Indian Poets

November 19, 2021

“She Had Some Sisters” by Pragya VishnoiPosted by

Pragya Vishnoi

SHE HAD SOME SISTERS

after Joy Harjo

Dedicated to Kashmiri Pandits who faced massacre and exodus from their homeland in 1990.

She had some sisters
She had sisters who were yellow summer noons
She had sisters who had camphor bones
She had sisters who spit out sun each dawn
She had sisters who made love like a smothered star
She had sisters who called themselves Pandit
She had sisters who called themselves nothing
She had sisters who thought their neighbors would save them
She had sisters who knew their neighbors would rape them
She had sisters who said no and got killed
She had sisters who said yes and got killed

The fish are hurling themselves out of the river and wild geese are falling from the sky filling our laps with armfuls of white blossoms. Mountain wolves have given birth to lambs who are allergic to both grass and meat.

She had sisters who made a santoor from their bones and sang the sweetest dirges
She had sisters who filled maswal flowers in their lovers’ headless bodies and slept in shamshaans
She had sisters who smelled like saffron
She had sisters who smelled like burning orchards
She had sisters who made a shrine of their sisters’ cut tongues

Swords chased lambs out of our wombs and filled them with the sound of a thousand crows flapping wings.

She had sisters who braided their brothers’ veins in the manes of horses
She had sisters who coaxed the spirits of our ancestors back at the kitchen table
She had sisters who grew corpses in their homes
She had sisters who carried razed temples in their bones
She had sisters who had nothing to lose
She had sisters who had nothing to gain
She had sisters who danced in a gathering of ghosts
She had sisters who knew the song to bring dead lovers’ back
She had sisters who knew the song to break their rapists’ backs
She had sisters who used to drink kahwa
She had sisters who swallowed the decapitated idols of their gods

We wake up and everyday it’s spring. The dawn has teeth and our bodies are inside out with our organs exposed.

She had sisters who wanted to go back
She had sisters who never wanted to go back
She had sisters who wanted both
She had sisters whose skins bristled like a wish rubbed raw
She had sisters whose skins burned like dry ice
She had sisters who cracked moon with their fist, warm and molten.
She had sisters who slept like ghost fish.
She had sisters who woke up like a static hum
She had sisters who laughed like a bombed school
She had sisters who leapt across the edge of worlds
She had sisters who kept in their purses our dead sisters’ curls
She had some sisters who were Pandit

She had some sisters

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

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Pragya Vishnoi: “As an Indian poet, I was more inspired by short stories and novels especially by Dharmveer Bharti Ji, Jai Shankar Prasad Ji, Premchand Ji, and Rabindranath Tagore Ji. As a child, I didn’t enjoy poetry as much as I loved prose. Then I stumbled upon Jai Shankar Prasad Ji’s poem ‘Chhaya Mat Choona’ when I was 14 years old. I was stunned by the melancholic beauty of the poem and the magic weaved by the poet. When I was 18, I read poems by Russian women poets, and it was then poetry became something divine for me. My country has been invaded multiple times, and we were captives of invaders for a thousand years. Even today, there’s no week when we don’t lose our soldiers to terrorist attacks. The wounds of oppression and massacres are still present in our collective psyche and, as a result, I became interested in Indian gothic poetry. I’m a practicing Hindu and our religious texts place a greater importance in cosmology, so cosmology is not just a dry subject based on only tangible equations. The meeting of cosmology, spirituality, and futurism is something I’m very much interested in exploring.”

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November 17, 2021

“Sestina About the Color of a Missing Umbrella” by Aakriti KarunPosted by

Aakriti Karun

SESTINA ABOUT THE COLOR OF A MISSING UMBRELLA

for Monika Ghurde

It can be dangerous to accuse men of stealing your umbrellas 
is what I’ve learnt. This is an old case but don’t worry—it will appear 
again. The past is never as far behind as we think—it scuffles 
soft and heavy, and no blanket we pull over our faces will smother
it. But yes, this is a story so clichéd, we must forget
it. Like how our every choice assumes our presence in the future. 

This is a necessary mistake. A kind of person assumes the future 
is a logical progression of their present, and then they are dead. The umbrella
could have been black or red, striped or plain, but I suspect he has forgotten 
this. A pity, that there is no one bound to suffer 
these details. That it is enough if he remembers how he smothered 
her—this is the crucial part. It is enough if he can detail the scuffle, 

the lie about the company supervisor, the knocking, the knife, the taking-down, the scuffle 
in the bed, the eggs after the rape—these are the details they’d want. The future 
may see the same slipping, the same taking-down, the same scuffle, the same smothering, 
but—for example—he may eat cookies afterwards, or steal spoons instead of umbrellas,
wear her father’s clothes instead of her brother’s. What does it matter? Either way—we must suffer
the thieves, the liars, the leering, the touching. We must learn to forget. 

This is our biggest power. To survive is to have forgotten 
our many deaths. To disown dishonours, let them scuffle 
behind us like lost children. If you don’t admit you’ve suffered,
you’ve won. If you don’t know where you are, call it the future. 
If you have lost a keychain, a spoon, your favourite umbrella, 
call it misplaced. Call it missing. Call it gone, smother 

your anger—call it wrong. Call it spoilt. Overdramatic. Apocalyptic. Smother 
your fears about the man on your terrace—if he is there, it is better to forget 
it. Your house has doors and your umbrella 
is missing. You must have misplaced it. Scuffle 
from one room to the next, search for what isn’t there. In the future,
you may buy a new umbrella, of the same colours; call yourself happy. You have no reason to suffer. 

Yes, the law will save us when we are dead and who can suffer 
to be bitter about this? There are stories that must be smothered 
in the making, purely for logistical reasons. If we cannot assume the future,
we have died already. But some nights, like this one, I cannot forget. 
So I assure myself—there will be no pain in the scuffling, 
it’ll be like a stolen thing—one moment there, the next gone. An umbrella 

in the making. The man said, I’ll suffer anything. But please, let my family forget. 
She offered me chocolate. I thought she’d fainted. Smother this story, say nothing about my scuffling 
with the dead. This is the future. Let’s call ourselves alive. Nevermind the umbrella.

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

__________

Aakriti Karun: “I’ve lived in India all my life and have never felt at home. Despite learning and speaking Tamil since I was born, the language is stilted on my tongue, broken with bursts of English and violent hand-gesturing. When I look at this country I see something both foreign and intensely familiar, like an organ that has been inside me all along, even though I have never understood it. Poetry is a way of celebrating this strangeness.” (web)

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November 15, 2021

“#359, Ganga Hostel” by TejasPosted by

Tejas

#359, GANGA HOSTEL

Look now, the hostel is alive, 
March heat flushing regiments of ants 
single file, hushed, from dark crevices,  
over scarred landscapes of cracked, whitewashed paint. 
Wounded cats and earless dogs 
red-faced monkeys patrolling the grounds 
the solitary man lugging water cans. 
Don’t let the renovations fool you: this is  
an old place built on graves in the jungle: 
serrated leaves blanketing themselves 
with fresh dust over monsoons past. 
Driven out by disease, 
we scatter: a downpour 
on flimsy anthills.

solar eclipse— 
moths burning 
in the floodlights 

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

__________

Tejas: “I have lived in Nagpur and in Chennai, in many ways different experiences connected by a basic but not homogeneous ‘Indian’ experience. There is nothing innate or profound about this; it can be seen as part of the process of a country coming into existence. This Indianness is not adequately representative of everyone in the country, but nevertheless, my belief is that such a sensibility exists and expresses itself in the works of many poets and prose writers (Dom Moraes, Arun Kolatkar, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Tanuj Solanki to name a few)—and perhaps more in writing in English than in regional languages. Of course an Indian writer is not restricted to this voice—it is only one among many, and also one that risks addressing solely an external audience, at the cost of authenticity in creative expression.”

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November 12, 2021

“Miracles” by Kashiana SinghPosted by

Kashiana Singh

MIRACLES

planting seeds—
a departing squirrel 
stiffens 
 
 
tombstones— 
a cardinal circles 
overhead 
 
 
catharsis—
every day I miss 
your scent 
 
 
new moon—
making a wish
on falling stars 
 
 
nearly spring— 
nature’s music  
on repeat 
 
 
crickets chatter … 
in typewriter sounds 
I show up
 
 
first light—
the reluctance 
to be born
 

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

__________

Kashiana Singh: “I am a fusion of all my sensibilities and geographies. The language and words I bring into my poems come from all the places that I have directly and indirectly been influenced by and are inherent to my poetic refrain. I say that my poems help me continually focus and refocus towards a center of gravity. I cannot ignore my skin color, my accent, nor my Indian descent, and I think of all of these as enablers to my poetic output. I bring to my writing table a larger canvas and a broader range of perspectives and some days that is an advantage and other days a burden but never something I can ignore. I think Ada Limón said it best in one of her interviews that we are like a ‘collage.’ That is how I think of my poetry.” (web)

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November 10, 2021

“Grasslands” by Ajay SawantPosted by

Ajay Sawant

GRASSLANDS

Over the end of fall 
the children were singing—
of earth frozen to ice
with albino rages, rhapsodic storms
and the scent of the last tomatoes 
of the harvest

The children’s throat parched
On the day of the circus
all the caged birds were lying dead
The pasture which once served
daisies to the heifers
was low with seed heads under blanket 
of warm dirt

While this will wed the trees
another ring,                   some
will stay asleep overlong
The pennons will place a burial
into a cotton ball 

We bury ourselves in blankets
with our people
Tonight in this freezing barn
I find more warmth            than
any other day

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

__________

Ajay Sawant: “I am an Indian student, editor, and artist brought up in Mumbai and Pune of Maharashtra. My poems oscillate between modern, post-colonial, and post-freedom times. Poetry is the strongest medium of expression. My poems come from my experiences and stories told by grandmothers, uncles, and grandfathers. The unique setting—with climate, culture, flora, and fauna—considerably influences and adds up to my writing style.” (web)

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November 8, 2021

“Hymn for the Damned” by Kalpana PandeyPosted by

Kalpana Pandey

HYMN FOR THE DAMNED

I learnt my hymns with my alphabets, 
I learnt that gods are supposed to save me. 
My grandmother told me gods are powerful; 
you won’t be able to look them in the eye 
if you ever saw one.
She said kneel in front of yours
and close your eyes, 
leave everything up to him, 
and that’s how the sun sets on the toughest of days. 
When I came out to her,
she started praying fervently 
the same way she did 
when my parents told her they’d be separating, 
She said what she told my mother when she was packing her bags, 
Only God can save you. 
Love has four letters, 
and so does Pray, 
and if I were damned doing one 
and saved by the other, 
I’d rather love my god, 
and get over with it at once.
My boy looks like her blue god, 
and he forces me to look in his eyes. 
Every night I kneel in front of him, 
and my hands and mouth pray.
My grandmother has her god built in stone, 
and her idea of purity is written in rigid letters 
all over her existence.
Mine is built of the first of the ocean waves 
and a third of the warmth on May mornings.
But on some days,
when we lay down together 
and my childhood covers us like a blanket, 
I feel a sudden stillness to myself, 
and my chest opens up and I look for answers, 
but I don’t remember the questions, 
just the general unease they always leave behind.

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

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Kalpana Pandey: “I wrote this poem when I was seventeen. In hindsight, all I can think of is, how did I not know I was queer back then? I look at it now and I want to hold the face of the person who was typing this fervently in her phone and tell them it’s not their fault. Being in India, you have a society around you which is established upon a foundation of heteronormative patriarchal standards and regulations which strike all aspects of your lives and identities. I have a privileged position in society because of my caste and the everpresent caste system that keeps justifying these evil beliefs, but I also know being a woman and being a part of the LGBTQ society puts me a few steps behind my contemporaries, which is equally vile. I hope I can help eradicate these prejudices, via my words and actions. In today’s world, everything is political, and if you are quiet, you are usually always on the perpetrator’s side. If my orientation can be a radical statement against the status quo, then so be it. But to shy away from all of this for a moment and to think of myself, all I want to do is keep writing; because that’s how I know I am not alone, and that’s how I apologise, and that’s how I allow myself to be seen.” (web)

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November 5, 2021

“One Thing Happens” by Sophia NazPosted by

Sophia Naz

ONE THING HAPPENS

One thing happens, then another 
dust accumulates in a corner 
addendum, footnote, detritus, junk
mail from fluffy pillow makers

All the virus in the world 
weighs about a gram
This and that is overdue
An extinct season Akhtari sings of

A leaf falls in the sky’s milky tea            a scarred
porcelain saucer moon
laps it, cracks up, and disappears

—from Rattle #73, Fall 2021
Tribute to Indian Poets

__________

Sophia Naz: “Poetry, particularly the ghazal, is ubiquitous in daily life, particularly in North India. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in our family courtyard in Bhopal and playing baitbazi, a game which required a vast amount of poetry to be committed to memory. There is a great deal of elision involved in the lexicon of the ghazal which is missing from English poetry. Most of the poetry introduced in school tilted heavily towards British poets, expressing a culture and landscape completely alien to the subcontinent. I am keenly aware that I am writing in a language that is the legacy of Empire and have tried to ‘recolonize’ English by excavating its proto-Indo-European roots to add ‘radical neologisms’ (here the word radical is also a nod to its original etymology, meaning root); my poems often employ bilingual homonyms to create a hidden text intelligible only to speakers of Hindustani. As India slides towards fascism with the continual erosion of democratic freedoms, I feel an urgent need to write about the cataclysmic Partition of 1947, an event whose reverberations continue to profoundly affect the daily lives of two billion people. History is being furiously rewritten and contested on both sides of the India–Pakistan divide. My generation, though born after Partition, received memories of an undivided India and a shared Hindu–Muslim culture from our parents. My poetry is an evocation of this inheritance of loss. I tread the tightrope of the hyphenated first-generation immigrant experience holding onto the long pole of remembrance and consecration.” (web)

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