Rohini Gupta's Blog, page 2
January 16, 2023
The Book Launch is here
The book will be launched on the 18th in Bengaluru, in an all day event at the Rithambara Retreat. I will put up the link to the published book as soon as I get it.
Here is a list of the 10 authors and the names of the 10 women whose stories they have written.
One of the women in the book is the sultry Naga princess Ulupi who also appears in my story, the Way of the Warrior. Here is what the author, Rajani Murlidhar, has to say about her character and how she wrote her story.
Ulupi, Naga PrincessThe Mahabharata is replete with stories of women who not only supported but also shaped the lives of their men – husband, brother, son and sometimes even their father. Except for famous women like Draupadi, most women make fleeting appearances in various parts of the actual account of the Mahabharata.
This book unravels the lives of ten lesser-known strong-willed women from our ancient epic through an anthology of ten short stories. It seeks to depict their tremendous impact on the entire narrative.
For the story I submitted to the anthology, my choice was always Ulupi, the snake-princess. Many interpretations depict her as the temptress who kidnapped Arjuna, thus casting aspersions on her character only to redeem it much later when she saves the life of her husband. However, the strength of Ulupi’s character can be seen in full fervour only through the story that happens in-between. How she navigates through life without falling prey to common human failings of jealousy, anger and hatred that even great women of those times couldn’t escape, how her personality blooms in the face of adversity, and how she always has the greater good in her mind – these I have attempted to showcase through my work.
My earliest memories of story-telling go back to my childhood when I attended “Harikathe” performances with my grandmother and cousins. Harikathe is a composite art form, popular in South India, that uses a mixture of music, poetry, dance and drama to narrate a story from an Indian epic in an entertaining way. Drawing inspiration from this art form, I have used prose interspersed with poetry in my story to celebrate the life of Ulupi.
Read and Enjoy!
January 9, 2023
The Way of the Warrior
The Way of the Warrior is my story based on a character from the Mahabharata about Princess Chitrangada, only child of the king and queen of Manipur, who refused to behave a like fairy tale princess, waiting for a prince. She choose to be a warrior instead and took charge of the army of her country. When the Prince did come along, it was a completely different story.
The book, Aryaa, will be out on the 18th after a book launch in Bangalore. Ten authors have picked ten strong women from the pages of the Sanskrit texts and retold their stories for a contemporary audience. These are queens and warriors, sages and mothers and each story is very different from the last.
This anthology has been a long time in the making with very thorough edits and each story workshopped as well. We each commented and discussed each others stories. A very big thank you goes to Prof Otis Haschemeyer for reading every one and giving us his valuable feedback.
The book is brought out by Indica Academy and ably curated Shivakumar GV who patiently organised the long process of polishing the selected stories until they shone.
I will put up more posts about the other stories. Below is the anthology poster and a list of the ten authors.
January 6, 2023
The Coming of Ten Strong Women
Here is something unusual which we have been working upon for quite a while. An anthology of short stories about ten strong minded women from the pages of ancient India. Ten writers reimagined their stories and here they are in Aryaa for your reading pleasure.
A long time ago while reading the Mahabharata, I discovered a surprising thing. The women were not at all the helpless victims which the popular imagination makes them out to be. They were often the ones who saved the family, the ones upon whom the future of the race depended. Such as Satyavati, Empress of Hastinapur, who rescued the Kuru race from certain extinction and whose story is also in the anthology. It is thanks to her that we have the Mahabharata, just as it is thanks to Sita and her exile in Sage Valmiki’s ashram which led to the composing of the Ramayana.
When I was writing my story, I was torn between two women who have possibly been the most misinterpreted of all. Savitri and Chitrangada. Savitri has become the Sati Savitri, the one who sacrifices herself while the Mahabharata, in the short section about her, shows her as a bit of a rebel, a strong minded princess who does exactly what she wants, who even has the courage to bargain with death. How she became a victim in many stories is something I do not understand. I am working on that story too but this post is about another woman.
The story I submitted for the anthology was about the warrior princess of Manipur, Chitrangada. The story in the actual text of the Mahabharata is brief but she has figured in several retellings. The Mahabharata describes how she met a young warrior Arjuna, who was on his way to become the greatest of his age. She was a warrior herself and they had a son together. How did they meet? Did sparks fly? Did they even like each other?
There are many interpretations. In some she is so in love with Arjuna that she throws away her warrior arts and becomes a love lorn woman. In another she has a sex change. Let me tell you that, after spending about two decades doing the martial arts, I know that you can’t take the warrior out of a woman as easily as writing a paragraph.
None of those retellings satisfied me. The ancients had no problem portraying strong warrior women. It seems that our contemporary age is not so broad minded, needing her to change her sex or at least shun her warrior ways. What if she did neither? What if it was the meeting of equals, both warriors, both adults, each confident in themselves?
That is where my story comes in – into an age when a strong woman and a strong man, both in their prime, could meet as equals, neither needing to diminish the other, in the rich cultural setting of a vibrant ancient India. Which was will it go, this meeting?
More about this story tomorrow.
I will be doing more posts in here, before the book launch, about all the marvellous women of ancient India whose wisdom, strength and courage has been all but forgotten, so do come back, or subscribe and read them all.
January 5, 2023
Submissions Call for World Haiku Review
World Haiku Review will be doing a Spring issue and is open for submissions now. Also the R H Blyth Award will be awarded to the best haiku.
Here is the submission call:
Dear Kuyu,
The tide of time advances whatever our current predicament is, be it a pandemic, runaway inflation or war. So we look forward to the time beyond winter. To celebrate the forthcoming spring, the next issue will feature the R. H. Blyth Award
The R. H. Blyth AwardHAIKU POEMS IN ENGLISH OR IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION: THREE haiku poems which are inspiring, refreshing and exciting, and which have not been published or are not considered for publication elsewhere.
AWARD: 300GBP (British pound sterling) minus money transfer charges.
DEADLINE: Tuesday 31 January 2023.
SUGGESTED THEMES: “War” and/or any Seasonal Subjects at your northern or southern hemisphere location during spring (autumn) months (These themes are not obligatory but shown here only as a suggestion. It could be the war in Ukraine or wars in general). The only criterion for selection is quality.
OTHER WORKS RELATING TO HAIKU: Haibun, articles, essays, haiga or book reviews on haiku etc. Just send in whatever you think would deserve publication in WHR. Once again, quality is the only criterion for judgement.
Read the full guidelines on the Submissions Page
We wish to endeavour to present a unique haiku magazine which, while deeply rooted in tradition, is full of new ideas, innovative features or critical views. It will continue to aim at the highest standards and top quality.
Kengin to all,
Susumu Takiguchi
Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief, World Haiku Review
Chairman, The World Haiku Club
Send us your very best.
Wish you a very happy New Year and look forward to your work.
December 10, 2022
Book Launch Tonight
My book, Where Rivers Meet is launching tonight at 8.30 pm IST.
An exciting time for me but very busy. I will come back with more details but here is something to read if you wish.
A review of the book which went up this morning.
A lifetime of skie sAn Interview, reposted –
An Oceanic ViewpointDo take a look. Do come if you can.
September 17, 2022
Book Launch
We are launching this book today, an anthology of haiku. This is the 5th yearly anthology of Cafe Haiku. Thanks to the virus lockdowns we did not publish in 2020 and 2021 but now we are back.
sharing my solitudean anthology on relationships
July 29, 2022
The River is Flowing
To find the book click this
Amazon India
link or copy this ISBN number – 9392494122
into the Amazon of your country.
This book is special to me. About 15 years of published haiku and haibun and in addition, around 30 of my illustrations – pencil drawings and watercolours.
Its not the usual haiku book. I put it together differently. Many of the haiku have notes describing how I wrote them and I wrote about what is haiku, haibun and renku too. The haibun came mostly from my travels. Every trip has moments deep or humorous, such as the map confusion in Japan, the traffic light espressos of Rome and night on a volcano in Hawaii. Of course, the covid lockdown comes in too. A lot of the book was written during those difficult days.
Some asked me, what kind of book is this? Its not the familiar slim volume of verse – it has notes on how the haiku were written. Its not a sketchbook either. What is it? Well, I don’t know if there is a name for it. I started to put together a simple collection of my published haiku and haibun but writers love to write and there I was adding notes and drawings and the book turned into something else. My publisher was good enough not to ask me, what is this mess? He suggested a better order and somehow it came together. I don’t know how to describe it so I will let my friend and mentor, Susumu Takiguchi do it for me.
It is by no means an ordinary haiku anthology, nor is it a textbook, and not even a travelogue. What it is is an intriguing and personal notebook…
Susumu Takiguchi
The full text is here –
“There unfolds before our eyes a quiet but powerful drama of an Indian poet’s chance encounter with haiku and a totally different kind of journey it has ushered her into for the last 15 years. Tired of conventional poetry writing or meaningless vacations, Rohini Gupta ventures out on new trips without a map, planning or even destinations but led only by this newly-discovered form of poetry which is also a new way of looking at things. They take her to various unknown and unknowable roads and places, ranging from somewhere deep in the Himalayan mountains and valleys, through ruins of an ancient temple in Kumbhalgarh, to Japan, Ireland, USA and countries in Europe, and even to non-physical journeys in her expanded sensibility and in cyberspace.
She also ‘travels’ through our daily lives from feeding stray cats to the lockdowns of COVID-19. It is by no means an ordinary haiku anthology, nor is it a textbook, and not even a travelogue. What it is is an intriguing and personal notebook, recording what haiku has done to her sensibility as a poet, to her life as a city dweller and to her whole universe where haiku has given her a new eye to see thing differently. Driven by the incredible power of haiku, she voraciously delves into other areas of haiku literature as well such as renku and haibun.
Hers is an exciting story about getting a grip on and gaining mastery of all these areas. It is told in her concise language as a wordsmith and flows swiftly in short-sentence prose with pleasant rhythm, which is by itself a pleasure to read. At its heart lies her unblinking eyes to see truth, deep appreciation of beauty and a warm sense of humour. Her haiku wells up from somewhere deep. It is born, not contrived. The book provides self-satisfied haiku poets, especially seasoned ones, with refreshing stimulus, new insights and style, and those still to come with one of the right ways of starting haiku.”
Susumu Takiguchi, Editor in Chief, World Haiku Review.
The drawings are mostly graphite pencil sketches and one or two watercolours. They come from my pile of sketchbooks and from a span of years as I was struggling to draw correctly the twist of a fallen leaf, the curve of a petal, a woman in a coffeeshop or the intricacy of a bougainvilla. Here are a few of the pages.
Come and join me in this long journey into the always fascinating and surprising world.
July 19, 2022
Reaching Twenty One
Book no 21, of course. I reached 21 so long ago I barely remember it.
This 21st book is even more of a milestone because it is special. I dabble a little in art and it has been my dream to illustrate a book of my own poetry. You don’t need to be a professional artist to do that. Now it is no longer a dream. The book will be out soon with a print edition on Amazon.
I have been keeping a daily drawing practice for years, mostly pencil sketches. It relaxes me to untangle the complexity of a simple leaf or flower using a pencil. Out of the pile of sketchbooks, I selected around 30 pencil sketches and a few watercolours and sent them in to my publisher, Dibya Jyoti of Red River. He approved and created a beautiful design for my book, drawings to accompany the haiku poetry. I loved the cover on sight and most people I showed it too also liked it. Do you like it?
Where Rivers Meet
When covid brought a lockdown in 2020, we were completely unprepared. Life came to such a sudden halt that people were discussing their travel plans – the long commute from bedroom to dining table and back. The highlight of the day was standing at the window.
My long commute was in drawing. In pencil miles I have probably circumambulated the earth.
Mornings, of course, are for writing the next book, a schedule I rarely change. During the lockdown afternoons, after lunch had been cleared and the sun was still bright, I sat at the dining table with my pencils and sketchbook. I painted bright flowers to keep me going like the sketchy little watercolour poppies on the cover.
I do not remember how long it took me to get the bouganvilla below – possibly days.
The intricacies of a flower
Where Rivers Meet is a collection of my work over the last fifteen years or so. My published haiku, haibun travel tales, lockdown woes and the delights of nature. Looking back, its been a long journey and much labour has gone into the 21 books. Even more effort is going into book no 22 which is a novel. The mere size of a novel which can top one lakh (one hundred thousand) words can seem overwhelming. You have to take it one step at a time, one small section at a time, not in chronological order. Mine is going well, still a bit recalcitrant, but sliding slowly into shape.
So, with book no 21, Where Rivers Meet (the title is always taken from one of the haiku in the book) two journeys come together – 15 or so years of haiku poetry and many, many years of playful fiddling with art supplies. Its not the beginning and nowhere near the end. I know that as long as I write and draw for the sheer delight of doing it, my life will continue to be an adventure – what is around the next corner, where will that story or graphite line take me, into which new world?
I can’t wait to find out. See you there, in the always unexpected future which is never what you expect and that is the beauty of it. Though I know one thing which my immediate future holds – my book in my hands. Coming soon.
July 18, 2022
Twenty going on Twenty One
Not me, of course! My books.
A week ago I published my 20th ebook, and now my 21st book – this time with a publisher – is coming out very soon and this one is special.
Both books have taken all of this year and some of the last. Writing, editing and all the work of self publishing takes time. Book no 20 was Cafe Haiku’s 5th yearly anthology – about relationships. Coming out of two long and very difficult years and teetering at the edge of normality never quite sure when another wave will push us backwards – its perhaps never been so important to write about relationships and poets from all over the world took up the challenge.
sharing my solitude is available as an ebook on Amazon.
This was a book which should have come out in 2020 but that was the year we got slammed against the wall. It wasn’t much better in 2021. Editors were sick, delays piled up and it was 2022 before we could get going. Of all my Kindle ebooks, this one gave me the most trouble. The file just would not upload. I spent a week trying and hunting on the web for solutions. None worked. Finally I stripped the file and reformatted the whole thing. To my relief that worked, whichever little book virus was hiding in there got scrubbed out and the file uploaded. Surprisingly the book went live in just about 2 hours. It can take a day or more sometimes.
So, book no 20 was published. Book no 21 is on the way, the work completed, final layout approved. Waiting only for the print run.
I will come back with that story tomorrow.
May 5, 2022
A Universe in a Raindrop
6 May 2022 at 10 am IST.
