Jhilam ChattarajNishi Pulugurtha In Conversation with Jhilam Chattaraj
‘the brown leaf between
barbed wires that draw borders stuck
held up and hanging’
— Nishi Pulugurtha
Raindrops on the Periwinkle (Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2022) is a volume of form poems – haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka – written during the second phase of the pandemic in 2020. The poems are delicate and alive, like pink periwinkles in the rain. Pulugurtha’s world is ordinary, detailed and sprinkled with beauty. Each of the poems, in their own way, responds to the pain and despair of the pandemic. The volume, rich with sixty poems, captures the growth and flourishing of nature within the surroundings of her home. Each sapling, each flower offers hope to the poet who was also the primary caregiver to her mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Nishi Pulugurtha is an academic and poet. She is based in Kolkata and loves to share her travel diaries with the world. Her publications include a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open; an edited volume of essays on travel, Across and Beyond; a two-volume of poems, The Real and the Unreal and Other Poems, Raindrops on the Periwinkle; a co-edited volume of poems Voices and Vision: The First IPPL Anthology and a collection of short stories The Window Sill. Her recent book is an edited volume of critical essays, Literary Representations of Pandemics, Epidemics and Pestilence (Routledge, 2023). A volume of essays written during the pandemic is forthcoming.
Jhilam Chattaraj: Congratulations on your book, Raindrops on the Periwinkle! The book is a collection of haiku, tanka, and haibun. How was your experience writing in forms?
Nishi Pulugurtha: It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I have always found form poems very interesting. It makes one work with words and with the structure, allows one to explore so much more in spite of the restrictions of form. During the lockdown, I wrote a considerable number of form poems, maybe it was a way of dealing with the times and all the restrictions.
Jhilam Chattaraj: Raindrops on the Periwinkle is a layered book. Your own experiences of the pandemic; finding joy in your micro natural habitat; and your mother’s medical condition. Tell us how you brought them together within the aesthetic vessel of poetry?
Nishi Pulugurtha: The lockdown brought me face to face with a different world — a restricted one. It was something that each of us have experienced in various ways. My mother was in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s and I had to be even more careful. Amma had forgotten to talk and was completely dependent on help. The two caregivers at home had to be kept safe too. Those were extremely stressful times for me. Taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer’s and seeing the immense changes coming in them is very painful.
The only contact I had with others was through the virtual medium. The little bit of green, just outside my apartment, a few of my plants, the sky above as I walked on the terrace in the evening, the gazes out the window and what I saw of people through them became my world. The news that came in through newspapers and television channels, the happenings around in those times affected me. They were terribly troubling times. These became the subjects of my writings throughout the period, both poetry and prose.
Jhilam Chattaraj: You live in Kolkata. Ethnically, you are a Telugu. Could you share with us your favourite cultural memories?
Nishi Pulugurtha: There are several. I have written about a few of them as well. The trips to Kakinada and Hyderabad were something that I looked forward to. The Sunday morning Telugu film shows that were screened in one movie hall in Calcutta was something we looked forward to as kids. This was something that we did once a month when a Telugu film would be screened; that would be followed by a meal at a South Indian restaurant in the Esplanade area in Calcutta.
The summer month of May was pickle season and while we were miles away from Andhra Pradesh (then undivided) we recreated that in our homes. The choicest and best mangoes would be selected after great scrutiny and the laborious process would begin. It was a family activity with my father, sister and me joining in.
I grew up in a very cosmopolitan atmosphere. Growing up and living in North Calcutta for several years made me speak Bengali fluently. When I am asked where I am from, I always say Calcutta. I have never lived in Kakinada or Hyderabad. However, these two places are very dear to my heart. I was born in Kakinada and there is a deep sense of nostalgia and fond memories that I have of the place and of Hyderabad too. They are places I went to spend my vacation, places where I had great fun with my aunts, uncles and cousins. My Ammamma’s home was a comfort zone for us, as it was for several of my extended family as well.
Jhilam Chattaraj: You love to travel and we love your photographs. Does travel inform your creative spirit?
Nishi Pulugurtha: I love to travel. I inherited this from my mother. We travelled every year to meet family and then to visit various places down south. For some years, I could not travel the way I would have loved to. As the primary caregiver to my mother, I couldn’t. Most of my travels during that period were work-related. That is also when I began to rediscover my city, Kolkata, by doing the walking tours. As someone greatly interested in history, this was a new world opened out to me.
Photography is something that I love. My father was an avid photographer. Even during the pandemic, I would keep clicking on any little thing that caught my eye in that restricted world that I was in. The mobile phone makes clicking easy these days. The autumn sky as I travel to work catches my eye, or that palatial building that tells a story of a bygone time, the tree whose roots wind and bind into bricks and mortar – these are things that catch my eye as I commute to work. Many of my poems speak of a scene or a thing that I have clicked, that moment captured — I listen to stories that it tells, or some resonance somewhere that connects.
Yes, travel does inform my creative world. I actually began my writing career by writing about travel. Several of my poems too reveal my interest in and fascination for travel.
Jhilam Chattaraj: You are sincerely dedicated to the life of the mind; share with us a few tips to seek sweet rhythms in life.
Nishi Pulugurtha: If there is something that caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s has taught me, it is to make the best of every moment in life, of living in the present. It has also taught me an immense amount of patience.
I believe the poet and academic’s life is not different from any other person’s life. Reading, writing, observations, photographs — a delight in small things, working in (at times) difficult schedules, trying to balance the two (and failing most of the time) is what it is about.
Jhilam Chattaraj: Thank you, Nishi-di! It was lovely speaking to you!
***
You can read some of the beautiful Poems by Nishi Pulugurtha here.
A different time, a quarantine
A different time, a quarantine
Of caring for the infirm and old
Of face and body covered with marks
that distorted and yet revealed
A festering soul – that cared not.
Of mistrust and suspicion
Of itches and rashes and blisters.
Another time, another quarantine –
Of contagion and some chicken stew.
Of troubling relationships – festering.
Of holding on, of struggles
no one noticed, no one could –
Masked.
Of pain, bitterness and some neem
Of working hard to heal
the scabs that could be seen;
the unseen remain – festering, disturbing.
Of trying times and reaching out – of
Life going awry, yet holding on –
A different time, a quarantine.
Published at Cafe Dissensus , November 1, 2020
♥♥♥
The little ones at play
Stuck in restricted spaces
The little ones find some place to
play, jump, laugh
the quietness disturbed by their joy
for some time.
An old lady and an older gentleman out too –
out under the blue-gray-dark sky
for some time.
Out in the open –
restricted by walls
Walls that are needed – boundary walls
walls that one leans onto –
at times.
Published at Cafe Dissensus , November 1, 2020
♥♥♥
The Old Building
It stood alone
Paint peeling off, the windows shut
Rusted iron grills, broken parts
Here and there
Some bit of colour, quite a bit worn off
A laden clothes wire
Green foliage breaking through the masonry
Roots struggling to break through
That old building at the corner of the street
Still had a story to tell, stories of my city
If only people would stop by to listen.
Published at Teesta Review, Volume 3, Number 1. May 2020.
♥♥♥
Inbhir Nis
The little river flowing through the city
A city that gets its name from the river
Feed by a lake that is further ahead
Spanned by bridges that hold both sides together
Feet move up and down across some
Wheels and feet make a motion elsewhere
The clouds create the grey, the clouds add to the cold
Tall spires stand out piercing the clouds
The screeching of the gulls does not disturb
A churchyard rears its head from behind a wall
Rows of tombstones peep out
A small speck of red, someone has just been remembered.
Published at Teesta Review, Volume 3, Number 1. May 2020.
♥♥♥
