CLRI November 2013

Contemporary Literary Review India November 2013 CONTENTS
Poems
Book Length Poetry Collection
Poems by Dr. Dalip Khetarpal - Book Length Poetry Collection CLRI will publish an author’s book length collection of poems each month from now. CLRI November 2013 presents by Dr Dalip Khetarpal in its November 2013.
Regular Poems
Poems by Ramona L. Ceciu Pistachios The Human Monument of Pain Poems by Subhasish Das Love and Sacrifice No Men’s Land Poems by Mihaela Tudor Fantasy The Travelers Poem by Parneet Jaggi I Think of You… Poems by E. Vishnupriya Love Songs for You Safety Pin Poem by Soumya Vilekar Sludge of Politics
Arts
Arts by Molshree Ambastha
Stories
Story by Sarah M. Flanagan Lower East Side Love Story Story by Charles EJ Moulton Future Memories Choices by Nilanjana Chakraborty Choices Footprints of Nature by Monisa Qadri Footprints of Nature
Interviews
Khurshid Alam interviews Vinay Capila
Criticism
Criticism by Shyamolima Saikia De-Stereotyping Ex-Centric Identities in a Few of Mahesh Dattani’s Plays in the Light of Performativity
Book Reviews
A Critique of Poetry by DR I. Venkateswarlu DR I. Venkateswarlu review Karanam Rao’s anthology of poems titled So Many Freedoms
CLRI Nominates its writers to Lit Awards 2013
Dear readers, we’re ready with the list of those writers published with Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) during July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, who we are going to nominate to the Best of the Net run by the Sundress   Publications, USA. So keep your fingers crossed and see the best writers from us. Next we’ll move to Pushcart Award. For details, check at Announcement.
CLRI Digital Edition
The CLRI issues are available in electronic medium. To read the materials, download the PDF of CLRI November 2013.
CLRI 2013 Print Edition
CLRI 2013 Annul print edition is available from us now. Place an order to enjoy the creative pieces. Buy digital editions with: Smashwords, Amazon, and Pothi.
CLRI Back Issues
Dear writers, we value your writings. Do you value yours? Read and enjoy our back issues: CLRI August 2013 CLRI July 2013 CLRI May 2013 CLRI April 2013 CLRI February 2013 CLRI December 2012
Call for Submission
Submission to CLRI is open year-round. CLRI seeks only previously unpublished submission in poetry, stories, arts, photography, designing, modeling, film reviews, book reviews, essays, criticism etc. For details, check at: CLRI Submission.
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CLRI 2013 Annual Print Edition ISSN  2250-3366
We encourage all the readers to buy the print issue which will help you undertsand what standard we follow for the print edition. So you can submit your best pieces in future. Have a look at the preview of the print copy at: CLRI Annual 2013.

Poems by Dr. Dalip Khetarpal - Book Length Poetry Section

Dr Dalip Khetarpal features in the CLRI November 2013 Book Length Poetry Section

Poems by Dr.Dalip Khetarpal

Masked Sans Mask

In this vast cosmos

Of masquerading fair,

I often intuit faces

Wearing a cold blank mask

Thinner than air.

Even my keenest vision

Fails to rip open

This impenetrably transparent mask--

---A primary defense,

A fortified safeguard,

Enforced by overriding social norms

To facilitate one’s survival.

The masks of identity

Forced upon by society

And human psychology

Generates self-alienation

And a strange feeling

Of estrangement.

But self- revelation

Is also, and always

A cruel painful process

Shunned only by a social animal

And not by a real primeval animal.

For, if human skin is stripped,

There’s excruciating pain

But if mask is stripped,

There could be death.

In this masked fair

Of simulacrum

A man intimate

Sometimes appear unknown

And sometimes, intimate strangers,

While even some strangers

Sometimes appear intimate friends.

But strangest it becomes

When even kith and kin

Appear strangers,

When even a wife

And a husband

Appear masked

Before each other__

---Becoming a traitor

Not only to oneself

But also to each other.

So, whither goes

Real open ended human relations!

And concepts of wholeness

Of ecology, divinity

And even science

Are imperceptible

Interrelatedness among humans

Whose further relatedness

To vaster cosmos  then becomes

Naturally inconceivable.

Like thunder

That tears up the clouds

And reveals the sky,

Eruption of plethora

Of pent up feelings

At times suddenly teas up the mask

And in a flash

Reveals the real man….

----but only momentarily.

For, the incredible power

Of re silence of the mask,

It’s inbuilt dynamism

For constructiveness

Quickly repairs itself

And restores it’s original form.

When the real man

Never or seldom surfaces,

Different people

And different mirrors

Would show different pseudo- faces

Of one’s ever changing

Surface of the face

Wherefrom multiple crises

Of personality

Also springs.

A mask that is blended

With the face

Is also an impenetrable fence

To observation and perception

To the fluid interchange

Of thoughts, of feelings

Of emotions.

Love & hate, so,

Affect me not

Camouflage sex and kiss

Give no sensation

A stroke or caress is nothing

But a brush past

Over my insensate skin

Into which warm waves

And vibrations of feelings

Flow not.

I often look over the sky

And see how the invisible God

Is also masked

With an invisible mask

That doubles his invisibility

And sustains His mystery.

I also know that

No one can ever strip

This mask

Nor ever see

His mystique form,

So, can never

Also ever

Improvise any ontological specifications

For Him.

But  cannot and should not

There be any such specifications

For the at least  feeling, thinking, breathing,

Visual and geometrically designed humans?

Paying huge medical bills?

Waste away your scarce savings. Through

These rivers — all polluting.

Illusion Turned Real

Their wildest attempt

To merge into each other

Made them so fiercely locked

In the tightest of embrace

That the two

Appear one,

Proving lust so intra-somatic.

When one flesh

Attempted to forcibly blend

With the other flesh

I thought the two thick flesh

Between them hindered

The union of two souls.

But they could not break

The barrier of flesh

For, in just a few minutes

They voluntarily separated

With an abrupt jerk

The face of the one

That exuded intense attraction

Minutes ago

Now, incredibly, exudes

Deep repulsion for the other

Whose earlier heavenly beauty

Turns repulsively ugly now.

The perfect merger minutes ago

Has led to perfect separation now.

Startled, I rubbed my eyes

To ascertain the facts…….

Perhaps, it was an optical illusion

But surely

There was a great lull

After a great storm.

Mutual Exploitation

A woman enters

Into man’s desert

Thinking that

It is a fertile land.

But the water & greenery

Showed by man

Is not to slake her thirst

Nor to provide her comfort

And joy

But to devour her flesh.

The woman on her part

Bears all pangs----physical and mental

As long as she gets shelter,

Protection, commitment (though false)

And sex satisfaction

Or dissatisfaction.

For all these

She has to go to man

And only man.

Though most wise woman

Can foresee this

They still willingly dwell

In the carnal life of man

For they have nowhere else

To go.

Exploitation & greed thus

Come to assume

A universal form

At both ends

And brings man-woman relationship

On equal footing

Resulting in

An equal duping

Though discontentment

Still spurs feminist movement.

Inevitability of Sin

One remains

A psychological sinner

Until he accepts & does

What the scriptures say.

So, if scriptures are

To make one

Sinner or virtuous

All have to be priests or nuns

To lead a sinless life

And be sacred

But, if this be so

The world would cease

To exist normally

While it still exists normally

When thought blasphemous

Also simmer in the minds

Of most revered

Priests & saints

As they do

In the minds of sinners……

With varying degree.

The Paradox of Love & Sex

More than successful love

Successful sex

Raises man’s esteem

In the eyes of a woman.

It also breeds confidence

In him

As pride

In her.

Sadly, it is man

Who needs to inculcate

Strength & esteem

Even in sex

To be esteemed

And considered a man

By his partner.

Sadder still is the fate

Of faithful & devoted woman

Who though even unquenched

Is still too forgiving.

She will not expose

Her counterpart’s inefficiency

And will also seldom

Look for greener pastures

Even when unslaked.

Despite man’s impoverished virility

A woman’s reverence for her mate

Seldom wanes_______

Just to keep man in high spirits.

Sex, so, is only an adjustment

For her

While it is a means

Of attaining heavenly bliss

For him.

Strange that

Sex is a passion

For man brutal

And compassion

For woman ideal.

Dr Dalip Khetarpal launched into teaching career way back in 1983 by working as a Lecturer in English at Manchanda Delhi Public College, Delhi. Then he joined Technical Education Department of Haryana, and worked in various capacities, as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and H .O. D (English) in various institutes of Haryana. He worked as Dy. Registrar and then as Joint Director with the Directorate of Technical Education, Haryana, Chandigarh. Thereafter, he was posted as Training & Placement Officer. Presently, he is working as Director Principal with Jat Group of Colleges, Kaithal. Dr Dalip has also started a new genre in the field of poetry which he would like to call ‘psycho-psychic flints’. His poems are flints because they emit spark when they hit the readers’ mind. All these flints can be vividly seen in this book. He has won laurels for pioneering this new genre in poetry writing. His criticism and poems are often reflected both in national and international magazines and journals.

 

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Poems by Ramona L. Ceciu

Poems by Ramona L. Ceciu

Pistachios

If people were as good as pistachios

They would be under threat…

That is why people are not as good as pistachios…

So that no one and nothing would digest them…

Like pistachios…

Cats might want to eat them pistachios, or people…

Throwing them at your window would make no sense,

Pistachios would break

but the window closed would remain …

for there are millions of windows

within the same windowpane…

shut… you do not need to see the world anymore,

for you have decided that you know it all…

Assumptions totemised as truths

scribbled on the window towards world…

and you, with your pistachios, only yours,

stuck away from all because you know

the other cats don’t like pistachios…

you know them all…

When you have finished, you may ask them stupid cats –

yet cats that you KNOW:

“I HOPE YOU DIDN’T WANT ANY PISTACHIOS!”…

(read: I know you didn’t want any pistachios)

and throw the empty shells by the window

to those who don’t want to be as good as pistachios…

The Human Monument of Pain

The seconds of love get entangled

Timidly within the whirlpool of infinity…

The echoes of life resound shyly

Within the chasm of ethereal existence...

From all the shattered loves of flesh

Some ashes, left in Time’s fireplace,

Were dispelled by ‘S/HE’ while angry

To see so many fecund creatures

Lurking around with a choked soul –

Metamorphoses of some naked dreams,

Devoid of reason or feelings,

Only abandoned to passion…

They fall into oblivion – the seconds of love –

Like white magnolias dying

At the hand of a jealous gale…

Only death turns the saddening passion

In bliss and freedom from the worldly dungeon…

The vain loves of the body

Are carved in the Monument of Pain…

Ramona L. Ceciu (Romanian) has been Indian resident for about eight and a half years now. She is a PhD researcher in Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, undertaking an interdisciplinary research in contemporary Indian literature and visual arts. Up to present she has published writings in Romanian and English languages. Apart from writing, she is involved in different projects as a freelance translator, independent filmmaker, photographer, music composer and vocalist trained in varied music styles (Indian and Western). In all creative projects, she explores different styles, genres and ideas in an experimental fashion and multicultural–multilingual dynamic.

Get Your Book Reviewed by Contemporary Literary Review India — journal that brings articulate writing for articulate readers. CLRI prides itself to have a good number of review writers. We have different review writers for books of different genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals and academia for fair and high quality reviews.

Poems by Subhasish Das

Poems by Subhasish Das

Love and Sacrifice

Stretch arms in the air, set foot in the water

Lie down and kiss the earth; romance near fire

She in frock and me in half trouser

Cared not what world called Love

We had our own definition, an innocent play of life

Happy to have her but where? Time is shrewd.

Night passes in dark; day travels body without soul

Six strings displeasure the ear; fear to knot the future

Memories drown the brain; winter kills the heart

Once was a tale-honey, you have nothing to fear.

Gulf of years past as I mast by ocean of loneliness  

Heaven or hell on earth, I am ignorant

Tears or smile, I stand foolish

Her nameplate is craved in intricate beauty

Not wedding, but for her grave’s identity

Little pet of the mother, fumbles her cold forehead

I stand and stare, and remain only to wonder-

Dear She belongs to none, but four elements of nature

I am justified to stretch arms in the air, set foot in the water

Lie down and kiss the earth and romance near fire.

No Men’s Land

Lay stretch brother! The soul's your entity

When mingles with a place, division writes in your fate

Middle the borders welcomes your home

Safest you are! Until pointed wires curse your little life

Foot prints of those penetrate the land of one's own

or bite master's apple; sure bullets shows thy path

And hell scratch thy back.

Peace after havoc, havoc after peace...

Mine earth beneath me, your's there

As seems one's own monarch; why lay

in state of play and be a domestic frog of its well?

Retreat to your's, the neutral heavenly home.

Albeit civil race seeks joys of generation

But seven colors leap your fastened heart,

and you only a gender; no name neither shame

Like a whitish beard soul, in loss of kith and ladybird

Afar top snowy hills, lost somewhere

beyond the world.

Bury in your lease, the golden treasure

of scaleless pleasure; hide until

the aged greats discover

out the sand belong to no men

An antidote against one's own.

Subhasish Das, a graduate in English literature with honors, hails from Assam presently resides in New Delhi. He holds a diploma in Fine Arts specializing in Painting and a diploma in animation and graphics designing. He is also an indie filmmaker.

Subscribe to Contemporary Literary Review India — journal that brings articulate writing for articulate readers. CLRI is published online per month, in digital versions occasionally, and in print edition (planned to be quarterly), its print edition has ISSN 2250-3366. Subscribe to our CLRI online edition. Our subscribers receive CLRI digital copies directly into their Inbox, get print copies free of cost whenever they come out during the subscription period, and are waived off any reading fee towards our print editions. You can become our subscribers any time you prefer. To become a subscriber, visit: Subscriber to CLRI

Poems by Mihaela Tudor

Poems by Mihaela Tudor

Fantasy

Return thy hand from going far…

Wished to run;

Sounds snorkel in the Neverland

Bang! The desert cut through the door,

“It's not a giving life party, you hear me?

The ones who come here are sold… ”

Wished to run; his hand was far;

Sounds alighting flashes in my mind;

Lights out; none, just scented air,

When door opens, next,

This will be an Indian shrine;

This blended silence with the smell of hair

Damp on his chest,

This hidden interface of the divine,

Where have you been?

This flowing tremor of memories that never sleep

Sipping with me uneven cups

of fantasy…paid for everything.

Wished to run…barefooted,

His hand was too far;

Where have you been?

Flashes,

Dashing sands on the wall,

“You're sold….”

Scented hair,

Damp on his chest,

One night, here,

 in the desert…no one…gone,

Jailed as an expat.

The Travelers

We used to walk together,

There were empty rounds within secluded hearts,

It was like building bridges made of fire

between nameless shapes.

We used to call the night a traveler

And play hide-and-seek among worlds

So far sometimes as he could get,

Estranged in wanderings while arms held closer

His scent,

his laughter.

He made a boat of a palm tree leaf

To carry me into his morrow,

Eyes closed at dreams,

Dispersed harmonies through endless hours,

“But what if it rains?” ” We'll hide under the rainbow.”

We used to walk together,

There were secluded rounds within atomic hearts

One to another,

In hide-and-seek and worlds

That used to carry us

into the morrow.

Mihaela Tudor is from Romania, but currently she works as an English lecturer at the University of Hail in Saudi Arabia. She previously published flash fiction The Rhapsody of Thoughts, November, 2010 (www.orionheadless.com) and Les Reveries d' un Promeneur Plus Solitaire, Spring 2011, with The Battered Suitcase (www.vagabondagepress.com). Many other poems have been published with other journals including The Faircloth Review (April, 2013). There is also forthcoming work appearing soon in Word Riot.

 

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I Think of You… by Parneet Jaggi

I Think of You… by Parneet Jaggi

When hands tremble

And refuse to lift the requisite loads of life,

When legs shiver

And refuse to take me to places,

When eyes feel the pain

Due to the dust of life-

Invisible yet irking,

When brain is clouded with a grey haze

Not letting light inside,

I think of you

Who will adore me without these too,

Embrace me in the dark of my life,

Hold my finger to help me tread

The remaining path of my life.

Dr. Mrs. Parneet Jaggi is a lecturer in English teaching in Dr. B. R.A. Government College, Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan. She is a published author with a collection of poems "Euphonies of Heart and Soul" to her credit. Her poems have been published in the journals such as The enchanting Verses and Taj Mahal Review.

Subscribe to Contemporary Literary Review India — journal that brings articulate writing for articulate readers. CLRI is published online per month, in digital versions occasionally, and in print edition (planned to be quarterly), its print edition has ISSN 2250-3366. Subscribe to our CLRI online edition. Our subscribers receive CLRI digital copies directly into their Inbox, get print copies free of cost whenever they come out during the subscription period, and are waived off any reading fee towards our print editions. You can become our subscribers any time you prefer. To become a subscriber, visit: Subscriber to CLRI