unkempt bed
filter coffee
a Sunday morning
Image source here
Linking it with A Prompt Each Day. Prompt 1 is "Simple"
Monday, 1 June 2015
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Tomatoes
Shama was walking fast. It was already
dark and she still had a lot of work to finish. If only she had not forgotten
to get tomatoes in the morning, she would have been done with dinner by now.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead and a smile lit her face, as she thought
of her two little bundles of joy at home. Her younger one had made a tomato train in the morning and she had ended up spoiling all of them.
Shama still couldn't believe they were already 6 and 9 years old. It seemed only yesterday Saurabh and she had
gotten married. She was a Muslim and Sauarbh was a Hindu Brahmin. Both of them
were ousted by their families but they had not cared. They had settled in this new
city and before they knew it, they were a family of four. Life had been like a dream
for her till that dreadful day; the day Saurabh left them forever. She shivered
as she thought of his last day. How he had hugged them before leaving and how
his last words were “I won’t take too long”. He took long; he never came back
and since then life had been really difficult for her.
Somehow in last 4 years she had
managed to get a job inspite of her lack of any professional education. Slowly
but gradually their life was getting back on the track. They didn’t have
everything but they had enough to survive; above all they had each other.
Lost in these thoughts Shama was
waiting for the traffic light to turn red. As soon as the light turned red, she
started to cross the road. The windows of her home were visible. She hurried
looking at them. Her girls would be waiting for her she thought. Lost in these
thoughts she didn’t notice the speeding truck. Shama was flung high in the air.
Her clothes went hay wire and she could feel the strength of the moving beast
over her; she could feel the mush of her skin and bones; her bones crushed into
her heart; she could feel her heart breaking into million pieces literally, as
she thought of her daughters and then just like that she felt nothing. The dark
took over. She laid there still holding the vegetable bag in her hand. The red
of tomato was blending with the red of her.
Linking this to Wordy Wednesday at Blog-A-Rhythm
Monday, 19 January 2015
Ram Sita
Sita was late again. She saw the railway track “In a few seconds I can
be free.”
But the milk came rushing to her chest; where she had nestled together the
pain, the joy, and the duty of being a mother.
At home Ram waits with a stick in hand.
Linking this post to The Fiction Challenge: From 15 to 50 January 2015. Hosted by Shailaja V of The Moving Quill.
Image credit here
Monday, 6 October 2014
Book Review: Collection Of Chaos by Tikuli
Blurb:
(From the foreword by Kris Saknussemm)
As with all the poets I most admire, words are living things for Tikuli. But as
you will come to discover, they are never deployed for their own sake. She uses
them to tell stories. The images, scenes, characters and fragments of visionary
empathy that you will find in this book are all rooted in her native India-and
yet they reach out far beyond national and cultural boundaries. They do so
because they have an interior cohesion of spirit. Her subjects are often the dispossessed,
the lost...the abused. There are undercurrents of sorrow and anger. And yet
love shines through, even when it seems to be fading away. Above all, there's a
powerful sense of hope at work-a conviction in the redemptive strength of
poetry.
Review:
The first question that came to my
mind was, why the name “Collection Of Chaos”. I read and I wondered. I
questioned and somewhere through the lines my questions were answered. Tikuli’s expression is unabashed and direct.
She conveys the stories, the pains, the paths, the dark and the light in
various forms. The chaos is both inclusive and exclusive. It is driven by inner
demons, pains and struggles and it is also an outcome of societal evils, demons
running through our culture and influencing our thoughts, expressions and hence
actions.
In all this chaos we also see a line of faith, which may appear faint
or may not appear at all but it is there. In between those lines, through
various stories, there is a spirit of faith.
Tikuli starts with a gentle reminder
of the presence of poetry everywhere, and gradually moves towards the darker
side of expression. Some poems are definitely not for weak hearted. A few lines
would touch your soul and some would become a part of who you are but the more
you read, the more you would want to read.
One of my favourites, something that I
could relate to, and something that I wish I could express in a similar manner
is “Little hand prints”. It broke my heart, made me teary eyed but still it left a
lingering hope that there are still few out there who are saving lives.
The poet moves from one life to
another, from one pain to another, from one form to another but the expression remains
beautiful. Some stories have open wounds, conveying a plethora of aches. Some will make you shiver in disbelief but
you will still read, consumed and spent in the moment.
The poems are direct, there is no
cover up. You won’t be able to hide the pain behind the lines. And then there
would be some which will make you smile a little in nostalgia.
Another one of my favorite is “The
Banyan Tree”. Banyan tree is the
reminiscent of memories. It lives forever, grows, moves from roots to roots but
still never changes. Tikuli has expressed the memories, the stories, and the
significance of the tree in those stories so well in few words. If only the
tree could speak, it would share something similar.
Somewhere through the pages, I became
a part of the chaos. I loved the expression. It is free flowing and yet direct. It has a soul and not effusive sentimentality. Less is more and each expression is complete in itself. The book for me is definitely a must buy.
Buy this book from:
About the Author:
Brought up in Delhi in a family of
liberal educationists Tikuli is a mother of two sons. She is also a blogger and
author. Some of her short stories and poems have appeared in print and in
online journals and literary magazines including Le Zaparougue, MiCROW 8, Troubadour21,
The Smoking Book (Poets Wear Prada Press, US), The Enchanting Verses Literary
Review, Mnemosyne Literary Journal, Women's Web.
Some of her print publications include
poems in Guntur National Poetry Festival Anthology and much acclaimed Chicken
Soup For The Indian Romantic Soul(Westland). Her work has also been featured on
websites related to gender issues and child sexual abuse. She blogs at
Stalk her @
THIS TOUR IS HOSTED BY:
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
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