The Best of Cape Town street music brought to you by Amitabh Mitra (see a snap of myself and the musicians at 2:12):
The Best of Cape Town street music brought to you by Amitabh Mitra (see a snap of myself and the musicians at 2:12):
Inyathi is a print arts journal focussing on Southern African Arts. Artists from other countries are welcome to submit their articles as guests. The journal is published by Poets Printery, South Africa.
I’ve created a Facebook group for Inyathi, and take pleasure in inviting you to join it:
The next issue of Inyathi is under production. Visual Artists are requested to submit their articles at the earliest or discuss telephonically with the editor. Contact details may be found on the Facebook group’s home page.
those were calcutta days
red was the color of your big bindi
red was a sudden afterthought on your cheeks i had kissed
red was my unkempt beard, your crumpled saree, me holding you
red was evening of disputes, shadows unsure of tomorrow
red were dreams we sought every crypt every night
red were slogans, banners, processions, chipped tea cups
red trams, minibuses, eyes in pursuit of a closed rain
red we walked a countryside of promise and breath
red was a night, gunshots riddled a setting sun.
Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra
when the labourer woman
roasts her heart on the tawa
the moon laughs from behind the tree
the father amuses the younger one
making music with bowl and plate
the older one tinkles the bells
tied to his waist
and he dances
these songs do not die
nor either the dance…
Lal Singh Dil
Drawing Pastel and Ink on Hand Made Paper by Amitabh Mitra
Hundred Flowers was a literary organisation aligned to a Maoist group which sprang up in Delhi in the seventies. The socio-political changes along with literary and cultural aspirations of that time brought me close to a feeling that was even closest to my heart and mind. Protest poetry, Protest ballads and Protest street theatres was the order of the day.
I look back and wonder, yet each poem recited, each theatre performed, each irregular underground paper we brought out and distributed did make some dent in the routine flow of ideas of the common man. Was it really worth it?
Somewhere we lost the rage and urge in an urban jungle and melted into an everyday mediocrity. Gaddar instead carried on with the movement that we all once dreamed of.
(more…)
just as we stood together
on a ledge of a rivernoon
i heard voices unforgiving
unforgotten
daring to revoke
daring to ripple
another moment
on a seasonless day
we knew
yet we stood
we knew of
sand memories
shifting the sky
we knew of grief
walking
long shadows
even at night
we knew tomorrow
would never be another tomorrow
the sun sliced in half
had ebbed for long
yet we stood
precariously
your saree between your teeth
covering your face
touch
and the river
flowing back
enraptured
of a sworn silence.
Pastel drawing on a raised paper by Amitabh Mitra
After the grand launch of Shaleen Kumar Singh’s book of unusual poetry, ‘Proprietary Pains’, I am happy to present my latest venture, a coffee table hard cover poetry book of love, memories and images.
Attached is the cover
Regards
Amitabh
why did the night renegade at your whisper
it had grown wild since in a
a dusk of shuffling memories
at hauz khas , behind the old mosque
you suddenly grasped a sunshine sparrow
and the muezzins azan while
looking at me
why did the day renegade then ?
Watercolor on handmade paper by Amitabh Mitra
an evening of our sharing had
captured shadows uneven
of a commencing dark
the railway lines had been running long
crossing a beleaguered sky
you have been waiting for a surge
i have been waiting too
the mist came resplendent
in sudden fury
we were lost
voices left to be
buried
moist
in another
season.
Watercolor and Poem by Amitabh Mitra
do you remember those caves
at the foot of the fort
where we used to play
and the old cemetery
we once hid from the sun
and hordes of maratha warriors
cascading behind a broken window
hunting relentlessly
for stolen moments.
the heart was then a street
pursuing days and nights
and a subdued sky
hid a longforgotten secret.
imprisoned
we traveled the eyes
and hopes
of another day.
Cover imagery from issue 1