Narayan Surve's My Mother

When the stars go off
Tall chimney-sirens sound
Daily with fast steps
Marching to the mill
Who looked backwards
And told us so lovingly
"Do not fight with anyone"
Gave us two pice
On the day before Dasara
She went with five of us
To see the festival
We bantered in the lanes
What a great pleasure
Beyond words
We returned with balloons
And whistles and pipes
We became birds

What happened of one day
They brought her in a cart
Her eyes were open
Blood gushed from her mouth
Her partner saluted
Came near, caressed us and said 'Balu'
We saw mutely everything
We searched our umbrella
Our roof, our mother.

That night we five
Stuck closer and
Wrapped up to the coverlet
Taking it to be mother's affection
Already we had nothing
Now there was even no mother
We awake all night
letting tears
Now we became fully unattached.

About The Poet:
Narayan Gangaram Surve was a Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India.He was born on October 15, 1926. Orphaned or abandoned soon after birth, he grew up in the streets of Mumbai, sleeping on the pavement and earning a meager livelihood by doing odd jobs. He taught himself to read and write, and in 1966 published his first book of poems Majhe Vidyapeeth ( My University). Surve actively worked in the workers' union movement in Mumbai and supported himself as a schoolteacher. In 1998, he received a Padma Shri award from the government of India for excellence in Literature & Education. He died due to old age and after a brief illness on August 16, 2010.
(A Two part Documentary on Surve is here)

A poem on gandhi - The Recipe

Into a bare handful of bones and skin
Pour just an ounce or so of flesh and blood;
Put in a heart loveful as Sea in flood;
Likewise a mind sea-deep and free from sin,
Fix on two jumboo ears,... two goo-goo eyes
Paint on a smile of babe at mother's breast,
Inclose a soul that caps Himavat's crest;
And speaks with tongue which honey's sweet defies;
The "stuffing"? Goat's milk, soya-beans and dates,
Now, cover to brim with suffering human's years;
And bake this dish in gaol for one score years
Take out and garnish it with pariah mates,
Wrap up in rag, prop up with lithe bamboo
And serve; The world Redeemer; Our Bapu.
- T. P. Kailasam (From the book "Light Of India" by M. S. Deshpande)

About Poet:
Thyagaraja Paramasiva Kailasam (1884 - 1946), was a playwright than a poet and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada theatrical comedy earned him the title Prahasana Prapitamaha, "the grand old man of humorous plays".

Letter from a Mughal Emperor, 2006

Nothing here’s worth a tick.

I hid everything except the heads. They respect slaughter.

They respect only slaughter. They forget the other things we brought them, the ghazals, the

gardens, the ice and symmetry.

It’s an affliction to grow up motherless, with your lady mother living beside you.

They have many images, but they have no God. They’re fit only for war.

Even the dogs are second rate.

In Tashkent I had no money, no country or hope of one, only humiliation. But among the people I

found much beauty. No pears are better.

There are no accidents. There’s only God.

Tending to his doves on the eve of battle, my father flew into a ravine at the fortress of Akhsi.

He became a falcon. I became emperor.

Sometimes, when I eat a Kabul melon, I remember my father and you.

I’ve forgotten more than I’ve seen, but I haven’t forgotten enough.

There’s only one way to live in a place like this, with your disgust close at hand.

One night I took majoun because the moon was shining. The next day I took some more, at sunrise.

I enjoyed wonderful fields of flowers, flowers on all sides. I saw an apple sapling with five or six leaves placed regularly on each branch.

No painter could have done this.

I made a schedule. Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday for wine, the other days for majoun.

Your letter puzzled me:

The people are caught between constant spiritual anguish and a faith that will give meaning to the question that consumes them: the dual substance of Krishna, the yearning of man to know God. Between the spirit and the flesh, a great unwinnable war.

Dear friend, write clearly, with plain words. Writing badly will make you ill.

Once, in an orchard, I was sick with fever and vision. I was young, but I prepared myself.

A hundred years or a day, in the end you’ll leave this place.

Long ago, my grandfather’s face looked into mine, I think with love.

Now when we speak it’s of ghazals, of metrics and rhyme or of our most famous massacres.

When he conquered Lahore he planted a banana tree. It thrived, even in that climate.

His memory is so good it gives him a second life. Mine gives only a partial one.

It’s no more than I need.

-Jeet thayil

About poet:

Born in Kerala, Jeet Thayil is a performance poet, songwriter and musician. He has authored four collections of poetry in English, and is editor of the forthcoming Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008). Educated in Hong Kong, New York and Mumbai, he is currently based in Bangalore. As a musician who plays guitar, he works with ‘Bombay Down’ (NYC) and ‘Sridhar/ Thayil’ (Bangalore).