New on the Website: September
Hello again!
Just popping into your inbox once again to share some powerful poems, a gorgeous photography series from the marshlands of Southern Denmark, an artist feature and some prose published this month in The Alipore Post Journal.
PHOTOGRAPHY
“As the countless birds congregate in large murmurations before collectively settling in the reeds at dusk they put on an incredible show of collaboration and performance skills. And now and then, by the added drama of attacking birds of prey, the flock will unfold a breathtaking and veritable ballet of life or death. The starlings move as one unified organism that vigorously opposes any outside threat.
A strong visual expression is created – like that of an ink drawing or a calligraphic brush stroke – asserting itself against the sky. Shapes and black lines of condensation form within the swarm, resembling waves of interference or mathematical abstractions written across the horizon. At times the flock seems to possess the cohesive power of super fluids, changing shape in an endless flux: From geometric to organic, from solid to fluid, from matter to ethereal, from reality to dream – an exchange in which real time ceases to exist and mythical time pervades. This is the moment I have attempted to capture – a fragment of eternity.”
-Søren Solkær
See the full series + Søren’s recent mural in Copenhagen inspired by this murmuration here.
POETRY
So proud to have given these beautiful poems a home in the journal this month:
Read Shelly’s second poem Nothing to Fear here.
the tamarind tree by Sindhu Rajasekaran
nostalgia is sentimental
nothing but soppy memories dripping off washed out photos –
yet that’s what my mind seeks. to slip down memory lane
to that old tamarind tree in Madras. to the
molten summer, sweltering heat, sticky sweet,
playing hide and seek, hopscotch under the tree,
secrets kept among cousins, scraped knees
climbing rugged branches, racing squirrels
and collecting baskets of ripe tamarind pods.Read the full poem here.
My grandmother’s gift by Dr Priya Virmani
So this pair of earrings
is the only
surviving gift
I have from her
but in it are many gifts
that my memory opens -
so many stories
that sing
and this one gift
becomes many
and becomes
most poignant-shaped,
love shaped
grandmother to
her granddaughter.Read the full poem here.
Things I Should Have Done When I Lived Alone by Meenakshi Nair
Slept naked through the night but
fire alarms in the dark and
the potential disaster of
groggy facetime calls
and skin crawling under
a second-hand duvet, and
tummy particularly pouch-like
Not called home a couple of days but
is Muttachan still alive and
are we sure this dal looks right
and look Amma, I can do this I’m
independent now, and broo, how do I
argue this, avoid them, attend thatRead the full poem by Meenakshi + her poem A Balcony, Calcutta here.
Fruit by Niharika Kapil
From her to her and her to me
A sown seed, now a tree
nurtured by her and her and me
growing untamed
oh its fruit, so sweet!
The roots held on
through the tempest and drouth
and kept holding on beneath
the ground
and the tree standing tall,
couldn’t see below
the very roots that succored it to growRead the full poem here.
Art by Shuchi Satyavanshi The absence of souls in proximity is drowning,
The drought of sounds in vicinage left wrenched,
The consistence of those I hear is vicious,
The machines and their friction are the only sounds left,
Nights, I can feel the rather fade in voice;
The only Human one, the one in my head,
Quarter asleep, I start thinking about them;
The few people I thought, I'd always care,
On its limits already, my body begs to sleep,
Done counting, I've counted a millennia of sheep,
Uncertain it is will I be able to sleep or what,
But certainly, I'll kill the next budding thought,
Now I've started feeling the time in its motion,
The only sound left now are the machines and their friction.Kitchen Incident by Rutvi Mehta
the pressure cooker lid –
an elephant with a trunk –
it has to be kept in check,
it cannot trumpet out of turn.
perfectly balance the rice on top,
and the dal underneath:
you don't want to make a scene.
the counter is clean;
no puddles of anything too hot to touch,
no crumbs, no onion peel.
the cooker is rattling
the fragrance of boiled dal
and the ominous sound of air
attempt to stay concealed under the lid.
perhaps the rice is not perfectly balanced
the whistle collects grievances and
continues to whisper into the empty kitchen you pop out for a pee break and kind of forget to listen
the cooker twitches and shivers,
my chest is tight
pssssss: a warning bell simmers
into the sweltering stovetop night
a sound like a gunshot
there is dal on the ceiling
I think you might have trouble reaching.Well-guarded Recipes by Siddharth Dasgupta
You add nolen gur to anything,
you make the anything magic.
That’s the golden rule.
Some things are passed down
as hearsay, some as piecemeal
legacies. The trick, I suppose,
lies in knowing, before
you’ve even tasted the date
palm jaggery infuse its heaven
juice monologue into the deepest
secrets of the aforementioned
anything. I’m speaking to you
about the delirium of siesta.Read the full poem + the poem Maps by Siddharth here.
Ground by Chriselle Fernandes
This place reeks of death
That heady dark afterglow
After the dust has settled
on mutilated bodies
the scavengers choose to ignore
still unmoving but feeding on
opulent rays of the sun
This place feels breezy, not heavy, but tranquil
Just like the butterfly effortlessly
dotting the now high grassed ground
Winged creatures
flutter across marking their presence
settling and nibbling on seeds
scattered on earth
once a bed for the dead
-a herald of morbidity
This place emanates painful memories
Amidst the suspiciously tall greens and delightful flying creatures
Lies a vacant eye that sees time
nestling with the burden of black
on the edge of lightness
and the promise
of a frivolous tomorrow.Grandma’s rain by Abhishek Anicca
moments of anxiety creep up again
amidst the speculation about rain
it’s magnitude, its impact, it’s longevity
what will happen to the three unripe
mangoes hanging from the lonely tree
in the garden that sits outside the house
she worries as if their fate is connectedRead the full poem by Abhishek here.
ART
“I am Oindrila Sen, a visual artist based in Bangalore. I draw, sketch, and occasionally paint contemporary Indian affairs. Drawing to me is like writing a diary, but based more on observation than thoughts. A recent fascination is to sketch on the back of yellow-tinted old documents that my grandmother had saved from the 1950s. I sketch the memories of which I can't satisfy myself with a photograph. I spend an awful lot of time on details and I can't find a better way to meditate; it brings me more peace than the sound of waves. Inspiration is but also a force that makes me feel better than it did yesterday and I wish to record whenever that occurs.”
-Knadabi
See the full feature here.
PROSE
The piece is titled Ok-ish. It is a kind of modern epistle. A note or letter composed as a series of text messages – the medium of our times. (It is interesting how these days, some of our deepest inner currents are typed out in the generic text message format.) Ok-ish is my attempt to make sense of and share my own inner world as it jostles against the chaos of the outer one during this pandemic.
Visually composed in a clinical, almost boring starkness, the messages in Ok-ish are the kind that one would share with a loved one in a private moment of reflection or distress. Written in the tone of a confessional – it expresses things that I struggle with. It is deeply personal and honest, and notably, there are no attempts to sound upbeat. The sentences are written in a semi poetic ramble, like most navel-gazing text-conversations. We often make sense of our own narratives while saying them to others.Read all the text messages as part of Ok-ish here.
Russian Fables by Evgeny Khvalkov
The Fox and the Cat went on a long journey and promised each other to stay together, help each other out, and share all the loot in a brotherly way. But one day they met hunters with dogs on the edge of the forest. Of course, they had to save their lives. The Fox said:
"Brother Cat, I have a bag full of tricks. The main thing is to stick together, and then we will not perish”.
"Brother Fox," replied the Cat, "I do not know what do you have in your bag, but I have one trick, and I will use it immediately”.
And the Cat climbed a tall tree and hid in its leaves.
"Isn't it time to open the bag of tricks, Brother Fox?" he called from the tree.
And the Fox ran away from the dogs as fast as he could, and it would have been bad for him if he had not come across a hole in which he hid.
When there is a danger, even the best friends often let down!Read more Russian Fables here.
See you at the end of October with a whole lot of inspiration from India and other parts of the world. In the meantime, do indulge in some reading and mindful browsing at www.thealiporepost.com