Star quest: Fire and hope

Clickhappy! Star Quest, Mar '16

By Pawan Dhall

Star of the month: Jacinta Kerketta on a visit to St. Augustine's
College, Manoharpur where she completed her intermediate
studies (all photographs courtesy Jacinta Kerketta)

The third (October 2013) and fourth (November 2013) issues of Varta carried a column called Star Quest, a series of photo-stories of individuals who may not be public figures like politicians, artistes, social activists or media persons, but have in their own way contributed to social equity and empowerment around gender, sexuality and related issues. For a variety of reasons, including priority given to other interview and photography based columns, Star Quest was discontinued. With the October 2015 issue of Varta, we revived the column to continue sharing innumerable untold stories twinkling with inspiration!

The contribution of the ‘stars’ we zoom in on may be in an intimate arena – among friends and neighbours, their local community, a village or slum school, their own work place and so on. It may not have attracted any media attention, yet the importance of their efforts cannot be underscored enough. Varta is happy to bring to light such hidden ‘stars’ and focus on endeavours that generate hope for a better present and future.

An inferno named desire

Poetry, Dec '15
By owais

Photo credit: Vahista Dastoor

Source: First published in http://faqirana.blogspot.in/2008_06_01_archive.html, written June 12, 2008

owais calls himself the ‘sucker for love’ – for knowingly, he not only trusts, but lives on that rainbow which does not actually exist.

Vahista Dastoor wields the camera to get her point across when she is not documenting child rights, mental health or gender related issues.

Ifs and dos and don’ts for the queer in 76 countries

Poetry, Oct '13
By Rajib Chakrabarti

Learn the art of concealing

the thrill that you feel deep within.

If you fall in love

don’t let it so soften you

that the inevitable hurt becomes unbearable.

Son of enemy

Poetry, Feb '15
By owais

I sit in a group

of young gay men

discussing all under the Sun.

One of them wonders aloud,

“Why do we support our enemies?”

Dream of the orange flowers

Poetry, Oct '14
By Shaleen Rakesh

Shaleen Rakesh is an author and activist based in New Delhi and has been at the forefront of the gender and sexuality movement in India for the last 20 years. He was the primary petitioner to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2001. He currently works as Director at India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi, and is Editor with independent publishing house OpenWord in New Delhi.

Poem sourced from The Lion and the Antler, the first collection of poems by Shaleen Rakesh (World View Publications, 2013). Limited number of copies available with Varta Trust – please write to vartablog@gmail.com.

Mamalogue - 101

Poetry, Sep '14
By owais

Mother,

I cannot be

like your other sons:

those that live

to consume.

To desire,

to conquer. 

To want,

to get. 

To top,

to orgasm.

Micro-poetry jewels

Poetry, Aug '14
By Bauke Kamstra

Your eye

when it sleeps

leaves me dark

open

it is fire.

***

Cries for help

only draw

predators.

***

Still alive

still with passion

not rendered

inconsolable

by the memory

of pain.

Bauke Kamstra, artist and poet, resides in Nova Scotia, Canada. His book We All Reach the Earth by Falling will be published in November 2014. You can often find him offering poetry on Twitter https://twitter.com/Wyrde.

Silence

Poetry, Jul '14
By Md. Gulrez

you said you were listening to my every word

but it was my silence which needed understanding

the fall and rise of my breath

the smell of my skin

the floating stares

the whirl in the cheek's pool

the dancing Adam's apple

the unshaven face

the dried lips

the hair on the forehead

the tapping of my feet

the stroke of my hands . . .

. . . were you really listening?

Md. Gulrez is a social development professional working on rural poverty.

Straight lines

Poetry, Jun '14
By Shaleen Rakesh

I watch them quietly

they are everywhere

whichever way I turn

whenever I scan the rooms

to understand more

they live around corners

and turn with a parallel force

in the shoe box

on the floors, on roofs

along fingers and toes

down the railway tracks

in your most hidden alleys

sometimes they sit across me

looking strong, confident

elsewhere they are like anyone else

longing for dimension

waiting for their time to come

hoping to sleep

wanting to smile.

Shaleen Rakesh is an author and activist based in New Delhi and has been at the forefront of the gender and sexuality movement in India for the last 20 years. He was the primary petitioner to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2001. He currently works as Director at India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi, and is Editor with independent publishing house OpenWord in New Delhi.

Poem sourced from The Lion and the Antler, the first collection of poems by Shaleen Rakesh (World View Publications, 2013). Limited number of copies available with Varta Trust – please write to vartablog@gmail.com.

Coma

Poetry, May '14
By Rajib Chakrabarti

Will my emotions ever wake up from this comatose state?

Shall we ever wake up from this state?

The iron islets in his palms

buried my hair in his skin, and yet

signals from deep within

warn me never to unveil.

No scope at all for warming up

in any relationship,

only lethal infection in a web

of endless cooling down.

Barred from every other profession

and hated for usury, well, for which

the virtuous majority

themselves had use;

the non-violent love meat, though the butchers

come from a filthier community.

I am compelled to change the colour

of the smoke again and again;

the heat and the invisible colour

of the fire do not change

an atto-unit.

Though I can get the right quantity

of breeze only if I open the door wide

I open windows of different

sizes when I get a chance.

I look at a rectangle above a square

or at an equilateral triangle

with a faint hope that I’ll find a place

as plastic surgery over his wound

and one day feel his torrid touch

when he forgets himself, though every night

he cleans his lens in a solution

of fear and ignorance.

Rajib Chakrabarti teaches English and hopes that scientific rationalism and secular ethics will one day replace religious dogma.

Rain

Poetry, Apr '14
By Shaleen Rakesh

Rain

do you recognize it

from your past?

as your melted glacier?

your swollen sea?

coming down from her exile

in the heavens

removed from her history

coming down at once now

to strike you

and soothe your body.

Shaleen Rakesh is an author and activist based in New Delhi and has been at the forefront of the gender and sexuality movement in India for the last 20 years. He was the primary petitioner to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2001. He currently works as Director at India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi, and is Editor with independent publishing house OpenWord in New Delhi.

Poem sourced from The Lion and the Antler, the first collection of poems by Shaleen Rakesh (World View Publications, 2013). Limited number of copies available with Varta – please write to vartablog@gmail.com.

The phoenix

Poetry, Mar '14
By Rudra Kishore Mondal

Your nest is your pyre.

On a bed of myrrh,

Strewn with ageless suffering

The sepia Cinnamon twigs

Form a fence of memories,

Fading . . .

Entwined with the Spikenard,

Gathered from the lost Eden

Of love and yearning,

You breathe your last . . .

Igniting the inferno,

Devouring the past.

The purging flames grow

Into unmarked wings,

An unbroken heart

And you are born anew

From the ashes of desire.

Rudra Kishore Mandal is a painter and freelance graphic designer and calls his artistic quest Rudrascape (rudrascape.blogspot.in).

Private staircase

Poetry, Feb '14
By Shaleen Rakesh

A private staircase from the roof down to the hall

the space in which no one is seen

the timelessness of balconies

the closeness to an opening round the bend

here there are stairs on the air

here we should meet

I’ll bring the silence 


you bring the possibility.

Shaleen Rakesh is an author and activist based in New Delhi and has been at the forefront of the gender and sexuality movement in India for the last 20 years. He was the primary petitioner to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2001. He currently works as Director at India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi, and is Editor with independent publishing house OpenWord in New Delhi.

Poem sourced from The Lion and the Antler, the first collection of poems by Shaleen Rakesh (World View Publications, 2013). Limited number of copies available with Varta – please write to vartablog@gmail.com.

Companions

Poetry, Jan '14
By Shaleen Rakesh

The wind was growing tired

slowing down with age

Older

it said to the flower

A time will come too

when I will not have the strength

to kiss your petals

and inhale your perfume

The flower replied –

But what about me?

What will I be then?

Shaleen Rakesh is an author and activist based in New Delhi and has been at the forefront of the gender and sexuality movement in India for the last 20 years. He was the primary petitioner to challenge Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2001. He currently works as Director at India HIV/AIDS Alliance in New Delhi, and is Editor with independent publishing house OpenWord in New Delhi.

Poem sourced from soon to be published The Lion and the Antler, the first collection of poems by Shaleen Rakesh (World View Publications, 2013).

More III: Prime greed

Poetry, Dec '13
By owais

The more I know,

the more I don’t know.

A state of no progress

Poetry, Nov '13
By Shompa Datta

You must take this city bus to school to be on time

But a crowd of riders bulge out at the doors

So, you push and push till it swallows you and your fears

            No personal space here!

Over pot-holes and narrow corners

Everyone rides together, companions

In sweat and smell and bodies tiered

            No comfortable journey here!

But, your schoolgirl dreams shatter –

A hand creeps up and down your thigh

The heavy-breathing body rubs rhythmically undeterred

            No compunction here!

So, you carry a pin to warn away molesting hands

Who blame the buses and the swaying crowds

For men will be men in close quarters, it appears

            No safe space here!

After generations of unschooled instinct excused

Gang-rapes on buses become repeated breaking news

Live women are easy game, this society holds,

Though in parras or hoods goddesses are revered

            No, no progress here!

Shompa Datta writes to give voice to issues and experiences that influence her at home and abroad. Her poems have been published in LimeStone Dust Poetry, Desilicious and Scripts. As a Kolkata lover, she hopes that the city will regain its place as a trailblazer Indian city; as a US resident, she hopes for civil rights for all, irrespective of gender, class, race and sexual orientation.
She earns a living as an Associate Professor of English at Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, Alabama and lives in the same city with her partner.

A queen's ghazal

Poetry, Oct '13
By Rajib Chakrabarti

A Queen's Ghazal is a rather unique experiment – suffering equally in bondage and soaring with a liberty that only a queen can know. Ghazal is an art form, which is as beautiful and lovable as it is difficult and limited. It is perhaps the structure inherent and the rich symbolism that is already available in Urdu, which makes the ghazal greatly easier to render in Urdu than in English. Despite breaking some of the bonds of ghazal-writing, the poet succeeds in expressing his deepest feelings beautifully and rhythmically, in this English ghazal – owais.

More . . . of what?

Poetry, Sep '13
By owais

More power.

More fame.

More money.

Yes,

I want more of these.

And more.

Why do I want

more and more

of more and more?

Is not

this hole in my soul

unfillable?

Is not,

‘more’

a desire to arrive

at the most?

And, is not the most

Unachievable

by a mere human?

Where is

my perspective?

Why don’t I want

the one thing

which I must want more of

if I want to arrive

at my destination

as opposed

to a way-station?

Perspective.

owais calls himself the ‘sucker for love’ – for knowingly, he not only trusts, but lives on that rainbow which does not actually exist.

Source: First published in http://owaisvasundhara.blogspot.in/2010/12/poem-more-of-what.html, December 30, 2010

More

Poetry, Aug '13
By owais

This, perhaps,

is an inherent pain
in the human situation.
That our imagination
goes farther than our power.
That our consciousness
allows us to feel more
of what we have not,
than what we do.

That our imagination has given us
much of what we have, is beyond doubt.
Though, what we have -
is that a blessing, or a curse: Who is to say?
The desire, not the greed,
for more –
not just,
more money, more power, more fame
but also,
more love, more knowledge, more happiness,
more life!
Does it, this need of
‘more’
ever leave the human breast?
Can it?

And is this
just an attribute
of being human,
or of Life itself?
Every Beta wants to be an Alpha,
every weed, the place held by the crop.

They all have the urge, but
do they also have the pain?

The pain, of not being

God?

owais calls himself the ‘sucker for love’ – for knowingly, he not only trusts, but lives on that rainbow which does not actually exist.

Source: First published in http://faqirana.blogspot.in/2008_05_01_archive.html, written May 6, 2008