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This journey started

Carol Pinto
September 17, 2017

This journey started
In coffee cups
Over ideas that brewed to life.

It started when I saw the rain fall upon the window pane.
It started when freedom learnt to speak
And when insecurities looked bleak.

It started with conversations in the sound of new languages
And in the middle of unfamiliar streets.
When a stranger's look turned into friendly greets.

It only started,
When it all ended

All my worries, all my expectations,
When I finally realised there are no real destinations.

I crossed over boundaries
Broke down walls,
No restrictions, no duty calls.

This journey started
While I sipped on that coffee cup,

I heard a whisper, that said
Maybe Travel?
Then I just let my dreams unravel…

It started with some wander lust
When all the ghosts faded to dust

I packed my bag and set free,
Clinging to freedom, I went on a spree.

I packed up my troubles in my bag,
Of new places, now I could brag

I opened myself to New horizons,
Of learning and knowledge
That I earned in tonnes.

In between stolen kisses and paper rings
And in the midst of tears and healing wings

A pile of useless hope departed
With new hope for the broken hearted
And new dreams to be charted
This journey has just started.
 

Comments

Danny
 - 
Friday, 5 Jan 2018

Well written carol, I see rich experiences in between the lines

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Muhammad Ayaan Yusuf Kolnad
July 23,2020

It’s day to the emoji fair

Where the fun begins with happiness

It’s day to the emoji fair

Where the fun ends with happiness

The water is waiting for you to come

To make you enjoy a lot,

The smooth – awesome slide is cool

That makes this park wonderful.

Be ready to laugh

Because the clown will

Tickle your funny – bone

Get ready to have fun

The funny coasters are here.

It’s a day to the emoji fair

It’s time to say goodbye

To the … emoji fair.

COME BACK AGAIN

Muhammad Ayaan Yusuf Kolnad is a Grade 7 student at Sudhana Residential School, Puttur

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Dr Parinitha
January 17,2020

We came on foot, we came on boats, shouting slogans of Azadi.

We stood on roof tops and sat on walls under the burning midday sun,

Listening to the words that we had longed to hear for so long.

Words that had been scripted through the lonely fears of our hearts.

Words that were spoken now with the clarity of courage.

Words that were spoken now with the suppressed strength of pent up anger.

Words that were spoken now with the certainty of belonging to the soil 

Which had become one with the dust of our ancestors.

We stood there in the waves of heat

Feeling the surge and press  of countless bodies around us.

Bodies meshed through the odour of sweat 

And the shared fear of a common persecution.

And hanging from the roof tops,

And tied to the poles,

And clutched in hands slippery with sweat,

And wrapped round the pillars,

And spreading into our blood,

Were three strips of colour with a wheel of spokes,

Sewn together into the shape of our being.

Woven into the folds of our future and the creases of our past. 

Stitched to the seams of the earth, the water, the air and the sky 

That belonged to us and to which we belonged. 

And we stood there from noon to evening,

We the people of India.

Raising our clenched fists like signposts to the future.

Chanting slogans like a new anthem.

Kin to each other through the ties of community.

Born to live and die 

In a nation that was ours to hold on to

And ours to belong to.

Dr Parinitha is a professor of English in Mangalore University. She penned the poem soon after participating in the historic protest against CAA, NPR and NRC at Shah Garden, Adyar, Mangaluru on 15th January, 2020.

Also Read: 

‘The more you try to divide us, the stronger and united we’ll be’: Record turnout in Mangaluru’s anti-NRC protest

Anti-NRC protest in Mangaluru brings ‘media bias’ to the fore

Comments

Abdullah
 - 
Wednesday, 29 Jan 2020

Salute to you siter for your meaningful poem.  This is reality.  However, the enmy is blind/deaf/dumb.   May God give right way of thinking to enmy and in case he is unlucky, let God finish him and let him beg for death.  

Indian
 - 
Thursday, 23 Jan 2020

Waav..What a Heart Touching poetry...

 

Hats off to you ma'am....

 

Love from all Indians...

 

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Mafazah Sharafuddin
August 9,2020

My homeland does not exist
Except in my mind.

It sits among my childhood memories

Uses my ambitions as a toy
No matter what I do, it stands sentinel.

What is it, you may ask.
And I will answer. 

It is a long, long street.
I walk down it and I do not hear
The sounds of people crying in pain.

No fetus cut out of a swollen belly
No man with his hands pressed together 
Begging for his life.
There are no broken voices 
Singing national anthems in their dying breath.
No children crying for their dead grandfather.

No sounds of battering rams 
And falling debris 
And sacrilege.

I walk down the street and I do not see
The sight of ravaged souls tonight.

There are no children bloodied
In their once white clothes
No scarves being ripped from the bowed heads
Of hopeless women.
There is no little girl
In her burnt up frock 
Laying completely still on the sidewalk.

The taps run clear
And there is no blood
Not on this street.

I walk down the street and I do not taste
Ash and gunpowder
And the copper tang of blood.

No salt from tears and sweat from toil
No bitterness 
Matured over seventy years.

I walk down the street and I do not feel
The burning anger of the oppressed 
The hopelessness of the neglected.

There is no deep chasm of sorrow
When the sons of mothers once sat.
No rage where the daughters lay
With blood between their legs.

You ask me again,
What is it?
It is a place of peace, I say.

The window is open 
And we are sipping amber tea
Spiced with cardamom and rose water.
You look at me and I see it again.
You are yet another victim
And so am I.

The window is open 
And I can hear the chants from two streets away.
They scream for freedom
They scream liberty and revolution.

For a moment I am tempted to cry 
For lives lost,
For our lives 
That have turned black with the turn of the century
When our homeland turned against us.
No, not our homeland, our country.

My homeland does not exist,
Except in my mind.

But the voices are rising 
Like smoke from a forest fire
Burning up bigotry in its wake.

My homeland does not exist.
Not yet.

Mafazah Sharafuddin is a humanities student, studying BA Psychology, Journalism and English Literature

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