The Tragic Magic of Human Logic by Dr. Sandhya Tiwari

The Tragic Magic of Human Logic

by Dr Sandhya Tiwari

Have you heard what I said!
I know, I understand and I can talk
Not just about my pet
I know all about my friends and friends’ friends
I also know about my neighbors’ friends and friends’ neighbors
Neighbors’ neighbors and so on....
Do you think I know only the people I interact with?

How sad! I can as well comment with authority on Jhumpa Lahiri
Shashi Tharoor, Chitra Divakaruni, Bharathi Mukerji
Oh...you think because of my doctoral topic of diaspora studies
I feel comfortable to speak about them with ease
Good Lord! I can prove and speak with assertion on
Ernest Hemingway, D.H.Lawrence, Mark Twain beyond question
Yeah...do you think
Due to Post Graduation where I studied hours together without a blink

Lo! I do comment, criticize and laud with authority
Not only KCR, Kishan Reddy, Jagan, Rosaiah, Chandra Babu
But also Manmohan, Chidambaram, Nitish Tiwari, Advani and others
If you believe that is because I’m an Indian
Snap!I know about Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, Obama, and all
Claps, shutterbugs, garlands galore
I am popular and all are floored

But when I question about myself
Silence surrounds....
Alas! At last I understand
I spent most of my life in a fairyland
Half bred, imagining full life led
Irrespective of the gender, caste and creed
Many of us live in a state of trance
Wondering this is life modern and advance
Lost in shams and farce
Away from the fact “Self Knowledge” is enlightenment
Into temporary state of sheer insensible entertainment
That’s the tragic magic of human logic.

Author's Bio: Dr. Sandhya Tiwari, a PhD in Diaspora Studies from Osmania University, has eight years of teaching experience and is presently working as an Associate Professor in English at Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), Ghaykesar, Hyderabad. She did M.Phil in American Literature and her favourite novel in American Literature is Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

Dr. Sandhya has participated and presented papers at national and international conferences, and enjoys teaching literature, ELT, and communication skills. She has passion for teaching which she believes is the noble profession.

Dr. Sandhya highlights a peculiar feeling of every man in her poem The Tragic Magic of Human Logic. She finds that we, the human beings, seem to be knowing so much about so many things, many being of high merit. But we know so little about ourselves.

International Poetry Festival: 2010 held at J.K.C College, Guntur, A. P.

An International Poetry Festival: 2010 was held at J.K.C College, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh on December 21, 2010. It drew an enthusiastic response from both emerging and established poets from India and the world. Works from about 125 poets were selected for the anthology titled Poet's Paradise compiled and edited by P. Gopichand and Nagasuseela—lecturers in English and organisers of the festival. This fest was in sequence to National Poetry Fests held in 2008 and 2009 respectively organized by J.K.C. College.

The festival was inaugurated by K. Basavapunniah, President of the Nagarjuna Educational Society (Guntur), who also unveiled the book. The electronic version of the book, PDF, was inaugurated by J. Narendrath, Secretary of the college. The poets, who recited their poems, were given a ceremonial welcome and were adorned with a drape ‘uttariyam' (upper vest) by the organizers in their honour.

The anthology is a good repository of poems from some of the reputed poets such as Uktamoy Khaldorova and Azim Suyun from Republic of Uzbekistan, Rati Saxena, Sahitya Academi award winner, Peter Waugh from Austria, Mukhesh Williams from Japan, Boban Bogatinnovski from Kumanovo, Kurt F. Svatek from Austria, Dipika Mukherjee from Neitherlands, Chandrasekhar Sharma from Bhutan, Mohammad Fakruddin, founder president of Haiku Society of India and recipient of the International Man of the Year from Bangalore.

Some of the poems rose voice for the empowerment of women, while others sang yearning for peace in today’s strife-torn world. For instance, Heera Nawaj, who spent early years of her life in US, spoke of women-hood in her poem Arise and Shine. Professor Smita Tiwari captured the natural landscape in her poem The Surreal. While Khurshid Alam an emerging poet captured the attention of the guests, poets, writers, students and other audiences with the recitation of his two poems. Many of the audience thronged to Khurshid after he came down from the podium and had a healthy chat on poetry and other literary genres.

Two Poems by Aditya Shankar

Two Poems by Aditya Shankar

The House of My Old-man by Aditya Shankar

The house of my lonely old-man is a museum of clocks,
a museum of time

He keeps everything that cannot be undone:
probably multiple clocks in place of faithful country dogs—

the detectives obsessed with the forgotten
who raid our old fields and burrow deep
maintaining the eyes of a sad Buddhist,
not the grinning Dalai Lama in the calendar

The trade-off is simple:
scent of sunlight inside shady mangroves for Venetian blinds,
buzzing of jack-fruit flies for fans,
the entire house for the one who brought tanned pineapples from the field,
and left only the fragrance behind

The house of my old-man is a one-teacher school, the road to which
is a statement that has remained unsaid for years

The evidence it presents is unquestionable,
the exhibits are lost faces, not dials—

the one who passed by
the one who promised, but never came

He rang up office to say his clocks speak poetry—
a language that sweats soul through all pores
and burns bright like the sun
above the memories stacked in the attic

They sing like the old radio,
from the oldest of stations
constructing a lyric studded with similes—

to be heard only by the lonely,
the lords of time

Imagined in Three Quarters of a Second by Aditya Shankar

On a day when the pavement reeked sea-salt,
their city became a harbour

So as to keep a word to someone
to retrieve all that is temporarily lost
to mourn a long absence

sea played the raw music of a school band,
an endless symphony of melancholy

their fierce waves,
the jaw of an extinct predator retreating
with the bad omen of revenge

Betwixt a sleep and a sleep, as if between
two parallel sleepy alleys
no dream was washed away

The poet lost no images to the hungry crows,
though his words juxtaposed playful sea-fish

No one mistook a ship for an ancient sea animal

Sitting absent minded among pals in our regular restaurant,

Only that song which reminded you,
slowly revised itself with the rhythm of waves
and dissolved secretly into the depths.

Author's Bio: Aditya Shankar (b.1981, Thrissur, Kerala, India) is a bi-lingual writer and short film-maker. He writes in English and Malayalam, and publishes poetry and articles in leading journals, including The Little Magazine, The Word Plus, Indian Literature, The Literary X Magazine, Munyori, The Pyramid, Poetry Chain, Mastodon Dentist, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Bayou Review, Meadowland Review, Words-Myth, Chandrabhaga, Miller’s pond, Message in a bottle, Aireings, Hudson View, Snakeskin, The Legendary, Literary Bohemian among others. His flash fiction has been published in The Caledonia Review and The Other Herald.

His short films have participated at International Film Festivals. Currently, he lives and works in Bangalore, after completing his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering.

Aditya Shankar's poems are brilliant work of art. In the poem The House of My Old-man Aditya imagines himself to have grown old with life experiences while in Imagined in Three Quarters of a Second he is forlorn.