http://umaathreya.blogsome.com Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:30:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I roll up the shutterthe car movesas the light turns green.A girl,a woman at thirteensari draped around poking bones,a gash on the cheekbody abused at street cornerslaid by anyone – a driver, a police constablefor a morselto the mouth twisted in nausea of hunger. The community of beggarsa straggling family of ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/11/24/the-family/ I’ m spentwhat would it be to drop everything and walk outI’ll have to convince myself  firstno books, no laptop,no paints and brusheswhat do I intend to do under the blue skies all dayto walk out you mustn’t be heavyjust the clothes on your backmind emptied inside outheart that singsfeet ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/11/17/the-monk/ Hope is the thing with feathers  That perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the storm  That could abash the little bird  That kept so many warm.    I’ve heard it in the chillest land, And ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/11/07/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers/ The first rain dissolves timeslipping to the dark afternoon that many years agothe moment lost in the crevices of memory. I sat in my room lit by the phosphorous sky of lighteningreading Ezra Pound. Dark runnel of waterflowed under my window,the mango tree creaked with dampnesssighing wearily with years of ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/10/28/monsoon-in-madras/ What were the colour of his eyesThe image last captured by themDid they last descend on the pale flowerscrowding the path to the gateOr do they hold the glint of smile on his mother’s facelines crinkling around the mouthbreaking into a laughunknowing of the cursed momentthat would plunge her boy ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/10/28/how-blue-was-the-sky-when-he-looked-up/ The boy skips several times to the windowpeeps impatiently holding the rusted bars  looking for his mother. Will she wear a sari todayhe fears the ridges of frown on Dikshitar’s faceseeing his mother dressed inappropriately for the visita strand of jasmines falling over her dark necka stole thrown hurriedly over her ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/10/21/lakshmi-mami-from-kumbakonam/ It makes a world of difference to read Lord Jim after 20 years. The novel was a prescribed text in my Masters Program at college, I remember reading most of the novels of Conrad soon after and a tome of literary criticism on Conrad’s works. Most often in a college ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/10/19/reading-conrad/ Pearly greyness tips downthe bowl of land scooped by the hills;chillness settles on leaves and flowersthat smudge and blur in twilight haze;funnel of clouds washes the skyto drain into the horizon;the moon a dull disk of gloomwaits for darknessto dazzle the knots of rocks in silver. http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/10/05/twilight-at-hosur/   I was introduced to Indian poets and authors while in school. I read Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, contemporary poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Keki N Daruwala, Dom Moraes before I got to read serious Indian novelists. R K Narayan and Anita Desai were exceptions though, I soaked myself in Narayan’s novels ‘The ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/09/29/reading-on/ This post is inspired by Beth’s ‘How We Read’. It took me back to the time when reading seemed to be the only thing I did, especially back to my college days. I decided to do my grad program in English Literature so that I could read more and more books. ... http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2009/09/23/reading/