As a Sri Lankan citizen, I grew up in a multicultural environment. We are taught to speak English, Tamil and Sinhala as children and most of us are orally fluent in at least two of the languages by sixth grade. Sinhala is the mother tongue of Sri Lanka and boasts the largest collection of short stories in any language here. Tamil is more commonly spoken in the northern region but is used in its many dialects around the island. In most schools English is the main language and so, children have an exposure to all three of the languages on a daily basis. We are brought up around people from various ethnicities and so learn about different races and cultures from a young age. Sri Lankan culture has a very rich past influenced by India, the British, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Arabs.

The Silk Route Residency will be a 2-week rotating residency open to writers from any country legendary traveler Ibn Battuta passed through and noted in his memoir. This first residency will take place in February 2015 in Pakistan, where two residents, Kavery Nambisan and Sridala Swami, will spend time in Karachi and Lahore. In each city, the writing residents will conduct a 2-3 day writing workshop for young writers, participate in numerous literary and cultural events such as attend the Karachi Literature Festival, and engage with local writers and artists. The writer will also maintain a blog on the Silk Routes website.

Balamani Amma, feminismo de una forma diferente.

My World, My Writing
By Binayak Banerjee (India)

Poetry, to me, is a continuous struggle to bridge the sense of materialistic cosmopolitan presence with the realm of emotional privacy. Now, this privacy must be balanced by an interest in the people around me. Otherwise, a state of anxiety might creep in. And we all know that in a state of anxiety, we can’t stand closeness and want to attenuate this feeling by opening up and stripping away bodily impediments so that the anxiety can be relieved in some way. But why do we try to get rid of it? Is it because anxiety tries to get rid of everything materialistic? Across this bridge between anxiety and material existence, we are likely to arrive at a spiritual emptiness.

The accessory, zipped up,
awaits the blink-off.

Redacted, this could
just end up one jet-lagged lyre.

Keep soul, big stuff in the overhead
administration, says trolley dolly.

Here is what is: a suspicious package
with attendant implications.

It’s none of my personal vertex,
but we’re psyched for another

sexy spin, another hook
to hang civilisation on, like Equator.

Beyond allotted legroom,
degree of reclination and those

damp hot towels, we rise
and fall, aside from such plenitude,

terminal or tarnation.
Gazing out this sentimental window

into pitch dark, yanking soul
out of you . . . to winnow these aisles

Between the predisposition to the Absolute, and the red walls of the labyrinth, the paths that lead to the meaning vary. And, whether the letter is a sword, a candlestick, or a wall-- the truth is farther than being reached by normal or exceptional call. Today I sleep, beside me an old book; I don't think much of curves that can roll down infinitely, or of question chains, nor the absolute. I lie on the edge of the bed, looking down, to the abyss that can be a real scene--waiting death more calmly: the point where the line comes upon the point, the wish comes upon the riddle, and the meaning comes upon the inattention--Behind each letter.

Do you remember?
I am! “Puny”_
But look just once!
I am just me.
Do you know that?
I am ugly_
But see just once!
My inner beauty.
Do you still?
Want me to follow_
All those life rules,
As your shadow.
Have you ever?
Thought of me before?
You wouldn’t lose me_
Please be sure.
Have you looked back?
She is grown;
That “puny girl”_
Won’t be just known.
Farewell! Farewell! I am going_
Just don’t forget!
I wasn’t showing…

Facts in Fictions

Hello, my name is Nada Faris. I’m a Kuwaiti writer who publishes articles, poems and fiction in English, and I’m very interested in this topic, to base fiction on real life, because my motto is that I write to get back at people.

Burning incense could cause cancer according to a scientific study conducted by researchers from Taiwan, who found high levels of carcinogens in the smoke of incense burned in Buddhist temples.
- Assoc Press (2 Aug 2001)

I have groped my breast seeking whether this burning were from any bodily cause outwardly. But when I knew that it was only kindled inwardly from a ghostly cause, and that this burning was nought of fleshly love or concupiscence, in this I conceived it was the gift of my Maker.
- Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love (14th C)

i.

My graduate training is in the field of creative writing, with a specialization in fiction. During the course of my graduate study, I produced fiction based that was based on Karachi and arose out of the conflicts of contemporary urban life. For the last three years though I have been teaching literature at the undergraduate level at a liberal arts college in Pakistan, and my views on literature and my own practice as a writer have evolved in conjunction of my practice of teaching literature. I will try to list some of my ideas here.

My heart is burning,

Every time I hear your name_

Wished I hadn’t been born;

It really gives me such pain.

How much you suffered!

No one knows_

How much were you tortured!

Your innocent face shows_

Turn over you the car,

Throw you stones_

They cruelly attacked,

And broke your bones_

Sleep in peace as you go to heaven,

Your home is there, you would be happy then.

I am a girl from  a country in the heart of Asia. My family named me Farkhonda, which means beatific and auspicious. I am the oldest child; 12 years ago I was sent to school to learn to read and write. I read books and step by step started to practice writing.  I chose to write stories. Their narrative style was one of the reasons behind my interest in fiction: I enjoyed writing about different characters and what I imagined about them. After getting some of them published in a few Afghani magazines, I realized that critics and readers alike believe my fiction mostly focuses on women. Maybe this is natural, since I am a woman living in a country that has experienced decades of war and setbacks for women.  

A Biogenesis of Processed Singapore Noodles

for Mary Nazareth

…a case of you,

Don Justin Haputantri’s Day

I grew up in a house which had books in every room.  We read everything we could lay our hands on. From well thumbed, back copies of my uncle’s Readers Digests to my father’s leather bound tomes of Anna Karenina, and A Tale of Two Cities. As little children our personal library consisted of all the Enid Blytons, Daphne Du Mauriers, and Rumer and Jon Goddens. In my father’s library no book was denied to us and long before we understood them, we had looked at Virgil’s Aeneid, the Mahabharata, the works of Aldous Huxley and even the original Arabian Nights.   

A country is a toddler's hand
that holds you as long as it can before it falls asleep.

A city is a clipboard with lists built and crossed out,
clutched like a punctuated flotation device.

A house is a curled mollusk
fossilized as soon as milk goes sour.

A room is a patient stone in kidneys
kept alive by conflict and clay.

A heart is a spoon
most of the time.

First published in As You Were, Volume 1, Fall 2014
https://militaryexperience.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/marie-poetry.pdf

She was a white round girl considered an outcast in her traditional Damascene environment, and I was a country girl raised in the big city, where neither Damascenes nor my original townsmen considered me one of their own. We were both in our early twenties, struggling with our families’ traditional values, and trying to be honest to our own, which made us stick together quite well through the seven years that followed. Each of us was trying to pull herself, and the other, together through the difficulties of growing into independent women in a complex and patriarchal society.

When home becomes the scattered limbs of your mother’s body, the screams of your sister as savages rip her apart and missiles raining fire on the streets, you will run. Feet slapping against rubble, glass, sand and the fires of hell itself. You will run and run until you’re breathless and your knees give way and then you will crawl because somewhere deep down you know home is more than just the rattle of machine guns going off instead of a wedding march.

When your view is so fulfilling,

the shoulder blades of kanchenzeunga swimming between your prayers

and the depth of my palms hugging teesta

will not stop for conceitedness.

Rang sem rangi tawa

Black ribbons twisted into fine braids and,

from the rubber bands,

the sprouting water fall falling just above the waist

will not pause for words like these.

On Sunday,

When I went to the grave,

I picked up a black shovel

to dig out all of the vision you were starving for,

but I still had a handful yet.

In March,

Sikkim was so glorious

that its footsteps already knew to sashay with the flags.

So I apologize,

When sun rises high
I wish to fly
In silence of sunlight
At shinning moon of night
I want to see the sea
I wish to be free.
I and spring
Together sit and sing
Each moment is sweet
When peace is beside it
I feel it can be
I will be free.
If birds fly high
If dews never die
In future I see
I am going to be free.
When each black and white
Could read and could write
When no one ignores it
Life would be complete.
I want such a world
Without fight, without war
I will change my life
Follow the shiny star.
You can stop my heart
You can take my breath
To achieve my goal
I will work as a whole.
You may call me black
Either name me slave

در اوج بی نیازی تنها نیاز من باش
ای آشنا چه بودی دایم قرار من باش
در جاده های پرپیچ در شب بی ستاره
هر سو اگر روم من فانوس راه من باش
در لحظه ای جدای آنگاه که پرگشودم
ای همره ثانیه ها همدم آه من باش
درین دنیا پناهی حتی نیمی نگاهی
در آخرت عزیزم تو همصدای من باش
در لحظات غربت حتی اگر نبودم
ای نازنین دلها تو یادگار من باش
چونکه ربودی ز من دل شکسته ام را
تا هستم و تا هستی تو تکیه گاه من باش

Achilles, the mightiest of the Achaeans
brought precious prizes
for Agamemnon—the Achaean Lord
or the hunger’s epitome
who allocated defamation to his chieftain’s share
and ignited swift and shielded Achilles
into a red fireball.

In his presence
Trojan Fronts and Scaean Gates
shook in fear
rained blood
and when Achilles
thunderously warned the lustful Lord
even Hector--firm in resolve
dwindled.
.

Ego of two nations
fought a dreadful war
Achaeans too hugged death with Trojans
but with better recompense
of some more land
some more treasures
some more beauties
confiscated and treasured
and left for their Lord
to subdue, use, and enjoy.

After Darren Soh

 A great hand rises from the ground

to sweep the insubstantial sand,

gathering to a crown, an iron

crown, the roots of homes. A fire

chills the grass, the tree, and air

assumes the nonchalance of a door.

Big light pierces through the greatness

of the hand. My eyes say yes.

Today, the soil yields a worm,

bold, glistening in the calm.

I had not met Shikhar in a month. I’d heard he went to Kathmandu. Not that I really cared where he was. But his face after what happened to Bhima Didi flashed in front of my eyes and threatened me every now and then. There were times when I thought he had left the Party. But I couldn’t enquire about him with my father all the time. In fact he didn’t even know about my decision to join the Party. Regardless of how I felt for him, he was the only person I wanted to tell about my decision after my father. I had a feeling he wouldn’t believe I’d work for the Party. So I was already elated, confident that he would try confirming it with my father.

-

First attempt

Tia Teresa Thomas

Today was the last day of our 10-day posting in Emergency Medicine. We were only in fourth term so the prospect of Emergency Medicine excited us more than anything.. Our posting was during the day and so far we had seen our seniors manage one man with myocardial infarction and several persons with electrolyte imbalance. A few beds were always empty and we assumed that most cases of trauma came in at night. The doctors were almost always free to teach us about trauma cases, which we were sure we would not see. 

I was born and raised in a suburb of Fukuoka, a city in the south of Japan. After eighteen years in Fukuoka, I went to a university in Kyoto and lived there for seven years. My parents are Japanese. They are both from the region and never left the country except for occasional group tours. My native language is Japanese. Like any other Japanese student, I started to learn English in the seventh grade. I am neither an immigrant, nor a postcolonial subject, nor a refugee. Now I write fiction in English in Japan and submit my stories to literary journals in the United States. I represent a small, but ever increasing group of writers.

My grandmother is what is known as a colorful woman. There are many elements that contribute to her colorfulness: black shawls draped over her body like witches’ capes; great fans with lace trims, sparkly polish decorating her sharp long nails; an oversized brass ring adorning her fourth finger; and a necklace of pearls from the Sea of Casablanca that accentuate the gleam in her eye, the gleam of one who can see into the future.

Savta’s name is Sarah, a simple and down-to-earth name that hardly befits her mischievous nature. The name of her twin sister who died, Zahara, suits her much better.

The walls in our home are mostly bare, but Zahara’s photo hangs in the hallway, and her eyes follow anyone who passes by.

 red lines of revolutions,

a dot of enlightenment

a calendar of life.

When we look back at Turkish women’s poetry of the Ottoman period, we also read an historical process. In Ottoman times, as it is known, women were not in the social arena at all. They could not be educated in Islamic schools (medrese). So writing was a daring act and some Ottoman women took this chance for themselves and for later generations of women.

Repeating of a sentence is repeating of life
Do not be silent!
Because by silence,
Life means repeating to nothing…
A border between existence and none existence,
A shadow among life and death_
A question "To Be or Not To Be?"
Empty seconds,
Lonely moments,
Stop hours…
Forever you'll see…
Hey you Immortal!
I have always experienced my existence in none existence,
Please do not destroy me!
Because by your existence the word "destroy"
Is forever destroyed...
Besides you, life is lovely;
Magnificent,
Just like a dream…
I won't feel hurt,
Neither I will be frozen…

I

2014.

11:42pm

New York, USA

The room echoed with occasional sniffs and gasps of misery; and eventually everything hushed to emptiness. The sound of silence reverberated through everyone’s heart, which was accompanied by the swift and delicate performance of the tears that rolled down their cheeks. Yes, they were sad. Yes, he is no longer here… yes, he is dead.

“Djailoo” in traditional Kyrgyz culture is a fundamental concept, embodying the summer pasture and grazing, where every year during warm period Kyrgyz nomads move their families and yurt homes. “Djailoo” occurs not only out of economic necessity, but also as a life-space and cultural practice that encourages free time and exploration for children. The precarious situation in contemporary Kyrgyzstan affects youth and hinders their access to education and books. Djailoo Reading, therefore, seeks to bring live readings and discussion—hosted by writers and/or actors—to ten remote communities in the Osh and Issyk-kul regions.

Your imperfections play up my perfectness. It is a superb
feeling. Short-lived? How long does hooch last?

Everyone I love faces the might of force majeure.
Do I harken them due to my heart?

If folks express their joy, let it not illude you. In these
flashes reside myriad half-truths and some falsehoods.

Your inadequacies boost me to believe in the invincibility 
of my bluster: surety from frostbites in this slalom.

Originally appears in Squawk Back, issue 159 July 6 2016

تمام شعر من موج نگاهت
ترا من دوست دارم بی نهایت
اگر روزی نباشی در کنارم
جهان گردد برایم چون قیامت

They took Somayeh last night; lifeless and heavy above the hands of male strangers. Is there any difference between your death and the death of your twin sister? For 63 years, you have opened your eyes on each other every morning. She has always stood by you. As if a part of your body is torn apart. These are what you cry out to those coming to visit you. You lay your head on their shoulders and shed tears. Maybe, you would feel ashamed to make such noises, but, well, people are people. If you don’t cry enough, they would be like, “See? She was jealous of her twin sister for sure. Now, she is happy to inherit all the family’s property.” Even that spinster, Mahboubeh, who feels she is a philosopher every now and then, once told you that human being tends to be unique.

I roll up.

I smoke the pulse of the minute.

I inject my hand

with heroin of love.

No one can shut me up.

My flying poems

hide themselves

in the pack of hearts,

seeding their poppy seed

in their cells

to grow like my words do,

Drunk and crazy.

Satish’s habit of reading the newspaper early in the morning was gone a long time ago. He had that urge when he had to dress up and go on duty, sitting in front of the wheel and narrating to his boss in a nutshell the fresh news of the day within two minutes. It could be less but never more. But sometimes it happened that his boss wanted to hear the news in an elaborate manner and it took Satish fifteen minutes to narrate the news. But that was rare because the front page news was on politics, and the last page sports. Entertainment? What was that? When Amithabh Bachchan was injured on the set of Coolie and was fighting for his life in the hospital, Satish used to read at least two newspapers to know how he was.

In the beginning

love was a gift from God.

Its law melts as words.

Its eve was the tone

of the letters.

Adam was not there

but a sheet containing

the fate of all lovers.

Our cotton

didn’t take the sun’s side

anymore.

The wrung-out sweat

was not injected inside us

as if a shiver of a poem’s smoke.

We are the shaved-off sugar top

And the dreams

In the chaotic era of turbans.

Poet Interview #39 – Sanjeev Sethi

I cannot recognize myself

If I don’t wear me.

Faces are deceiving

without their masks,

like that bleeding

white gulf.

To my father & also to Mike

You will find
Different leaders for each side there.
But the dates are still unified
Since the early days of the God.

Dates are
The morning key for
A woman who is on her way to vanish
Dates are anonymous women
Deponent of Ur's, Assyria's and Babylon's priests.

I inherited definitions of dates from my Kurdish father:

"You are as inviting and sweet as dates,
Stubborn as a date palm,
Genial, and sentient as black dates in Klecha*.

And I have learned persistence from bullets
And from friends I have learned what blanks mean,
And that blocks and obstacles are absolute violation!

According to Tim Cresswell, Place is a meaningful location, to which specific people are attached in some way. Place is somewhere me or you made meaningful. You have to invest meaning into it, endow it with value. A place is subjective and emotional.

Hong Kong is a Place. Hong Kong is famous for its commercial developments, high-speed pace, for being a shopping paradise, etc. But for me, as a writer and an amateur activist, I can hardly regard those symbolic spaces that represent Hong Kong’s commercial success as my own Place, because I don’t live there. Those spaces are too expensive and too cool for me. Instead, there are so many hidden stories and corners of Hong Kong that are overshadowed by its economic achievement.

There was a back alley from 1st street to 6th street of Jongno, called Pimat-Gol in Seoul, Korea. It has been there since Yi dynasty around 1390ies. The people could avoid the dashing horses of the gentlemen in the main street and walked through the back alley. Pimat means to avoid the horses and Gol means the alley in Korean language. In the Pimat- Gol there were many shops and small restaurants that those small people used to visit and enjoy the food and leisure time. This alley was made by the planner of Seoul, Jeong Do-jeon when Yi dynasty was founded to protect the grassroots. In the era of tyranny student demonstrators crying for democracy and freedom also sneak into the alley to avoid the police.

(With special reference to Surdas and Meera) 

The history of Nepali literature is roughly two hundred years old. With the unification of Nepal (1769), Nepali language developed as a lingua franca. At the time of unification, Nepal spread from Darjeeling in the east (now in India) to Dehradoon (now in India) in the west. Over a hundred languages were spoken all over the then Nepali territory--many of them unintelligible to the other language or dialect speakers. The prevalence of linguistic diversity necessitated the use of a common language for communication, and Nepali language served the role of such a language for all the people living within the territory of Nepal.

Metaphors could line the back alleys
of distraught kingdoms,
casting rebels,
buzzing like bees,
around intrusive hornets,
breaking out to bigger nests;
productive unrest,
spreading like a plague,
not person to person,
By the hectare.
-
But they dream and suck on nectar.

When asked to reflect on his homeland of Pakistan, a country forever transformed by a history of partition and postcolonialism, Ahmad Ibrahim Suphi stated that “the people of the country are so divided nowadays it is hard to think of what to write.” Yet in the midst of great suffering, he sees people stepping up to look out for each other in ways he’s never seen before. A rose among the thorns. This is his reflection:

Climbing the railing on the rooftop, I stick my right foot out into the air. The dizziness is petrifying. Holding onto the rope, I set my feet one by one on the zendai. This is my workplace, a piece of wood the size of a chopping board hanging in the air. It’s a rectangular “safety board” made of wood. Carefully I sit on the board, putting my legs down between the ropes that hold it in place. It’s just wide enough to perch my butt on it. The board lurches and sways like a swing. I hold on to the rope tight, channeling all my strength into my hands. My life is hanging on a single rope. Suddenly my mind goes blank. I press down on the board slightly with my butt. The rope slithers down several feet. I’m seized with terror, and it takes a while to recover. That’s strange.

Urdu Drama Serial:-

Episode# 1
(Translation)

Scene No. 01

Location: Jungle
Characters: Akbar, Nazo
Time: Night.

Screenplay:

The eerie ambience owes to the thunder storm and heavy rain; the frame opens with a crane shot focusing on a bunch of dense grown trees. Two character silhouettes, Nazo and Akbar. grow out of the darkness in the moonlight from a distance through a top shot. As they approach the camera, the crane dismounts and the characters. maintaining a distance from each other, walk out of the frame. Nazo leads in a trance with a zombie-like feel to her, wherea, Akbar’s face bears no expression.

The thunder rumbles.

Cut

Scene No. 02

I am writing from Varkala, a coastal town by the Arabian Sea, located in India's south-western state of Kerala. Last weekend I was in Kochi, Kerala's biggest city, where I had an opportunity to check out the second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Before writing about the Biennale, it is necessary to reflect on what led me there because until a month ago, I had no idea about the journey that lay ahead.

When we started our business in 2008, the idea of a bookshop akin to a literary salon was an appealing prospect. Literary events that were organized in the city were either invite only book launches or a lack luster book fair for the public – mostly brought to the public’s attention in the media after the event had taken place. Our vision for literary events centered on the author and their work. We hosted readings once a month and engaged the media prior to the event so that interested readers could join the events.

O the place

where God

like a ripe fruit

fell on the ground

and crashed!

let's go

by rolling up our skin

like a silk cloth

           from the covered bazaar of our pain

Last spring, I moved from Yokoahama to Kyoto. I was a student here in the ‘90s, so I’m quite happy to be back in the city. Throughout my life, I’ve always felt itinerant—we still are in Kyoto. My husband and I live in an old public apartment house while looking for a place to move in. I remember the pleasure of smelling the grassy odor of new tatami mattresses when I entered the old apartment. Almost a year went by since we started to look. In my study, 40 unopened boxes still pile up. We are eager to move out, and yet we began to appreciate the quiet and green environment of the old apartment complex, which is right next to Myoshinji Temple. 

Bare to the bone

in tattered garb

freshness of adolescence

on my face

I stand amidst the traffic,

bouquets of roses in my tender hands––

red, yellow, pink and white,

picked up from the nearby graveyard;

waving, begging, hoping

someone would buy my flowers.

Oh! a cab driver beckons me,

bargains, I plead,

take my flowers.

He pulls me nearer

I jerk back  in disgust;

my clothes torn,

flowers scattered,

I gather myself,

then flowers

and start again––

pleading, hoping.

From The Seduction of Delhi by Abhay K. (Bloomsbury India, 2014)

They vanished

like our palm trees.

Ancient open windows

and old dreams.

The city forgot their names

while they held its memory

in their soul

like a candle

between prison bars.

Imagine if Mohammed, prayer and peace be upon him, had authored his own life story: wouldn’t that be a treasure beside which the Quran itself might pale into insignificance—in the eyes of some Muslims, at least? Imagine if we could read Mohammed’s description—in what English so fittingly terms the first person—of, “Of all his Lord’s Signs, the Greatest,” could see whether the Greatest of His Signs might be something other than Allah Himself, Most Glorious, Hallowed be His name? Imagine if we could read Mohammed’s account of Zaynab bint Jahsh—I don’t say Aisha. Imagine: If we knew what he thought of Abou Bakr, God honour him and grant him peace, and what of Ali, would we be split between Shia and Sunni?

They opened a window and their mouths they rinsed
And spilled on their anger-laughter and cries thus cleansed
And if they were in reach they’d have been beaten black n blue
Let my kites lose their path, but not your tunes

You sparkle in the eye
Until a moment says good-bye

For twenty-four long hours, I cast a net to get you back in my heart
Heal me, oh love, from the pain that tears me apart...!

(Binoy Majumdar Hote Na Cheye, Tumi-i Pran, Tumi-i Por)

It hurt watching him hurt. I would see him from time to time around school, leaning against the wall trying to socialize when by the looks of it all he wanted to do was be alone. I think what got me hooked was the mystery he left each time I’d look away from his light brown eyes. He was a puzzle waiting to be solved and each word he would utter was a riddle waiting to be figured out. What first caught my attention were the poems he wrote at creative writing, every character and word was so vivid and alive. After he would read out his poetry everyone would clap and compliment it never knowing the true story behind it, that’s what shocked me the most. At school I’d avoid him, simply dodging him each time he’d pass me by in that filthy hallway.

Beloved of poets, emperors and merchants

I am the palimpsest city

ascending from my ashes as the phoenix

Indraprashtha and New Delhi

on the same bank of the Yamuna

just three millennia apart

umpteen monuments, mosques and tombs

remnants of the ancient cities,

some still breathing, some crumbling into dust

the Pandavas founded me, legend says

then long centuries of obsolescence

Tomars brought me into prominence, founding Lal Kot,

Prithviraj rebuilt me into Qila Rai Pithora

Illtutmish turned me into Qutub

my first empress Razia ruled me

with her feminine charm

but how could a woman rule in a man's world?

In my days of living alone I wander a lot in the parks between Prince Edward District and Yau Ma Tei. It is always late at night when street lights are dim and the silhouette of trees implies a shelter from notice. While my sense of smell is hopeless, bits and pieces of sounds weave into a vast blanket covering me. There are tweets and chirps and rustles and whirrs together with sounds of breeze and stray cats. Some heartbroken people shout on their phone from far away. With peace in my heart, I go on reading by the street lights. There would be phone calls from my dear friends from afar, sending me festival greetings or wishing me a happy birthday. I always surprise them by being in these cramped, filthy cage-like parks even in big festivals.

                                                                The Pumpkin Prince

Here I want to share a secret of mine! When I write, I pretend to be in India.

As a writer, although I'm prepared to write anywhere, I prefer to write in a quiet corner of my home, away from all distractions. And when I return home to write, I often like to unite myself with the memories of India to condition my mind; India, where my poet was born, and I wrote my very first poem in Hindi at the age of fourteen.

(Translated by Eileen Cham)

When you kissed me, I realized

That it was your first kiss with a man.

When you pushed me away

You pushed open

A door in your life – an ornate door

That you would not be able to open

on your own. What that kiss

told me

surpassed the sum of all my previous men

You

You have lingered too long in realms of straight-love, you are weary

Your body full of scars

Abused by the want for fights, for winning, for conquests 

you are someone else, You

are not you –

You are racecar covered in dust. I only wish

To wipe clean a window for your soul

For you to breathe through

I drink

the low-fat morning death.

I begin it by eating dates.

How many times did

the dates immigrate us?

How many times did death strip

the conscience of silence

with the sand locusts ?

Locusts that can’t understand

the chant of the gulls

or the whispers

of the sea waves.

The Translation Series will be a special volume of La.Lit, a literary magazine that seeks to engage a broad community through literature and art. The overarching goal of the series is to promote regional literary exchange amongst diverse linguistic groups through the translation of works into English, which is understood as the most common language shared amongst Silk Route countries and is, despite its problems, perhaps the best medium for the sharing of stories and experiences. La.Lit’s editorial team will work with young writers and translators from various Silk Route countries in order to produce four texts from the region to be published in La.Lit (link is external)and to strengthen the translation skills of young writers.

      I was born in a remote village in the mountainous region of western Nepal. Until I grew up as a school boy in that remoteness and learnt that a bigger world existed beyond what I could see around, my entire understanding was that of the mountains, meadows, vegetation, the cattle, wild beasts and birds, my parents and villagers who toiled hard day in and day out, their pains and pleasures and the images of human condition in the stories narrated by my peers who “bet villages” in their games.

I was born in a remote village in the mountainous region of western Nepal. Until I grew up as a school boy in that remoteness and learnt that a bigger world existed beyond what I could see around, my entire understanding was that of the mountains, meadows, vegetation, the cattle, wild beasts and birds, my parents and villagers who toiled hard day in and day out, their pains and pleasures, and the images of human condition in the stories narrated by my peers who “bet villages” in their games.

 When three; her best friend is the grass,

Silver stokes of pointy blades tug the cloth of her dupatta.

She draws an open life, two irises in the mud,

“Eyes are God’s to make,” says Baba jaan,

“Not yours to re-invent.”

Four; the water glows orange.

Its noisy layers embrace the surface of her toes.

She digs her fingers into its blue

& fishes for rainbow stars.

Baba jaan, come look. Look what I found.

Too late. It’s time for prayer.

She throws the stars away.

Five; she knows namaaz by heart;

Baba jaan recites a strange string of Arabic in her ear,

What does it mean?

She looks out the window thrice.

English writing in India is only a little over a hundred years old. It has been shaped by the cross-currents of history, cultures, mythology and modernism. Traders, travellers, dreamers and aggressors came, quietly and peacefully, or with violence and destruction. From the 10th century onwards, the foreign presence imprinted itself strongly on Indian society. Along with our ancient religions, scriptures and mythology it imbued our Art with a tapestry and sheen which is sometimes referrred to as exotic.

مُدُنٌ ظامئةٌ لوجوهِ النساء

 في بردِ ضحى يناير المشمسِ

 سرق توحدي رفيفُ ذيلِ عباءةِ إحداهن كبيرقٍ أسودٍ على رصيفِ (ستاربكس).

تحاولُ بذكاءِ هاتِفِها تبئيرَ أخرى جالسةً في وجلٍ على طاولةِ المقهى الخارجيةِ، مازجة مر قهوتها بطعم (الدونات).

 (الأخُ الأكبرُ) يُرْبِكُها،

 يُفْشِلُ سَعْيَها مراراً،

 يُرْغِمُها على تكرارِ المحاولة.

تخافان التلبسَ بجرمِ الحياةِ في مدن الظمأ.

بينهما و بيني، أنا المكبوتُ منذُ النشأةِ، سمكُ زُجاجِ المقهى.

أقاوم فضول النظر إليهما،

 أحاول تطبيع ذاتي مع الحياة،

 أتظاهر بالعادية.

...قایق کوچک

          ...اقیانوس بی انتها

...من باشم و من

             ...تنهای تنها

میروم با اشک و آه و ناله ها
میطپم من از هجوم درد ها
آخر اینجا هم برایم جا نبود...
هیچکس صادق به مثل ما نبود
در پس هر چهره ای بود چهره ها
هیچکس چون من نبود در هیچ جا

آهای! آدمک های ظاهر نما!
خسته ام از قوم و خویش و از شما!

I sat on a big rock. We were hiking for about an hour.

“My feet ache, I won’t walk another step.” My sister was only one year younger than me and she always climbed father’s shoulders, instead of walking.

“Last year you told me I was old enough to walk by myself. She is the same age now. Why doesn’t she walk?” My eyes filled up with tears against my will.

Father put my sister down and sat before me so that I could climb his shoulder off the stone.

World was shinier here. Leaves touched my face and I showed my tongue to my sister who was walking down there. Looking up, she stumbled over a muddy area and cried for her dirty sticky shoes.

Post-revolution Nepal is in a state of flux.

What happened? Why? What is happening in this country? This year, three English language writers who reported regularly during the People's War have come up with their first book. Pulled into the chaos, whether by happenstance, profession or personal choice, the texts they have produced are studied, authoritative accounts, must-reads for anyone vaguely interested in or associated with Nepal.

The primary thematic elements in these books - social commentary, political investigation and disciplined history - if taken together and read simultaneously, combine and complement each other. Issues overlap, ideas intersect so harmoniously that a uniquely comprehensive and novel image of Nepal emerges.

Such happiness
To see the sun set on the steppe!
When I feel its calm light
I forget my sorrow.

To breathe such air,
To be human is enough!
Oh…
After that, let God take his brush
And write that I’m dying.

Such truth
To hear a branch breaking somewhere!

—translated from the Mongolian by the author and Christopher Merrill

I promise I won’t leave you again,
Even if I died or I was blind_
I promise I won’t make you cry;
I won’t break your heart neither I will lie_
I promise to come with you,
Near or far please accept me so_
We happily live under blue sky;
Since, I am in you and you are I…

A poem written inspired by the Silk Princess, a Chinese wood panel painting from the 7th or 8th century. As the BBC's "A History of the World" describes the artifact: 

According to this legend, a Chinese princess smuggled the secret of how to make silk out of China and into the country of her new husband, the king of Khotan. As she was a princess the border guards did not dare search her. In this painting her elaborate headdress conceals the cocoons of the silk moth and the seeds of the mulberry tree.

You are an escort in my head-dress

which everyone claims beautiful;

for M.

"You are a storyteller, so tell me a story."

"I will."

She looked across the table at the big man. His grey hair. His brown eyes. She watched him get older as time passed and wondered if he had thought her beautiful, and that if he did, think that now she got uglier by the half hour. Justice of the Ugandan Supreme Court, Sitteer Ibrahim, drank his beer looked at the slight girl in front of him and speculated if he had got himself into a situation. But the girl began to speak and he soon became transfixed.

Like a stem cell,

the infant universe

grows inside you,

like a martyr star.

You will get killed

but your light

will live forever.

And like a Sumerian cup,

you will die thirsty

while the rivers of life

will always rise

from your hand.

[Concept definition: Religion will hereby be used to refer to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, while writing refers to creative writing.]

“Catholics should consider boycotting the film "The Da Vinci Code" to let the world know the story offends and defames the church. If the kind of ‘slander, offenses and errors’ contained in Dan Brown's best-selling book and the film based on it had been written about the Quran or the Shoah (the Holocaust), they rightly would have provoked a worldwide uprising." These words, spoken by Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Catholic communications directors on April 28, 2008, illustrate the deep contemporary conflict between writing and religion.

Alerted to it, we tried our damnedest not to notice it.

After the drill of social punctilios, when curtains are drawn, the blah
blah of bovarism lies peeled in hearts willing to eavesdrop on themselves.
Therapy of truth unveils its secrets: we know our lies better than all
the light there is. After a mortise level on laminate of life, it is meaningless
to tend to every kernel of truth. Attempts to amp this will end in ache.
The key is to find your centre. If there were a panopticon edge to one’s script
there wouldn’t be need for prophets. To be famed for clerihews is meta.
Synesthesia bedrocks all impulse. What is the color of your grief?
Pain isn’t proprietary, join the party.

Originally published at Lemon Hound.

All those who worship that which is not knowledge enter into darkness

Those who delight only in knowledge enter greater darkness.

            - The Upanishads (800-400 B.C.)

Our ancestors knew how to bend the meaning of words so you could ponder over them long after they were uttered or read.

                                            (The End)

No one would believe such a thing if they had not gone through the same thing themselves. Newlywed time. The happiest and the most exciting time. How pleasant to awake with your lover after spending the nights alone for your whole life? Look. The veins on her cheeks. How pleasant. He gently touched them. Like touching a soap bubble. Truly gently.

He was satisfied. This was it. The pleasure of life. He thought it would be good that all his mornings would be like this. Soft lips. Curling eyelashes. He looked at the face at ease. He was surprised at himself. He had never thought he could get married to such a flawless woman.

                                              (The End)

Rahoul Gonsalves 

The uncertainty of life annoys me. I mean, wouldn’t it be awesome to have all your life’s trajectory set, before coming of age? You could make a conscientious decision of what you want to do in life and then just do it. Imagine the comfort of just taking one direction, without “opportunities” popping up and derailing you from the path you’ve painstakingly taken.

I have re-incarnated

Three times,I think

And each time I realize that I just go back to the mess I've been

Look upon the greatness

With your swollen shaking legs

Then return back home

Never existed, in the first place.

And I tried telling my mates

That I have started hearing singing birds

And that the night is not at all dark

But they keep making blurred lines with crayons

"here's the boundaries,let's stay on our own"

But I think they've got it wrong,

Stuck in their own domes.

And my flesh hides under layers of chiffon

Layers of leather jackets

Layers of capes

And layers of orange jumpsuits

And ofcourse

here you are faceless bobs
like flotsam in the strait narrow

sea scented with iridescent oil
radiating in rainbow swirl

as fin glistens before tell-tale lollipops
are sucked into the cistern

they wave to no one in particular
as another burp pulls out for air

between horsburgh and mrs ramsay
lies the blue missionary yonder

so finally there they are
alone on this empty white spit

this sheen of bright light does blind
don’t block bastard

his hair singed by the setting disc
as they reminisce it seems like

the male lead is characteristically terse
the other all hands gulping as

the ground’s shifted already
the son is out of ampersands

That night we danced till 12

Strangers on planes

Layovers and airport gates

Awkward moves and aching limbs.

I thought we dropped together-

Because we were

Unsynchronized symphonies of

An out of tune piano.

I remember fortnights and study groups

Where we danced blues.

Cravings

For constellations at our feet

And cheap sunglasses.

I killed myself in Frisbee.

I survived.

Did we though?

Paddling through

Alpenglow on your cheeks constellate me


to our cosmos, quickening in this heliolater


of calentures that never convalesced. Lost


in its energy, I continue bird-dogging protocols


for cushioning my passage here. It’s said:

breathing is for one’s behoof. Engird this


without forethought, and obliterate your

embroidering of my heart with thread of tendresse.

Grammar has no third choice, like guilt. 

Postcolonial Text, Vol 11, No 2 (2016) 

There is no reveal of Tabla or Pakhwaj in primeval India. Also, talking about Pakhwaj and Mridangam in general, no principle difference can be put to paper regarding the use of these instruments in India. Beliefs and estimations vary about their past existence and the time of their arrival.

There is a shepherd in the desert,

 His sheep long to be slaughtered.

 Ice is in his veins

He wants to eat the hay.

 A man with just a bowl,

Filled with falcon’s blood,

Wishes to meet his lover,

In the twin of roses.

There is a thin line between you and me.

 A hair’s breadth.

 There’s a fire underneath the line

 And a volcano above us.

In the sky of your sea.

In the red of my love.

He made a circle

we children sat around

the basket flipped open

and the earth got the goose-bumps.

The serpent vengefully raises its hood

and dashes to the ground

on flute music, a girl dances

and a boy juggles on the tight rope.

The crowd claps,

as the tom-tom plays,

and he makes the girl unconscious

with his rosary,

covers her body with a dark linen,

the skull giggles,

and the tom-tom plays again

under the old banyan tree!

He ripped her stomach open,

with a knife, it's blood,

it is real blood...

the girl is dead!

The boy circles around wide eyed,

is changing the spring

I desire,

my vinegary dreams,

and the songs that love me

into a one-night affair.

Translated by Rashid Khattak

I opened my eyes. The first voice I heard was my own cries. Then voices congratulating each other made a noise. The abundance of light forced me to close my eyes again. The noise of women subsided. Suddenly huge blasts, taking place one after another, frightened me.

The angel, who had come with me from the other world, placed his hand on my head. His hand was soft like the words of a kind mother. “Don’t worry. These are jubilant gunshots. Your father, grandfather and uncles are happy on your birth,” he told me.

“Why are they firing guns if they are happy,” I asked.

“You have been born in a nation that can’t help without guns. They include gun even in their merrymaking, but the gun always brings grief for them.”

Suleman was being dressed in fresh clothes after a long time. The heady smell of naphthalene coming out of the newly laid out dress tickled his nostrils, even the eyes and maybe the ears too. It's been a long time since he had last smelt that scent. With the tickling going on over the layers of his brain, his head danced a bit as one or two slow, dizzy bubbles rose causing the mud-soft indent of the brain to tremble just as someone else grimaced – nice, nice! Suleman closed his eyes as the bubbles of the scent rose one by one. How nice! Good, good!

     The jangling inside the head increased. Suleman opened his eyes. There was nobody around.

Food stall 1

Old bald man at market yong tau foo* store
stands below his sign:
10 pieces for $4, $2 per bowl, 50 cents rice.

In between serving customers
before the weekend crowd builds up,
one hand on aproned waist,
the other holding a glass of kopi-si*,
he sips, whilst
biting into his home-made fried bean curd
stuffed with fillings,
clearly food-tasting and hunger-stalling
while his wife munches her pink rice-kueh* hastily,
stacking bowls of mee hoon yong tau hoo expertly.
(talk about multi-tasking).

For just one brief moment,
they sit down on the plastic bench in front of their store.
Within earshot,
they discuss last night’s ma-piew pou*
(we all have our strike-rich dreams).

Apart from English, I speak Nepali and Hindi. Nepali is my mother tongue and the official language of my country Nepal. Nepali is spoken and understood well throughout Nepal. It is also considered to be one of the official languages of India as it is widely spoken in Eastern parts of India and especially in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Assam. The script of Nepali is Devnagari and in fact, even Hindi, follows the same script and many words are common to both languages.

In my place I came from, people believe in reincarnation.
I do not believe, or better put it, I did not think about it yet in order to decide if I believe or not. But I inherited from my grandmother and women in my family the habit of saying:
“Tomorrow, in my next life, I will do… so and so”……
And now if I am asked what my dream is for the coming years my answer will be: to continue writing and to make a major life trip on the Trans- Asian railway.
And because I do not want to wait for a next life, I am planning this trip to be in 2017 to celebrate my 60th birthday. I want to live this marvelous voyage and discover the Silk Road that inspired hundreds of universal literary and art works.

At dusk, after a light shower, the bonsais tremble in the breeze. When night deepens with the hissing rain, their tiny leaves and branches shake feverishly as if in a storm. From the deep recesses of their pygmy bodies cracklings could be heard, as though the plants were stretching their limbs. Atiq watches as the tiny plants become enormous in size, grow in height, shoot up four-five stories to almost touch the sky. At such times a greenish aura oozes from their thick stems, their bulbous leaves and branches – and gushes forth in waves toward Atiq. His sleep gone, Atiq gropes for the torch under his pillow.

           These days he has grown used to it; no longer thinks it a nightmare. He knows what the bonsais are capable of.  

Комната. Обои с причудливым узором на стене. Письменный стол с неизменной настольной лампой, доставшийся мне еще от бабушки. Ворох бумаг – как правило, совершенно ненужных. Стопка книг – как правило, не прочитанных. Окно ноутбука с еще не выписанным пейзажем. Ручка, которой вот уж десять лет как ничего не пишу. Сказать бы чернильница – но увы: таковой на столе нет и никогда не водилось. Абсолютная, не раздражающая слух тишина. В сих условиях пишется проза. Если, конечно, пишется.

To reach the root of any knowledge, three facts are important: 1) re-rendering without prior bias, 2) rethinking free from any impression which has a limited meaning, 3) the proper mixing of facts, emotions and arguments. In the modern age we need to study Vedas to understand our past in the light of the present. Mostly we want to see our present in terms of our contemporary situation. That is why the thoughts of most of the thinkers are influenced by their circumstances and perspective. Maybe, this is the reason that our nationalist thinkers tried to prove that Vedic literature is highly philosophical without any earthly element. Thus it got separated from the common man.

When we started our business in 2008, the idea of a bookshop akin to a literary salon was an appealing prospect. Literary events that were organized in the city were either invite only book launches or a lack luster book fair for the public – mostly brought to the public’s attention in the media after the event had taken place. Our vision for literary events centered on the author and their work. We hosted readings once a month and engaged the media prior to the event so that interested readers could join the events.

It is widely accepted that the greatest literature is born when cultures, civilizations or worldviews come together. This often happens in case of diplomat-poets who often find themselves in exotic milieus, novel circumstances and in company of people with diverse viewpoints.

There is a connection between diplomacy and poetry as several diplomats over the ages have excelled in poetry, to the extent that eight of them have won the most coveted prize in literature -- 'the Nobel Prize'. This is one of the least known literary facts.

Humanity consists of men and women, so the earth needs both of them for its development. If we visualize a human to a bird which flies by its two wings then we can easily claim that woman is one of the wings and without it flying is impossible; therefore, in all aspects of life women set with men side by side. In fact, a woman is the maker and creator of the root of life besides shaping and consisting half of the population.

The wind brought down this yellow:

petals littering

the garden, the Maruti’s windshield. 

The rain shreds petals, leaves

sticky splotches.

Armed with a rag, Ram Niwas

(a hardworking old fellow) declares war

on the yellow, enters the battlefield.

He works stubbornly, wrestling stains

in the rain.

The glass listens,

yellowness watches

the old man. It peels off quietly

in petals, remains.

Do you know the first cosmopolitan of Korea?

Hecho, the author of The Book of Travels to Central Asia and India, Wang O Cheun Chuk Kuk Jeun(往五天竺國傳)

But who will listen

to the scent?

Her smile

could light the darkness

but one question haunts her.

Why are they saying “her”

when they talk about me?

Have I vanished?!

Have I?

A hush—

then she melts

like a flower in the snow.

دلم را با نگاهی تو ربودی
برایم عاشقانه می سرودی
اگر روزی کسی همراز من بود
تو بودی و تو بودی و تو بودی

بگو آری! کی بودی، کیستم من؟
گهی چون ابر،گهی چون موج چرا جاریستم من؟
بگو آخر ز روی مهربانی
چرا چون تو نباشی، نیستم من؟

                                                             If a river became road,
                                                                    I may forget you
                                                          Or my world was destroyed_
                                                                      I may forget you
                                                            You have forgotten me easily;
                                                                        Well, I do agree,
                                                              When the tears became rainy_
                                                                         I may forget you

مثلما خدعنا العالم كله

ستخلعينَ قبعة البيسبول مثل العادة

وتبحثينَ عن زاويتك المفضلة

في مقهى ماريو.

وستنظرينَ في المرآةِ

وتأخذين وقتك لتستيقني

 من أن الملائكة ما زالت

تحرس التفاح الرابض

 خلف الساتان الأبيض.

وستطلبين قهوتك المفضلة مثل العادة

وتنظرين الى الفواخت وهي تحط

قرب النافورة كحلم أبيض

وراء زجاج المقهى.

وستمُعنين النظرَ في اللوحةِ الحمراء

المعلقة على الجدار

كطوطم عند مدخل قرية افريقية.

وستسمعين أديل وهي تغني

في المذياع

Someone like You

How do I colour my city
with creatures busy in living?
Do I walk along as if on an errand
seeking a lotus pond afloat with enlightenment?
Do I go in search of orchid petals
to unfurl whorls for hybrid pollens?
Do I hurry along street plans and measure landuse
to draw lines and shapes for my canvas?

My city has no mountain ranges
to be unscrolled broadened brownness,
neither has she bushfires nor epic tragedies
but her sky can be
as dry and distant as a desert’s.
My city has campaigns, policies and long-term planning,
has a reputation for drivenness
of a small country,
has shopping malls and more…

His carpet is stone, dirt

And trash that no one wants

Decorated by urine and faeces

Which is often his own

Feet blistered with red blue sores

Toenails crafted with serrated stones

And filled with soot

Because he walks barefoot

The cleanest liquid that cleans them

Is the blood of his wounded soul

Which exudes out at night when he is alone

Because earlier that day he saw kids

Walking with their back packs

While he held his trash bag

And he ran back

To the tenous home

With walls torn

And a broken core

He thinks about all the food they could spare

And all the money they could share

And ponders on why they have so much

Tonight

here should be

dance of words

-in the carvansarai of your glory-

tonight I am as joyful as the grasses

that saw the sun

and full with the existence of my dream.

A short story by Mohibullah Zegham (from my first collection of short stories “Hill in the Human”)

Translated by Rashid Khattak

It was a market day. I had loaded 16 sacks full of potatoes in a truck and was moving towards Kunduz. After a long time I was going to the bazaar [again?] . Everything seemed strange. Traveling the vast desert of Shorao, the truck was raising clouds of dust. The desert was so flat that one could not believe it was the top of a huge mountain. We had not seen any other vehicle during the hour-long journey. In the past, the buzkashi competitions used to be held in this desert, but now there was no trace of horses’ hoofs. All you could see on the ground were the caterpillar tracks of tanks.

Breaking In, Breaking out
By Myay Hmone Lwin (Myanmar)

(a novel in progress)

Fifty
Light floods me

Zero
I drown in darkness

Fifty… Zero… Fifty…

Sixty fifties and zeroes a second playing with her eyes, and in the end she sees only light. There is nothing strange about this. Every neon light in the world works this way: a fifty kilohertz frequency blinking on and off and leaving our eyes with the illusion of unbroken illumination. In fact, it’s alternations of light and dark which, were they clear to the naked eye, would send a girl ravig mad in half an hour, but unseen as they are, they act more like dripping water cutting slowly and steadily into a rock. It just needs time.

".عنقريزي بوتيله عساه يموت الليلة"

Kuwaitis did not discover or extract oil. At the time of its discovery, a torrent of experts was imported from the West to deal with this new black gold. However, the Kuwaiti society was rather a closed one. Although the sight of traders and such from neighboring countries was familiar, Kuwaitis were not used to Westerners. When Kuwaitis began seeing those blond, blue-eyed strangers, a rhyme was created. Children would follow a Westerner, and chant: “Englishman with a hat, may he perish tonight!”

Jibbed, old hungers gnaw at your chance 
arrival in gelidity. Gleed stirs up in you 
my cutty-pipe image, and you laugh, louder 
than required, adopting cachinnations as 
a channel of expressing emotions that have 
no business to be in our basket, as by now
I have peered you on the pentimento of
regrets. If this sounds cavalier, let me assure 
you, I understand pain. It is my portmanteau.

http://www.thesquawkback.com/2016/07/sethi.html#more 

بیا یک بار دیگر بیگانه شویم هر دو                     در قصه عشق خود افسانه شویم هر دو
مانند کبوتر ها پر کشیم در آن بالا                              در اوج تنهای تنها نشویم هر دو
همچو شاهپرکها بنشینیم روی گلها                      در گوشه ای تنهای پروانه شویم هر دو
بیا یک بار دیگر دستم را بگیر آخر                            در اوج بیکران پرواز کنیم هر دو
بیا یکبار دیگر به قلبم صفای ده                         با سایبانی از عشق لحظه ای پناهی ده
بیا برای اولین بار                                         به شهر نی لبکها همسفر شیم
میان باغ سبز آرزو ها                                   بیا برای اولین بار قاصدک شیم
بیا امشب برای لحظه هایم                                      قرار و مرهم دلتنگی ام باش

My diwali thali has pink

bougainvillea petals, fallen

banyan leaves, tiny cracked twigs,

gathered from this bend

in your road, once 

an entire country to me.

(for JNU)

At midday when her eyes become moist and blurry from the searing heat, there is nothing that Deepa can do but sit idly, her head droopped over her open palms, counting her fingers. First those on her right hand – one…two…three – from the thumb to the little finger, then those on the left in reverse order, from the little to the thumb.

     As her score settles to a perfect ten, she looks up, somewhat relieved of the tedium and the heat, and it seems as though a sense of certainty has descended on her.

     When she was a little girl, she would touch her nose no sooner had she finished counting her fingers. Then the lips, the eyelids, the eyebrows and the ears– until finally she came upon the same certainty of relief. 

There’s a saying that goes: When the pupil is ready, the Master will appear. I don’t have a Master at whose feet I learnt to write poetry, but I knew, one day, that I was ready to write it. I think it began – fittingly enough, given the nature of my poetry – in the basement of a hospital. I was waiting outside while a doctor performed an endoscopy on my father, the first of what would be several more in the years to come. That morning, the Hindu had a special booklet of essays on spirituality; among them was a series of short poems by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. I xeroxed those poems and that was my reading material during the endoscopy.

Twenty Years of Burmese Writers at the IWP

As the co-teacher for the Between the Lines: Silk Routes Program held during the summer of 2016, I had the chance of meeting creative and talented youth from seven different countries. The essence of the Silk Routes program, for me was to bring together young students from some of the Silk Route countries to America and teach them the craft of creative writing in a residential workshop, together with American students. While during the day, they were engaged in structured lessons, the evenings had them experience different aspects of the literary world, be it listening to award winning writers, to engaging in translation, to learning the basics of how to make a physical book.

In bed because of the flu since the past few days, I am watching the movie Wild to kill time. My wife is readying to go out to meet her friend, and is asking for the laptop from another corner of the room, where she is standing and wiping her face on a cloth towel. It is noontime of a very ordinary day – and it is precisely at this unremarkable time when an earthquake chooses to strike. Over the past several years, we are used to a minor tremor here, a slight shake there. But this, finally, turns out to be the devastating earthquake that we in Kathmandu, which is on the list of cities most vulnerable to seismic risk, had been long dreading.

My hands are two little antennas
which receive remote waves
distill and disseminate messages
generated and circulated by the brain.

My heart pounds and heaves
releases blood to brain and body
like a raja of the east
the brain commands.

And like the raja’s subjugated subjects
the body concedes
and the hands execute
though oft times bruised they are.

My heart’s the maker
a legislature
formulating the fundamentals
hoping for honest obeisance.

My mind’s the decipher
a judiciary
making analytic and indifferent decisions
on fair and the fallacious.

Death, My Funny Valentine
By Yeow Kai Chai (Singapore)

Picture this. A blonde dude decked out in shimmering mail sitting on a stone outcrop. He’s playing a game of chess. His sparring partner? A tall, lean aesthete, face powdered white, and body suited with a Yohji Yamamoto-esque combo of black cape and kaftan.
The backdrop is a calm sea. Above, billowing tufts of clouds back-lit by a glint of sun. This scene, of course, is taken from Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic The Seventh Seal; the chain mail guy is a mediaeval knight (Max von Sydow) and his opponent, The Grim Reaper (Bengt Ekerot).

 By Aiswarya Sasi (2015)

I walked into the eerily quiet room, like a rabbit venturing into a lion’s cave. In the middle of the room was a lone table, with chairs at both its ends. On one chair sat the source of all my fears. This would be my first viva in medical college, and my cortisol levels were at an all-time high. A few questions into the viva, the examiner asked me, ‘What is the normal red blood cell count?’ ‘Finally, an easy question,’ I said to myself in relief. ‘Seven billion, Sir,’ I said confidently, without a second thought. A pause. His eyebrows shot up incredulously. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. That’s the human population,’ I said sheepishly, cringing on the inside. In retrospect, this incident amuses me to no end.

Being part of the city Lahore has integrated in me the love for spicy food; ‘kebabs’ (meat grilled on a skewer over coal), ‘malai boti’ (creamy, buttery chicken), paalik paneer (spinach with cottage cheese), are some of the famous dishes. Being part of the province Punjab has incorporated in me humor and how to appreciate it. Being part of Pakistan has made me realize success is achieved after sacrifices; it has made me strong and fearless. Being Muslim has taught me peace, love, kindness, modesty and good. This forms my culture and most of my identity (the rest I am still figuring out.)

My smell,

my nakedness

entices

hordes of human flesh

from faraway lands.

Traders,

emperors,

marauders.

I

pose

nude

up on the hill.

Below

a feast of eagles—

possessed,

intoxicated.

From The Seduction of Delhi by Abhay K. (Bloomsbury India, 2014)

for R.

O, how was America then, pre-discovery? Suffice to say there is no experience like being smack in the middle of this billowing concerto. It could turn out to be our tarnation or salvation, depending on the jury and their tote bags of mood swings. “You sound a little pitchy in the second verse.” But don’t you see, it’s all a harmless karaoke session, a symphony of wolves having a minxy reprieve of fun from a day’s hunting… A quizzical prairie dog would rear its head from its security blanket and nobody would lift a paw. For those commercial breaks, the globe twirls in total harmony and no one eats no one else: “In the months of spring, we will play like silly butterflies in the strawberry fields, but do keep out for muggers and axes with vendettas.”

Saisam trunk, the bride trunk

( a trunk used to be given to newly married brides in Hijaz region)

I once asked my mother about my grandmother special trunk, the one that every bride used to have when she got married. She said, no, your grandmother was different, she never had one because she was married outside Arabia, and your grandfather was poor at the time, while this trunk was expensive and sophisticated. I know my family was not that simple but that is a different story I'm not going to mention now.
Apparently, we don't have this kind of furniture in our heritage as a family. When my mother was married she didn't have one because at her time, saisam trunk is no longer considered an important piece of furniture to accompany a newly married maid.

1. The Day of Massacre at Nalanda

Bakhtiyar and his men
play buzkashi in my alleys today
monks are being burnt alive; and
those who try to escape are beheaded.

Dharmagunj – the nine storied library
has burst into flames
smoke and ash from burning books
have turned the day into night.

The sun has disappeared from the sky today
and even my bricks bleed,
sacred chants that once purified Magadha
have turned into shrieks of a falling humanity.