Bhuvaneshwari Shankar's Blog, page 5

[Poem] On killing a Tree

On killing a tree

So, they fell like leaves
In the sadistic Storm
The men the women the children
Swaddling babies
Captured by deceit, coercion
Smoked out of hideouts
Caught before they could flee
The branches, leaves of the Ethnic Tree

Bundled into trains
Carted off to feed
Every burning pyres
Or flogged
Till backs broke,
Spirits and bodies fell-
Pell mell

Their belongings piled
Mounds upon mounds
of suitcases, footwear,
Clothes, toys --
Rotting leaves
Awaiting release

Brutality
Has fancy names
Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing
Attempts made time and again
To expose, exterminate, expunge
Entire communities

Yet,
There is Survival
Revival.
Return.
So, it is never done.

On Killing A Tree
#KaafiyaMilao

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Published on October 25, 2017 06:22

[Poetry] Picture Poem

The poem was written in response to this picture.

I will walk into the tide

Break and fall upon the waves

One by one I have undone

my hold upon the world

The world is a blue void

The sky above the sea below

The sand sinks softly under my feet

Soothing calluses earned

From thorny pathways tred

The sea would fall

Caressing, lavaging the pits

And undo it all

The world is a blue void

Hearts with love devoid

Man, a trampling humanoid

With every fall

No hope at all

The race is lost

Before the start

The relentless waves

break hard against the shore

With a vigorous uproar

The sound and the fury

Of infinity

The salt from my tears

Blend with the spray

I blend a finite life

Of petty woes

Pitiful throes

I find my peace

I find my cure

In this azure eternity

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Published on August 12, 2017 13:37

[ Short Story] Afternoons in Childhood

Amrit threw down the pencil in frustration. Doing fraction sums on a half empty stomach upon a Sunday afternoon was neither easy nor desirable.His stomach growled. He should not have protested so strongly about the beetroot curry. He went into the kitchen to see if his lunch plate was still there. His mother sometimes left it covered, knowing that he would return, even adding an enticement like papad or a small bowl of sev. But today, she had been particularly annoyed.
He tiptoed into his parents’ room to see if they were asleep, then he crept out of the house, wheeling his bicycle to the elevator. His lived on the fifth floor of a 9 storey apartment block.
He pedaled to the back yard to check if any of his friends were playing. No one was about. The summer sun hovered threateningly above, shoving wanderers indoors.
Crows waddled about, pecking at food droppings from over flowing dumpsters their feet half buried in the soft-top soil. He chased them on his bicycle. They rose cawing furiously; some flew threateningly above his head. He soon grew tired of this pastime.
He circled the building and through shaded eyes scanned the monolithic column to see if any of his friends were playing in the balconies.
Suddenly, the smell of potato bhajjis roasting in hot oil, assailed his nostrils. The hunger he had kept in abeyance, rose again.
He took a couple of listless turns around the building. He hesitated. Perhaps, it was time to go home. His mother might relent or, would she?He made his way irresolutely towards the elevator.
He left his cycle in the corridor and rang the bell. Lalitha opened the door; her right hand was caked with flour. He saw Vipul at the head of the table, his cheeks bulging with the bhajjies stuffed hurriedly into his mouth. Vipul glared at him, shaking his head vigorously, signalling him to leave.
“Aunty, I wanted to see if Vipul wants to play…” He gave her his winning smile.
She nodded and let him in.
He smiled triumphantly.
He had been right about the house.

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Published on August 10, 2017 09:12

[Poem] The Woman in the Woods - An Ekphrastic Poem

Painting by Sushmita Gupta
 <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I spied her among the forest trees<br />Her soft humming echoing in the dusk’s stillness<br />A forest nymph swathed in green georgette<br />Hiding her long lustrous hair in a tight oiled coil<br />I lost myself at the brink of the deep swirl of her liquid eyes<br />Evocative, their power moated by kohled rims</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />She plucked a hibiscus and struck it absently in her hair<br />I knew it would remain there<br />Secure – much like her fastened thoughts</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />The stark vermillion mark on her forehead<br />Was it there, to ward off advances <br />Or was it a symbol of her own confinement?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I wondered…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For, her lissome beauty</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Would enslave all that she surveyed<br /><br />Even the modest beads swinging from her ears and neck<br />Shone in borrowed glory</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />Yet, the downward curl of her lips,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The angry red spots on her cheeks<br />Invaded my aesthetic ruminations…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />I drew closer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dear woman, you are no Ravi Varma damsel with bashful eyes<br />Life had visited you Time and again -<br />You bear its marks<br />The angry red streak on your forehead, perhaps sustained from a fall<br />Your cheeks roughened by vicious assault</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />Yet you go on<br />Defiance burns in your eyes<br />And in the firm set of your lips<br />Life’s attempts to break you fail<br />You fight back<br />And sport with the dragon flies</span></div>

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Published on April 13, 2017 18:05

[Poetry] Haikus and a Tanka

SUMMER BREEZE (haiku)
Embraces, plays with my
hair, clothes, but not just with me
- truant summer breeze

DUST STORM (Haiku)
Nostrils clog with dust
Leeching every crack - sneezes
- Clear sky ponders me

SEASHELLS (haiku)
Deserted homes
dot sands- treasures await
gleeful enthusiasts

SAND DUNES (haiku)
Hillocks stretch smooth soft
Ridged, ever changing -the wind's
Eternal playground

PRAYER (Tanka)
At wishing fountain
people toss coins -prayers dispatched
with a token fee
Needy urchins' nightly haul
Silent thanks for prayers answered

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Published on April 02, 2017 13:22

[Poem] Nest - A Ghazal

Built we a home, a place, our nest
A place of love and of rest, nest

Some homes are built for conceit
But ours, is no weaver bird's nest

In the pile of straw, grass and twigs
Tiny eggs ripple in the warm nest

This home, an open womb, an incubator
Eager fledglings cackle and grope, in the nest

The laughter and cries of children,
The sound of running feet, fills our nest

Wonder why some choose to discard
Their eggs, their future, in another nest?

Perhaps they are the wise, perhaps they know
Fledglings will grow wings and desert the nest?

Oh Illakiya! a few feeble twigs, limp grass and floppy straw
A shell that houses empty shells, is that still, a nest?

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Published on March 28, 2017 01:21

[Poem] Control

Image credit http://www.freeimages.com

Many things in life, have to be admired and experienced from a distance.
But sometimes we are seized by a childish desire to own, to appropriate for ourselves alone the beauty that we see. But the owning, might result in the disappearance of the very object we covet.
This poem uses a glass of water as a metaphor to elaborate this idea.

A glass of water sits on the table

I detect
Patterns of iridescence
the colours of the rainbow
twinkling
As the light falls
The breeze
Causes delectable ripples

I let it sit there
Drinking with my eyes
And incredible joy engulfs my being

Then I pick it up
Let the liquid flow
Drop by drop
In my mouth's hollow
The last drop lingers in my lips
but it too vanishes
at last

I thought the drinking
Would leave me all tingling
Brimming with the overflow-
A surfeit
Filling all my pores

Yet, there is only an emptiness
A loss, a void,
A regret at what once was
And IS no more again...

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Published on March 11, 2017 10:06

[Poem] The Curse of Modernity

This poem was written in response to a contest conducted by Dr Saantosh Bakayya, who took the above picture. It was declared as a winning entry along with four other poems, in the literary group The Significant League.

When did my world begin to change?
Frozen in a dizzying time warp,
I stand nailed to the ground
Feeling a a giant train blast through me
Littering my world with alien debris

The television came
With it, the advertisements
That bid to change with the times
Oh! the relentless bombardment
Day after day
Bewilderment
Day after day

Watching shadows, I could tell the time
Unlearnt it - to own a watch
My spun cotton no longer trendy
I spend a better part of my earning
On clothes that no longer fit
In pantaloons badly stitched

The local grocer changed his ware
Traditional was passe
Potato silvers, biscuits, soft drinks in the display
We ate that too, because the advertisements told us to

The rich own the world
They always do
They get the best slice of the consumer pie
We get the crumbs
And call it nectar

All this talk of organic farming
But we have always been organic
Till the pesticides came on the scene
Our water ways on the verge of pollution
The village air
Toxin free for now
I dread the sick world
Which is my child's inheritance

The local shaman has been shamed
By men in white coats
He has not the wherewithal
To fight diseases of the modern world

The city - a tantalizing temptress beckons
Dimmed- the senses lie, in the bright lights
But I have come not to drown in her pleasures
Disease is a demon at my back
And, I have come gathering all that I ever owned
Fear compels, so does hope for a death postponed

The giant shark waits
Its mouth wide open, fangs exposed
It swallows all
And hungers for more
My money, my dignity, even my footwear
My life is a study in despair

I await the word of the shaman in a white coat
Little realizing that he is but a sham
I squat here my defilement complete
In a shabby road unkempt
The corporate shark has sucked
My life's blood
Barely have I, anything left
for a meal or even a bottle of water
A hotel stay is but a pipe dream

All around me vehicles blare and hurry past
Men and women move fast
Hurrying towards something
I am all alone
In a loveless world
Shorn of everything
I squat in the filthy street
Dreaming of the green fields back home

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Published on March 11, 2017 02:13

[Poem] Ras Lila: A Roseate Sonnet

This is a roseate sonnet on the Ras Lila. The roseate sonnet consists of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. The first letters of the last quatrain begin with R O S E and hence the name Roseate sonnet.

Image source: http://www.junglekey.in/search.php?qu...
Dusk meanders in like a giant inebriate Thoughts held at bay, through the day Rise and take hold, sleep - vagrant, inchoate I dread another night of agonized dismay
I stray listlessly, find my friends in the bowerEach languid, in different states of disarray Wander they, as I, in search of the Eternal LoverCallous, whimsical, he hold us in his irresistible sway
At last, strains from his flute float in, through the falling dewOur spirits rise and joys engulf, as if on cue

Radiant, effulgent, ever youthful, blue hued lover
Offer I, me, up to you, to do as you will
Salvage my failing spirit, O saviour
Enfold, embrace, of your benevolence, let me have my fill

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Published on March 07, 2017 12:57

[Poem] Temptress- A Feminist Reading

Image source:https://www.arab-painting.com/pic/Oil

The Virgin and the Temptress
Have always been here
Since Creation

Born and reborn in myth
Only, the Temptress
Siren Eve, Shurpanaka,
Time and again
Reinvented
She is a courtesan
A dancer, musician, an entertainer

The temptress today
Unveil her many graces
In celluloid
As voyeuristic cameras
Explore her in the minutest detail

Men will of course call her a goddess
worship her in the silver screen
Yet
Gape at her posters
Salivate in private
Call her
Unfactually
Unfaithful

Neither goddess nor nymphet,
She is
A mere puppet
In the (film) Maker's hand

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Published on March 03, 2017 02:33