and you may see the ten headed beast who is wiser than the wise and is still in the dark
about multiplying tables that lie to you in the moments when time is slipping out of your unopened palms
fingers letting go of that which made fingers out of claws
a little humanity that breached the corridors of beasts and gave me their sinews and the souls of the plants.
If you could carry binoculars all the times, may be the eyes will know truth from the frail
pain from the hurt and life from the beast.
An encounter at an airport was the transit point of the heart.
Note: The title of the poem is originally a subject line of an email message as part of a subscription to Orion
Wednesday 20 November 2013
Thursday 5 September 2013
Of fear and a little purple flower
Writing is a frightening activity. In that phase, my emotions are unfurnished and blunt. In that phase, I feel the most vulnerable. The deadening fear of what will come out in words paralyses me. I cap up the words, often waiting for them to mellow down. As a result, often, there are no words that are eager to pop out. On rare occasions, when I can bear the courage to walk through the fear, I smell a feather blown by the wind, touching different surfaces, resting in some, fleeting over others. It is a much coveted feeling. And, it is this sense of the feather, that prods me to travel through the fear of creating.
It is no new notion that the umbilical cord that connects fear and creativity is not snapped once and for all. The cord between these two elements can not possibly be cut at one go. The cord wears out as one plunges more and more into the creative sphere. The most difficult task is to take that plunge. This is not a new revelation either. But, I guess, revelations are temporal and hence always have the possibility to be new and fresh.
***
There's this little purple flower that I picked from the streets yesterday. It was uprooted by someone and there it was - the flower, the stem, the little earth-covered roots. It was raining. And it knew that, it had, maybe another day at the most. Yet, it was so beautiful, sparkling with raindrops, drenched and almost dead and yet celebrating its bloom. Today, it has shrunk to this little purple mole. But, I see the little purple flower still.
***
Another day and another revelation had come.
A very good friend of mine suggested a life philosophy that I kind-of have taken to. The friend said, "Live life as an orgasm." And I had smiled. It is what writing is to me. The pain, and then, the pleasure; the pleasure that makes me believe that this is joy, and that, there's nothing beyond this moment, nothing beyond this word.
Writing is, truly orgasmic - emotionally, physically and spiritually.
The words that have been in the body when spilled on to the blank paper makes me feel exhausted. At the same time, once the words are out there, I feel less restless, more calm, more at peace and more energised.
I guess, all I have to do is to keep enjoying. And having orgasms.
Saturday 10 August 2013
Dear dear ones,
life has amplified all senses. laughter's hitting harder the cries
more pensive dreams
vaguer desires stronger
and at its eye, there have been
1. thoughts
2. nightmares
and 3. soft clam shells. It will always fall short.
the fear of dreams.
like it hit rock bottom,the
eye.
noises no longer fade into the distance. no muffled attempts at this turn.
"turn the rod, the way it will", or, the way ...
it's never desire that lets down. it's the blood in its veins that betray the dog
wagging its tail to every bone under the ground. nourishing a bone then
can't be a priority.
tell it now. horns, dancing shoes and crap et.al.
begetting dreams is an onus that i deny. ears, eyes, tongue, skin and blood.
i deny it the priority that can make a scratch on the wall
'coz i believe that it will be white-washed soon. i believe it more than my pregnant soul.
there was an artist who painted walls from the west
and one who scratched his skin every morning to whisper into it, "you're alive now"
and one who dug a grave spitting lies to her feet
and one who wouldn't dream 'coz she was afraid to wake up
brittle wisdoms of soul-seeker bees douse in flames tonight
no less a dream it is, thinks the dead star, a few trinitised galaxies apart.
Wednesday 10 July 2013
Blessed peace, or s___
no, thanks. no food here. no food now.
empty thresholds suffer hunger
and missed good-byes.
"no one keeps promises"
any time of dreams and nightmares
yet, who remains hungry?
drains and constellations dig out the same blue filth
- all that truly is
framed.
casualties are a way
of breathing. some times
a soul or two. sometimes
a tangled breach.
the music sauces none. no one is living.
yet.
After poem notes: It takes an ocean of suffering to forget. It only takes a death to remember.
© Susmita Paul 2013
This poem is under copyleft rights - which means it is free for sharing, distribution and adaptation. Please feel free to share this poem with your friends and family. The only recognition I seek is remembrance. Kindly leave a note/ a message/ a mail when you share/ distribute/ adapt this poem.
Sunday 14 April 2013
Wednesday 10 April 2013
New post at Kindering K-os
" I have about 3 Mondays per week."
To read the rest of morning Mondays at Kindering K-os click here !
To read the rest of morning Mondays at Kindering K-os click here !
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Introducing Kindering k-os
On the occasion of the six month anniversary of attending a kindergarten, am happy to introduce a new page at Wordiculture - Kindering k-os.
You can find the page link in the top tab, just below the blog title. For now, you may as well hit this link to visit Kindering k-os for the first time ever !
Hope you enjoy!
You can find the page link in the top tab, just below the blog title. For now, you may as well hit this link to visit Kindering k-os for the first time ever !
Hope you enjoy!
Thursday 4 April 2013
Whether or not death came by bus
Broken for demanding the sun
no complains rise. Broken for searching for the sea
that touches the ocean floor at the other side of the world
no tsunamis die. Kill is a mocking verse
... and then that boy with silent words,
you are no king
burnt down to ashes
a pecan dead. Burning is a habit
in the blue i look for that
the dance that will erase
that will cremate
the mythic legend of the third war
will be realised
soon
the pulse reminds every way
in terror will lie
the dreams of kings. yes, we'll die
Death bring it on. Spit out the change fast.
the toll of the dying bells
blind the ears now.
Whether or not death came by bus © Susmita Paul 2013
Image © Neil Chakraborty 2013. Taken at Victoria B.C.
I have withhold publishing poems in my blog for a long time now. I salvage only a few poems from the heaps of trash I write. I guard them from my affection and try to send it to journals and magazines. But this one is born free. It is born out of the long tradition of the human race to suffocate a voice that demands something right for its fellow voices. It is free to be shared and re-told forever. If possible, put a link back to this page so I may meet all the free voices that speak my tongue.
About the photographer: His pictures can tell stories. Originally called Subhaneil by friends, he is now known to the social fraternity as Neil. This guy has just started telling good stories. Encourage him by ordering a print of this photograph. For details contact him at neilcbty@gmail.com .
To see more of his photographs visit his Flickr portfolio here
no complains rise. Broken for searching for the sea
that touches the ocean floor at the other side of the world
no tsunamis die. Kill is a mocking verse
 |
you are no king
burnt down to ashes
a pecan dead. Burning is a habit
in the blue i look for that
the dance that will erase
that will cremate
the mythic legend of the third war
will be realised
soon
the pulse reminds every way
in terror will lie
the dreams of kings. yes, we'll die
Death bring it on. Spit out the change fast.
the toll of the dying bells
blind the ears now.
Whether or not death came by bus © Susmita Paul 2013
Image © Neil Chakraborty 2013. Taken at Victoria B.C.
I have withhold publishing poems in my blog for a long time now. I salvage only a few poems from the heaps of trash I write. I guard them from my affection and try to send it to journals and magazines. But this one is born free. It is born out of the long tradition of the human race to suffocate a voice that demands something right for its fellow voices. It is free to be shared and re-told forever. If possible, put a link back to this page so I may meet all the free voices that speak my tongue.
About the photographer: His pictures can tell stories. Originally called Subhaneil by friends, he is now known to the social fraternity as Neil. This guy has just started telling good stories. Encourage him by ordering a print of this photograph. For details contact him at neilcbty@gmail.com .
To see more of his photographs visit his Flickr portfolio here
Thursday 7 March 2013
Ekushe (the twenty first) part 2
Is it always the day that makes a day complete?
21st February grew out of its history of being the day on which the Bengali Language Movement was launched in Bangladesh and went on to become the International Mother Language Day. It is not unique in terms of a community protesting a repression. It is unique because the events on one 21st February articulates the opinion that, the occupation of the linguistic frame also needs to be opposed fiercely.
Notarised valid replacements do not have humming vocal chords. Bad I say.
It is an existential crisis that is often justified by the power of the ruler as a necessary step in organising administration. So did Jinnah say( read this post for details). So did the Indian government say to the Bengalis in Assam (detailed post related to this coming up next).
As if a vibration different from the one that raises from your navel can change it all.
Language never has been solely a medium of expression. It has been used as a medium of repression and oppression as well. Language is political since an expression is opinionated. Hence, an expression is always political. Fisher Ames observed "[p]oliticks ... cannot have fixed principles" (ref). But, heading to this well-reasoned observation would mean the necessity to look beyond the covert gains of self-indulgent groups.
After the water broke, there were mirrors. Laid out before it will now be still.
In spite of it all, there are books. There are also days when the world takes it upon itself to chant the glory of books. That is the sheer beauty of it all. Even when there were, there are and there possibly will be books that are banned by a community or a country, there is a World Book Day.
March 7 is marked out in the calendars of the English and Irish literary small and big presses, small and big magazines as the World Book Day. April 23 is the date scheduled by UNESCO as the World Book Day, but UK and Ireland brought it forward to the first Thursday of March, to avoid clash of Easter holidays.
Even here, the polysemous aspect of language laughs unabashedly at our rigid, proper faces.
Beg, borrow or kill a date , it will never be more than a day/night's dream.
Italicised lines are random lines by me. Visit here to read my short take on this day for books.
21st February grew out of its history of being the day on which the Bengali Language Movement was launched in Bangladesh and went on to become the International Mother Language Day. It is not unique in terms of a community protesting a repression. It is unique because the events on one 21st February articulates the opinion that, the occupation of the linguistic frame also needs to be opposed fiercely.
Notarised valid replacements do not have humming vocal chords. Bad I say.
It is an existential crisis that is often justified by the power of the ruler as a necessary step in organising administration. So did Jinnah say( read this post for details). So did the Indian government say to the Bengalis in Assam (detailed post related to this coming up next).
As if a vibration different from the one that raises from your navel can change it all.
Language never has been solely a medium of expression. It has been used as a medium of repression and oppression as well. Language is political since an expression is opinionated. Hence, an expression is always political. Fisher Ames observed "[p]oliticks ... cannot have fixed principles" (ref). But, heading to this well-reasoned observation would mean the necessity to look beyond the covert gains of self-indulgent groups.
After the water broke, there were mirrors. Laid out before it will now be still.
In spite of it all, there are books. There are also days when the world takes it upon itself to chant the glory of books. That is the sheer beauty of it all. Even when there were, there are and there possibly will be books that are banned by a community or a country, there is a World Book Day.
March 7 is marked out in the calendars of the English and Irish literary small and big presses, small and big magazines as the World Book Day. April 23 is the date scheduled by UNESCO as the World Book Day, but UK and Ireland brought it forward to the first Thursday of March, to avoid clash of Easter holidays.
Even here, the polysemous aspect of language laughs unabashedly at our rigid, proper faces.
Beg, borrow or kill a date , it will never be more than a day/night's dream.
Italicised lines are random lines by me. Visit here to read my short take on this day for books.
Thursday 21 February 2013
Ekushe (the twenty-first): part 1
As part of a generation who didn't exist in 1952, 21st February has
always been mystical. A band of young students voicing their society's
rebellion against the forced enforcement of a language as the national
language seemed surreal. In Presidency College, Calcutta, I used to participate in different writing programmes held on this date every year. But, the very fact of being in 2002/3/4 made the history of the date distant; yet, the idea created unfathomable bubbles in the mind then. It continued to do so for a long time.
Limbs like me? Volatile? Ignited ? Lamp by the cauldron that caught fire perhaps.
The fear of anything that doesn't conform to the mass has besieged the human mind for as long back as history goes. In September, 1947 (Bangladesh was then East Pakistan) a booklet was published by a cultural society debating which language should become the state language of Pakistan - Bengali or Urdu. The opinion that Bengali remain a state language along with Urdu was not bizarre and irrational. With the overwhelming population in East Bangladesh (54 percent) being Bengali, it was not only a just demand but also a rational one.
The issue of language however never is an issue of language after all.Mohammad Ali Jinnah gave a speech at the Dhaka University Karjon Hall on March 4, 1948. It was on occasion of the convocation ceremony at the University. While Jinnah conceded the "right of the people of this province to choose Bengali as their official language if they so wished", he clearly stated that, "(t)here can be only one State language, if the component parts of this State are to march forward in unison, and that language, ..., can only be Urdu" (Ref). This was not the voice of the "friend" he claimed to be at the beginning of his speech. What could have been an innovative constitutional change instead became a political struggle in its own right.
Afraid of words I and you are. Scared to death that death will come. Words'll bring them?
On February 20, 1952, a day before organised student groups and political activists had called for a general strike, an order banning processions and meetings in Dhaka City came to force under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.This was now an expression of political might and repression. On February 21, 1952, students meet at the Dhaka University premises to defy Section 144. And then what happened is not only unfortunate but inhumane.
Put on that armour of pride and kill. It takes time to throttle lungs. Fire is pure. Rain!
The events of February 1952 was carried forward in spirit as Bangladesh fought its independence battle against Pakistan. Within a year less than two decades, Bangladesh won its independence.
It was long after the writing programmes at Presidency College on February 21st, that I came to know that in 1954 Pakistan recognised Bangla as a state language.
Now you have a voice, so be quiet. Now you have a voice, I beg you, speak. Now, you have a voice, don't think of rains any more.
Note:
To know about the timeline of the Bangla Language Movement, come here.
Itlaicised lines are parts of a poem I am working on.
Limbs like me? Volatile? Ignited ? Lamp by the cauldron that caught fire perhaps.
The fear of anything that doesn't conform to the mass has besieged the human mind for as long back as history goes. In September, 1947 (Bangladesh was then East Pakistan) a booklet was published by a cultural society debating which language should become the state language of Pakistan - Bengali or Urdu. The opinion that Bengali remain a state language along with Urdu was not bizarre and irrational. With the overwhelming population in East Bangladesh (54 percent) being Bengali, it was not only a just demand but also a rational one.
The issue of language however never is an issue of language after all.Mohammad Ali Jinnah gave a speech at the Dhaka University Karjon Hall on March 4, 1948. It was on occasion of the convocation ceremony at the University. While Jinnah conceded the "right of the people of this province to choose Bengali as their official language if they so wished", he clearly stated that, "(t)here can be only one State language, if the component parts of this State are to march forward in unison, and that language, ..., can only be Urdu" (Ref). This was not the voice of the "friend" he claimed to be at the beginning of his speech. What could have been an innovative constitutional change instead became a political struggle in its own right.
Afraid of words I and you are. Scared to death that death will come. Words'll bring them?
On February 20, 1952, a day before organised student groups and political activists had called for a general strike, an order banning processions and meetings in Dhaka City came to force under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.This was now an expression of political might and repression. On February 21, 1952, students meet at the Dhaka University premises to defy Section 144. And then what happened is not only unfortunate but inhumane.
Put on that armour of pride and kill. It takes time to throttle lungs. Fire is pure. Rain!
The events of February 1952 was carried forward in spirit as Bangladesh fought its independence battle against Pakistan. Within a year less than two decades, Bangladesh won its independence.
It was long after the writing programmes at Presidency College on February 21st, that I came to know that in 1954 Pakistan recognised Bangla as a state language.
Now you have a voice, so be quiet. Now you have a voice, I beg you, speak. Now, you have a voice, don't think of rains any more.
Note:
To know about the timeline of the Bangla Language Movement, come here.
Itlaicised lines are parts of a poem I am working on.
Monday 18 February 2013
Being Unsafe
 | |
| safe/unsafe |
girl child.
freedom.
chocolate.
After much rumination, I fail to identify any continuity of thought. Still, I attempt to weave the stream.
The One Billion and Rising campaign, vindicating the right of safety of women, had just reached its media pinnacle on February 14th. And yet, I can not stop thinking of the violence and the oppression that the female foetus, the female child, the woman face in regions where this urbanised campaign is not even a dream. There is actually a multitude of worlds within this earth and this time; we do not need to go far out into the universe to look for multiverse. They are already here.
Freedom has been the tale of Schrödinger's cat experiment with a difference. Though you and I believe we can either have freedom, or not. In reality, freedom is the 'AND' syndrome. We have freedom to do many things, and, simultaneously, we do not have the freedom to those exact same things. We have the freedom to speak our mind, and, simultaneously, we do not have the freedom to speak our mind because too much is at stake already.
For the chocolate, I think: irony.
The free writing helps me to get to the point where I can look back at my beautiful flower-capered blog Lustrous Lives and realise how unsafe my writing dream would be if I were to cling on to the safe haven.
When I started Lustrous Lives, I had arrived in Budapest with the baggage of having failed in life. I had left my M.Phil dissertation halfway and had killed the dream of being an English professor, possibly forever. Academics was my holy grail. It was the driving force in my life. And then, it was all gone. Lustrous Lives began as an escape from the ordeal and ended up being the salvation.
I wrote free-willingly about anything and everything that came to my mind. It was a time-killing exercise. And I willed to remember and record only the happy memories and the beautiful thoughts. It was a sane choice at that point in time. I survived the pangs of being an utter failure. That blog gave me all the safety principles that helped me to combat the new life in a new continent. It gave me family, love and support. It also gave me something that I wasn't looking for. I found a new dream.
The dream appeared to be an illusion for some time and I believed that it was only a mirage. It gradually started to make me leap out of my sleep at regular intervals causing an itching that will only be satisfied by writing. I was still seeped in self-doubt. Questions loomed over my dream: What kind of a writer will I be? How can I write anything that will make any contribution to all the great works that have already been written?
I always looked at the macrocosmic view and as a result, was left more and more inconfident. How infinitesimally small I am! - is all that I could think of. What had been my safe haven started becoming an unsafe zone to tread on.The more I wrote, the more I believed it is of no use to follow this new dream.
Then there are leaps that we make for no logical reason at all. I have finally decided to follow the dream that has been haunting me.
It is unsafe to dream because you have the probability of waking up from the dream into the real world. Maybe this blog will end up nowhere. Maybe I will end up being right where I am. Yet, I got to live this possibly 'unsafe' choice of attempting to be an author of some worth.
Image: Safe/Unsafe by Susmita Paul (c) 2013
Tuesday 5 February 2013
Moving on
The animal world is pretty.
More so when it comes to the aspect of letting go. The parent teaches the young ones to fly, to walk, to run, to fetch for itself. And then, the young ones move on. It is only us, humans, who love to cling on to the past - the ugly and the beautiful alike. We keep intact our baggage of grudges. We firmly hold on to the past when we should be living in the now. The graduation ceremonies are mere eyewash, even to the intelligent homo sapiens. And I am no exception.
I had nurtured a beautiful virtual place of companionship : Lustrous Lives for the past 3 years or so. It is a homely little space where I wrote to seek a meaning in life. It is a home where I found friends and readers from all across the world. It is that graduation board that made it inevitable for me to move on. It is the confidence of the amazing readers of Lustrous Lives that gave me the courage to move on, beyond the comfort zone of familiar readers and safe writing (will elaborate on this aspect in upcoming posts).
Wordiculture is the experience of moving out of your parents' house to fetch a life of your own. It will be my writing pad from now on. I will be sharing writing experiences, anecdotes, excerpts of my published and mostly unpublished writing and the general hullabaloo (an interesting discussion on the etymology of the word by +Anatoly Liberman appears here) of life that makes me write. I will also be writing about my writer friends whom I meet along the way.
To be truthful, I don't have the full list of the ideas that Wordiculture will host. I simply know that, it is time for me to move on from the third person narrative voice of Lustrous Lives to the true out-of-tune voice that is uniquely me. Wordiculture is going to be a journal of that adventure.
I invite you on this adventure and promise lots of hiccups and devastation on the way. As a side-kick, you might as well end up knowing a really ordinary person, just like you.
Join in, if you will.
Image taken at Phi Phi Islands, 2011
More so when it comes to the aspect of letting go. The parent teaches the young ones to fly, to walk, to run, to fetch for itself. And then, the young ones move on. It is only us, humans, who love to cling on to the past - the ugly and the beautiful alike. We keep intact our baggage of grudges. We firmly hold on to the past when we should be living in the now. The graduation ceremonies are mere eyewash, even to the intelligent homo sapiens. And I am no exception.
I had nurtured a beautiful virtual place of companionship : Lustrous Lives for the past 3 years or so. It is a homely little space where I wrote to seek a meaning in life. It is a home where I found friends and readers from all across the world. It is that graduation board that made it inevitable for me to move on. It is the confidence of the amazing readers of Lustrous Lives that gave me the courage to move on, beyond the comfort zone of familiar readers and safe writing (will elaborate on this aspect in upcoming posts).
Wordiculture is the experience of moving out of your parents' house to fetch a life of your own. It will be my writing pad from now on. I will be sharing writing experiences, anecdotes, excerpts of my published and mostly unpublished writing and the general hullabaloo (an interesting discussion on the etymology of the word by +Anatoly Liberman appears here) of life that makes me write. I will also be writing about my writer friends whom I meet along the way.
To be truthful, I don't have the full list of the ideas that Wordiculture will host. I simply know that, it is time for me to move on from the third person narrative voice of Lustrous Lives to the true out-of-tune voice that is uniquely me. Wordiculture is going to be a journal of that adventure.
I invite you on this adventure and promise lots of hiccups and devastation on the way. As a side-kick, you might as well end up knowing a really ordinary person, just like you.
Join in, if you will.
 |
| looking birds |
Image taken at Phi Phi Islands, 2011
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