Scavenge

 

I am standing on the borderline

Of countries tonight.

With a rifle that shoots flower seeds

Into my neighbours’ fertile soil,

Rich with the calcium of broken human bones

Sedimented regularly

With the perennial flood of blood.

 

At times, it evaporated

To rain over the sweltering cacophony of our cities,

And we felt the moist salt of tired human skin

Adulterate our iodised salt,

Sprinkled over crisp starters

At casual dinners of peace summits

On tension laden platters.

And we wondered if the goblet of red wine

We raised for toasts

Found its rich colour

In the iron of our human blood

Which rusted on our tongues;

Made heavy with shrapnel slangs,

And outdated expletives

Tethered to our souls like

Unforgettable

Unimaginable

Unforgivable

Guilt.

Of having known too late-

How diplomacy is sweet

Only when reciprocated,

But blood clots red

Even when to death we bleed.

 

In the distance,

A horde of crows caw

As I pull the trigger and shoot.

The silent seeds fly miles

And scatter on the soil far.

By the time I leave

Wings flap,

As I turn around to see them busy,

Already picking on

What rests upon the ground.

 

Sneha Roy

M.A. Batch of 2021

​

Hands

 

I walk my hands,

In the dark.

 

Hand, the magic wand

The hegemonic power of hands,

I wave my hands up in the air

Up, down, up, down...

 

Waiting, impatiently;

For those invisible hands,

That stretch out to me,

Like the rays of the morning sun...

 

Now, 

Everything depends,

Like everything else,

On those hands.

 

Madhure Akilla. C

M.A. Batch of 2020

​

Sanna’s Handwriting

It’s a sort of twelve o’clock somewhere 

We’ve been suffering for a while already, 

But we choose to suffer a little more. 

My daydream colours the edges of the desk, 

And she is frowning – 

So I do the only thing I can: 

I nod.

 

And she reaches across, 

Writes something short – 

An observation I was barely paying attention to, 

A thought that the world would benefit from 

But there it lies 

Between us 

In my notebook 

Spiralbound, coloured pages, college ruled. 

 

The secrets touch all my notebooks. 

Absolutely 

Every 

Single 

One. 

They are written on the inside of my fingers, 

On the corners of my sketches – 

Where she points out where the posture of the body is wonky. 

We scribble ideas between each other

Listening to the world, 

Because we’re very good at it. 

Veterans 

Having learned to quantify feelings and colours 

Into notebooks 

Into secrets 

That none of the professors will ever know. 

None of our classmates will ever know. 

And in time, 

Even I would not know. 

 

But there it would be 

Her handwriting, 

In my notebook: 

An instant spell.

Better than witchcraft, 

Better than music, 

Better than Octobers. 

 

A conjuring charm: 

As soon as you find the moment 

The lost page, a scrap of paper,

Some election manifesto that was conveniently available – 

There we are. 

My hair reach my shoulders, 

My dress skims my knees. 

She’s wearing a red and white kurta, 

Her hair are bunned messily, 

The maang pulled from her right and my left. 

We are alive again, 

We are twenty one again, 

And it’s twelve o’clock somewhere. 

​

Tanvi Chowdhary

M.A. Batch of 2020

​

One day

​

One day,

going through pictures 

on your Facebook timeline, 

you remembered me. 

For old times’ sake, you

asked me to meet. 

Time and place, you googled 

and texted me. On whatsapp

 

—the scrap of pictures, chats, 

a chaos too timeless to sell, forward, screenshot, reply back. 

But—

 

difficult to unsee, so

I agree and come to the place, to meet

Someone I thought I knew, 

Who used to know me. I try to talk, 

remember, see. But all you ask for—

 

Is a picture - a selfie, one too many. 

Because you say, I’ve a way with frames, is it? 

 

One more, from the right, 

This one’s not so bright, 

Let’s pretend it’s a candid, 

I don’t look good enough in that one, to upload it. 

Let’s use a filter 

because society’s beauty standards

don’t ever fail us.

 

I go back, feeling  insignificant. 

You return to a roll of memories, tempered. 

 

Those scars on the cheek, the dark circles under the eyes, 

that pimple on the forehead, that crooked smile, 

You edit it all out, to

Suit your best profile. 

 

You upload it on your instagram, 

With a caption, I can never think of, or find. 

You think I don’t know, 

For I’m not on social media, actively. 

But I come, I observe and 

Withdraw back

r e d u n d a n t - - l y. 

 

Once uploaded, the picture you asked me to click, 

Thousands of it, 

sent to a folder, later, once edited, 

In some corner of your computer screen, one amongst many, 

Never again to be opened or seen…

 

Except perhaps when it shows up, 

Year after year, in the memories

of your social media handles, 

When you remember it, not for

the time we spent together, or the time it was clicked. 

But for the comments and likes you received, when

you uploaded it. 

 

In all this chaos, I wonder

where do I figure, in your life, 

 

where do I fit? 

 

- In the margins on your notebook, you scribble on, 

during uninteresting lectures or free office hours.

Or in the recycle bin on your

computer screen, perhaps? 

Like the little specks of dust you

clean off regularly from the windowsill, or 

Like the plants you leave unwatered

in the summer heat, or 

Like the curtains you pull back and tie

to let the winter sun in, 

Or

Perhaps

Like words unheard, between us, 

lost somewhere in the wind. 

Some place

Some time

Difficult to 

Trace - 

 

Lest I be like this instagram poetry

—transient, ephemeral, or a memory erased, wasted—

that you pretend to read, heart, swipe up

 

oblivious. 

Jeevanjot Kaur Nagpal

M.A. Batch of 2020

​

​

​

​

​

​