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Rereading The God of Small Things
It is like returning to a lover you never stopped loving I pause and linger, rolling words in my mouth, tasting the luscious lusty writing of someone as giving as Roy It is indulgent and selfish on my part After all there are many new books waiting on the to-read shelf Still….. They can wait…
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To tell you the truth
I have been writing poems a lot more than I usually do and reworking drafts of old poems. Perhaps due to my PhD work on the ghazal I tend to spend more time on structure and sound. Strict metrical scales and working with rhymes, refrains, provide me with an effective tool to have a dialogue with…
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Gasps of morning
“judge a country by how it treats their weakest and poorest and also their richest” Last night I killed her. Watched her bleed near the gutter. Left her to rot by the sewer gates. There is a place where they bury dreams. They have headstones. “Here lies my need to fly.” “Loved and cherished, mother…
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I Go for a Walk in the Evening While the Body Stays at Home by Alix Anne Shaw – Guernica
These wet and windy days aggravate the rheumatism in my joints. I struggle to keep the body at pace with my mind. My mind: the curious two-year old, with the passion of a teenage romance, and the gravity of mid-life. The body oscillates. Move forward, I demand of it, it stays at home. Then comes…
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Graphic Novels in the Classroom
Experiencing Fun Home by Alison Bechdel in Prof. dr. D.M. Oostdijk’s class, October 15, 2015. By Amrita Das “What’s lost in translation is the complexity of loss itself. In the same box where I found the photo of Roy, there’s one of Dad at about the same age” (Bechdel FH 120). Alison’s Bechdel’s graphic novel…
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Dilruba Pe Dil Aaya
I discovered Dilruba Ahmed’s poetry in the early part of this year and it has stayed with me. The first poem I read was: “Snake Oil, Snake Bite” and it lingered over my days, making me smile at odd-moments as I remembered its tender irony. Imagine my joy when I discovered she had written a ghazal.…
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Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam
A day spent at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. Such peace and tranquility in the heart of a busy city is unusual. The meditative spaces and careful corners are crafted here with such sensitivity.
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Talking to strangers
A few days back my aged taxi driver Abdullah informed me of how Hafez was far from being a purist, he was a diluter of true Persian culture, writing in an Arab form. He quoted Ferdowsi and said, “now he is the man to study for pure Persian literary gems – go read Ferdowsi and…
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The dance of Gods
The blood of Mahisasura dripping from her wrists His decapitation each year, year after year I like that story of Krishna At the back of his throat, she could see, the whole universe The sun, moon, stars, asteroids and meteors – his tonsils and uvula Did he eat them all? You offer aparajita…
