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An initiative by a group of young individuals, Burning Voices' primary objective is to bridge the gap between creative instincts and the contemporary lived experience. In the same breath, this initiative also tries to reflect the quintessential spirit of the individual as the creator of arts deeply rooted in the given socio-political realities. In short, Burning Voices mirrors the knotted angst of a generation and their appetite for creativity, often trampled upon and silenced by spiraling political turmoil.
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Our Private Literature LeibÄ klei
Volume II Issue I
Burning Voices
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Our Private Literature by Burning Voices Volume II Issue I (e-book edition)
www.burningvoices.com 2010
Published by: Burning Voices www.burningvoices.com First published: 16th May 2010
Price: Rs. 0/Designed by AMASOONG Edited by Sumitra Thoidingjam
Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License
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contents Introuction
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A letter to Lord Krishna from Brindavan Manipur stop spanking me Moirang Khamba meets Krishna! Between Two Flags Wont You Agree Dablo Returns Home Landscape You Thief Because I am your best enemy who are you I am a death statue!!! One Last Time In Defiance The Other Revolutionary Three Questions His and Hers RIGHT to EDUCATION Dying Night In a moment of Nirvana Senses
01 03 06 09 11 14 15 17 18 10 22 26 27 28 29 31 33 34 35 37
Haikus
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Rooting for Neruda’s Images (review)
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Such Happiness (visual)
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Introduction Our Private Literature is a periodical from the Burning Voices with independent theme(s) on each issue, whether it - be a being or notbeing… for be a being may be easier, so to say, with the acceptance of being a being no matter in whichever form it exists, but being a not-being has never been easier! And our themes, call it being or notbeing; they may manifest the very angst of this confusion, but as always, they propose thoughts on certain why’s, like a flower or a poem or a short discourse or even a canvas seeking an independent bloom, a free expression yet waiting for its season of interpretations, the appreciation or the acceptance; very much like our own existence. In this issue we intend to use a theme contradictory enough to both the traditional and contemporary ideals on being or not-being, which are often seen as archetypical values. It will not be entirely wrong to say that we tend to follow the “Deconstruction” as a new proliferation. But it will again be wrong to say we employ it throughout this issue as “the prerogative being against the deconstruction of the word”. Thus, the Leibāklei came into being, as the representation of this theme on being or not-being against the backdrop of accepted notions on sexuality, morality, practices, myths and at the same time questioning our lives and times through the ideas of freedom, revolution and the search for an identity. Leibāklei, n ('leɪ.baːk.leɪ) [Manipuri, leibak - of or relating to the earth + lei- flower] Leibāklei is not merely a flower that sprouts directly from the ground during the cruelest time of the season, in the process; it also brings forth the different aspects of life, in opposites and even as analogues. It comes as a lonely way-farer in the ruins yet leaves with the fragrance of livelihood. It is our thematic metaphor for this issue. In a more subtle and immediate expression, the poems in the collection deal with issues ranging from the cemented dogma, the qualms of living and pleasure in dying silently in obscurity, of using the sickle for chopping the overgrown beard and newspaper boy delivering the poetry, right in our doorsteps, wrapped in the news to being a dead Indian. What else could we say! Let the 'Leibāklei' crack upon the hard dry bark of the earth with its tender shoots. i
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A Letter to Lord Krishna from Brindavan Akhu
My Dear Son, Kanhai You have lived long enough for centuries In the calendars, in the forms of stones and statues, And among the Gopis with your bamboo flute And you must have stopped worrying about death But I can’t stop worrying about you As I gave birth to you inside the prison And I remember the day still You, my own lump of blood, I still see you As that little boy who steals curd and butter What makes me worry about you Is due to the crime rate in the place where you are living I hardly get news of you and that land These television networks And newspapers hardly cover about the place Is the name of the place “Imphal” or “Nepal” I don’t know? I forget fast as I am getting senile. Is the place part of our Bharat? I have never heard people talking about it Forgive this silly mother for such silly questions I recently heard that there they even kill fetus How barbaric is that? I have always told you not to go to places where they speak tribal languages. So the moment you get this letter Pack your back, stop playing your flute 1
It might be attractive to those barbaric ears. And here Radha has been fasting for years For her deprived past life The Prime Minister too visited her twice And Many Human Rights Activists had come. Many feminist NGOs too are not happy with you They even harassed me asking such question; How did I raise you? They call you a MCP, what does that mean? And the Gopis are being deported. Brindavan needs you Ganga is also running dry with the ashes from the land We can’t milk the cows without the sound of your flute So come back, leave that land behind I was even told about a poem written by a young poet sometime in 1969 It was called “Hayingkhongyambi” or something (have you ever heard of the poem?) I talked about the poem to VHP leaders few years back Before the demolition of Babri Masjid They believed you must come back soon Or fight back with your “Chakra” Forever your mother Yasoda Brindavan Dated 1/06/2009
(Hayingkhongyambi is a poem by Thangjam Ibopishak)
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Manipur! Stop Spanking me Akhu
Manipur, stop telling me your history, Histories are written for books. Stop it! Khongnagthaba has rested forever under the Khongnang Pambi Smoking bidi and chewing kong kwa. Manipur, stop showing me the 12 naked mothers The Kangla Gate has been re-opened Your kingdom is in your hand don't tell me what I can do don't disturb my way of life, I am just a loser. Manipur, Stop spanking me, My buttocks are as red as the cheeks of a Japanese infant your spanking is not the spank of parents it will make me bleed - my life - to death. Manipur, stop offering me poetry. Now I own 215 unpublished poems, enough! it is enough. the newspaper boy delivers poetry, wrapped with the news, every morning. All I do is to unfold them. the mothers in ema-keithel sell poetry 3
like oranges, apples and bananas, all I need is to peel them off Manipur, stop singing your lullaby I have no intention to sleep on your lap You have been decorated by death like the marble slabs in Ministers' toilets. I don't want to surrender to be your son. I believe "death is the end" Manipur, it is raining human heads and chopped hands, the sky above you is crying. it has been raped by your growing mountains what have you whispered to them? Manipur, I don't need you to spend a sleepless night I don't need you for my poems. Manipur, Stop loving me when you are dying You may find me Herculean but don't drag me down, I don't own you. Manipur, stop looking for your tail when you don't have a head. Don't spank me for my ponytail Don't hit me for my good digestion. Manipur, you have hills like Kashmir why don't you cry on Kashmir's shoulder? Some people there too have slanted eyes like you why don’t you share the tears with their eyes? 4
but don’t bring suicide bombers here it has already been bombed enough. Manipur, don't you wear undergarments? why do you get raped so easily? Manipur, why do you always want to play Holi? you don’t know when is autumn and when is spring. My colour-blindness doesn't matter at all I could smell your colours. Manipur, stop reminding me the value of such a life. I have seen my kind of lives in the gutters, in the sun; in the name of peasants, in the name of police in the name of death, in the name of revolutionaries. Manipur, are you testing our human kinds can be a sample or not? Are you asking for an exodus? are you asking for a movement, a mass movement? or are you crucifying yourself ? Manipur, why are your poets obsessed with Africa? why did they bull-doze the landscape of Chaoba Kamal? Manipur, don't spank me any more I disown you, you disown me.
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Moirang Khamba meets Krishna!! Chaoba Phuritshabam
He must be shouting for his root, He must be craving for his tribe, He must be asking machem Khamnu, Where he was born? Where he belonged? Mathura or Moirang? I dream of pure love, like that of Khamba-Thoibi, the eternal sacrifice of two lovers, I listen to Moirang-Parva, To get a glimpse of their love story, I cry for Khamnu how she suffered how she brought up Khamba, I crave for the courage of Thoibi, Who defied convention and married Khamba, The woman who defeated the villain Nongban, For her true love, But it was a famous poet, who got me into trouble, Who made me lost again, In another myth, Quite far away from what I heard, I remember my grandma telling me, the story of Khamba-Thoibi, I still think she was right, I still am mesmerised 6
with the beauty of Thoibi, But he the famous poet, who wrote that myth, Taught me lately, How Khamba met Krishna, How they play the Ras Lila, The reincarnation of Krishna as Khamba, Krishna came to Moirang, Then I lost my way, I see Radha Playing Holi with Khamba And Khamba flirting with Gopis, I run after that myth, connected to my root, I question that history, written as history only, Still it can't answer, Where Khamba belonged? Where he met Krishna, How he played the Ras Lila, In front of Thanjing Mandap, You have to come back and answer me, You have to re-write your book, You have to re-sing the Moirang-Parva, I'm still waiting, How you would explain, Khamba playing holi with Radha, and flirting with Gopis, You have to reason, Why Khamba was crying, For the made-to-believe myths!
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Between Two Flags Chaoba Phuritshabam
One, three headed One, a charming chakra Scramble for me I, bewildered, baffled. Beloved, both Belonged to both One, borne One, nurtured Frequent, my minds' eye the flag embellished with sakok My thought feebled at the flags' awaiting Frequent, my thoughts the flag embellished with chakra My thought feebled at the flag I didn't belong to Mislaid at the warfield between two flags I asked all Who do I belong to Frequent, my thought Can I belong to both? 8
One, borne One, nurtured I feared life's lofty forts I feared I couldn't traverse these chained heights I feared the sakok embellished flag chasing me with a sword stating a stranger, I am Between two flags Scrambling for me She is mine She is mine they said Sliced me Some pieces for one Some pieces for another Why the scramble? Who do I belong to? Pacified I, adrift between two flags between these two flags
(translated by Soibam Haripriya)
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Such Happiness by Korou Khundrakpam Originally a screen-printed poster, this artwork draws its inspiration from the phrase in a Manipuri ritual song; ‘sibu thoina harāobabu leibarā?’ meaning ‘is there a happiness greater than this?’ which I kept hearing at night during my stay at home last summer. The absurdity of this phrase juxtaposed to the prevalent political predicament of the state made an interesting statement which evoked me. 10
Won’t You Agree Homen Thangjam
Won’t you agree, If I Say we’re living in hard times Sorrow as the centre, just like the Sun in the centre, with the Planets as cognates of eternal time Just like living beings, in a Never stopping revolution Like the cycle of life. Won’t you agree, If I Say binary opposition is the truth Life begets death, what else you can think of In happiness lies sorrow, although Trinity rules the universe Creation, preservation and destruction Father, Son and the Holy Ghost Seeking to harness harmony in turmoil. Won’t you agree, If I Speak of the trinity of time, too The three faces - yesterday, today and tomorrow Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery But today is a gift and thus, a present Alas! We learn not from past, ever lost in Search for a perfect future, let drift by the present, while Caught in mundane yet oddities of life. Won’t you agree, If I Say yesterday is filled with Tales we dearly hold and read of 11
War, gory and misery, great epics Beowulf, Mahabharata, Ramayana Iliad & Odyssey, Nibelungenlied, Aeneid And Divine Comedy, of few I know, then Tales of kindness, compassion and brotherhood. Won’t you agree, If I Say today is filled with Imageries we passionately watch Babies suckling on bone-dried breasts in Africa Limbless starving children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jaffna Museum of human skulls in Cambodia, shrines of nuclear bomb Victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, baby in an earthen pot Beside the funeral pyre of her mother in Manipur, of few I know. Won’t you agree, If I Say today like yesterday we lust after Smog and acid rain, even when there’re mountain ranges Covered with white snow, and camouflaged military fatigues Amidst emerald forest foliages, love to deafen chirping songs of crickets Gleeful laughter of children, confused giggles of brides with Landmines, TNT, IED and nuclear bombs Hope, trust and fraternity we blow up to ashes. Won’t you agree, If I Say today we wage war in the name of “people” And humanity, for oil, gas, mineral and wealth Deprive the poor from food and fatten the rich with fat Stock the arsenals with nuclear weapons Equip state forces with WMDs, and talk of equality Justice, solidarity and world peace, award
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Peace prize to genocidal kings just as we worship, Shiva the Destroyer. Won’t you agree, and I know you won’t, If I Say we live in hard times; join me in a revolution Let’s end the misery, arise, awake and sleep not Break free from the chains of mirage, I know your answer: “We’re busy making strategy for change, for a better tomorrow Computing the cost analysis of the change, for peace and prosperity In the name of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost Satyam Sivam Sundaram, Satyameva Jayate!”
Notes 1. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery But today is a gift and thus, a present”, adapted from Kungfu Panda directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, Dream Works Animation, 2008. 2.
TNT: Trinitrotoluene used as dynamite explosive
IED: Improvised explosive device WMDs: Weapons of mass destruction "Arise, awake and sleep not": From Vivekananda's Chicago speech Satyam Sivam Sundaram: "Truth is God and God is beautiful" Satyameva Jayate: "Truth Alone Triumphs"
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Dablo Returns Home Homen Thangjam
Dablo is an Officer. We read about his kidnapping. Learnt he fed his pigeons before he left. Dablo returned home last night. We inquired of his health to his son, replied, “Pabung released all the pigeons last night.�
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Landscape Jayanta Oinam
For an old miser like me, Who frets over the qualms of life, Dying silently in the obscurity, and Waiting for one last journey, is Like a futile adventure against the destiny. Talking about Destiny Reminds me of certain trail, of a Poet, a barking poet Who barks at everything For the black holes of undying chasm For the graves that embrace unknown souls; And with every pause, he says: ‘Graves and black holes They are the landscapes with new meaning No pretention, no fluttery, but The landscape of a new civilization’. Then, I kneeled And watched the space between my legs Upside down, it looked a morbid architecture Left unwanted for the future With few urinated walls of ruins And there, I saw my body In resurrection, like a landscape drawn poorly For a makeshift barrage From the lame shin who can’t follow a girl 15
To the mouth of sinking lips, cursed with kisses; Little far away Through the space between my legs The black holes, they swerved through the nadir And raised as graves, there Souls hovered wearing familiar masks And again I am frightened for the life. My legs, They dropped with an awful thump There the poet stood tall With his half grinned humanity And I was left for the body. For him My body was one of those black holes, and For me My body was the grave!
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You Thief Laishram Ratan
You thief You amaze us You frighten us We abhor you. Today We heard your name We know your nature Your allies are numerous Impossible to take you to justice. But Heh! You thief Never be conceived in another womb Begone beyond the human sphere Cannot hear the mournful lamentations any more.
(Translated from Manipuri by Homen Thangjam)
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Because, I am your best enemy Nongthang
Open your cave of lies, chain my wheel of rebellious voice; rope me inside your outcast rules; and freeze me within your porous law. But, I’ll trigger my bullets of word, from different angles; in numerous shapes; showing your ugly bills. Because, I'm your best enemy. Anneal your sharp ploys; slice me upon your hungry field; fill my soul in your empty barn; spread my flesh among the sleeping lives; and let them regret for an unwise feast. But, I’ll haunt you day and night, like a straying ghost of forbidden place. Because, I'm your best enemy. Prepare your umpteen tricks; heap of notes and cage full jewels; surround me within your dampened wealth; and pull me towards your gravity. But, I'll route dissimilar row; flying sonic jet of mind, and I'll map your battlefield, to rain my own liberal bombs. 18
Because, I'm your best enemy. Equip your wily plans; and bind me tight; grind me in your slaughter games; crush me within your oblivious mill; and flush me out micron fine. But, I'll poison your eccentric view, sticking inside your viscous eyes. Because, I'm your best enemy.
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who are you? Raju Athokpam
you are proud to be in general quota whilst your brothers and sisters get big shots in the name of caste you think you are trendy, sanskritizing and hinduising just to end up having ethnic clashes with yourself you ignored the fights of minor groups who were indeed protecting you and now you don’t have any answer to those Kuki’s questions still you are damn chauvinist and you soliloquize “Whatever man, i am still the one. numero uno, you know”. when you meet a new you, you don’t ask what he does you only ask for a lunch someday, namesake because he and you are spoil brats, who do nothing in life. but you are a real genius; you act like a millionaire with only a penny in your pocket you can punish your ma with your domestic demands for clothes and bikes you go to capital for graduation; a five year long study you like losing control and you keep dying by guns is it that you are patriot, broken hearted for your motherland? or are you a businessman with a gun? 20
* so proud you are, of the shiroi lilies so you write of them, the beautiful lines it's the hill men who protect the lilies and the hills as you sit and talk at the leipungs about state integrity your ego still tells you are a genius and they are fools because you are from the beautiful tampak with the generalquota?"
* "- additional words by Ringo Pebam.
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I am a death statue!!! R.K. Brojen Singh
Hey! white pigeon!! Where are you flying? Your wings are all burned By the violet flames from my home How long can you fly? In this land of chaotic violence I know you are an angel Shouting in a series of nightmares here Standing on the death skeletons. Look pigeon! Once I thought When I see I in myself here Who was killed thousand times by myself The person who suicide is not a damn coward anymore But still I am trying to be brave When the contenders defy their originalities When the commander do not listen to his troopers When the leaders forget their promises When the life has been bargained with gun When I see the mothers stripe their body naked For their death children When I see the red streets, the red people, the red events Still I am trying to be brave But I will not suicide today. Pigeon, I am here in the protest rally!!!! Pigeon! You have seen 22
When Bankimchandra portrayed saints Singing Vande mataram against the Gora Bhikaji painted it on Indian National Flag in Stuttgart Bhagat broke up the colonial walls in Irwin’s heart in Lahore jail; Few decades back you watched Cam, Dat, Quan and Dan in Vietnam prison Breaking the imprisoned life’s lock With their bombs of poems; You still see Wai Who has been writing his poems On the dictating walls of Burmese jail; One went off For some defined uncontrolled pains of human torture; One comes back For another undefined and unacceptable rules and law Defined in different time and place; Human gives birth evils in their heart And born another to rescue from it. So you came here for some reason; Look, you can’t fly any longer With your burned wings Your eternity of roaming this part of the globe Becomes nightmare; You are too tired!!!! No pigeon, no!!! Don’t get tired to fly across the globe There are many things you have to understand my home. In this small pretty heaven 23
Peasants are starving in the days of harvest Workers become slaves with their empty hands Street protests become meaningless to the protestors and violent Academicians become tired to teach in human rights schools Freedom of guns and bullets threaten daily peace The benefactors become blood suckers The politicians become businessman The people become commodities; So the cows, horses, elephants become carnivorous The dogs are barking in days and nights The wise cats are roaming in and out The poisonous snakes are coming out from the bushes Mother pebets, mother rate go mad in their bid to save their offspring; Therefore Red water flows in the rivers The flowers in the garden have forgotten the meaning of Spring The trees in the forest are not free from darkness The mountains and valleys are dumb spectators The colour of the sky turned to black or brown or red The black smoke and red blood are painting My home’s picture in local newspapers The innocent statues are coming out from the painted house And die on the crowded streets, markets, Community centers, hospitals; They don’t have historical monuments I could not find their heavenly stories In this small heaven. No pigeon, no!!! 24
Don’t fly across the globe to tell this I am ashamed These tears and anger are for my home And for me Let it dry here. References: 1. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee: Anandmath (Novel) 2. Bhikaiji Cama (1861-1936), She painted Vande Mataram in three coloured Indian national flag in International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart in 1907, Germany. (Everybody knows Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Shukhdev in Indian freedom struggle) 3. Hoang Cam, Le Dat, Phung Quan and Tran Dan were part of a movement which criticised life under communism but which was crushed in the late 1950s. The four, two of whom are now dead, published their work (poems) in two magazines. Vietnamese government has announced that it is to award a prestigious prize to four poets - 50 years after they were imprisoned and their works banned. 4. Burmese Poet Gets Two Years in Prison for Eight-Line Poem by Staff Daily News, Online Only, posted 11.12.08: The Burmese poet Saw Wai was sentenced on Monday to two years in prison for writing a love poem that contains a hidden criticism of the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe. The eight-line poem, “14th February,” was published in a weekly magazine in January. When read vertically, the first word of each line forms a description of General Than Shwe as crazy with power. Saw Wai was consequently charged with “harming public tranquility,” according to the Times in London.
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One Last Time Shreema
One last time Let me be disgraced in front of those million eyes One last time Let me ruin myself from where there is no salvage One last time Let me be immoral that shames the immorality itself One last time Let me go wild into the wilderness in search for an aphrodisiac One last time Let me taste the most hated of loves One last time Let me exile myself from where there is no return. One last time Let me kill with my own hands One last time Let my body be tattooed with all taboos One last time Let me enjoy the most wanton of all dreams One last time Let me show my nakedness to the man of my choice One last time Let me be a mother without ever knowing the key to wedlock One last time Let me drink the poison of life and die just to live again One last time Let me be sinfully free ‌ One last time One last time‌
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In Defiance Shreema
Let me cast aside these jewels The adornments in my ears; the necklace in my neck Who am I waiting for to be watched wistfully. For whom am I waiting with such burden? Let me cast aside the inner layers beneath my phanek Let my blood flow along the smooth of my thighs With a freedom that it has never known Beyond all shame let it be seen by you all. Why my breasts are being bound so with such tightness Is it the crime of shedding the divine milk? They say it’s a pair of divine beauty. Divinity! Oh you always comes with chains Who has thrown me a piece of veil? Veil be cast aside, It is your gaze, it’s your sense What have I and my veil got to do with it? Your feet I touched that day in the public Now in this silent night you kiss my feet Tell me whose feet are pure and who’s impure. Oh! What is this purity somebody tell me? A dip in the ganges of ‘sin’ A silent confession in front of a sinner A nikah that can end with three ‘talaqs’ A marriage solemnized by an illiterate priest Purity made of all impurities.
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The Other Revolutionary Shreema
She took up Irabot’s sickle To chop off the overgrown beard On her mother’s chin She too is a revolutionary The wicked wind licks lecherously Her thighs along which the phanek slithers Yielding to the wanton wind The phanek prostrate on the wayside cried ‘Hey lady! you have dropped me’ She knowingly did not look back She too is a revolutionary The evening prayer to Sanamahi was offered Forgetting her crimson lunar cycle Only to remember when her man tucked her phanek From her waist in that drunken night As the faint scent of haeme whiffs along She too is a revolutionary She rode away in the air Screamed with the muffled mouth Forgot when ought to remember Swam in the cloud She too thinks a thought She too is a revolutionary That night in that bloody war A seed of revolution was sown In her ravaged womb Against law against time; against all dimensions of life A revolution grows in her belly She is a revolutionary through the ages
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Three Questions Soibam Haripriya
Why did you give me this irreparable world to inherit Tainted with stains of history the world is lost to my kind Your gallant invoking of mere two battles fought by women amuses me to no end for you know not I live and die fighting innumerable ones everyday Why did you give me your cemented dogma where subdued tender shoots of green struggle beneath I am older than the seasons I am the aged clump of grass taking root unrelentingly cracking the cemented courtyard I die and sprout again Why did you give me this soft tissue
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deftly at my throbbing core to break and bleed at first contact You judge me by this myth I am younger than your myths I will melt and mould Genesis and revelation to a lump of nothingness and mock the demise of creation
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His and hers Soibam Haripriya
A bigger face a bigger strap a smaller face a smaller strap for thick muscular hands for thin slender arms They said its God-given big things for man small things for woman Titan had wrapped them up with velvety cloth perfect wedding gifts His and Hers A bigger hand A harder slap leaving bluish purple marks you get accustomed to Slender hands to be wrung about helplessly to welcome a burn here, a cut there as one her kind
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should get accustomed to. And all these came packed in a golden box with velvet inside the sturdy-ness of his, the softness of hers God-given wrapped in skin and bones Perfect gifts for Hu-man-kind
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RIGHT to EDUCATION Usham Rojio
I’m the jailbird of my body, the term of sentence is indefinite Exclamation is the boat of my life No way to escape, I must howl To die, to sleep is atone But my ‘right to life’ is out of tune. Rightly remarked, I read somewhere, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" Search for such life, we’ll prove fine, Dreams wrapped with grief and disgruntled Silently standing under the fall, such is our kind. Thanks to the black suit lawyers, whose hearts are full of black markers, They make laws for Lawmakers; See, how merciful they are; They send us a package of declaration, A package of RIGHT to EDUCATION, With their gun pointing on our brains. Nor the beginning, nor the end drains.
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Dying Night Usham Rojio
Every so often, reality is too multifarious for you and me to articulate. But legend embodies it in a form that stretch beyond you and me, beyond this metaphysical world. Prudence, silence, sense, defense, all getting out of shape, all things weird normal in this whore land, the Capital of Misery. Smacked by the wretchedness and fleshiness, many things of this eerie galaxy are not in the orbit. It’s always like that, perplexed and leaves us speechless and one night, you and me, let’s wait to death, with our dying voices in the midst of the dying night, in this weird vampires’ town. No one’s lived in the past, nor will live in the future, But hard to pass the present. One finds the red stars, hanging everywhere to our splendid cheirao ching; you can’t compare it to my love for this whore town, a vast labyrinth, small and magnificent. People have become slaves of probabilities in this weird vampires’ town. All and sundry, every person’s journey is to the dying night.
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In a moment of Nirvana Victor Thoudam
My eyes opened to the fields wide open Standing in the midst of eastward breeze I see the birds Dancing In the rays of the sun Jumping, its tiny legs On the branches of the bamboos, and The enchanting song of ‘Heirangkhoinida’ Sweep across my ears Which was exiled from my heart To the quagmire of skeletons, Touches me deeply, holds me firmly In the transcendental Nirvana But a moment later Like ashes of a broken angel I fell down, tossed by the wind With the soil I sleep together Kissing the night in the tunnel of fog. Waking up with the meaningless sunrise I journey along the river current Like momentary froth That vanishes without telling anyone But you never wanted to talk to me So maybe I vanish for In the atmosphere of absurdity How would I not mourn to the shrill When the harmony is disturbed How would I not echo my pangs When the tune is distorted How would I speak to Sanamacha’s mother Waiting for her beloved son To return, for ages, 35
Wearing a tattered Lanjam Phanek? Oh! Monsoon rain the harbinger of hope With your shower ripens the mango With your shower the farmer quenches his thirst Would you please shower us the nectar That turns guns into ashes That carves the crafts of ‘Heirangkhoinida’ Into every heart Would it not be a pleasure To see the Nong-Yen catching The dazzling rain drops With the innocent children Singing the song of ‘Hanuba-Hanubi Taotharo’ But I am just a traveler Who appear in a blink and disappears in the next And also just a creature Who is easily carried By a whispers of current My dream is just a mere dream Of being lost in a transcendental Nirvana Who visions in some false images In the atmosphere of absurdity And I will ever remain like the froth Who hasn’t learnt How to ask the waiting mother How are you?
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Senses Victor Thoudam
With a bow in my hand I shot an arrow That travels against the air To its destination Leaving me in a state of conflict Unanswering Was it the muscle of my hand? That shot the arrow Or was it my consciousness? That shot the arrow Did I know that the darts hurts? If strike into the flesh. Is it the memory of war Which my will erupts, For the destruction of human kind With only surviving the power Or it is the time that destructs For a new construction. Again pushes me to the whereabouts Of the sensual arrow Would I find the arrow again? Unhurt to anyone Or would I find it to someone’s hand Who can shoot the arrow again Is it just the money 37
That hides behind the gun Then what is it that hides Behind money Is it the most powerful man? Who is behind money? But then also the prostitute of B.O.C Breathe behind money Would you tell me somehow? Why do people call the prostitute ‘kasubi’? And the most powerful man Chief-Minister? Why don’t you cuff my hand, And bring me to the gallows Because I have seen the photograph of ‘Kangjabi shooting’ I feel the tears of their dear ones Why don’t you chop my heart into pieces And teach me 1984 of George Orwell But you will ever remain the chief of uniforms No one dare to shake off your feet I have been loyal to my will Which cannot be exist in a vacuum If my hand moves with my will I feel the senses throughout my body But senselessness is imposing us Locking us up inside a cage But senses make the opaque porous Even a death man provokes our senses.
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Haikus
In the autumn field The children they play housing so they are pregnant Akhu
A dog has a tail In the rain, it soaked the tail And you wept mercy! Jayanta Oinam
Say the sky is red Say even the fields are red. It’s your blood stained eyes. Korou Khundrakpam
With them screaming hymns; In this neighborhood, I am Almost an atheist. Kundo Yumnam
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Damn! A wound in head. Do you remember your name? There's peace after death. Raju Athokpam
Flow of consciousness play of the thought and feelings wears ironic mask Usham Rojio
Full moon of my home brighter by far I tell them load shedding they mocked Soibam Haripriya
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Rooting for Neruda's Images Soibam Haripriya
A brief review of “The Desire of Roots�, Robin Ngangom, Chandrabhaga Publications, Cuttack, 2006
There are many ways of exploring belongingness. Some do it by seeking the desire of roots. Others do it by identifying the 'otherness' in the desire. Robin Ngangom's The Desire of Roots still remains just a desire, a longing for the labyrinth terrain of the 'known' by the same roots. This desire of roots does not find the roots but creates new ones. Like the auxiliary roots descending from a canopy of branches belonging to an aged banyan tree. The roots in the air seek to unite with the mother roots beneath the earth, their home. These auxiliary roots become trunks which will again sprout roots from above. Reading Ngangom's collection of forty-eight poems, I am left thinking about these auxiliary roots and how they have been nurtured and fostered. In these poems, I find the familiarity of an aura and the scent I experienced when I first read Neruda in college. as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood--and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent 41
The poems in The Desire of Roots have uncanny affiliation to roots, both in terms of “the form and the essence”. More specifically with the Chilean poet's Sonnet VI: Lost in the forest, of Pablo Neruda's1 'One Hundred Love Sonnets' or perhaps even the section from his collection 'Memorials of Isla Negra' (Memorial De Isla Negra), entitled, 'The Hunter after Roots'. One could perhaps see in Neruda and his poems a situation of being in touch with blood, in touch with the despair experienced by his country. It might not be preposterous to see if Ngangom sees in Neruda a mentor, both being in turbulent times of history of their respective places. “The desire of roots” as the name suggest indeed tries to seek the roots, whether in remembering Pacha2 and his lonely end or evoking the imageries of places like Tura (Garo Hills), Laitumkhrah (Shillong) in Meghalaya. The collection of poetry under two headings- ‘The book of lusts’ and ‘Subjects and objects’ is based on an imagery of friends, revolutions and “goodbyes” as distinct from farewells. A poem in the first section immediately reminded me of Neruda’s La Poesía (Poetry, translated by Alastair Reid) not only because both 1
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoaltoi is
considered to be the greatest poet of the 20th century. His funeral in 1973, three years after receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, is remembered for being the one major instance of Chileans' resistance. The funeral was transformed into a public protest against the coup hatched by Chile's military establishment. 2
Pacha was one of the most celebrated writers in recent times. He is
known for his monumental work Imphal Amasung Magi Esing Nungsitki Phibham (1972) for which he received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1973. 42
share the same title but also because of a continuity in the ideas expressed in both. In Neruda’s ‘La Poesía’ poetry comes searching for the poet “And it was that age …poetry arrived/in search of me” whereas in Ngangom’s ‘Poetry’ the character in the poem stands out like a protagonist in a play. As poetry resides within, he/she wishes to express and let the ‘gnarled men and wrinkled women...” know “...what matters if I can’t explain to them’. Other titles also could be seen as belonging to a spectrum of ideas that can be seen as either “continuity or an inspiration”. Neruda’s ‘I explain a few things’ from his Residence on earth, (Residencia en la tierra, 1925-1945) can be interestingly juxtaposed with ‘I am unable to explain’. In the former, Neruda explains or seeks to do so the reasons his poetry talks neither of lilacs nor of dreams but rather of bonfires devouring humans and the latter where Ngangom tries to explain to his daughter about ‘war of freedom or liberation’. One cannot help but also compare Ngangom with Neruda, wherein both not only gives a slice of pastoral life but also refer to the cyclical chronology of events; of history. Neruda talks about history that “passes in its carriage, collecting its shrouds and medals, and passes” and Ngangom’s “ossuaries of natives and masters as the old herald a new history/ not knowing why they merely repeat themselves”. One may also find resonances of themes and ideas as in Neruda's, “I explain a few things”, where the lines… “You will ask why doesn’t his poetry Speak to us of dreams, of leaves Of the great volcanoes of his native land Come and see the blood in the streets Come and see the blood in the streets”, The last poem in the Ngangom’s collection ‘Last words’ where lines that seem to emanate the same idea appears as... 43
“They whispered among themselves How come his poetry is riddled with bullets then? So I said: I wanted my poem to exude a heady odour But only the sweet taint of blood or burning flesh emanates from my poem.” It is not surprising then that the second and last section of the collection -‘subject and objects’ quotes from Neruda ‘When the rice withdraws from the earth/the grains of its flour/ when the wheat hardens its little hip joints and lift its face/ of a thousand hands/I make my way to the grove where the woman and the man embrace…’ Akin to Neruda who sought inspiration from the everyday things like artichoke and his green heart, it is heartening to read Ngangom drawing another tangent from oils and lentils evoking the political situation in the uncertainty of its availability in the stores which he effortlessly does so in a poem in this section, “The strange affair of Robin S Ngangom”. He did have his last words in the last poem of the book, “Last words”, when he wanted his poem “to fall like pebbles into a pool” but ended up breaking his “words on hostile surfaces”. However his last words too seem to be heavily influenced by poet/s from whom he sought his inspiration like Neruda who wishes for the rain to repeatedly splatter its words and hence his last words end not as his own but the words of many others who had wrote of their times and turmoil.
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