INKLETTE The Club Inkers’ Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 1
23rd March, Sunday, 2014
Ink Poetry S l a m w a s he ld in
NEWSMAKER REMEMBERING KHUSHWANT SINGH On the morning of 20th March, 2014, I felt a rumbling under my feet upon hearing the gloomiest news I came across over the past few days. For a moment, I saw my watch stopping– it’s nerves weakened and it’s heart jolted. The demise of Khushwant Singh reminds us of eras we have witnessed and eras the generations to come will be deprived of. Every book-lovers’ heart took a standstill; took two steps back before it dissolved itself completely. The world of literature feels like a sack without Khushwant Singh in it.
memory of Indian culture and philosophy. Khushwant Singh’s greatest contribution might as well be the fact that he was able to preserve t h e unmentioned. A flawless p e r s o n al i t y whose candid thoughts struck our minds like a lightning bolt, he will be a man remembered most deeply for the laughter that he’s brought on our faces and the tears that he has brought to our eyes.
A man sitting in his armchair, a certain air wavering about him, newspaKhushwant Singh wasn’t just the pers scattered on his apotheosis of table and eyes that a writer, he used to fleet between was the apowords all day– all theosis of a His demise reminds us of eras those images have man. Genuwe have witnessed and eras the ine, hearteffaced. What remains is an enormous warming, generations to come will be bank of expression contempl adeprived of. The world of and thought. tive and the great sense of literature feels like a sack Khushwant Singh is rhetoric that remembered for his K hus hw ant without Khushwant Singh in satirical writings and Singh comhumorous telling of it. prised of, will anecdotes although he be rememwas a man of many bered and cherished ad infinitum. identities. He could befriend a reader in minutes through his unmatchable wit and charm, but he was also the DEVANSHI KHETARPAL custodian of Indian history and culture. His stories encompassed tales from the Indian past. His memoirs are a
Swam i V ive kana nd L ib rar y, Bhopa l on 8 th March 20 14 . T h is wa s th e f ir st poe try slam of Bhopal and the winner s were Noorjaha n Khan, A na nsha D iv ya Upadh ya y and M ou l shre e . T hank s to ou r judge s– D r. V iv ek M ishra and Dr. Seema Ra iza da . Spe cia l tha nks to eve r yone a t S VL , Mr . A shw in Pa ndya and Noorjaha n Khan a nd of cour se , Club Inke r s.
TODAY’s INKER Group Discussion on ‘Roadmap for Introduction of Internet Maturity into The Curriculum’ in conversation with Mr. Raghu Pandey. Students learn A B C of Internet very fast but do not go beyond E F G (Entertainment, Fun, Gossip) and often become victims of its negative effects. For 21st century students, Internet can be their biggest strength or weakness, best opportunity or WORST THREAT...
Join Raghu Pandey as he gives an insider’s view to Internet Maturity.
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INKLETTE The Club Inkers’ Newsletter
THE EDITOR’S BOTTLE OF INK Dear Club Inkers,
Welcome to the pages of Inklette– The Club Inkers’ newsletter. This is the first issue of Inklette and we hope we’ve succeeded in delivering a promising one. In this issue, we look at young and skilled talent from all across the globe, focusing on forgotten and misconstrued identities. We sincerely want to thank everybody for making the Ink Poetry Slam a huge success. We want to deliver a special thanks to all staff members of Swami Vivekananda Library , Noorjahan Khan, Ashwin Pandya and of course, dear Club Inkers. The winners
of Ink Poetry Slam were Noorjahan Khan, Anansha Divya Upadhyay and Moulshree. We would also like to thank the judges for the Ink Poetry Slam– Dr. Vivek Mishra and Dr. Seema Raizada. Special thanks to Meher Khan who co-hosted the program. The performances will be uploaded on YouTube. Inkers mourn the demise of Khushwant Singh– the epitome of a writer who was a name much frequented in Club Ink’s Readers’ discussions. May his soul rest in peace.
We would like to give tons of hugs and chocolates to our talented contributors– Maria Fleury, Yasmin Gulec, Jordan Smith and Trivarna Hariharan for contributing their very artistic work for the first issue of Inklette. Should you have any query or wish to submit to Inklette, kindly mail Club Ink at club.ink13@gmail.com. We’d be delighted to hear from you!
Your Editor-‘Ink’-Chief,
Club Ink delivers a tribute to Tony Benn who passed away leaving behind a great legacy for us to revel in.
DEVANSHI KHETARPAL Club Coordinator
THE SEA, THE SEA by Iris Murdoch AN EXCERPT I walked round again. Then I went into the church, which was empty, and sat for a while with my head in my hands. I found that I was able to pray and was indeed praying. This was odd since I did not believe in God and had not prayed since I was a child. I prayed: let me find Hartley and let her be alone and let her love me and be made happy by me forever. My being able to make Hartley happy had become the most desirable thing in the world, something the possession of which would crown my life and make it perfect. I went on praying and then in a strange way it was as if I had fallen asleep. I certainly had the experience of waking up and feeling panic in case I had lost Hartley, as my only chance to find her had come and gone while I was sleeping. Her holiday was over, she had gone home, she had run away, she had suddenly died. I jumped up and looked at my watch. It was only twelve past nine, I ran out of the church. And then at last I saw her. I saw: a stout elderly woman in a shapeless brown tent-like dress, holding a shopping bag and working her way, very slowly as if in a dream, along the street, pass the Black Lion
A sheaf of very fine sensitive wrinkles at the corner of the eyes led upward to the brow and down towards the chin, framing the face like a wreath. in the direction of the shop. This figure, which I had so vaguely, idly, noticed before was now utterly changed in my eyes. The whole world was its background. And between me and it there hovered, perhaps for the last time, the vision of a slim long-legged girl with gleaming thighs. I ran. I reached her, running up from behind, she had just passed the pub, and as I came level with her I touched one of the wide brown sleeves of her dress. She stopped, I stopped. I could say nothing. The familiar face turned to me, the pale round fey face with the secretviolet eyes, and with a sort of almost reflective movement of relief I thought: I can make sense of it, yes, it’s the same person, and I can see it as the same person, after all. Hartley’s face, which now seemed
absolutely white, expressed such an appalling terror that I would’ve felt terrified myself had I not been engaged in some urgent almost mechanical search for ‘similarities’, for ways to blend the present with the far past. Yes, that was Hartley’s face, though it was haggard and curiously soft and dry. A sheaf of very fine sensitive wrinkles at the corner of the eyes led upward to the brow and down towards the chin, framing the face like a wreath. These were magisterial horizontal lines upon the forehead and long darkish hairs above the mouth. She was wearing a moist red lipstick and face powder which had caked here and there. Her hair was grey and neat and conventionally waved. But the shape of her face and head and the look of her eyes conveyed something untouched straight from the past into the present. She started to murmur something. ‘Oh – it’s – ‘ It was of course at once clear that she knew who I was. She mumbled ‘Oh–’ staring at me in a kind of blank terrified supplication. Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was an Irish -born British author and philosopher. She was a recipient of the Man Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, The Sea.
Volume 1, Issue 1
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KITCHENETTE BUILDING by Gwendolyn Brooks We are things of dry hours and involuntary plans, Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong Like “rent”, “feeding a wife”, “satisfying a man.”
But could a dream send up through onion fumes It’s white and violet, fight with fried potatoes And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall, Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms
Even if we were willing to let it in, Had time to warm it, keep it very clean, Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! Not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it. Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was an American poet. She won The Pulitzer in 1950 and was appointed the Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968.
BEST-SELLERS @ THE NEW YORK TIMES 23rd March 2014 PAPERBACK MASS-MARKET FICTION
PAPERBACK NON-FICTION
Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson
The Hit by David Baldacci
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson
The Chance by Robert Carr
Thankless in Death by J.D. Robb
The Monuments Men by Robert M. Esdel with Brett Witter
The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
Proof Of Heaven by Eben Alexander
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
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INKLETTE The Club Inkers’ Newsletter
OBSCENE She raised her hand and ever so delicately, almost as if flicking off an infinitesimal piece of air fluff, raised her middle finger in an age-old tradition of unspoken, unwelcome communication. And it was directed at me. It hit me like a bomb much like those that exploded over our heads just twenty years ago. It swept over my entire existence, bathing me in an indescribable feeling of interminable and unequivocal passion. I lost my breath, forgetting the habituated action of breathing that I had been brainwashed into doing long ago. I wanted to grasp my chest, and fill it in the hole that had suddenly appeared but resisted. I was ambushed with an idea so foreign, so inexplicably confusing that I neglected to speak for what seemed to be like an eternity, albeit a brief one. I was in love, with none other than Beverly Kenison and no amount of reason could stop the train of fervor that was racing around my soul. “Go away, Glenn,” the guilty party whispered, the obscene finger trembling with the strain of being, well, obscene. Her fist was curled ever so gently and her slim, pink, quivering finger was barely noticeable, almost as if she was embarrassed to be seen doing what was a rather orthodox greeting between comrades and enemies alike in our circles. I took a step closer to her as she raised the offense between us, attempting to ward me off. “Aye Glenn, step off, man. Terry’ll be back soon,” Roger said devoid of emotion, taking a long drag from his cig. He sighed blowing his smoke up past the broken fire escapes and dreams, over tops of the buildings and into the Birmingham stars, which seemed to suck the smoke into their void without compunction. “Why should I, little sister?” I said, trying to imitate John Wayne’s Western drawl. “Because I don’t like you and you don’t like me, remember?” Beverly tried to peer around me for her friends who had abandoned her much earlier that night for different, faster company. “What makes you think that, Bev?” “Well, you’ve never talked to me before tonight. And please don’t call me Bev?” I grinned toothily, “Doesn’t mean I didn’t like you, means I didn’t know you, Bev.” I stepped forward and tried to grab her hands and her finger, which was still sticking up, almost camouflaged by the rest of her dainty hand if you didn’t know to look for it. “Terry’s coming, man. Better split sharpish if you want to be in one piece tomorrow.” Roger slinked off towards some of the other kids lingering in the dingy alley. I stared at him as he continued to blow his smoke into the ever-obliging stars. “Beverly, I love you,” I said, shifting my attention back to her. She peered up at me through her amber lily irises. She bit her lip and tugged a strand of dirty hair behind her ear, adorned with a small, shining jewel. She had never looked lovelier, though why I cannot say. Is she beautiful because I love her or do I love her because she is beautiful? Perhaps neither.
PHOTO BY: Maria Fleury Maria Fleury is a 14-year old photographer who currently resides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is an attendee of the Oxford Prep Experience at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford where she majored in Photography. She trots the globe, capturing every street corner in the click of her camera. Beauty isn’t a component of love, after all. “Please?” I ask, not quite sure what for. She searched my soul as I searched hers, and I hoped we would be able to meet somewhere in the middle. “Terry won’t like it.” And she darted under my arm, which had been unconsciously trapping her against the wall and scampered over to her boyfriend, the oaf, who wrapped his arm around her and entwined his fingers with her own obscene ones. Terry won’t like it. Not, I don’t like it, but, Terry won’t. There was hope. Maybe. I kicked the broken gravel at my feet and maneuvered out of the alley, which seemed to be growing smaller, ignoring the calls and gestures of acquaintances. The train in my soul had slowed down but not enough to stop completely. A hole had appeared in my plimsolls and was growing bigger as the fabric that held it together become strained and unwound. A professor had once taught about a theory that all universes, ours being just one out of the infinity, was made up of fabric that was constantly winding and rethreading itself. I felt like Beverly had tugged the first string in my fabric and I was slowly falling apart from there. I took off jogging down the street, running from the empty laughs and eyes behind me, running from Beverly, and towards a home with all the lights off. I glanced up at the sky, the darkest blue imaginable with a sprinkling of hollow stars and a man, a waning little man tonight. A moon that was full of holes, betrayed by the fabric that made it up. A moon, that if, I squinted a bit, looked a little bit like a finger, too embarrassed to stand up straight but just enough to be obscene.
Jordan Smith is 16 years old and lives nears New York City. She has written several short stories and plays and is a frequent contributor to award winning magazine, Daedalus– Winner of 4 Gold Crowns.
Volume 1, Issue 1
THE BENT DOUBLE WOMAN I see her everyday in the whereabouts of the temple, working her way along the swarm of people that throng the place every hour.
She always clasps the cuff of my Louis Phillipe shirt and does not let go of me, till I hand her over a five rupee note.
She is really irksome, at times. She squats down in the afternoon behind the mango tree, counting the little money she’s made during the day.
She sells flowers and shines shoes on Fridays. Her eyes shine bright. You can feel her heart suffuse with contentment when you make up your mind to buy her flowers or get your shoes shined by her.
And suddenly, the irksome old woman fades away. In her place, you can see a sprightly young motherfull of love, just as caring as yoursher wrinkles blur, her scars evanesce
and in that one moment of transitory happiness,
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APPETITE I try to nudge my hand into your pores, trying to assuage those strokes advancing from the prie-dieu over the bleached shadows of the tsetses, looking over your slouched shoulder like a cliff that’s hanging from the hinge of my door. My hands try to cut your face like beanstalks. You subtly garrote your upper lips, like a tailor, trying to stitch them within the dominions of your spoon. Sometimes you extract ruby glass and banderoles from the overlapping crossnets of my skin, trying to trim them like strudels and stars that bind into the daylight when they surmount the winding staircase to my right. You mentioned while Uncle Albert was whiffing the snow for his keys, that you were infatuated with the virtue of infidelity. An hour later, I killed the thrushes somnambulating under your loafers– worth a tuppence. You kneecap respires beneath the ground occupied by the ferns. Like rocks that slither during a landslide, I see your knees burning the broadcasts that yelped like mongrels when we took birth. They have a cornucopia of corybantic wealth kept under their tongues when they harangue about geography. When they pass detestable fritters. they look at you and sigh. I don’t know why.
you feel as if you reveled in all the joys of the world.
Trivarna Hariharan is a student at The Indian Heights School. She currently resides in New Delhi. She penned her first book at the age of fourteen and has four books to her credit now. She is the author of innumerable short stories, poems and articles
Devanshi Khetarpal is the author of Welcome To Hilltop High (Indra, 2012). She has contributed to magazines and newspapers with an extensive nationwide and international circulation. She attended the Oxford Prep Experience at University of Oxford where she majored in Creative Writing. PHOTO BY: Yasmin Gulec Yasmin Gulec is a passionate photographer who currently lives in Turkey. She loves taking pictures of people whilst listening to their stories with a profound sense of understanding. The lady in this particular photo was staring at Yasmin while she was thinking of taking a photograph of the lady. Earlier that day, Yasmin bought flowers from her and she was the lady’s first customer of the day. Yasmin saw an astounding beauty in the lady’s face and wanted to catch the pain, the struggle and hope in her eyes.
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INKLETTE The Club Inkers’ Newsletter
A TRIBUTE TO TONY BENN (April 3, 1925-March 14, 2014) He was leaning on a wooden table kept hidden somewhere among the loitering shadows in a room which had contained major fragments history within its contours. But it seemed to have put on a dull habiliment of bleak wooden panels on its walls. Hundreds of teenagers from possibly every continent (barring Antarctica) were present in the Oxford Union to listen to one of the most eminent politicians the world had ever seen– Tony Benn. As a part of Oxford Prep course held by OxBridge Academic Programs in Corpus Christi College, University Of Oxford, I was eager to have Tony Benn as a guest speaker during the course. His political diaries had intrigued me enormously and besides, he had a photograph with every great figure in history. It was time. It was time for Tony Benn– whom many of us thought was the apotheosis of a politician. The vaulted roofs, the gargoyle– embellished cornices kept us enchanted. I was slouching on my camera phone trying to click pictures of the Oxford Union. There were a bunch of blonde braggadocios in front of me. Corybantic crowds stormed in and occupied seats much faster than I expected and I was left, well, flummoxed. I sat at the very end because Christopher said that’s where you get the best view. I waited– tapping my feet rhythmically. But no heads turned when ’he’ entered those majestic doors– not even the bald ones or the ones in berets. But when he cast his palms on the table’s surface with an air that illuminated the room, that’s when all heads turned– even mine. He looked like a gentleman who, according to my discretion, had inherited a disposition of looking
swashbuckling in an age when many look like specimens handpicked from a museum. But he was a natural– no preservatives, no incisions mobbed by synthetics. Just pure innocence hovered about his face. He wasn’t overwhelmed by
says Tony Benn, while narrating his fairytale of a love story. Someone in a strapless dress, stood up later, to ask him a question regarding recent developments in Australian Politics and Julia Gillard, in particular. Tony Benn looked at the floor and then lifted his head to say- “Frankly, I can’t seem to comment on that.” An hour and a half passed. Tons of teenagers pushed past each other to get his autograph, a closer glimpse, some more banter to pass in between and a lot more to know about. Indubitably, he had kept us submerged in his words. Little did we know that we were not going to have the privilege of meeting him again. Somewhere, he was etched onto our minds. Somewhere we had kept a part of the small affair with his words embedded.
his fame or accomplishments. His words reflected a life that was spent and was being spent in the conspicuous presence of a vivacious intellect. From telling us about the politics of US and nuclear deals to exhilarating personal stories, this man spoke with a voice delicately sumptuous that gained uproars, ruminations and encore. Scores of years, histories, policies regarding politics seemed to have taken everybody into comatose– making each part of them numb for a while except their minds. Each of us bubbled with questions and Tony Benn passed a genteel smile stretching across his cheekbones with every answer. His personality was nonpareil– his ubiquitous humility, the vast tracts that his knowledge grazed on and tons of inspiration which he carried in his front pocket. “I proposed to me wife that day and after a long wait of about, three second, she agreed to marry me”-
At the age of 88, Tony Benn isn’t a mere shadow. He’s a man who’s still smoking his pipe. RIP Tony Benn.
DEVANSHI KHETARPAL