Purple Pencil Project

Taking Indian stories to the world. linktr.ee/purplepencilproject

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[sivavakkiyar]

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Through her blood's lightly layered

Hazy darkness

Lightning flashes out branches of my being

When, through intoxicated wet leaves,

The sudden stirring that's the month of Ashadha

Passes tenderly like a slight shiver.

And there remains

Only she

Of the trees, among the trees, for the trees:

Woman smelling of the season.

"The Rains" by Dilip Chitre

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A body by the sea

head split open.

In the straight glance of the eyes

that refuse to close even in death

there float: resistance, surprise,

distress, struggle, agony, despair

and an endless great dream

"Body" by Cheran

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Death is not final

as we think it to be.

We will die many times

as long as we are alive.

Until the end, it will remain a stranger.

The loss will not be forgotten.

It will wrap itself around our throat

like a constricting python

We will be unable to unload it

even when we visit the toilet.

Like a ghoul set free,

uncertain where to go.

The list will roll out

endlessly,

beginning with

mother, father, friend, kin

and rolling on with

the people living in the same street,

the people living in the same village,

the people speaking the same language.

If anyone tells you

that Time heals,

don't trust them.

One can live without crying

One can live without thinking

One can train oneself to go sleepless.

The only thing

one cannot stop

is the dead

coming alive in your dreams.

Latha, "Forgetting death" trans. by Ravi Shankar. Waking is Another Dream

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You tell me had women had all the power

(the sun & the slam & the tide) in their fists

they would have been just as terrible.

I know this like I know the blue back of

a slipper on my face. The memory is a circle of me

running from the lie I have told and my

mother running after me holding and bringing

down a blue slipper, an ordinary cheap sort

made of rubber, one you can find in any house.

Urvashi Bahuguna, "Blue Slipper"

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Kynpham Sing Nongkyrih

Loved Funeral Nights? Read the author's interview where he talks about the process of writing his tome, Meghalaya, and the book being called Moby Dick of India by Jerry Pinto.

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To those who disbelieve

Life is

In the details, in

The lines of pearls

Etched underneath my eyes.

Believe it—

The constellations are not silent tonight.

Their hearts ignite—fireflies, in stead of

Embers, restoring, with song,

All that is dark, toward light.

In the unknown time—

Disbelief, her new friend,

Unwise as heart of screaming star, unsilent

Angel, the details of this life,

This morass, this calling forth, this unbinding:

Are you considering life outside the shark tank then?

Mukta Sambrani, "The details"

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Sahir Ludhianvi

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Some, who have closed their eyes, are wide awake. Some, who look out at the world, are fast asleep. Some who bathe in sacred pools remain dirty. Some are at home in the world but keep their hands clean.

Lal Ded

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When life comes to its end

You, please transport

My lifeless body

Place it on the soil of Father Koubru

To reduce my dead body

To cinders amidst the flames Chopping it with axe and spade Fills my mind with revulsion

The outer cover is sure to dry out Let it rot under the ground

Let it be of some use to future generations

Let it transform into ore in the mine

I'll spread the fragrance of peace From Kanglei, my birthplace

In the ages to come

It will spread all over the world.

Irom Chanu Sharmila, "Savari". Sourced from dalitweb.org

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Against Robert Frost

I can't bear to read Robert Frost. Why should he talk of apple-picking When most of us can't afford to eat one? I haven't even seen an apple for many months-- Whatever we save we keep for beer And contraceptives.

| Mamta Kalia

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I confuse my be with pe.

He asks me to write 'water'

I write 'you'.

Who knew they'd make them so close

Aab (آب) and Aap (آپ).

Both difficult to hold on.

Akhil Katyal, "In The Urdu Class"

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A Certain Mackerel Coloured Love

Where others senses scales that

weighed them with every glance,

you only saw the tear-waters

that makes these eyes, fish.

In them, you traced

my shattered temple-roots,

and heard the short-lived,

fish-songs of small seas.

You were given to poetry.

I was given to grand lies--

"Other eyes

are mere baits,

yours cast such strong, silken nets."

In our strange story,

you sought the sea...

She swam into you.

With a single lusty fish,

and a certain mackerel-coloured love.

Meena Kandasamy

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Though my lord has given me

a palace in every city

to match the seasonal mood

with interiors like an Inside Outside magazine

and furniture that speaks of star war design

I wish he had also thought of a poison apple tree

at the back door of the house

where I could whisper and confess to it

all he had done to me the previous night.

Sivakami Velliangiri, "What She Said To Her Girlfriend"

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In their minds,

I, who smell faintly of meat,

my house where bones hang,

stripped entirely of muscle,

and my street

where youths wander without restraint

making loud music

from coconut shells strung with skin,

are all at the furthest point of town.

I assure them

we stand at the forefront.

S. Sukirtharani, "A Faint Smell of Meat" trans. by Lakshmi Holmström

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Crossing over a period of painful love-play,

Let’s reject the traditional garden of conventions.

Let’s change the sex of Eve.

Let’s make Adam pregnant.

Let’s speculate beyond animal anxieties.

Hell’s quagmire.

The Moon acts like a pimp

In the history of human bonds.

The bull of sexual passion masticates

On a disembodied heath.

We sail in a sinking ship

And turn into savages.

Even just plain cloves burn our tongue;

And we are afraid of light.

This is how liberation itself punishes a human being.

A human being shouldn’t become so spotless.

One should leave a few stains on one’s shirt.

One should carry on oneself a little bit of sin.

Namdeo Dhasal, "Speculations On A Shirt"