Day: May 11, 2018

KUNJNAGAR PARK & THE HAAT

Jaldapara National Reserve Forest once boasted its exotic and lush green beauty with tigers, elephants, deer, chitahas, ghorials, and myriad birds like parrots, mynahas, peacocks, doves, herons, wood-peckers, sparrows, cuckoos, of exotic hues and cacophonies. One can see in the brilliant radiance of blazing sun set the crowd of parrots and sparrows flung over one’s head. Your hair will be flicked with a bird’s sudden swift flight almost touching your head. Somewhere in the upper sky among the tinged cloudlets a lone eagle lazily supervises his vast empire. His eyes glisten, and far flung heavy wings mellow with the reddish

WHY IS ‘SILENCE’ GOLDEN?

The great Indian Self hates Truth. It demands subordination, and acquiescence of the self. And the elites of Indian bustling cities of grace and squalor love to paddle in the murky and darkened realms of inequality, illiteracy, superstition, injustice, usury, ethnic cleansing, malaise and inhumanity, child labour and poverty. Prophet loves the poor and millions of Indians are poor and thereby they have unknowingly been the true votary of the Prophet. Rare is the leader like Gandhi who loves to face the Truth with all its ugliness and crudeness. It invites no enemy and eases the ladder of wealth, position,

THE LURE OF “HO-OOLE”

Now when he said to Shama: “Hole! That’s what your family has got me in.This hole!”… Now he keeps his address as secret as an animal keeps its hole. And his hole was not a haven. His indigestion returned, virulently; and he saw his children increasingly riddled with nervous afflictions. Savi suffered from a skin rash, and Anand suddenly developed asthma, which led him in bed for three days at a time, choking, his chest scorched and peeled by the futile applications of a medical wadding.                             

A VISIT TO MUNDAPARA

Between the Jaldapara forest and the village lay an acre of land, cultivated, furrowed, unweeded. Yards had patches of all sorts of vegetables, maize, and tall lean betel nut trees. Men and women still working on their fields. Children were all barefoot and some of them had running nose. Elderly men and women sat on their haunches on the dusty path, and gossiped. It was winter. The day was chill and icy. The sun for the whole day hid his face under the veil of smoky clouds. And a mild breeze blew. It added more bitterness to the cold. Still

Among the Children

AMONG THE CHILDREN

Last week I visited nine or ten school children. The school was in the middle of a Adivasi village. The children sat on the dry grass and dust, and the headmaster on a red plastic chair. I spent a hour with them. The children all were wonderful, and the teacher was so kind. And I loved the place. The school was surrounded three sides by vast farm lands, and only by one side a path went to the interiors of the village. It was late noon, and the weary winter days were in adieu mood. The trees began to shed

RHAPSODIES OF A TWILIGHT

A twilight scene at Kadambini Tea Estate planted long long ago by the colonial masters. Birds sang, the sun sank, and tribal men went hutwards. Standing on a pot holed street at Kadambini Tea Estate I saw the orange disc sinking on the horizon. Bikes whizzed past, and soiled the plants and me, The green tea leaves shrouded with thick layers of dust Tribal men paddling hutwards slow, some with dry hays and twigs, a few with wives and children in colourful dress on their back. Birds chirping, ah! heard such cacophonies never– Some coo, some che che che, ghrur

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Subhash Chandra
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"A gifted writer"

A gifted versetile writer who writes excellent stories and poems on the invisibles, pariahs, margins, aged, weaklings of our society. A rising star on the literary firmament.
Santosh Bakaya
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Praise for my writing

“Your story Undersell left me with a lump in my throat, so did your poem, He also lights candles.”
Louis Kasatkin
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Praise for my poem "Elderly Men Two"

"A finely honed observational piece recording the minutiae of everyday life. Rendered with the author’s customary poetic aplomb suffused with a Borges like quality of the mythic."