Soibam Haripriya

Half a promise

2012-01-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

There we were
hurt like lovers
when words sudden and swift
strike its blades
penetrating ribs
cutting open hearts
into equal shuddering palpitating halves
There we were
hurt like lovers
for we were

A sudden
morning of overtures
coloured the day
with cauldron of dreams
minefield of hopes
and
shimmering in the distance
were half of our hearts
pulled apart
by baggage of loyalties

I dreamt anguish
in your joy
I find my triumph
when I see
your wrist
a band of steel
once bought by me

I promised
you'll never die
You had
but killed me
I knew you would
I lay dead
under your family photograph
all smiles
with a dimpled child
Me-only a fleeting shadow
on the transparent glass
hinging frantically upon
the opaque frame
and Love I did love
without hopes
of roses and laces

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Ode to the natal home!

2012-01-20T00:37:00.000-08:00

My room
filled to the brim,
in expectation
of a grand farewell
They want me away,
I should be away,
never come
in sight, sound, sense

I am told
I am lucky
to receive
the carved furniture,
the carved pain,
the carved agony of un-belonging

Like chaff from grain,
They’d
throw away the husk of men
and give me the finest

Thereafter
they’ll grudge
my every visit.
Count
the phases of the moon

On the ninth day
after the new moon;
I’ll weep familial demises
at the door
unable to cross
the threshold
of my natal lunar calendar.

Love they said it was
that sent me away.
Ah! love,
that castrated me
from my childhood
into unequal parts

He too said it was love
that took me to him,
seven circumambulations
and I bowed each time.
He kept count.

I sucked on
a lozenge of hate
and counted all their love.
I will leave
with the hate stuck in my molars.
I’ll blot from life
and become a worm
still nibbling
on the hate of so many loves.

Amritsar
15-01-2012

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

A lemon of hurt

2012-01-08T02:13:00.000-08:00

He stammered
on a thought
In the lonely winter
of his head
Much had escaped
in a vaporous steam
one February night
A lemon of citric hurt
on the chapped lips
of continuous wounds
I applied a stinging salve
He, rested in my rancour and love
In my embrace of swords and skin
each night, I fed him
spoonful of spite and kisses

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

For him

2011-12-30T22:50:00.000-08:00

1

His nectared name
will colour my lips,
till another mouth
will hold it
between her rubied lips.

2

There, we were,
without any need
for exaggeration of held hands,
just aloof in love without promises.

There, when he offered me
to explicate
the delicate matter of the heart,
amidst the cutlery
and blunt knife
and bored diners,
My ‘No’ stuck in my throat
unable to tumble and collide
with his expectant eyes.

How terrible were partings then,
when we kept meeting
after we bade our ‘goodbyes’.

3

Shards of glasses
broken long ago
in a corner
untouched by the tapering wisp
of the aged broom
suddenly pricked my fingertips today
Untouched
not even
the moist edge of the mop
could cajole it out
And now it was
beneath my skin –
A glittering of pain
A slight warm blood

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Asti*

2011-12-26T02:03:00.000-08:00

Beyond the courtyard
moss grown
where the cement had lost
to the repeated lashings of annual rains
I picked her bone
with the last withering steel-gray of ash
Around my neck
I offered it to her
delicately
wrapped in hues of saffron
She, given to fluffy pillows
and softness of downy bedcovers
Now a wooden clasp for pillows
Bedcovers she had none
Just a parasol of palm leaves
to tide over the dark world of mud, water and stars

asti- A Vaishnav Hindu funeral ceremony observed usually on the 6th day

Funeral for the living

2011-11-22T03:53:00.001-08:00

The blades
of the sickle moon
Shone upon her gray tresses
chopped after four decades
What remained
of the tapering gray
ponytailed wisp
was akin to amputated
leftover stumps

Slow, wheelchaired
when the plastic chair
broke under her weight
and much fidgeting around
She turned to each sound
With her hyperglycaemic gaze
Sisters came to conspire
Gave her sweetened tea
Behind my back
To cheer her bored sore afternoons

She died expected
And un- sudden
After tolerating
The foreign tube
in her balloonous tummy
for six long years

Cruel
As a family
The crowd gathered
For the ritual mourning
It was tragedy
and a joke
and oh! Why didn’t he come?
The food was judged,
And so were the ritual songs
The singers
bend with age
braved the dusk
with a bared torso

Aunt, garlanded
and young
beyond the vagaries
of diabetes
smiled
from the gold gilded frame

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Release

2011-11-22T03:51:00.001-08:00

The night
awashed
with phairen’s sudden showers
clears up
Outshined by the moon
freckles of stars
remained obscured
in its usual pattern
The freshly cleansed breeze
Brought news
of his release
from a once dreamt dream
But like me
he was caged
His heart beneath his ribs
mine beneath my bosom
Yet from within
his prison of bones
one day
he will summon
love’s tender weakness
I will dream
of charting out
in the abject vastness of the sky
with a stars studded map
I will embrace
the season of nuptials
with fear of exile
with hope of a genesis
with another heart
clasped
in another chest
one rib less
than mine

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

absence

2011-10-29T05:17:00.001-07:00

It was an absence chalked out,
like the cold circular rim of gold,
a clasp of an ornament
where a glittering stone once adorned
Absence was
the presence of a rim;
a clasp;
a remnant

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

absence

2011-10-29T05:16:00.001-07:00

Would a God undo the lurking lack?
Would a companion do the same?
There is no antidote to absence.
We were borne of it,
in hopes of a completion
We are to carry it to our graves

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Fleeing Dove

2011-08-10T06:14:00.001-07:00

They have arrived
after the bullet has been shot
after the bomb
has spewed its shrapnel
to take stock
of the situation
When the streets
bleeds with splinters
and undressed torso
and limbs
They'll arrive
-the patriots
in white
Condemn
the cowardice
and assure
"The culprit will be booked
and tried under law"
Ex-gratia/s
announced
Of course
the Government
is pained
and so will numb
Another blast
with another ex-gratia
And we plot
to kill
the shrapnel
with flowers
and a fleeing dove?

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

No bonafide address

2011-07-12T05:36:00.000-07:00

I have lived
a decade
without an address
in this city
I have lived
without a paper
to declare my existence
A concrete mesh
housed me
yet scared to contain me
trembles when asked
my whereabouts
and deserts me
When I offered
to be chained
hand to hand
One by one
they'd link
the ridges of my fingertips
All ten of them
My eyes -the iris and pupil
the tears and anger
They will now
give me a number
Armed with this
I am told
I'll get
my bona-fide address

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

The exasperation of existence

2011-06-29T04:33:00.001-07:00

The last leg of festivities
leaves
an indecipherable
warm lump of loss
Weddings
akin to funerals
yearns
the mournful cries of the conch
Excesses of ties
tripped on my
every weary step
Immersed in saccharine sweet
bitterness
of the familial
I pine
A slice of razor sharp bamboo
to severe
the invisible umbilical cord
To drown
the enigma of birth
screeching through
the latitude and longitude
of my being
at every rite-
tonsured
pierced
emptied
filled
stitched
burned
buried
At every rite-
the exasperation of existence
draw me closer
to a sharp depthless
edge of the razor
I will leave
a legacy
of the last feast
of existence

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Random notes

2011-06-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

II

There are talks of time that has come, and time that has stretched beyond its time. My stay was one (they said). I nurtured the illusion of home but had none. The expanse lay like the limitless boundaries of an unwritten poem and yet none, not an inch in this wide landscape could house my home.

My brother is indignant at my anger that follows me like a cloud and spits from my throat like fire, it must have burn some. But he is just a man, a mere man, would he know how it is to live as if in the fluid surface of water, not knowing on waking where my windows would open to? They who gouged out my heart are indignant at my anger, they who are eloquent of their homeland are indignant that a woman wants a piece of earth to hold close to her bosom.

Don’t ask me to begin anew from a room emptied for my intrusion. This time I will carve from my skin and bones a house of my own. It will speak to me alone. It will be wrapped in mud and cowdung, scented blue smoke of mekrup will emanate from the porch. The moon would rest for awhile –on my pond of blue lilies. I will begin to love the dusty wind-blown lanes that lead to my solitary house. I will allow none within its walls for they will slowly uproot me, surely they will bring in their beloved and their off springs and I will be relegated into an unlived corner. No, not one will uproot me, not even love. I will not love something so mere, so meagre and yet sinister beyond imagination as a human being. I will dig a shallow grave and when the time comes I will rest and cover myself for eternity with a blanket of dried blue lilies.

Random notes

2011-06-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

I
I gave you
The subtle souvenir
Of my hand
When we walked
The last autumn’s golden field
You withdrew
at my brazen ways

The winter afternoon
Buried amongst fog
You walked with me
In the bare field
You lifted
My phanek
My breast woke in surprise
Strained against my shirt
Yet my hand
Remembers your autumn rebuttal

Ode to my Brother

2011-05-24T01:31:00.000-07:00

I, Uninvited
at the hour of white garlands
will hide behind
the door of another coast
She will come to claim
the Gods I had forsaken long ago
The morning will begin
with her incense
and the night
locked in her embraces
I insist you keep a nook for me
a corner for me
safe from her infinite embraces
Her laughter
would waft
from the window
and erase
our evening tea of lemon
she will now garnish
the afternoon's limpid siesta
He and I will die,
and be born to new beginnings

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Ode to my umbrella

2011-05-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

My umbrella
Stood at the corner
shedding its profuse tears
Broken by snow
and rain
Conspired against
by wind and hail

Broken limbs
piercing its skin
Silver sunlight
filtered through
Every dusty droplet
left a grimy tattoo

I promised to
take him
some sun burnt evening
He would
spread his wings
close in on me
In his perforated embrace
In that great sea of nothingness
I would leave
clutching the sudden gold
seeping through the punctured roof

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Notes on longings II

2011-04-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

Evening will untie the bird trapper’s knots
Dusk will unto the fishermen’s nets
I will tear the woven fabric
Let the thread fall apart

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Clash of the Campaigns: Loktak Lake as the site of contesting knowledge systems

2011-04-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water - W.H. Auden

One has often been bemused by the elusive ethno-philosophy that guides the conception of the landscape covering the panoramic Loktak Lake. Of late, contesting knowledge systems seem to have saddled on a site considered simultaneously sacred as well as profane by myths and history. The vociferous argument for the protection of the Loktak Lake has emerged with two simultaneous campaigns. First is the ‘Save Loktak Our Life’, supported by the Loktak Development Authority. This group comprising of (not without irony), “environmentalist, social workers, politicians and police officers” in the words of the Project director of Tamna who informed the media in a briefing organised at the Classic Hotel on the 6th of April 2011. Second, a campaign launched by people living in and around the lake against the Manipur Loktak Lake (Protection) Act 2006 (MLLPA). Incidentally, as part of the second campaign, various organisations from the Loktak area held a public discussion on the MLLPA on the same day at Ningthoukhong Keithel. The sites of these two campaigns and the people comprising the campaigns are too stark to go unnoticed. The first one conducted in a three star hotel speaks the language of exclusivity. The second was held in a market place where women vendors’ earn their livelihood. In solidarity with the campaign, these women bread earners had given their space for the women and men who had congregated to participate in the public discussion.

Indeed both the campaigns fall back upon the idea of the lake, the meaning of the lake as derived from folk songs and poems and tutelary deities. The Save Loktak campaign in one of the music videos produced for the same juxtaposes a modern narrative with that of the folk and expresses fears for the life of the lake. The second campaign by the inhabitants of the Lake area seems to follow the same narrative. While both the campaigns state the same objective – Save Loktak Lake and use the same narratives of the sacredness of the space and also lament for the weeping mother (Loktak), the arguments put forth seem to be fractured beyond reconciliation. One starkly representing the state looks at fisherfolk as encroachers who are set to deplete and destroy the lake and its resources. Indeed the idea of saving Loktak to them seems to mean saving them from the people who source their lives and livelihood from the lake. The second campaigners see themselves as the rightful claimants and protector/guardian to the fishes and vegetation of the lake. However, the term lake itself now seems to be an anachronism of earlier usage as the lake is now not a lake but a water reservoir. The drastic shift from the conception of a lake with legends surrounding it to a modern day water reservoir began with the construction of Ithai Barrage in 1979 as a part of the Loktak Hydro-Electric Project.

The idea of the lake is not limited to its natural resources like waters and gradually disappearing indigenous fauna and flora. It is now saddled by the juxtaposition of competing knowledge systems – indigenous and modern. The modern being far removed from the context while the indigenous speaks in the language of people of the lake and follows the lake not just through the lives of people but also through cycle of seasons, through breeding of fishes and vegetation and sees the lake as inclusive of its Phumdis, Athaphum, the Khangpoksang build on the phumdis and the people who live in them.

The unfolding narratives could be clearly seen on the 6th of April 2011 wherein three events connected to Loktak Lake were held. First, is the one day Discussion Programme against the Manipur Loktak Lake (Protection) Act. 2006 which was organised by All Loktak Lake Floating Hut Dwellers & Fishermen Progressive Committee (Apunba Lup); All Loktak Fishing Workers Association; The All Manipur Thanga People Welfare Association; The Loktak Peoples Forum and All Loktak Lake Floating Hut Dwellers & Fishermen Progressive Committee (Nupi Apunba Lup). The event discussed the Act and highlighted fundamental problems not only in the Act but also the knowledge as well as intentions behind the conceptualisation itself. The predominant language used during this discussion was the language of rights – cultural as well as socio economic. The mass discussion took place at Ningthoukhong ( Keithel), a fishing town by the lake and forms a part of Bishnupur district. The venue was well chosen so that there could be as many participants from Loktak lake areas hinting to an endorsement of inclusiveness as opposed to the meetings that took place simultaneously (on the same day) at the other two sites –Mantripukhri and The Classic Hotel.

The market of Ningthoukhong is a concrete structure dilapidated in some parts. Women who earn their livelihood selling produce from the hills, valley and the lake in the market also supported the event by closing their stalls and giving space to women who had come to participate in the discussion programme. Most women were dressed in the traditional mourning attire (of the Meiteis) and also of the more than seven hundred people who had congregated, ninety percent were women. Though one also noticed that in a space marked by exclusivity such as the simultaneous meeting that took place in Mantripukhri one would find the same percentage being reversed, giving the picture than more and more women will be sieved out as one goes up in the chain where one knowledge system and its corresponding language become more dominant than the other.

The men and women who spoke at the discussion at Ningthoukhong began with salutation to the Mother goddess of the market – Keithel Lairembi, to Mother goddess Loktak – Ema Loktak Lairembi and also to directional tutelary deities. Women and men who spoke described the lake as intimately as their lives explaining the life of the Athaphum, the breeding of fishes and well as the waxing and waning of the lake according to seasons which is now disrupted by the Ithai barrage. Ironically, the discussion was interrupted when armed personnel in military uniform climbed up the dais to ask the reason for such a congregation (this in spite of the banner being put up). Two more soldiers in military fatigues could be seen behind the market complex which disturbed the peaceful ambience of the crowd. A woman from the crowd came up the dais and through the microphone requested the audience to remain calm. Some women and men had in fact gone to the uniformed armed personnel to speak and explain the content of the gathering. The same woman encouraged the rest of the women audience to face the state whether it is in the form of fighting the visible oppressive state that come dressed in military fatigues or meeting the representatives they had chosen and even suggested boycotting of the forthcoming general elections. The three uniformed personnel stood at the venue for about ten minutes facing the gathering.

While the mass discussion was on there was also the flagging off of a training programme supported by Bombay Natural Historical Society and the Wildlife Wing, Forest Department. The training programme which began on the very day for Forest Department officials and volunteers of Loktak Lake on water bird conservation and management was held at Central Forest Division, Mantripukhri. In the few minutes shot of the meeting which could be viewed only through the local cable television network ISTV, one could hear the often repeated particular concern for the conservation of endangered and dwindling flora and fauna of the Loktak lake areas.

Not much different from the above both in terms of narrative content and knowledge system, the meeting with media persons was held on the very day at Classic Hotel, an upmarket three star hotel (the only one in the state). The meeting was called by Tamna Sanggai, an organisation with the stated aim of saving Loktak. The campaign of Tamna entitled “Safe Loktak Our Life” had also produced music videos as a part of their campaign and the media briefing announced a musical tour to New Delhi and Bangalore on the theme of the campaign. It was also stated that “the campaign was undertaken to contribute its might in saving Loktak from possible extinction”. Interestingly the project was supported by Loktak Development Authority, the authority re-constituted under the MLLPA which also pitched the campaign against the people of Loktak. Article 20 (Prohibition of certain activities in Core Zone) prohibits discharge or emission of sewage/domestic waste (assuming the lake to be polluted by the inhabitants of the lake conveniently forgetting that all major river system that drains the Imphal valley falls into the lake). The other clauses of the Article 20 prohibits deposition or fixing of stones, bamboo, log, net into the lake, while this clause renders fishing impossible the state continue to state that the act does not prohibit fishing per se.

One could only record as unfortunate that the various debates around the Lake do not inform each other. It is people that give values and judgement on landscape and classify them as either sacred or profane in the sense of the lake either being a sacred mother with plentiful provision or a hiding place for insurgents. Indeed the difference with the people’s campaign would be the desire to learn and discuss the Act and the various arguments – whether ecological or socio-political whereas the other campaign, being directly supported by a state body, does not have the space for critiquing the Act.

One could in fact map the varying interests in the lake, not to state the people as being a collective, far from it there are differences between the fisherfolks, between those who are unable to resist the state, think it safe to accept the resettlement amount, between those with large fishing tracts and the fisherfolk with just a net and a boat. Those supporting the Act also are fractured with varying interests –one, being purely a sentimental pursuit of iconifying the lake as a symbol of the state (having made their decisions and affiliation without having thrown as much as a glance at the Act), another being the state’s policy of cleansing the lake and yet another being the much cited security concerns of flushing out insurgent cadres from the lake, for which hovercrafts were purchased from USA. Undeniably, the state also takes pride in the arrival of the hovercraft with it being looked at not only for insurgency operation but also, as stated by the Chief Minister “the machine would not only be helpful in saving the Loktak from encroachers, it would also complete the task of flushing out militants”. This once again highlights the highly problematic lens of the state that more often than not looks at the people of the lake as encroachers as well as ‘insurgents’.

This article was published in The Imphal Free Press on the 17th of April 2011

Notes on Longings

2011-04-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

I
The rains
have melted
the lowly roadside dust
of Thanga-Karang
creating a pasty puddle
that cling to your shoes,
the edge of your trousers
or sprayed in little brown droplets
by your sandals
all over the back of your legs
I wish my insignificance
would dye you
like the muddy droplets,
all over you,
without you knowing
I would merge with your garb;
without you thinking,
you would breathe in
the odour of my earth
soaked with the first rains of Lamta

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Hangleipak: Strings Attached

2011-03-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

There are ways of bridging gaps between people and communities through cultures. The professed theme of the recently concluded North East Theatre Festival (19th to 28th February, 2011) in no uncertain terms says it all. As a part of the festival, plays from Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam were staged. The festival that opened with Budha Chingtham’s Mythical Surrender, directed by Ningthouja Deepak of NT Theatre, maintained the tempo and at the end gave a befitting climax with Habib Tanvir’s Charandas Chor in Assamese directed by Anup Hazarika. For theatre enthusiasts, the festival's immense task of “Bridging the gap through culture” reflects aspirations of communicating through the medium of theatre. One could however refrain from the oft repeated rhetoric of the mainland-marginal or the topographical pattern of the region as a reason to reach out to one another and look at this medium first and foremost as connected to oneself and one’s milieu. The festival did exactly that, connect us to ourselves and make us look at oneself through the eyes of a Greek tragedy like Antigone, stories from the Mahabharata, Ee teiraba numit, an Ao-Naga folklore, Lichaba’s Daughter or the understanding of freedom so subtly underlined in The Fire and the Rain (Mei Amasung Nong).
Among many other plays I had the opportunity to be enthralled with, Hanglai (marionettes), a play by Y. Rajendra. The director welcomed the audience as hanglai(s) to view a play Hanglai directed by a hanglai himself. Indeed the absurdness of the whole situation, within and without the play, and the brutal depiction of 'selves' were put up on stage for all to see. In a play which had stories within stories, the sense of the absurd, not as in absurdism, had the arsenal to fire 'realities' beyond realism. Hanglai, (I regret missing it in Delhi, 2007) had characters, Tathei and Takhut of the Marionette Repertory Theatre where they led the performance of marionettes – Mahadev and Parvati. They received a letter from Sanakhya. Sanakhya wanted them to discard the old marionettes and enact a contemporary play written by Sanakhya himself. Tathei's effeminate gestures can be taken by many an attempt at caricaturisation of the third sex. However, the effect of this on the play is brutally truthful when Sanakhya in his anger with the news of the marionettes refusing to play their part in his play, asked Takhut and Tathei to enact the part of the uniform man raping a woman after planting a camouflaged cap and a gun on Takhut and an embellished inaphi on Tathei. The symbolism employed here is potent and possible through the process in which the audience whose lifeworld have been enveloped with layers and layers of cruel social and political fact. While the antics of Tathei drew laughter, one can look beyond to understand that it is but a saturated mockery of ourselves. This play refuses to be an interweaving of text and performance alone but carries a message beyond absurdism and realism.
Certain moments which drew laughter of the audience like when Tathei rebuke the lamenting Hangma (mother of the hanglais) stating that the role of the meira paibi is yet to come or when the people of the land of the Hanglais – Hangleipak revolts against the powers that pull the string with placard that reads – “Marionettes have the right to revolt” or the scene when a hangcha when shot at looks at a place to die and asked Tathei-Takhut whether it was alright to die at a particular spot, it is as uncomfortable as looking at a murky pukhri to see the ugliness in oneself and yet in a bitter irony, some laughs at the reflection taking it to be someone else’s.
It is those who pull the string who decides everything. They decide when a mother should lament, when one should weep and where one should die. The Hanglai who cut themselves off the strings are sure to die. Therefore, even in dire situations, they resist the desire to severe themselves off the strings. The mother of all irony here is: All Hanglai derive their existence from and through the strings and it is Tathei and Takhut that gives them life and yet the strings do not stop there; Sanakhya pulls the strings of Tathei and Takhut and the closing scene depicts yet another pair of crimson hands pulling the strings of Sanakhya. Hangleipak – the land of marionette is a grave where the dead walks. And the dead here walks when commanded: S/he weeps, love and lust when the 'strings’ are pulled, the final brutality being that one doesn’t know where the string stops. We gave a standing ovation at the end of the play in a sweet insult to ourselves and life’s endless strings that we have ceased to see.

This article was published in The Imphal Free Press on the 6th of March 2011

The Gods Smile

2011-02-21T04:47:00.000-08:00

The atheist has paid
Her morning obeisance
Brimful of water
Adorned with
A decapitated flower
This, her duty
She is told
She will close
the familar evening
With
the red eyed incense
the trailing blue odour
The Gods smile
at her broken will
They had their victory
in her genuflection

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

On shifting ...

2011-02-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

A half decade
of my life
neatly packed
in boxes
brown taped

The walls
now naked
lost
its tears
amongst moist patches

Blue stars
I plucked
left
patches of grey

Some corners
Still unlived
hold its secret
tightlipped

Some would come
desecrate
certain nooks
where I found love
lurking

Elsewhere
I would unpack
love
from
chocolate hued boxes

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

I’ll ask for stone

2011-01-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

I hold grudges
Count them
On nights of boredom
Constructing
Construing
Plots
And mazes
Of emotions
I kept them locked
in a boxful of woes
to open every evening
And count them
And add some more
Some words
of yours
I etch in stone
I will take them
to my grave
Masked in grave silences
you simmer
my suffering
I claw my heart away
I’ll ask for stone instead

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

I wish not

2010-12-23T05:42:00.000-08:00

I wish not for the raging flames
to engulf me into ashes

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Widow's drape

2010-11-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

White
as black
as a widow's drape
will be my attire
Your ego
marked
my attire
with
the colour of
wakching's frost
Black chandon from my nose
crawling up my forehead
Deep and dark
as long winters' night
I mourn your death
with my hueless life
My present smudged
by your absence
My lips unpolished
My hair locked
in a bun
Malacious whispers
welcome my arrival
at dusk
They grudge me
a thambal leikhok
Framed forever
in a monochrome
At every feast
the serpent streets
scorns me
with
an ice cold marble reception

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sunrise sunset

2010-11-12T02:54:00.001-08:00

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Ode to my book rack

2010-11-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

The book rack was between amber and brown, between fire and earth. The rich dark chocolate of dusk had set in when we got it. A wave of dust had colored the wood with a layer everywhere and we had taken contemplative miniature steps from a shop to the other –feeling every wood, seasoned or un-aged, we had knocked on the planks, on doors that you can walk around. Finally, we had rested our eyes on you. We had looked at you feet to the brim, heavy and bright, our fingers had brushed against you. You left an oval of dirt on our fingertips. I didn’t taste you but I knew you were salty, a fruit that the seas of my emotion had chosen. Now, I will discard you for I am as room-less as you. You and I were destitute of the night. Standing against the wall of the house, opening to me like a mouthful of kisses I had mourned and perished and grew with the books in your bosom. I now asked your leave, where would I leave you? He, filled to the brim, doesn’t have room. I would not have wanted the swollen sketch to look at you with her sneer. He has racks and racks. Mine- you, would be mundane. Naked in your skin I will dismantle you slowly. Take down books of poetry and prose, books clothed in their glory jackets and books almost naked and threadbare. I wish I could depart with you, to another life but for now I kill you, with pain that stabs me when I stab you. I will punch you and bleed my knuckles over you. On rare days of crisp sunny winters you and I will share our coffee, we will leave coffee mug stains on the floor – a circle like a ring, a circle akin to handcuffs you’d think. Sometimes a house lizard will run over you leaving padded footsteps marked in dust. Your death will reduce to ashes and the wind will powder me with your gray remains. I will see your ghost with a glittering stream of autumn moonlight. I will lose my companion, who looked at me with his sorrowful gaze; who looked at me with his ocean eyes. I will lose my companion, who when I am back from my travels burst into a shower of spring.

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Love was... not love

2010-10-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

I carried
the days’ demise
in fragments
of stars
I’d capture
from across the horizon
some dreams
to chase away
the nightmares
of your absence
October night
after the glory
and melancholy
of sudden evening showers
Love was
the scent
of the earth’s pores
Love was
a splinter
stuck
beneath my nails
Love was
the burden
of feeding
the flames of Andro

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2010-10-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

The moon sometimes
crave the demon’s mouth
and yearns to be
swallowed whole
in its entirety

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Dawn

2010-10-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

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Rooting for Neruda's Images

2010-10-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

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

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's '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 Pacha 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 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...

“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 Ngamgom 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 Ngamgom”. 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.

Coffee and something

2010-09-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

Sleep walking
through roads
dust were clouds
timeless were dreams
Each fabric
judged
by textures
and touch
We eye
closely
each bare
embellished
gaudy sequins
Envy green
the coffee table books
not read
but to be kept;
To be shown
possessed
Through dark wood
they weep
to be loved
once, for its soul

Blue tasseled curtains
someone’s dream
took wings
We were
seeking
burnt scent of coffee
and something
A store,
with books loved
for its soul
where evening flings
its net of music
We will
conceive
on a blue night
We will
wake
clenching
our fistful of dreams

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Evening at the book shop

2010-09-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

Together,
we inhaled
the still air
of the mouldy book shop
weighing every book
that passed
Through pathways
his star eyes
sees
through words
shun between two covers
Each persisting scent
come seeking
our fingertips
some words
galloped into our palms
Each cramped corner
neighbour to words and dust
follow his eyes
Ivory of paper
yearns to live
in our lips, fingertips
Those left behind
we wouldn't know
their whereabouts

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Medusa enchantress

2010-09-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

My medusa enchantress
brought flowers
crimson red
Poetry wrapped
in music
her laughter of bells
deepen the evening blue
Swift flight
sure
as an arrow
She rescues
me
a mouthful of those mouths
her skin of earth
she came clad
in smoky evening sand
lead me to your mazes
lead me through your riddles
leave me
unclothed
in your goblet

Where should the birds fly after the last sky?

2010-09-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

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Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?-
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
- Mahmoud Darwish

My wayward sibling

2010-09-08T20:59:00.001-07:00

My wayward sibling
Sudden in arrival
Abrupt in departure
Promptly came
on days hard as stone
Unwrapped
my fistful of woes
I survived lovers’
goodbyes
To eternity
he took me
for rainwashed walks
He opened the day
to the scent of frangipani
Now he leaves
His goodbye
gnaws the evening

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Of Memories, Melancholy and the Milieu

2010-09-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Memories can fade as fast as freak snow flakes in summer or they just refuse to disappear like the gigantic Himalayas. Durable memories can either make one’s engagement with realities worthwhile or mar the future with devastating consequence. It has been over a month since I attended the Fifth Arambam Somorendra Memorial Lecture as a discussant on the 10th June 2010 at the Gandhi Memorial (GM) Hall, Imphal. All this while I have not stopped pondering over a great lecture delivered by Dr. Xonzoi Barbora, titled ‘Friends, Familiar Places and Melancholy: Life and Death in Northeast India’. It was not just the late visionary’s reputation that drew me to the event but also the continuous discursive engagement of the Arambam Somorendra Trust to generate debates on the issue of contemporary life and politics in Manipur and the Northeast.

The 10th of June lecture indeed gave a clear picture as to how we situate ourselves amidst violence, death and silence. Dr. Barbora succinctly delineated our engagements with the everyday-ness of violence and death and the consequent feelings of guilt and melancholy that engulf us all. He recounts his experiences with friends who are no more. He said, “We have become adept at writing obituaries in Northeast India. We write them at times when we are choking in guilt, or drowning in sorrow”. Listening to Dr. Barbora’s lecture made me ask this question; Is it this feeling of guilt and melancholy that constantly produces and reproduces strange acts of silence? Barbora's lecture or for that matters the act of writing for the dead falls between what we understand as “silence and protest”. Recounting familiar narratives and remembering the dead is one way of negotiating with existing realities. Hence, there is the need for stories to be told and retold even though they may be repetitive while simultaneously unique.

Dr. Barbora specifically recounted the lives of the late - Nilikesh Gogoi, Kabiranjan Saikia, Thingnam Kishan, U A Shimray and publicly unknown yet familiar friends who are no more. There is a need to understand narratives like these in order to witness our lives as well as the lives of friends and acquaintances. There is also the possibility that death itself might be too encompassing for lives to be remembered and articulated into spoken language. Perhaps there also exists a language of silence which speaks louder than words quite distinct from the act of indifference. Death and silence then become ominous and begin to reflect in our literature, visual and performing arts and become inscribed in landscape.

It then could also be said that melancholy is the landscape where lives are acted out, recounted and narrated and felt deeply through the act of narration. This could be the reason why (to quote Dr. Barbora) “our poets have been marshaled into writing pamphlets and our sloganeers have become poets”. However, there seems to be no contradiction in one oscillating between two beings – the poetic and the political. A symptom of an ephemeral confusion that has continued to haunt us for long has been the inability to make a clear distinction between binaries that have ruled the progression of human civilization – like the civic and the political as in poems and pamphlets.

I was particularly drawn to Dr. Barbora’s invocation of the idea of “hüzn” or “hüzün” to describe melancholy. Those of us who are familiar with Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul Memories of a City know that line by Ahmet Rahim – “The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy” writ on the page after the dedication. Dr.Barbora had perhaps got more from Pamuk’s description of “hüzün” or “huzn”, the Turkish synonym for melancholy. One of the descriptions Pamuk gave was: “…the spiritual anguish we feel because we cannot be close enough to Allah, because we cannot do enough for Allah in this world.” The reference to the “Almighty” here can be taken as a deeper “inability” by all of us to accomplish the set tasks before us. Interestingly, it can be the absence of “hüzün” which can cause even more distress. This seems to indicate that there can be another type of melancholy – the melancholy that one feels because one has not been melancholic enough.

Melancholy evokes memories. The trepidation with memories is that memories can go back a few thousand years which can veer towards an imagined presence of the past, be it either tragedy or glory. The question that haunts us in the present is: What kind of memories do we need to keep alive to make sense of the present? What has a “unique” vengeful memory or a “glorious civilizational” memory got to do with a collective “poetic and political” future? These are rather questions and not answers that we have to keep engaging with. Dr. Barbora said, “…all of us here know what food is cooked in the hills, just as surely as they know what is fermenting in our iromba. This is what makes us different from the rest of the world! ”. This is a good literary trope to examine “ourselves” vis-à-vis the idea of “collectivity” and “exclusivity”, between “the raw and the cooked”, and also between “the fresh and the fermented” over the hills and the valleys in the Northeast. Dr. Barbora gave us enough “cooked and uncooked” food for thought. Cooked, because he addressed the primacy of “feelings” over the meta-narrative of the “self”. Uncooked, because some of his ideas may be “raw” for many of us in the Northeast and the milieu we live in.

This review was published in The Imphal Free Press on 11th of July 2010
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You were not tied

2010-08-31T00:58:00.000-07:00

Polished
as a pearl
Eyebrows
arched
Exceedingly ugly
I was
Of sentimentality
I wove knots
crafting a noose
to tie him down
Tears
cried
and dried
wavered him
no more
Dried and shrivelled
me a thorn
or a block of ice
hard and glassy
Summer scorched
I bloomed a rose
unsheared
I escaped
from you
from knots and noose
in a scent
You were not tied
I was free

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Centering the Periphery while falling off the Map

2010-08-24T22:47:00.000-07:00

“Peripheral Centre: The Voices from India`s Northeast”
edited by Preeti Gill, published by Zubaan Books, 2010, New Delhi, Rs.595

One of the many ways of knowledge and information production has been the purposeful interaction between the observer and the observed. Whether the observer is an ‘insider or outsider’ has been largely decided by his/her geographical or ideological location. Related to this debate is the question: who produces authentic knowledge or information? Most answers have more or less been centered on the ‘credibility’ of the producer rather than where the producer is located – inside or outside. The book “Peripheral Centre: The Voices from India’s Northeast” skillfully edited by Preeti Gill takes cognizance of this debate which has been often been overlooked. This book is one amongst the growing corpus of information on the ‘Northeast’ – a bunch of serious thoughts, both by those called ‘insiders’ as well as the ‘outsiders’.

The collection of writings in this book suggest that knowledge and information production of and on the ‘Northeast’ have been necessitated by the imperatives of exploring possible resolutions to decades old issues. Going through the writings throws up layers of murky contractual interests of the ‘state’ vis-à-vis the collective interests and struggles of the people. The “Peripheral Centre: The Voices from India's Northeast” published by Zubaan books has on its cover (both front and back) an image of spray paint and stencil graffiti of Irom Sharmila, seen in some roads and streets of Delhi. This image is akin to the image of the skull and crossbones, only the skull here is replaced by the face of Irom Sharmila. The elements from the original image when superimposed with that of Sharmila points to an ominous warning. What was the intention of this image creator is debatable while accepting the fact the same image has a potent function for the book.

The first title of this collection, “Peripheral Centre” immediately suggests a landscape which is at once a periphery – an edge, an outskirt while simultaneously being the principle point. While projecting the irrelevance of the periphery to the “main”, the addition of the “centre” renders a new meaning that seem to be part of a strategy to undo locational specificities. This does not however reduce the distance felt from all sides and directions. It is of course not devoid of certain nuances, that the periphery is with reference to something. Despite the claim that the book is “the gaze of the outsider”, there is an amalgamation of writings both by “outsiders” and “insiders”.

‘From a Reporter’s Dairy' by Rupa Chinai contends that the phenomenon of widespread drug abuse, especially in Nagaland and Manipur, is not to be seen as one stirred by aimless and disillusioned youth but rather from a perspective that points out the Sanjoy Hazarika’s piece ‘In Times of Conflict the Real Victims are Women’ tries to tackle a whole lot of issues starting from Nellie massacre in Assam to the present day sufferings and struggles of the women in the Northeast. While talking of the killing of Manorama Devi and subsequent protests launched by the women of Manipur, Hazarika seems to have overlooked that fact that it was not just another killing. His account comes closer to the version of the Assam Rifles. He forgets to mention that it was also not ‘just’ the single act of killing (indeed many are killed everyday for killings have become an everyday act) but also the ‘way’ she was allegedly raped and killed (gun shot wounds in the genitals). A lot of water has flown under the bridge since the Manorama episode. Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy Review Committee of which Hazarika was a member, proposed ‘a legal mechanism that will provide a framework for the armed forces to operate’ in conflict identified areas. But one is still wary of the old masquerading in the guise of new. Who will be deciding that it is indeed (in Hazarika’s own words) a case of emergency requiring intervention? What would be the forms of intervention? Or is he suggesting that everyday occurrences of rapes, molestation, intimidation are ‘mainly a record of the past’? It is also surprising that Hazarika is still trapped in the oft repeated rhetoric of women from the region enjoying high social, cultural and economic status. The women in this region may be slightly better than their counterparts in the rest of India but the essays from this collection and indeed voices from the women writers themselves point to the fact that all is not rosy within.

The editor is bang on target when she suggests that the region is a sort of a cusp, “old giving way to new”. One way to see this is to recognise the fact that it has indeed been difficult for the region, for that matters the whole of India, to cope up and come to terms with modern national institutional framework having skipped an organic shift. Part of the difficulties of these transitions are to some extent captured by Sanjeev Kakoty’s “Tree Sans Roots” as borders are incised and cartographic national frameworks are imposed upon the way of life. The multiplicity of authority – various forms and faces of the state, the non-state aspiring to be the state and building their system based on the military system of the state are discussed by Mamang Dai. In such a scenario the “Northeast” is not a periphery but a crucial centre that should remain a periphery to people’s imagination. Vijalakshmi Brara’s analysis of “Performance” as a gendered space would have been refreshing if she had gone beyond her novel idea of disempowerment. However, Brara is right in pointing out that more often than not women's performance gets relegated as ‘an end in itself’. No constructive or critical outcome is expected of the performance which can question the entire realm of the social. She withdraws after pointing to a new path which disempower her from further exploring for answers. Here, it is pertinent to note that what has often been termed as the “gaze” is definitely shifting towards participation, at least at the discursive level. The attempt to engage with the region is commendable. The variegated narratives in Peripheral Centre: The Voices
from India’s Northeast maps out a whole realm of complex issues that exist in a region clubbed together as the “Northeast”. However, one needs to accept the fact that this idea of mapping is still anchored to the nation building exercise of a democratic country. A poem by Mamang Dai used right in the beginning of the introduction, says Now, when we close our eyes, and cease to believe, god dies but the complexities in the Northeast may not.

This review was published in The Sangai Express on 25th of July 2010
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Morning has come

2010-07-25T01:58:00.001-07:00

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When I say my wall...

2010-07-19T21:21:00.001-07:00

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Yoona

2010-07-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

Nameless you come
and leave
Our territories
were
not of blood
but nameless
and empty
Until
another journey

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Speaking in stone

2010-07-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

My vocabulary
of mute lamentations
of lost speech
bend to pick
stones, sharp as life
against the conundrum
I wish to speak
in stones

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Monsoon

2010-07-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

The morning papers
soaked with yesterdays’ rains
sank with its news
at my doorstep

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Visit

2010-07-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

When visit me
would you come riding
a lightning of bullet?
Would you eat me up slowly
with mouth of gaping bed sores?
Would you run over me
driving a heavy-limbed sleepy truck?
Would you disperse
into my veins
leave me heavy lidded, intoxicated?
Would you leaked out
of a golden nip
wiry and coiled
enticing me with your words?
Would you come
wearing an attire of yellow sunset?
Would you come
draped in a hairy blanket?
Do come
dressed for the occasion
in the mysterious splendour
of night stars and noonday sun

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Do not leave memories like these

2010-06-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

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Should I?

2010-06-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

Shall I in a splash immerse myself
in the arms of an immense sea
and leave in my wake
a few ripples?

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Singular

2010-06-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

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Ode to my brother

2010-05-31T01:44:00.000-07:00

We played
wearing
nothing
but
grace of the earth
Unblemished
by time
the contours
of our bodies agreed
that we were blind
to mazes
and
nuances
of skin and seduction
The pale evening
floated
on our tea of red
the sun was a wedge of lemon
designing to sting
the dusk uttered its curses
The tea stained
kettle of steel
wept
with its black eyes

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Unasked for

2010-05-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

Won’t you come

to watch the evening fall

Dark into my eyes

as I walk

pass your door

Unasked for

Unstopped by

You refused

to cast your nocturnal net

of wet kisses

cajole touches

I will no longer

die in your arms

unable to breathe in

your terrestrial air

I have untangled

myself from

intangible laces

of your fingers

kneading a dough

of my skin

Evening drowns

in to my eyes

Tries to catch

a star or two

Easily you execute

the night

decked up for you

with its many pearls

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Certainty

2010-05-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Lets quarter
it all
To each
her individual country
won't that be a fantasy
I would like
to
design
my own flag
everyday
sewing a colourful peice
from shirts I had overgrown
long ago

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Another polish for my nails

2010-04-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

promises and promises
give it a miss
Its unsure
why
you promised me the moon
and doted on my nails
the black stain of your promises
I live with the regret
yet another five years
Optimist that I am
you will find me yet again
lining up in the queue
amonsgt stones and dust
of the rumbling school
roofless from your promises
waiting for the stain
secretly folding your promises
sliding it down
the box of dreams of democracy
locked securely for another five years
is lies and lies and lies
Yet I beleived
like a love struck luckless lover
I wish i had chosen
another polish for my nails

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Trivial details

2010-04-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Love
left behind
such sorrows
and traces
Wounded
by
the indifferent one
left
as if to perish
Oh!
such commonplace scars
and trivial details
of love

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Do not look back

2010-04-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Days upon days
piled up
and turn grey
on your hair
draw lines
around your eyes
Do not
Do not look
one decade back
Do not look back at all
says the myth
of Orpheus
of Lot
A pillar of salt
she was
Leave
those heavy lumps
of nostalgia
Let us begin
somewhere
to collect
life's sour fruits
yet again

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numbers

2010-04-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

as usual
its only
numbers
that die
I count my fingers
for some friends
Some numbers
I too, seek
Some love
I beseech
As usual
one knocks
on closed doors

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Now, are you pleased?

2010-04-06T03:26:00.001-07:00

With your door
so low
I have to come
crawling on
my knees
I am walking
on all fours
Now,
are your pleased?
In chains
I am dragged
Free me
I cry
But
I am the one
with
the jagged-teeth knife
in hand
I must kill
things
they taught
Unpeel
the layers
they painted
on me
I will melt
these windowless
icy walls
of love
Those
cauldron
of lust
will
paint
your feverish
forehead
and you
will come
crawling
I will give in
no more
to promises
and sickly sweet
scented flowers
and glittering stones

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Traces

2010-04-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Do not leave
traces like these-

fading morose
brown sun
stained
on rough paper
of discoloured white
spilled spots
doting
a certain wintry day
of thick brown tea

The warm scent
of your head
imprinted forever
on my yellowed pillow

The night
of jaundiced
blue moon
your scorching tongue
seeking my blanket mouth
to douse the flames
left a nick
on my lips

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Fall

2010-03-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

The blackboard
of the nights' sky
where the crystal
studded chalks
draw their regular lines
They say
this is
where the day
sink into
into
the empty bowels
of the night
The forlorn moon
spy over
insomniac heartaches
The day filled
to the brim
would pour
out its dreams
and some tears
And the night
would
fall
fall down
from the sky

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

....And we leave patches

2010-03-23T08:26:00.001-07:00

What do I tell you
how it is
When from a distance
I watch the evening
dark and deep
fall
into the arms of day
The sun recedes
in the deep embrace
of the brooding hills
Then you arrived
to divide up
our lot
Yours and mine
Divide up
embraces
How is it?
How do we
cut apart
this book
we wrote
with stars
and half a moon
How do we
divide
conversations
Was it yours or mine?
A question
to my answer
An answer
to my question
Would the sun
wait not for dawn
Would the hills
wait not for dusk
What do I tell you
how it is
How do we
divide
you in me
me in you
And we leave
patches
of holes
in
what we wove
each carrying
a tattered bit
What do I ask now?
Would we seek
another loom
another thread?
or take our tattered bits
towards where
the brooding hills
embraces the sun

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Nothing

2010-03-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

No pain
of loss
No angst
or pathos
The
footsteps
gradually
dies
The breeze
flies
carrying
a scent
Memories
-some
faded
some
discarded
Nothing
was
left
not even
a tattered
shred
Not even
the scab
of an old wound

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

The end

2010-03-09T23:06:00.001-08:00

This is where
the road ends
tarmac
of India shining
gives way
to gravel
and red dirt
of India whining
Red eyed lantern
with irregular wicks
cast their sorrowful gaze
on
the cables
above
the village
Traversed
without stopping by
It would shine
in other places
Those islands of hope
a granary
of surplus
doesn't sow
but reaps
Oh how
it is?

Solely mine

2010-03-08T23:06:00.000-08:00

lips to lips
like muzzle to muzzle
trace of voices
beneath bedspreads
of fickle affairs
A bad taste
in my mouth
I got used to
effortlessly traversed
from one to another
a tedious route
seeking myself
in many others
discovered a trace here
in her pain
encountered my fear
in his eyes
uncovered a trail
in her secrets
I stumbled upon
the zenith
of consummation
the loss
the liberation
solely mine

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Hues

2010-03-04T00:39:00.001-08:00

He made me touch
green of the foliage
told me
its a camouflage
between
hunger and surplus
He grieved
his land called red
when it was
green in monsoon
yellow in autumn
His earth
a riot of colour
Red isn't one of them
he explained
He gave me flowers
like cotton
like clouds
like yellowed half of a pumpkin
like yellowed strands of straw
Red is something else
he said
and offered me berries
of scarlet
Red was the vermillion
on the women's forehead
Red the flowers
on her hair
not easily untangled
he told me
but Brown is it
he decided
the brown of hunger
the brown bark of unyielding earth
Red terror
screeched
the hysterical reporter
over the screen
Red is just
the Palash flowers
he wept
heaving his body
tattooed with Gond tales

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Do you?

2010-02-23T07:53:00.001-08:00

Do you know
I sometimes
ridicule your freedom
When you wind your alarm
to begin tomorrow
Waking at its lousy bell
Adorning that jacket
polished shoes
ironed shirt et al
Didn't you
tell me
you are a farmer's son
Tell me
you are a farmer?
Carrying that phase
like a badge
repeating that tired phrase
A farmer
who measure
his days with milestones
A farmer
with no use for seasons
Rummage the soil
with your bare fingers
if you find your soul
I agree
you are free
free as the farmer
you wanted to be

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Hues

2010-02-16T23:11:00.000-08:00

Bright, sublime

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Unseeing

2010-02-15T02:29:00.000-08:00

eyeless to my pain
a window
without a pane

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2010-02-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

Suffocating
under your gaze
my lidless eyes
cannot close
against this
transparent captivity
of liquid incarceration
I did my bit
for those morsels
wriggled my fins
against some fake weeds
exhaling little bubbles
of amusement
In your vacuumed medium
you articulate freedom
had me in chains
for the colour of my scales

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Oracle for the King

2010-02-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

The thick dark seaweeds
of unlighted evenings
come crawling up
the husk of cigarette stained nights
Rapid puffs of offwhite
winter shower
like a relentless spurned lover
tediously follows
with its long strides
keep walking
without looking back
misfortune this year
cries the oracle
bright and prosperous
says the cards
rejoice the one
that ended
dread the one
that has begun
Let us ask
the Cheithaba
to take not
on his head
misfortunes of the throne
The people have suffered
now let the king
meet his certain destiny
brought forth by our curses and tears

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

2010-02-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

every visit
we seek that night
we came crawling
with laughter
drunk with caffeine
but drunk enough
with the heavy night
and secrets within
knowing yours
knowing mine
was all the same
we needed to steal
some smiles
in between
a menu card
provided us the cue
you were clutching it
with eyes of laughing tears
the evening rose
with our laughter
our love for the moon
will be to our doom
moonstruck tears
were sudden and swift
as secrets spill over
the bedspread of the night
spreading our sorrows
together with crystals
in our hands
we cupped and inhaled
the lemon and salt
of our wound
and we knew
every visit
we will seek this night

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

For chao, shree and that night in the coffee shop... for the tears of laughter, for more visits
BTW we still haven't returned their menu card :)

I will take the leap

2010-02-03T04:25:00.000-08:00

Just a peep

Is what I ask for

Into the beyond

Seconds of that image

Whether tongues of flame

Whether serenity of cold blue light

Whether nothing and nothing

Is the knowledge

I desire

to stab my womb

to stop my blood

From furthering itself

into oblivion

of the sole truth

and its multi fanged friends

My blood

My flesh

Let me stab you

Here itself

In the warmth

Of my fluid

Before life

And its many brutes

Play its games

Let me stab me

Stab me along with you

I will be with you

In the arms of beyond

Whether heaven and its precocious morality

Whether hell and its overwhelming temptation

Whether the erasure of nothingness

I will take the leap

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Truth slept soundly

2010-02-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

The day curled up
at the yellowed edges
like a voraciously read book
Camouflages
and fear
spread evenly
with the blunt knife
of the night
Tired truth
slept soundly
in kumbhakarna's slumber

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Without words

2010-01-30T05:34:00.000-08:00

I wish
I could
love
the way you do
or don't
With almost
a disdain
for expressions
my affections
reduced
as you do
to affectations
I wish
I could
do
without words
bereft of kisses
devoid of embraces

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

3 Haiku

2010-01-27T07:19:00.000-08:00

Full moon of my home
brighter by far I tell them
load shedding they mocked

----------------------------

Nga chara ama
Interview da yengbiyu
Haina thillakhi

----------------------------

waiting for a word
but your pages remain blank
why friend, the silence

----------------------------

And yet some others I met

2010-01-20T22:34:00.001-08:00

Visitors

2010-01-20T22:12:00.001-08:00

Seeking an end

2010-01-20T05:31:00.000-08:00

Is it some mere floors above?
Or perhaps at the graceful end
of a coiled rope?
Is it within the depth of a well
with its liquid blackness
calling out my name?
Is it next to the warm comfort of my bed
in a clear bottle that promises peaceful slumber?
Shall I choose the obscure hour of my birth
where the night and day met?
Shall I choose the music of raindrops
on the tin roof to bade me this farewell?
Shall I in a splash immerse myself
in the arms of an immense lake
and leave in my wake
a few ripples?

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

2010-01-14T06:37:00.000-08:00

2010-01-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

2010-01-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

Recede

2010-01-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

when you recede
along with the tides
the litter sewn shore of my soul
looked at me like a gaping wound

the amber of fading afternoons
cast the longest solitary shadow
the fog of winter boils over the evening sky
like frigid lumps of latent milk
forced down throats of unwilling children
while some distract hunger for awhile
with mango kernel and tawdry strands of grasses

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Untitled

2010-01-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

Call me no longer
to your reunions
I no longer
subscribe
to that School of thought
All I remember
Is your concrete pretensions
Those structures
That cordone me off
That make me harbour
Feeling of superiority
Over vernacular mortals
I am still undoing
Those twisted knots
I am now glad
My hair has
Outgrown
The discipline
Of plaits
and ribbons
The factory line
of morning assembly
The raps
on my knuckles
The red grades
of lesser human
my report sported
each year
The hand-me-down
Shoes
Patched and sewn
They pointed at
and mocked
The class within a prison
Of four walls
The teachers’ classes within a book
Bound by rigid covers
The class of sycophants
That chanted praises
Or curses
at her instigation
I’ve bade my byes
and buried them
by the laphu makhong
with my laiphadibi
with an appropriate funeral

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Winter

2010-01-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

This first drizzle of winter

Drops of crystal descend

merge with the street

to become this stubborn slush

splattered

on the tattered phanek

of the widowed valley

This mist of winter

Blinded by whiteness

The white cold seep through

From the bed of tarmac

Into the vagabond’s soul

A clueless poet

Tainted with love for verse

Heartbreak became a poem of winter

Gnawing through bones

Each word hang heavy

Like the bulky winters’ torn fabrics

Pellets for Christmas

2009-12-26T04:42:00.001-08:00

The canopy of hollow paper stars
of Christmas
with coloured bulbs inside
dangles from the roof
The sky is a silly dark deep
devoid of colour of any hue
The days’ drinks
hastily drunk in secret
plot a chart of dull headache
The night’s sleep is lost
against monotonous drill of hymns
of those singing out aloud
pleading the un-hearing Gods
Certain red stars in the distant roof-tops
became the mocking signs
in letters to my father
leeching on years of sweat
Those static ominous stars
Hark! the arrival of three un-wise
the following day
displaying pellets of lead
on father’s shivering hands

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Time

2009-12-16T23:01:00.000-08:00

In little meandering droplets
they slither unseen
in factions of poetry
in shards of crystals
of the boiling spring
bringing tales of the dark earth beneath

You brought me from your tales
some of your tears
I came with mine
To meet you 'tween
verses of timelessness
To forget times that left us
halfway on a broken bridge
standed on a cliff of concrete
moulded by this very hands

Slumber swallowed evenings
found us dreading the soft dusk
when the hour arrived
asking for a conclusion
to our chronology
We left with reluctance
hand in hand
to seek another time
beyond time

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Ema

2009-12-10T01:43:00.000-08:00

Is that love that wake you
On cold winters
to immerse yourself in the icy waters
of the mirror-like pukhri

Is that love that adorn you
With chandon on your nose
And phanek asengba around your waist
To immerse yourself in mekrup

Is that love that warms you
near the lei rung
When you lay a separate pukham
Serving him the choicest morsel

Is that love that heals you
When he drags you by the root of your hair
And blue blows rains on you

Is that love that created me
When he startled you
By saying you would be going home
And send you the following day
With rituals and parents

But is not that love
When you cried
Remembering that sweetheart
Who dedicated a song of heartache
On Tabiningba esei
Your first evening in a strange new house

pukhri-pond; chandon- Chandan/sandalwood;
Phanek asengba- washed sarong/ pure sarong. Women are to wear such 'undefiled' / 'pure' clothes during worship ceremonies
mekrup- type of incense;
Lei rung- hearth;
pukham- plate with a raised edge
Tabiningba esei- Can be loosely translated as 'favourite songs'. A popular radio programme of AIR.

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Prayers

2009-12-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

My promiscuous hair
Bound in a tight knot
Veiled from my Itei
Lest the scent of Chinghi
Wafts towards him
Enhanced by the earthy smell of slight cowdung
Effusing from the moist chakravyuh
Marked by the span of my arms
Around the silent scented tulsi

Unbelieving
Atheist
I prayed twice a day
With incense, water and flowers
For the heavens to drop
A thick noose
Knotted with sudden stars
With the moon for an audience
To witness my escape
From this Chakravyuh

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Notes on a beloved friend

2009-12-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

I narrated one night
a story of mine
over the sound of storm
brewing the night
breaking the soft limbed frangipani

You kept not
Buried under layers
of that stormy night
the story of my heart
deep in yours
You sang my songs of anguish
of sepia tinted evenings
You narrated my tears of ecstasy
in stories of amusement
You dragged from beneath layers of blankets
tales as deep as my slumber

Only my companion in pain
Distilled those tales
With the soft melody of her voice
And dyed me with her fragrance

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Emptiness

2009-12-01T04:47:00.000-08:00

_was the solitary podon
amongst the dark fumes
lighting up the tattered notes
exchanged in the keithel

_was the multitude of wrinkles
amongst the frown
creased deep into the farmer's face
watching the horizon
for pregnant clouds

_was the expanse of sky
distant and silent
after a piercing cry
when the ordeal was over
and they left
one by one
in a singular satiated grin

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

My lover, browned with sun

2009-11-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

I met my lover
creased with life
smelling of worries
amongst loss
amongst departing summer

I met my lover
after september
and spring bursted suddenly
from the east
with purple sweet pea
in his vein
with thabal lei in his breath

My lover left
But will be back
browned with sun
chapped with wind
will bring fire and woods
will bring sun and spices
and a few more creases around his eyes
and a few more creases around his smile

My lover will come
and forgive me my friend
if I start believing in god again

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

The tulsi of my courtyard

2009-11-20T00:37:00.001-08:00

My tanned lover

2009-11-19T22:14:00.000-08:00

On such immense evenings
When poetry denies me
its words, its rhythm
With a whimper I recoil back
Envious of the words on your lips
Envious of the words on your pages
I go back to my wooden book rack
Bought on impulse
with my lover
one autumn dusk
It was the color of my lover
Tanned with the Newar sun
He had age behind him
I cling to his anecdotes
I have life ahead of me
He clings to my laughter

On such immense evenings
When poetry denies me
its words, its rhythm
I read the lines on his face
I read the map on his back
I knew he was an endless poem
The rhythm of Beas Kund
I had emptiness behind me
He clings to my anecdotes
He had happiness ahead of him
I cling to his heady brew

On such immense evenings
When poetry denies me
its words, its rhythm
I deny poetry my pen
And I read my lover with my hands

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

To Shreema

2009-11-19T02:31:00.001-08:00

We struggle
within ropes
plaited by known hands
Invoking
silent feelings
from deep crevices
Tears from inner wells
had long dried
Happiness a fear fleeting
Sadness a comfort
To dwell in its perpetuity
While they
set forth in their journey
to discover
truths and self
You and I
journeyed within
for wombs of words
and verses
To discover
That dwells within

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Without you

2009-11-19T02:26:00.001-08:00

Gold

2009-11-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Silent sepia of dusk

2009-11-17T00:46:00.000-08:00

The day went off to die
behind the silent sepia of dusk
behind the fireflies in the fields
The un-awaited chronology
arrived yet again
solemnly announced by ominous thunders
Along with the small hours of the night
Plunging onto the tarmac
Plunging into the drain
dripping with wind
bringing the nostalgic scent of earth

I gazed at a spent rainbow called yesterday
streaming down my window pane
I sailed my little white paper boats
shaped from a hastily folded letter of love
I saw it browned by mud
singularly navigating polythene bags and pebbles
sailing into the heart of the liquid ocean of the sky
Unaware of the silver dagger of lightning

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Remnants

2009-11-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

Just a whiff remains
of your sweat
besides my pillow
where you wept in ecstasy

Just a strand remains
tangled amongst my fingers
which ruffled tenderly
dark clouds of new moon

Just a moan remains
of your voice
bleeding amongst wounds
raging amongst fires
muffled amongst kisses
honeyed amongst songs
salted amongst tears
Leafless in autumn
And naked in winter

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Untitled

2009-11-03T01:28:00.000-08:00

Lets play
A game
Your state and my corporation
Weld them
To force minerals
Out of rivers
To force Bauxite
Out of hills
To force timbre
Out of forests

Lets play
A game
Your words and mine
To force people
Out of homes
To force farmers
Out of fields

Let’s play
A game
On this checked chessboard
Let’s stake the lands
and the tutelary deities
Let the river run dry
To quench our thirst
Let the mountains spew gold
To satiate our hunger
And when the earth is squeezed dry
Let us stake the universe
And the planets

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Ema's tender hands

2009-10-22T22:25:00.001-07:00

Ema’s tender hands
Weary of
Creating flowers
One day
Grew barbwires
from her slender fingers

I am in a hurry

2009-10-09T02:49:00.001-07:00

I long for the fluid escape of poetry
I am in a hurry
for death comes creeping in a premonition-
a nightmare of fallen teeth and newborn
remembered at the end of the day
forced by dark clouds of rain soaked evenings

I wake from a siesta
to feel the inevitable night
falling relentlessly
in tormenting drops of nostalgia
dispersing my antique trunk of memories

While with droplets of dried turquoise blue on its nip
my pen collapse in a slumber
at the shore of soft white expanse
dreaming to chart its course
and leave residues of blue waves

Colours of Retreating Monsoon

2009-09-29T21:27:00.000-07:00