills, the air fragrant with the scent of dope growing wild, listening to this technological wonder called Carvaan that I tote around the house like Linus would his security blanket, we watch Dusk settle her deep mantle around the sleepy village we are fortunate to call home. Almost on cue the fireflies [...]
Sew many times.
It is quiet this morning. The crows have been awake for an hour. Long enough for them calm down after the frenzied effort to awaken the world. I need to finish the piping on my daughter's skirt. A new found love with my sewing machine.Or a newly remembered one. My daughter wanders in sleepy-eyed, sits [...]
It Takes A Village
So much has been said about the safety of women, our daughters in our country. The fear-mongering and divisiveness and the shrill voices have been growing and it has been a very depressing time. After I wrote my poem A Mother’s Lament a friend challenged to tell a happy story about how daughters are [...]
Navrang, V Shantaram and Sandhya
Divakar AKA Kavi Navrang yearns for an Abhisarika in his wife, a naayika so impassioned that she won’t let storms, poisonous snakes or propriety, stand in her way as she races towards her lover. Imagine Lakshmi swooning in Vikram’s arms to, ‘Na kuchh tere bas mein, Julie’, in the eponymous film. Instead Divakar is [...]
The Manifestation Of Kali
Thank you all for carrying my poem Kali as far and wide and beyond my imagination as you did. It still boggles the mind that so many of you, from around the world were moved and affected by a poem I wrote on a dark day. My deepest gratitude. The Indian Express has just published [...]
A Mother’s Lament
A fawn called Compassion Bright eyed, filled with life’s promise Skipping and playing, as all young things must on the meadow of wildflowers Dappled with spring’s soft sunlight When the wolves came calling. Her mother hadn’t yet taught her fear Her mother hadn’t yet taught her shame Her mother hadn’t yet taught her stranger danger [...]
Kali
It was my mother’s fault that she birthed Me on the banks of Kaveri For try as they did they could not wash the black alluvial soil off my skin. Kali Little piece of coal my mother’s brother calls me As he pretends he can’t spot me in the darkened birthing chamber It sounds very [...]
