Poetry | Urszula Marciniak | Haiku

 

Sunflowers, Vincent Van Gogh

The prison

The trampled grass in the yard 

Growing back

*

Sunflower

The petals ran out and 

She didn't come

*

A great river

A child carries its warmth 

In his hands

*

Spring sunrise

And nothing has changed 

Since yesterday

*

The full moon

I look for your hand 

In the fog

*

Crossing the river

Halfway there overcome by 

Doubt and cold

*

The bright summer dawn

One by one the stars and 

Wishes fade away

*

A bomb crater

Slowly turning into 

A summer playground

***

Bio: Urszula lives in Poland on the outskirts of the city. She has always loved literature and devoured countless books.

Novel | Serialised Fiction | Junk Days | Abhimanyu Kumar | Part IV

                                                                   

I really can’t remember how we first scored. It has to be from Old Delhi, I suppose.  That is where we started scoring from in the beginning. Someone must have tipped us off. It is pretty openly done around that area anyway. Junkies sit with their foils and run lines, usually covering their heads with a cloth, in the corridor that houses the LIC building and stretches from Ramlila Maidan to Delite Cinema.

On the other side of the road lies the GB Pant hospital. The bus stop next to it teemed with junkies as well. This entire region is like the junk capital of Delhi.

We must have asked someone we spotted with a foil or something to get it for us. This is the least effective way of scoring. Junkies are bastards and they have no conscience. They will take your money, ask you to wait and run away with it. Or else, they would give you dirt packed neatly in small bits of paper. This happened a lot to us initially. But we had to go through it as we had no direct contact with those who sold the stuff. 

We were really desperate too. To go there and return without scoring was a soul destroying thing. One such night I remember vividly. We had gone there in the evening and left  the auto at Zakir Hussain College, which lies close to GB Pant hospital. We walked past the stable, with the horses neighing at the setting sun with a dreary melancholy, the wafting smell of beef being fried on the other side of the road in small stalls – for two rupees you could get quite a lot of it. Snacking on Old Delhi delicacies like this was a pleasant part of the scoring process.

By then, we knew this guy who lived in Ram lila Maidan and sold stuff. It was Robi who knew him basically. Robi led these expeditions, so to say. We first checked for him next to bus stop outside GB Pant but he wasn’t there. So we went and looked for him at Ram lila Maidan. Not to be found. We went to his house next.

After walking the impossibly narrow and dirty alleys of old Delhi’s slums, with open sewers on both sides, people looking at you suspiciously – we stood out of course, in our clean middle class clothes and appearance; somehow, we reached our contact’s house. Robi called him out but no one responded. So we walked inside, climbing a small and decrepit flight of stairs. His wife and kids were inside but they had no clue about his whereabouts so we got the hell out of there.  

On our way out we met someone who said he could score for us.

We trailed behind him. We did not offer him money upfront. He said that was fine. That he would take it once we were close. “A lot of people will take your money and run away. I am not like that. I can see that you need the stuff. Don’t worry, I will get it for you,” he said. Of course, since there are no free lunches in world, we were prepared to give him one pudiya out of what he scored for us.

After some more walking in those lanes – it was already dark by now – we reached another old, ramshackle house. Standing at the door, he asked us to wait outside. We saw no reason to suspect him – he had to come out the same door – so we gave him the money.

Minutes passed. We stood outside, smoking, avoiding direct eye contact with passersby.  Half and hour and he still didn’t come out. We began to get restless. Finally, Robi walked in and I followed behind. We came across a large courtyard with no one in it. The door to the house was in the center of the courtyard and it was closed. The bastard had slipped through another small opening between the wall of the house and the wall of the courtyard.

Desolate and desperate, we went back again to GB Pant, swearing to beat up the guy if we ever managed to catch hold of him.

It had begun to drizzle by now. But we didn’t care. We wanted to score at any cost. We asked around again. We still had a hundred rupees left. Enough for two pudiyas.

It was then that we came across the one eyed Bengali man who sold bananas or something during the day and got high on smack at night. He said he knew where to get the stuff from. We tagged along. Just behind Zakir Hussain College was a park. The boundary wall to the park was broken and junkies were going in to get their fix. The Bengali asked someone to get two pudiyas for us and told him we will pay once he got it. That man never came out again.

I am not sure how we scored finally but we did. The pockmarked face of the Bengali has somehow stayed with me after all this years, like a living nightmare. Just like junk is.

We immediately went inside the Sulabh loo next to the stable, got inside one of the stinking latrines, the inside of the commode caked with shit – we could not care less. Robi took out a foil and we chased some lines before getting out and hailing a rickshaw, drenched in the rain and the over powering relief that junk gives you, by now. Of course, since we had no money left, we had to drop the rickshaw in JNU near Ganga Dhaba, tell him we would be back after buying cigarettes and disappear.

Photo Essay | A Morning at Yamuna Ghat | Shriya Rawat

A Morning at Yamuna Ghat 

The ghat is an iconic morning spot for both locals as well as visitors, with stunning views of the seagulls flying around the river. 

Too much is going on here, all at the same time...

and somehow, everything is detached yet connected. 

Yamuna Ghat offers moments of quiet beauty of nature, visible in sand as well as in the water. 

People who visit the ghat often buy fish and bird food from the nearby vendors.

​

​

Preparation of fish food; making balls of atta/ flour (after kneading the dough).

Boatman rows the boat to the other side of the ghat, which offers a wide expanse of land to walk on and explore.

Shriya Rawat is a student of English Literature from India, currently pursuing her masters from Delhi University. She is a mountain child living in the city, who finds joy in photography, cinema, nature, travelling and books. 

*** 

***

TSC Poetry | Prathibha Nandakumar | Mansplaining

Artwork by Berus Witold

 

 

You are a lampshade; I am happy for you. Let me put a bulb up your ass – Katie Hopkins

 

All this mansplaining

was sounding like Chandrayan

and I said, ‘it’s not rocket science’.

 

He was, as usual, inaccurate and

oversimplified, like talking to a nursery child.

It is possible for ChatGPT to answer follow up

questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect

premises and reject inappropriate requests,

said the brief. 

Unlike its sibling InstructGPT, it is not

trained to follow an instruction in a prompt

and provide a detailed response.

 

I read it out loud to him. He was still clueless.

I said some men have this habit of

explaining things they shouldn't and

don't hear things they should.

Who said it’s the most creative word of the year?

Mansplaining is the trend and why would he be not trendy?

I did a quick search and took a screenshot and sent him

“keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare;

 that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way

harassment on the street does, that this is not their world.

It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as

it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.”

And finally, I showed him this:

“The term has been used as an ad hominem to silence debate.”

 

And exactly at that point he started to explain ad hominem

“Typically, this term refers to

a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks

the character, motive, or some other attribute of

the person making an argument rather than

attacking the substance of the argument itself.”

 

I opened the door to walk out, and he jumped at it,

shutting it, screaming, “No, you are not walking out on this”

 

and I walked out.

 

***

 

 

Excerpt | Coorg Diary | Part 3 | Hoshang Merchant

Photo of the author by Tarun Bhartiya

                                                            Day 4

 

Lalit’s wife, Maya, has taught the help high society manners: how to lay the table; to be polite with guests etc.

           

(Ketan Mehta’s title for his Hindi film adaptation of Madame Bovary came out as “Maya Memsab!”)

           

Lalit and I discuss travel to Holy Places: Assisi, Angkor, Borobudur.

           

Holy places call you. I came twice near Assisi but missed visiting both times. Same for the Meenakshi temple at Madurai; she promises progeny.

           

Angkor is like Rome: too vast; you feel lost. It is a lost city: imperialistic, militaristic, like ancient Egypt.

           

Nothing holy left. Hindus and Buddhists claim it. The site is disputed between Thailand and Cambodia. Tourist touts spoilt my pleasure the last time.

           

But Borobudur! I chanced upon it. On a moonlit night of Baisakhi, I saw sunrise and the moon set on it. Small wicker baskets carrying votive lamps to the Buddha affixed to balloons were set free skywards. All the children were happy.

           

The structure itself is three tiered: Hell, Earth, Heaven. Patala, Samsara, Nirvana.

           

The first two bolgias are square but Nirvana gallery, the topmost, is circular; the square circled!

           

The first two tiers are teeming with life, suffering or actively toiling.

           

But Nirvana is emptiness. No friezes there. Open to sky. Buddhas sit stony, silent, under black lattice bell-jars meditating under a clear sky.

           

Here is something for a poet to sink his teeth into.

           

(I had given up Egypt to do charity with my travel money to my Palestinian lover.)

           

All this is in plain prose, in All my Masters, re-mastered by Queer Ink, Australia after India’s queers objected to being featured in it. It is not poetry. Lalit who does not read poetry will read my prose travelogue on Kindle, cheaply.

           

Parvathy, my gold medalist student, who accompanied me to the Dalai Lama writes me about that travel: 

       I remember listening to the many conversations you had with all kinds of people on our Dharamshala trip. That’s how I learnt that conversation too is a form of travel and travel is a form of conversation – with people, places, time, ways of life. Thank you for teaching me this.

She said she was in Heaven on her recent Sikkim trip with her male lover.

           

She has abjured Anumitra. Anumitra says Parvathy realized that it’s easier being straight than living as a lesbian!  

 

 

***

 

Talking of stray conversations, I had one just yesterday with a laborer who salaamed me. Thinking me to be a Moslem, he came to chat with me sunning myself on the eastern entrance to my guest-cottage.

 

Seeing the gap between his two front teeth, I complemented him saying the Prophet is said to have had such teeth.

 

            Mashallah! he said, overjoyed and went back to digging and delving, refreshed.

*** 

I am never bored.

 

 Parvathy, again:

 It is a beautiful and youthful spirit that is not bored as long as there are people to talk and listen to. In this respect, I myself am old and crotchety. Another thing to learn from you.

And this is a woman half my age!

           

But this engaging with people tires me. At day’s end I write to Brinda:

          Tomorrow will be another long day. I will play Ann Landers or Miss Lonely hearts to the world. You will be a slave to life one more day to earn your freedom ultimately.

 

Before bedtime, I was playing Cupid, to Parsuram, who finally left his wife of 20 years to lead a gay life. A Moslem student, 20 years younger has been cruising him for 10 years, even after marriage. I push Parsuram into his arms, his bed.

           

After much cajoling Parsu agrees! But I’m exhausted.

 

I’m never alone. I’m always seducing people in person, on the phone, in my writing. The poet is a whore. Poetry comes when the whoring fails.

 

Shelly Bhoil, my translator in Brazil tweets:

 

Don’t let anybody ruin your mood.

They come as material for your poetry.

So you are the one who rules.

No one gets to do that with you.

 

But Sarwar thinks this diary of lost love is about him:

Please don’t take me as your subject.

I am not your lost love.

I am lover forever but (a) very

Silent lover.

 

His silence deafened me! I control anger but cannot conquer it. I am not a saint. Not yet!

           

This Diary is self-referential. It enters but never exits the labyrinth of relationships.

           

‘Come out of your relationships, Hoshang!'

           

I mix styles. Anais Nin with Joyce. ‘Put your lingam in some thingum,’ I wrote the reluctant once and future lover, Rishabh.

           

It harks back to the critical thinking of my teachers: Empson’s 7 types of Ambiguity. ‘Power’ here is both electrical power and a man’s charisma. ‘Stars’ here are both from horoscopes and film studios.

           

I criticize myself here. The Diary also points to its own criticism.

Celio Leite spouts wisdom but rejects me.

He quotes Osho:

            Spirituality is wisdom. Religion is orthodoxy.

But he is religion-ridden. He extols the Madonna but sleeps with whores.

 Mummy, I love you so much. SO MUCH

             - Celio’s FB post for Mother’s Day. Little boy, lost.

 

Adil Jussawala posts Bachelard (on FB) on Night and Day:

…the Dragon and the Serpent, all those coagulations of the masculine and the feminine, unassimilated and unassimilable.

 

As indeed, they are in Adil’s life.

 

I need an illustrious ancestor for my literary history of India’s homosexuality.

 

Lalit and I discuss Karma (Rebirth). I say the theory is necessary by the laws

1.  Of physics: Energy never dies but is reconstituted;

2. Of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence: Unfinished things will be brought to fruition; unlearnt lessons, learnt;

3.  Of justice: The wicked punished, the good rewarded.

 

But I am a Merchant. I see God as a bookkeeper. Mukti refuses that karmic debts can ever be repaid. But Lalit a businessman asserts:

      But NATURE is a businessman.

 

Maybe the irony escapes him.

 

Rainstorm!

 

Power cut

The throbbing dynamo

An admonition 

to my flaccid sex

 

I am thinking of making an Omnibus Diary of a 100 pages with diary-fragments from

Hamburg: 10 pages, 11 with a poem;

Goa: Lost (Has to be rewritten). 30 pages?

Coorg: 35 pages;

Brazil: 30 pages? (If I get there.)

     

I should have transcribed my daily phone messages to Brinda from Goa onto paper. But I was ill and on my return home, tired. Can’t handle iPhone, iPad.

     

Currently, Brinda is my Muse!

     

I messaged her today that I am an obsessive and dependent character. She will have none of my silliness, calling me back to my higher self.  

 

She pulls herself down as she sees no end to her drudgery. I cheer her up:

-       There is OZ, Dorothy 

There is!

 

        Writing, writing, writing.

 

   A corn on my right index finger as at school where we were made to write copy!

 

   June is the coldest in Coorg.

   The rain cools everything down, bringing mist and fog.

   I feel like Suchitra Sen singing to Sanjeev Kumar in ‘Aandhi!’  But I do not know       Sanjeev Kumar’s words.

 

Decembers be warm. The tree cover keeps in the day’s heat on winter nights. Yet it is the coffee-picking time: hard on labor in winter. I have no one to entertain so I entertain the servants here.

Court Jester to the world! as my sister Whabiz’s sneer went. They in turn become lax: The tea caddy had no teabags this morning; no water bottle on the night stand; no pegs or hangers to hang my clothes; the phone subscription remains unpaid: cut off from the world.

 

They had a pork party on the leftovers from dinner – I had exactly 2 pieces as I don’t relish pig – so must have become forgetful or indolent.

 

I discovered this end-page from the TV manual. I better get more paper or its end of the Diary.

 

I also chanced upon the floor-plan of this cottage. Looked like a drawing by NRI woman artist-printmaker, Ms. Sohaila Hashmi in New York, who like me pined for a home.

The cottage is cheaply built: 12 lakhs; 3 to contractor; built on old foundations of the watchman’s quarters; stone floors, cold; not warm like teak floors. Iron rafters, not wood. But finely finished.

 

It is so cold I’m staying in bed. Forget even to wash behind the ears. Breakfast in bed.

 

Meanwhile, Delhi sizzles. Hyderabad drowns in a cyclone.

 

Shilpa Anand, student wishes me on FB:

            Happy Mother’s Day

            Mother Hoshang!

 

A neophyte teacher wrote his mom an FB post on Mother’s Day: Thank you for fighting patriarchy! What have these monster college teachers done to these sweet village boys. This one is also arrogant.