Suggestions

Fictional Arts

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Tactile 

“The longing to touch…I feel gratitude when I touch someone  — as well as affection etc. The person has allowed me proof  that I have a body — and that there are bodies in the world.  — Susan Sontag,  from As
April 25, 2023
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Mumbai Goddesses

We lived in Shivaji Park when I first askedmy parents about Santa—because he brought presents, and my picture books showed him flying—in a sleigh drawn by reindeer over fields and mountains of snow in cold countries where white people livedin huge houses
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Moments in Collapse

Art exhibitions specifically designed to counter dominant cultural narratives are hard to find, even in a country as democratic as India. Exhibitions that portray political art in a way that questions authority are often not given spaces in prominent art and cultural
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Matters of the heart

I had not realisedHands and fingers could be so smallSo pink and crinkly, nails and allA little tiny human beingComplete, perfectExcept that you were notI could not hearI did not want to knowThe complicated diagnosisThey were pressing in upon usI’d never heard
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Goddess of Pablo Neruda

In realms obscure, ‘latrine cleaner’ she was named,Love’s tender touch, a stranger’s hand, never claimed.her essence distilled in allure’s potent brew,A deity of desire, in eyes that only knew. Oh, Thangamma, your tale unfolds,beyond the verse of poets renowned,muted whispers, stories untold,in
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Shadows in Grey Light

Day folds into nightshe holds herself stillthe sharp angular linesof his cheekbones and the fire flares in the hearth –orange-tinged blue flameshis temper burning fast and hotlike the gidgee wood he mills. don’t pull that sullen face sonbeware his mood…Mother and sonwait…for
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The Scars

To the world the wounds have healedthe scars faded, invisible.Yet all it takesare carelessly spoken wordsor random, fleeting thoughtsfor the hurt to surface.The wounds bleed invisible dropsthe anguish swirling like a black cloud,surrounds the self.The bright smilethe calm demeanourbelie the echo of
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Epiphany of the Heart

Disconcerted and chagrined,I entwine my fingers tighter around you,glancing from the corner of my eye,a detective of the heart,probing through a maze of veiled secrets—but not to find love,Oh, not now!I eschew discovering it,here and now.I turn my gaze to the other
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Sound of Chaos

I sleep miles away from the landCalled Holy;The people are not mine yetThe pain is,The homes are not mineYet the dust is,The blood is not mine yetTheir Death is.Chalks are drawing the borders,Marking the dead bodies scattered around the dustThat was once
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Paper Sweet

This old palm leaf tells us children some stories of her time to put us to sleepAbout how she discovered her childhood in watchingHer mother making paper sweets,home filled every day with sharp sun light on the mother’s eager hands, the sheets
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Chai Tea

The smell of chai filled up my apartment when I used to wake up, once. I do not remember how long it has been. Two years, probably five. It’s been six months. I walk through the pavements alongside the palm trees. This
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All My Anxieties

All my anxieties…About did I leave the stove on!Or maybe the keys hangingStuck to the outside of the door,instead of the lining of my pockets. Maybe all my worries…about how dreadful the world is going toTurn outare simply attemptsto come home. Time
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Girl #3 in the Canteen

My mother—in her heyday—had been quitea looker. Pretty enough to have been a Bond girl, framedin a sniper’s scope, I mused to myself. As a teen, thumbing through plastic sleeved albums (eight curved-edge photographs to a double page spread, fizzing lightly with
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Radha’s Song

You wouldn’t know how it feels, would you?To love a man who’s claimed by many.Who am I but just another woman,lost in a throng of admirers waitingfor a glimpse of his dark, dimpled face.Tell me something, have you ever knownthe fear of
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Echoing Mothers

I hear mothers,young and old,rich and not-so-poor,Believers, atheists, heathenI hear their staggering stepszigzagging throughformer husbands,current flings,the faltering economy.I hear their symphonies–son’s first tooth fall,daughter’s first ballet,first culinary experiment.I hear, too, their erratic quartets;custody battles,nursing a sick child,telling the daughterbetter loversawait her yet.As
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Aligarh

Astir, nightly shows—orchestras of vehicles playthe chords in the streets. True-blue tea-lovers—drinking views with samosas,English coffeehouse. Glistening at daytime—dainty neighbourhoods bask insoft showers of peace. Taking in the town—orange sun ducks behind askyline of jet trees.
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Noh Mask

lost this moonless nightwithout a starry guidewhere the black dog herdsand the midnight cat’s clawsclick across weary stones.lost where whiteno longer exists.gloom’s black fingerscurl and stretchscratching away layers,the regrets and misstepsuntil my noh mask slipsand I am undone
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Green Room

If she gets sometimes offOpens the portfolio from her voice and singsChildren cry for attention or quarrel over shabby rags or iron blade or broken plastic lid.This is the only time she wipes off whiskey stainse-liquid drip in her mist like songs.Frantic
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Stories

As she sat down and spread outthe old picture album,all the moments and kinfolkslivened up around herwith all those smiles and tearsand those hugs and gigglesthose partings and unionswhirling around herin a cloud of smokeand faint echoes from afar.Like how she beheld
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Pacificate

Answer me!Where would you go?,when the very life you chase,Suddenly… betrayed you? On the roads you used to run on,now you can’t take a step.The hospital bed is your home now,The window; your eyes to the world. Can’t you see it yet?The
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Haiga

Haiga is a traditional Japanese art form that combines haiku poetry with a complementary visual element, usually a simple painting or a sketch. The word “haiga” is derived from “hai” (haiku) and “ga” (painting or picture). In haiga, the aim is to
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Haiku

Flying I felt the Spring breezeSaw some lilies dancing roundWhile I touched the sky. On Growing Just like a saplingNeeds the sun, so do I needThe rain to grow high. Strength To smile is a costTo weep comes easily stillBut both make
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The Passing of Time

On some nights, walking along thedeserted streets, grief chokes me likethunder that ravishes the sky.The lonely clouds gather aroundmy windowpane like a widowClad in white, sobbing rains into my heart.The moon is lost in the elegies of the night.In the eternal silence,
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Primitive State

I refuse to be confined within the defined walls of identity.I don’t want these predetermined labels to define.The claustrophobia in my head space remains a massive threat.Always urging me towards the uncharted territories of freedom.Where authenticity thrives without the shackles of conformity.In
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A Wishbone

When I’m gone,The eternity I wanted with you won’t scare you anymore,The promises we made won’t confound you anymore,I’ll come back to you;Not to soothe you but-It’ll be for my eternity that I dreamt of with you;I’ll come back as the first
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Streaming Wild

Slid past the scarlet driveanchored on days sanewith a whimsical strain of melody sadharbouring the mind. Lovely sights of days wildgathered on follicles of growthentailing prophesyamidst seasons of hope. Majestic pride overweening:huddled the Self and Souldragging drudgery to the holereadily buried in
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Renunciation

Renounce, renounce and renounce!All that makes me feellike a frantic caged bird,fluttering and shriekingfor escape —— from the morselsIt feeds upon,from its own filththat pollutes the cage,and from the gentle breezethat mockingly caresses its trapped wings!
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At Ten

I didn’t know what decade meantthe year I turned ten. The yearI turned ten, we moved housesand went from two rooms on anupper floor to three rooms onthe ground. I had only just learnedwhat one’s own house meant. Knowing this meant little.The
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Thank You Gentleman

Today, in a meetingOne of my colleaguesWas euphemistic ofHer non-diplomacy; initiallyI was astounded, awestruck!With the flatteryBut it was no puffery.The expression came naturally.Not being euphemistic,The kudos was for a fighter,In a society whereWomen are harassedBy raping gazeAs a sex toy, andThe only
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You Don’t Look Filo

If I’m honest, I downplayed my beauty as generic asian features to try and dissipate some confused expressions at a spin-the-winebag-on-the-Hills-Hoist-party If I’m honest, I have goldfish lips and matching protruding eyes. I see men wave with zealous shouts of nihao and I always
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The Drifter

When autumn wind sighs over mitchell grass downs I look for you stencilled black against the coppery glow. We speak of simple things living a lifetime in small moments, daily doings, a dripping tap, the leaky pipe. Shifting the kettle to the
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Madeline’s Mirror

Madeline’s mirror told her she’s fat. It appalled at her shapeless dress, covering a chunk of flesh. She looked at her broad shoulders and big breasts, which reminded her of a pile of clothes that no longer fits her. But Madeline
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Feelings

Like shivering stars sprinkled over a black carpet of tonight, the silver bubbles rise from the bottom of the ocean of my mind and like the stars, linked together into animals and heroes – all by us, they, too, linked together,
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The Kitchen

My grandma didn’t have a kitchen for a year and a while more. She hadn’t become my grandmother yet. A just-retired husband and dwindling family income brought her pots and pans out on the courtyard of the one-room hovel they had
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Dikarya

In what universe counting chances  under grey skies  like paper flowers.   I thought there might be a chance fragile, uncertain opening into night sun.  So many words flowing hot as lava pyroclastic, our disaster  on the move  one last entry 
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Of Black Birds and Grandmothers.

                                                   Words lingered on the iridescently blue screen in one of those days that felt like any other day that had gone by. The glare was too much to bear and the words too familiar to go inconspicuous to lay  buried in
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Supper

Lately, the sparring had become something of a routine, or perhaps it had always been, she mused as they ambled home from a friend’s place post-dinner. Bathed in the eerie glow of a full moon, the sparsely arranged English country
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Poems for Gaza

i) Dear Gaza When this is over I will come to Beit Lahia and help Mosab plant strawberries for Refaat. I will bring watermelon seeds in embroidered pouches for the children. They need the distraction. I will clear ash from the
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Forgotten Soul

The old man reading Alistair Urquhart’s hardcover Forgotten Highlander! but did he sit in front of me in the small mall lounge for the same reason as my own sense of lostness with that loss of love? that I will never
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The Orchard

MY WRITERS’ BLOCK does not exist (or so I’ve been told); its name is the very  pulse of this story, yearning to be unleashed from the confines of my churning  chest — a  writhing  tangle  of  Medusa’s  serpents  itching  to 
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Now I Understand

Grief crawled out from under the rock. It always does. Now I understand; the varicose veins, the heavy breathing, the conservation of handprints, deeds, a will and the daily ‘evening walks’; they were all prompts before the final words, before the
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Silhouette

Slams against window The hissing breeze Making foggy shadow As it cease Tiny dew drops Fall in streaks From the reed on slope Standing in bleak It is almost midnight. I wake up with a start. For an instant, I
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The Room with a Sea view

Kohl-eyes, lush-hair, skin bathed in glean and two chandelier earrings – those were the remains of her on this wide, soft morning by the looming sea. Jaganlal felt he was on a high ship and soon his building, this bay
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Reading the Signs

Down the road from Monique Barnes’ apartment block was a tennis club at the base of a rainforest. From her balcony she could see the coaches on the court, hear the thwack of the tennis balls as they rallied with their
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Flame in the Dark

The candles burn bright illuminate the night hold back the terrors braving the dark clouds the old moon in the arms of the new moon foretelling a storm. Thunder, lightning, whipping rain announce the coming of the storm. The high winds
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Obedient Isolated Wife

I I fell in love recklessly with the man of my dreams. Polite as a knight he swept the floor beneath my feet. He dazzled everyone with his presence but paid attention only to my needs. The day he proposed My heart
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Heat Climbs in

Smell of heat coming off the road It’s not a fire smell Just the heat from the sun Thongs sticky as the heat climbs into them Day lillies bloom Orchids open Merry golds flower Cuttings spread roots My skin red from
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Token Brown

tell me about your whiteness I don't want to hear travels in Asia the study of reiki how you laboured with a doula the souvenirs of plunder mine it for me the caucasian in your veins apply this like a poultice onto
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For Manipur

When truth wears the emperor’s new clothes, and nakedness becomes a parade, If civilization began with dressing, we are in retrograde. She is auctioned everyday to corporates, parts of her renamed, only given a parrot voice, You allow anybody to touch
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Reversed

You thought I would cry? My smile has the oppressed reprisal of generations that can burn ash I take tiny steps to the end of the world that you have ruled with your death traps Nothing escapes the gravity of
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The Prince of El Pardo

  He rode into Madrid on a white horse, flanked by a military guard that ran the length of Calle de Toledo. Every Spaniard, whichever side they were on, had heard the promise spread by those dour women in their dull dresses
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Ahalya’s Waiting

“Ahalya,you will live here for many thousands of years, eating wind, without any food, lying on ashes and generating inner heat. Invisible to all creatures, you will live in this hermitage. And when Ram, who is unassailable, comes to this terrible
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Neurotic

‘It’s way past midnight’. “Who remains awake at this ‘happy hour’, signing a pact with the mind’s secret chambers?” “Neither a ghost, nor a she-demon, nor a witch, but a dark, sombre truth of a female body in her prime, screaming
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Blessings

Sighing softly I collapse on my favourite chair after a crazy long day. In and out, slowly, deeply let the muscles relax I tell myself. It is blessedly quiet the night silence fills the air. A hot cup of tea, a book
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Scholastic Brothel

It was that golden hour one wild evening in the chaste spring When the sun melted in a pool of warm pink and down it sent a wanton gleam To brush against her soft cheeks and give her curls a fiery tinge
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Moonflowers

night is alive with stars watching moonflowers’ unfurling petals I sit among their shadows my feet trammels dust waiting for your return long ago moonbeams touched my face or was it you whispering, setting my blood roaring my head spinning.
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Preserved in Amber

Fossilised resin crystals from forgotten forests encircle collar bones toffee-like & organic amber conjures a timeless world before flowers insects immortalised inside sweet sunlit orbs beyond history Now so-called amber notes lay the basis for modern perfumes product of our imagination
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Infinite Blue Candies and Eyeballs

Panoptes:  Mother with her gilded champagne hair, seemingly infinite blue eyeballs, needed no cameras, not when she had a real time feed from her many plucked out eyes discreetly hidden in immaculate room top corners, in any book that had o’s  and
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Drenched Thoughts -Birthing a Dawn

Drenched Thoughts, A Novel by Anita Nahal. (Authors Press, New Delhi, 2023) ISBN: 978935529637 Price: Rs 495 Pages: 214 This book had to be written. Every intelligent, professionally qualified, smart woman who goes through an abusive marriage owes it in a
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Cleansing

The dried yellowed leaf, Disowned by the rigid tree, Still dream of the green, Of the roots and seed. Brown was all around, Or to put it right it was black, But the leaf still saw green, Inside out all dreamy green.
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Bitter orange @ 2 am

The halfmoon cruelly glowers a chiascuro profile in the smist (cool air dulled by heavy smoke) that wafts upslope from the campfires of misguided tourists travelling to the 6th extinction while notifications ping phones across the sleepless valley.
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Letter To My Daughter

I know     it is frightening        my darling          your body is seeping blood             like a sewer runnel               from the centre of you                  red like the trail of some wounded creature                     leading in streaks and smears                       straight back to the secret                           the
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Ego Work

When I say a big ego I mean a male ego I mean my ego is a male and a big one at that He knocks us down with doubt and sarcasm pros and cons and taunts an image to maintain
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Imperfections

I am a lover of imperfections Drawn to the rugged arches of  My backyard patio And the haphazard petunias  In the rough black window boxes. I do not crave  The neatly manicured lawn With the perfect robin Pecking at the perfect
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