The Gravedigger’s Soliloquy
Poem by Anju Devadas R D: ‘someone once said / the soul is lighter than breath / but the soil keeps secrets / the sky cannot hold.’
To My Translator
Poetry by Saoirse: ‘let us build a night on the marble edifice / of silence. Spread freshly laundered sheets / over the freckled sky and light / the twin candles of our bodies.’
We Imagine Angels: Two Poems by John Copley Alter
Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘In the proximity / of other gods—other sutras— / we muttered our creed—you // pecking / away at your manual typewriter— / carbon copies of personal letters / home—to the diaspora—we // noodling on the keyboard of happiness’
Last Night’s Silence – Five Poems by Aardhra Chandran
Poems by Aardhra Chandran: ‘Concrete trucks rumble past his fence, shaking the loose teeth / in his jaw, spitting black diesel smoke onto his holy basil plant. // He measures his life not in years, but in missing trees—/The neem chopped for wood, the mango that died of thirst.’
‘Flesh of the Fruit’ – Four poems by Priyanka Aravind P.
Poetry by Priyanka Aravind P.: ‘I too had a mother, / Who fed me with knowledge so ancient, / And called me her brightest star, // until I misspelt a note from the sacred chants.’
“Until the Last Light” – Three Poems by Sindhuri Rao
Poetry by Sindhuri Rao: ‘Keep everything you bought here— / your eager dreams, / hanging garments, / obedient smiles, / unpressed rages, too. / “Be our guest.”’
Between two monsoons
Poetry by Suhana Bhattacharya: ‘i measure distance / not in miles / but in the way my mother says “beta” / over a lagging call / where her voice arrives before her breath’
‘Between Wars and Borrowed Fights’ – Poems by Siddh Dutta
Poetry by Siddh Dutta: ‘Her hours went into my becoming, / cruel it feels now / to realize how freedom can vanish without chains. / How may one choose a cage / and call it duty?’
Ghazals for Homes and Dreams: Poetry by Kartikay Agarwal
Poetry by Kartikay Agarwal: ‘Will the last book of the last people to write books / (when all else is said) at the end just say ‘write to me’? // The wheel spins the pot to life, yet leaves no trace, / You be potter, mould life into my clay—write to me.’
“Let Me Seed This Thought” – Three Poems by Bunny
Poetry by Bunny: ‘I dip the iris in soy / and watch the dark eat the color. / Still, through the stain, I see you.’
The Madwoman in the Attic
Poem by Anju Devadas R D: ‘Ink spills like blood, / blotting the margins of her name. / Each word a bone, / each sentence, / a noose of syntax.’
Minaret to Mandir: Five poems by Carol D’Souza
Poetry by Carol D’Souza: ‘Before the tabla taal of inevitability / kicks in the apocalypse, the first few bars / of this blue ghazal are clear notes / of what could have been.’
The problematic representation of women in many recent Telugu blockbusters like Peddi and the Pushpa films have stoked controversy. When mainstream commercial cinema consistently turns the sexualisation of women into entertainment, who should be responsible for the world these images help create? By Sumithra Prasanna