topics: |  poetry | indian-english |

A rather hard-to-find book. The print is poor, and there are some errors, but some of the poems are rarely anthologized, like the two following Kamala Das poems.

Excerpts

Kamala Das: Advice to fellow swimmers 29

When you learn to swim
do not enter a river that has no ocean
to flow into - one ignorant of destinations
and flowing only the flowing as its destiny,
like the weary rivers of the blood
that bear the scum of ancient memories
but go swim in the sea
go swim in the great blue sea. 
Where the first tide you meet is your body
that familiar pest
but if you learn to cross it
you are safe yes beyond it you are safe
For even sinking would make no difference then. 

Kamala Das : Lines addressed to a Devadasi 30

Ultimately there comes a time
When all faces look alike
All voices sound similar
And trees and lakes and mountains
Appear to bear a common signature
It is then that you walk past your friends
And do not recognise
And hear their questions but pick
No meaning out of words
It is then that your desires cease
And a homesickness begins
And you sit on the temple steps
A silent Devadasi lovelorn
And aware of her destiny. 

Kamala Das : Cat in the gutter 31

He said I am a red rag wherever I walk
I am recognized.   I cannot so often come
To sit at your bedside get well
Come to my place again as you used to do
He was yesterdays old rag today thrown 
On the garbage heap for such who would care? 
He need not have feared at all but
Cowardice was his favourite diet
So who would tell him that when he made love
Grunting groaning and sighing
That with no soul to overpower me
Only his robust limbs
I was just a high bred kitten 
Rolling for fun in the gutters

R Parthasarathy : A Question Of Syntax

					p.42

The wick of last year burnt out
rain dropped like wax.
They met in a room with pictures

of Goan churches humped on the wall.
No meeting is ever a complete surprise
the intimate talk comma of hand
on the waist and happiness
in parenthesis are the usual syntax
of the mind on these occasions.

The conversation over black coffee
was only pathic. They looked for words
with the knives and forks of silence.

R Parthasarathy : Tamil 44

My tongue in English chains,
I return, after a 
generation, to you.

I am at the end
of my dravidic tether,
hunger for you unassuaged.

I falter, stumble.
Speak a tired language
wrenched from its sleep 

in the Kural
teeth palate lips still new
to its agglutinative touch 

Now, hooked on celluloid, 
you go reeling
down plush corridors.

Rakshat Puri : Multan 121

On the highroad of history this
City of graves dust and darvishes
Has breathed traditionally the stormy

Clash of revolutions as men sought
The elusive Meridian and fell
Or passed silently to the crossroads
Of knowledge

The revoluttons of men are made
In the lonely fires that burn them

Wiser in our loaded times
We sit on their ashes rationally
Sipping coffee as we sing
Literatures of protest
In a slow dream of oases. 

Contents

Foreword 7

NISSIM EZEKIEL
	Island 16
	Entertainment 18
	Goodbye party for Miss Pushpa T S 19
	Cry 21
	On Bellasis Road 22
	For Elkana 24
	For Kalpana 26

KAMALA DAS
	Advice to fellow swimmers 29
	Lines addressed to a Devadasi 30
	Cat in the gutter 31
	Beauty was a short season 32
	The Fancy Dress Show 33
	The Morning at Apollo Pier 34
	Middle Age 36
	Death of the goat 37
	A losing battle 38
	The prisoner 39

R PARTHASARATHY
	This business 41
	A question of syntax 42
	The trumpet sun 43
	Tamil 44
	Looking into a mirror 45
	Rough Passage 46
	Touch 47

K N DARUWALLA
	Black rain 51
	Easy and difficult animals 531 
	Death of a bird 55
	The Hero 59 
	Aag Matam (The fire mourning) 63 
	6th Moharram 1393 64
	Haranag 66
	The Epileptic 70
		Suddenly the two children
		flew from her side
		like severed wings

	At Bansa 72

KD KATRAK
	Poems from an immurement 
		I The descent 76 
		II The conspiracy 78
		III The beatific vision 80
	Three explorations into the nature of the female beast 
		I Persephone in the heavens at midnight 83
		II Madonna on the beach at sunset 86
		III Durga on a hilltop at noon 88
	Three poems from the book of divination 
		I The ghost in the rice fields 92
		II The Intrusion of miracles 95
		III The book of changes as interpreted in the
			changing lines on usha's brow 98
	The kitchen door 102

GAURI DESHPANDE b.1942
	Elegy for a friend 106
	Laying of ghosts 107
		It would seem inevitable yes
		that out of love I should bear your
		children at least the one
		that is expected

	Migraine 109
	Men and women 111
		so she's there with you atop the wave
		and leaves her teeth on your shoulder and neck
	Up with the sisterhood 113

RAKSHAT PURI
	Six variations 115
		(II At the morgue 116/ III Vacant hours 118/
		 IV Hare 119/ V House moving 120 / VI Multan 121)

GIEVE PATEL
	University 124
	How do you withstand body 26
	Public Hospital 127
	To exhaust the world of heroes 129
	To make a contract 130

ADIL JUSSAWALLA
	Approaching Santa Cruz 132
	Nine poems on arrival 134

MAMTA KALlA
	Tribute to Papa 137

SALEEM PEERADINA
	Sandra 140

JAYANTA MAHAPATRA
	Swayamvara 147

PRITISH NANDY
	Yours was a fearful secret 149 
	He returned towards silence 150
	Near Deshapriya Park They Found Him At Last 151
	Calcutta if You Must Exile Me 152
	The Centaur's Deathwish 154

PRIA KARUNAKAR
	Avatar Part V 156

Acknowledgments 158
Bibliography 161

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