Of Places and Poems
I have always been fascinated with the idea of space and identity relationship — how space and place can affect the formation of one’s self, how the cells of history build the body of our future.
The city sits with me today a little closer. I believe we write of cities much alike we do of lovers, not of their open mouths or motionless arms, but of the space that rests naked between us both. And poetry is a way to hold them even closer, to belong to their skies without ever having to own their bridges. We sew them into verses not as a memory, but as a continuous adventure in motion, to preserve not how they lived their days, but how we lived them night after night. And like all fables of love, cities too are at war with themselves- its left arm covered in bruises of social inequality while the right arm stretches its sleeves of silk. And what is poetry if not the chest in between, throbbing with questions of truth.
I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.
Truman Capote
I don't know my city any better than I know myself, and in a way, we are both endless folds of generations- every crease, a story unexplored. Poetry is the only language of discovery we know. Tune in to Jaane Tere Shehar by Vipin Aneja, and accompany us to the sidewalk of poetry×places.
The Museum of Verses
1. Benaras by Arundhathi Subrmaniam
("Moon Light English Coaching Center; O Lebal to Standard Lebal-Sign on Kedar Ghat, August 2009)
Lebal One
There shall be
no collisions
as long as every cow sports
five heads
twelve legs
eight wheels
ten bicycle bells
and one moo.
Lebal Two
This pundit
with the Cheddar cheese voice
has scratched his tummy
as long as that dog has dreamt
of transmigration.
Lebal Three
No board exams here.
The living are coached on dying,
the dead on rebirthing,
the priests on parody.
Manikarnika blazes
in an endless semi-final.
Lebal Four
Pizza Hut
is just one thousand years old.
Lebal Five
Each time he spits,
he unleashes a torrent
of juice,
snot,
stomach enzymes
and a Veda.
(Incredible India, you say.
The universe
in a globule of paan.
Profligate with
mucous and metaphysics.
Sparing only
with our semen.)
Lebal Six
Paul arrives from Kerala with brandy.
Returns with Gangajal.
(His sadhu friend and guide is ex-Naxalite.)
Lebal Seven
Maanya calls.
She asks where I am.
I am blank.
Before me, the hotel wallpaper-
palm-fringed sea-
has turned grey with the effluents
of those that have lain here before me
contemplating death
and room service.
That evening
(Lebal Eight)
we hunt,
we thirst,
we ache,
desperate pilgrims,
fevered seekers,
for just one millimetre
of riverbank
we can call
god-forsaken.2. Hill Dawn by Vikram Seth
Sudden and swift I hear
A distant avalanche.
The last stars disappear.
The blue snows flush and blanch.
As shadows, then as mass,
The mountains of Garhwal
Serrate and curve by pass
And peak towards Nepal.
The rising mist now fills
The forest rifts below:
Peninsulas of hills,
And lakes of fluid snow.
Oak, rhododendron, pine
And cedar freed from night
Recede in a design
As visionless as white.
3. Postcard from Kashmir by Agha Shahid Ali
Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox, my home a neat four by six inches. I always loved neatness. Now I hold the half-inch Himalayas in my hand. This is home. And this the closest I'll ever be to home. When I return, the colors won't be so brilliant, the Jhelum's waters so clean, so ultramarine. My love so overexposed. And my memory will be a little out of focus, in it a giant negative, black and white, still undeveloped.
The traffic in sync with the bend of our knees, street lights drooping on our shoulders, the most crowded street licking our soles, and yet, so much of the city feels out of reach. And this realisation is only a brief brushstroke through our mind when someone asks, 'So, where do you live?' And in that quarter of a moment, all mundane curves of the place come alive with enrichment of their own- the heritage, the culture, the history- the city, a person of its own. Perhaps poetry is the voice of the land, singing of the marks of glory it carries. And we, we are born with its music.
A Love-Letter to Our Cities
The year is 2006. Announcing the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm said, his “quest for the melancholic soul of his native city led him to discover new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.”
He is Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish screenwriter, academic, and novelist who has a poet’s voice. He was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is, thus, also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy–or–hüzün–that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes from living amid the ruins of a lost empire. His work is as grounded in the city as Dickens’s was in London, Joyce’s was in Dublin, and Naguib Mahfouz’s was in Cairo.
I have always been fascinated with the idea of space and identity relationship — how space and place can affect the formation of one’s self, how the cells of history build the body of our future. I've grown up with veins that run like arbitrary Tram-lines, and with a heart that sobs, like the rain-soaked Maidan. I've held Durga Pujo's bhog in one hand and Eid ki Seviyan in the other. Art has been my only religion.
Kolkata is my muse, as much as Istanbul is Pamuk’s.
Read the complete article here at A love-letter to our cities by Aishwarya Roy
While you make your way to the next section, lend your ears to Lucknow by A.R. Rahman
कविताओं की गली
1. मुंबई । सुधीर सक्सेना
एक शहर बिला नागा रोज इंतज़ार करता है लोकल का एक शहर लगभग दौड़ता हुआ चढ़ता है लोकल में एक शहर भागता हुआ सा उतरता है लोकल से एक शहर आख़िरकार समा जाता है पहियों पर सवार एक बड़े शहर में।
2. भोपाल । कुछ लैण्ड स्केप्स । हेमन्त देवलेकर
सुंदरता वह प्रतिभा है जिसे रियाज़ की ज़रूरत नहीं भोपाल ऐसी ही प्रतिभा से सम्पन्न और सिद्ध यह शहर कविताएँ लिखने के लिये पैदा हुआ आप इसे पचमढ़ी का लाड़ला बेटा कह सकते हैं पहाड़ यहाँ के आदिम नागरिक झीलों ने आकर उनकी गृहस्थियाँ बसाई हैं यह शहर जितना पहाड़ों पर चढ़ा हुआ उतना ही झीलों में तैर रहा यह ऊँचाई और गहराई दोनों के प्रति आस्थावान इस शहर में पानी की ख़दानें हैं जिनमें तैर रहा है मछलियों का अक्षय खनिज भंडार. इस शहर में जितनी मीनारें हैं, उतने ही मंदिर भी, लेकिन बागीचों की तादाद उन दोनों से ज़्यादा. रात भर चलते मुशायरों और कव्वालियों के जलसों में चाँद की तरह जागते इस शहर की नवाबी यादें गुंबदों के उखड़ते पलस्तरों में से आज भी झाँकती हैं. इस शहर का सबसे खूबसूरत वक़्त शाम को झीलों के किनारे उतरता है और यह शहर अपनी कमर के पट्टे ढीले कर पहाड़ से पीठ टिका अपने पाँव पानी में बहा देता है और झील में दीये तैरने लगते हैं. इसका पुरानापन हफ़्ते के वारों में सिमटा साल के महीनों की तरह बारह नंबरों तक इसका नयापन विस्तारित रासायनिक त्रासदी का पोस्टर है ये शहर इसने अपने गहरे शोक में ब्रश भिगोए और रंग फैलाए इसने जीवन की निरंतरता को सबसे बड़ी कला माना यह आधा आन्दोलनों और हड़तालों में बीतता हुआ और आधा मुआवज़ों के चक्कर में उलझा हुआ यहाँ राजपथों और पगडंडियों के अपने-अपने अरण्य हैं यह शहर लाल चट्टानों की असीम ख़दान है बेशकीमती खनिजों सी लाल चट्टानों की ख़ुदाई शुरू हो चुकी है इस शहर की जड़ों पर हमले की यह शुरूआत है किसी भी शहर का दुर्भाग्य है महानगर होना यह अब उसी कगार पर है पहाडियाँ सिमट रही हैं, धीरे-धीरे झीलें पानी में अपने विधवा होने प्रतिबिंब देख डरती हैं यह शहर ऐसी चिन्ताओं वाली कविताएँ रोज लिख रहा है, पढ़ रहा है और फाड़ रहा है.......
3. इलाहाबाद । संदीप तिवारी
जो इलाहाबाद छोड़कर गया है वह प्रयागराज नहीं लौटेगा लौटेगा तो इलाहाबाद लौटेगा प्रयागराज एक ट्रेन का नाम था अब प्रयागराज एक जंक्शन का नाम हो जाएगा अब टिकट पर नहीं लिखा मिलेगा इलाहाबाद अब टिकट में उतनी महक भी नहीं बची रहेगी प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पर गड़े पीले बोर्ड जिसको देखने भर से आ जाती थी जान में जान उस पर लिखा एक प्यारा-सा शब्द अब मिटा दिया जाएगा कहीं पर कुछ भी लिख दिया जाए कुछ भी तोड़-फोड़ दिया जाए पर दुःखी मत होना सुबह जब ट्रेन पहुँचेगी प्रयागराज जंक्शन बगल बैठा मुसाफ़िर उठाएगा और बढ़ जाएगा इतना कहते हुए जग जा भाई! आ गया इलाहाबाद
Letters to Heer
Last I met Heer, was in Kashmir. We could never meet again. Ever since that day, I've been roaming around in different cities, romancing them, writing letters about them to Heer hoping that I will find her in one of these cities one day.
Watch all episodes of this beautiful letter series by Viplav Singh on the links below:
Photo Gallery
I remember reading somewhere recently, "(he) cannot see the city and yet he has arrived." And maybe, it was never about recognising the city from its borders, the beauty always lies within. The gallery below is not a portrait of the city, but of all the lives it inhabits to keep breathing through time.
Poetry X Places, write a poem for the place you love
Joyce Rachelle says -
Whatever that place is, I don't much care -- not unless a book has happened there.
However, we are not asking you to write a book but rather a piece of poetry about a place that draws you toward itself. It could be a spot in your hometown that offers a burst of lukewarm sunshine with the chirping of birds or it could be big northern mountains, beaches of Goa, banks of Ganges. Any place you love.
Write a piece and hashtag it with #poetryxplaces when you post. One can also submit their poem on our website. We will repost the ones we love. We are inviting submissions in Hindi, Urdu and English language and the submissions will be open until 15th Dec.
Let us know in the comments your views on this edition of our newsletter.
हेमंत देवलेकर ने भोपाल पर सटीक कविता लिखी है, यथार्थ चित्रण है ।शुभकामनाये