From the world of poetry.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Some people desire the life of a writer. That’s not an easy existence. The photos of rich best-selling novelists that flood our social media feeds might mislead. Most writers aren’t rich, and their books never sell many copies. Those in the know tend to suggest that the best way forward is to be backed by an emotional and financial anchor before committing oneself wholeheartedly into a career of writing. Take Tiash. After years of hardships and struggle, she feels she has arrived at such a place. Her son in 12th grade shall soon find his place in the world—she says—while her husband, vice-president in a big company, is greatly supportive of her writing. “I can now engage in full-time writing,” she says, sitting at her usual window-side table in a Gurugram café. The bag on the table has her many pens, post-it sticky notes and a sharpener. Tiash often comes here to write, and is in fact writing at this very moment in a writing pad. A poet, she agrees to share five of her untitled poems.

1.

They appear to disappear like stars as if,
Countless they are like the stars too,
Their footprints vanish on the shore of time…
They embark each day but nothing to do.
Their life is like trying to hold a mist,
Or like arranging sands after a storm,
Knowing it they smile and giggle just to fade,
Still they stand for the hailstorm.

2.

I

Sang a poem
Recited a song!!!

Reached the moon
Gazed at a square!!!

Climbed the tea
Drank the stairs!!!

Freezed the soup
Heated the ice!!!

And yet, I find some meaning.

But
Soft betrayals,
Emotive lies,
Fabricated truths,
Falsified cries
Rip opens my heart grieving.

3.

With clipped wings
in a cramped camp
she dreamt of being a white dove
in the endless sky…

4.

You could hear
The flitting of owl,
The slithering of snake,
The cigarette burn…
So much they silenced
the savage nights.

5.

From a far away land…
much away from
beauty pageants
and best seller lists,
she read out
from a remnant
of a blood-inked
charred letter.