Exactly how Untraditional?

In a one-to-one exclusive with novelist Sweta Srivastava Vikram, My Little Magazine takes a peek into the untraditional life of an Indian woman and discovers the intricacies of human relationships 

MLM: How did Perfectly Untraditional happen?

 “Perfectly Untraditional,” true to it name, happened in a rather unconventional way. I had this story inside of me—gnawing—waiting to get unleashed—touch ink and morph into words. Not the detailed book that you see today. But I had the seed for a story. I knew I wanted it to be different—about common people—all of us. But nothing stereotypical or mundane A narrative about relationships, identity, immigration, and modern Indian families with subtle suggestions on how we could make our society a better place.

When I started working on “Perfectly Untraditional,” by the way it was called something else then, I basically wrote a 40-page novella. My agent came across the novella and asked if I had ever thought of writing a full-length novel—she had liked the story and my writing style. I was ecstatic and nervous. I am a poet before a prose writer. I knew it was a humongous undertaking, but I was determined to take up the challenge. The way I saw it, I had nothing to lose.

I have had so many friends and family members support me through my madness. Be it helping me with research to putting up with my crazy hours to tolerating my artistic moments to evaluating the title of the book to just being there as sounding boards.

MLM: At any point do you identify with the protagonist Shaili?

Before I answer that question, I would like to clarify that “Perfectly Untraditional” isn’t my autobiography. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who have asked me that question even though my husband was standing right next to me. 

Yes, I do identify with the female protagonist, Shaili Kapoor—but only in a symbolic way. Like Shaili, who realizes the truth about herself after moving to New York from India, I too found myself, in a *symbolically* similar situation, when I moved to NYC from Mumbai.

I had always wanted to be a writer. But due to personal reasons, I couldn’t follow my dream when I was in India. While I thought I had made my peace with the decision to study sciences and turn away from creative writing and journalism, I was terribly wrong. Living in New York, I couldn’t fool myself any longer. I conceded that I am and will be nothing without words. And much as I respected all other professions, I didn’t see myself spending eternity studying or practicing sciences. Even if I tried…I couldn’t.

Both in Shaili’s and my case, distance offered a perspective on “The real us.” It gave us opportunities to blossom and carve out our individual identities. When we are inside the system of societal expectations, it’s difficult to think differently—even if your inner voice begs you. There is no room for it, actually.

As desis we are trained to appease and not consider our happiness. But once we move away, many of us start to evaluate terms like sacrifices, happiness, and fulfillment. Arisitotle said, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Can we impart happiness if we are unhappy from within? Can we pretend to be someone we aren’t? And is it really worth it?

MLM What's the best thing you have heard about the book so far?

Readers have been generous with their response so far. People have discussed it with me or reached out and said that they found at least a few things in the novel that resonated with them. For a writer, that too a debut novelist, knowing that your “untraditional” book was received well by both men and women across different age groups and ethnicities, has been extremely humbling and encouraging.

As writers, we pour our heart, blood, sweat, and soul into our books. And when readers recognize the efforts, interpret your book, and discuss it at length, it gives a warm, fuzzy feeling—that of fulfillment. I was pleasantly surprised at how involved people got with the characters. They had their favorites and not-so-favorite ones picked out.·A ninety-six-year-old-American man, who fought in both World War I and II, said to me, “Your book touched me in a way nothing else has. Never stop writing.” A psychotherapist, also a reader of my novel, commented that I understood human complexities and the different layers of human emotions. Her lesbian friend complimented the authenticity of emotions in the novel. An aunt-in-law in Minneapolis said, “I always wondered about the lives of writers and actors. It was such a distant world. Beta you have shown us that world. And I am so proud of you. any people have said that they couldn’t believe this was my first book. Numerous women have requested me to write a sequel…because they want to find out what happens to the young, male protagonist: Sadhil Sethi. He turned out to be a favorite with the ladies.

MLM: Any anecdote related to the conceptualisation of Perfectly Untraditional that you may wish to share?

I have shared this anecdote at probably all my readings, but it still cracks me up. When I wrote about Sadhil Sethi, in the first draft, I exaggerated his goodness—to the extent I put most Yash Chopra heroes to shame.:-) Sadhil was unreal, by human standards, in terms of his looks, heart, benevolence, attitude, manners, and personality. Or at least that’s what I was told. Sure enough, after having worked on Sadhil Sethi for as long as I did, I lived inside an unreal bubble of expectations. One evening when my husband returned home from work, we debated about some trite issue. I was upset and retaliated with, “Sadhil Sethi would have never done this.” Poor guy didn’t know how to respond. His competition was a fictitious character created by his author wife. 

MLM: What's next?

I am working on several projects simultaneously including my second novel. But in the near future, I have a chapbook of poetry, titled Beyond The Scent of Sorrow, scheduled for October 13, 2011 release in Brooklyn, New York. And I am working on a nonfiction collection of prose and poetry, Mouth full, which will be released in London in early 2012.

I and the wind of the city

By Ansuman Dey
Kolkata, India


I and the wind of the city -1


This day, no one's playing dreams.
this day, torn papers and old leafs
are flying in the air like me; very afflicted!
Such hollow mentality of the city wind
has left no philosophy on the streets.
The streets go down and down and lost
whichever way, without the history.
Like smoke, the wishes coming out
of the melting windows to breathe,
to smell the most latent aroma,
to perceive the waves of death.
This day is reverberantly excruciating.
This day, frogs and I are mute and busy
digging the soft mud ; very shattered!



I and the wind of the city -2


Neon sparks
and
I become
the mirror of the city.
Sleepy bricks crawl
into the Gothic darkness;
a very dilated and secret exodus.
A photograph excavates my soul and disappears.
Chronic noises hang
like the ear-worm blues from the futile erections.
I snuff out the neon to become
mirror to the city.

Sir

By Ananya Mukherjee
Singapore

It is impossible that you could miss him in a crowd. And had Shokhanaath Sikdar ever shared a first-class compartment on a long-distance Kolkata-bound train of the Indian Railways with Ray’s Lal Mohan Ganguly, I am convinced the latter would have definitely wanted to “cultivate” Mr Sikdar.  Though almost separated-at-birth-twins with Mr Ganguly, the resemblance further accentuated by accessories such as a brown monkey-cap and a red and blue checked muffler, Mr Sikdar had a distinguished and unique style of his own. 

His day started early fighting with the neighbourhood paperboy, he called Khoka. Each daybreak, Khoka would toss the popular morning daily, neatly tied in a roll, and throw it across Mr Sikdar’s coveted south-facing 7x 3 ft verandah adorned with money plants, a potted tulsi and some kamini flowers. To an onlooker, the blue-walled balcony adjoining the cramped living room was nothing beyond a slice of additional space generously used as a clothesline. Between Mrs Sikdar’s printed cotton nighties and petticoats, there was just enough room for an old cane chair and two low choir stools. In all, the weaving had fallen loose, but it did not bother Mr Sikdar, nor kept him away from his private haven, and he fought to conserve its authenticity as the truly intellectual corner in his middle class suburban home. Khoka and his Olympic style paper tossing was a constant threat to that preservation.  Mr Sikdar had repeatedly warned Khoka that it in the past, his rough and uncouth attacks had hurt the kamini buds and snapped a portion of the money plants, both signs that were considered inappropriate, but the boy had paid no heed.

After calling out names, each morning Mr Sikdar would sit down in this blue space, reading the morning newspaper from the first word on the front page, browsing through headline news to classified pages including quack aphrodisiacs and gauging the impacts of planetary movements and their predictions on his less celestial life. Once he had Rahu and Ketu’s orbits sorted, dipping thin-arrowroot biscuits in his tea, he would always attend to the matrimonial, obituaries and all the other components that spiced up an ordinary man’s life in an otherwise monotonous setting.

After retirement from his job as the mathematics teacher of a government higher secondary school, Mr Sikdar’s world had become confined to the blue walls of his modest one-bedroom flat. Mrs Sikdar, childless and ageing had begun to complain of gout, since she stepped into her 50s, and now her days were all spent in cooking a simple meal for the two, a few religious rituals and watching melodramatic soap operas on Bangla television.

From his cane chair on the verandah, Mr Sikdar would watch her getting engrossed in the high-pitched family dramas on the idiot box, often so much that she would emote with the characters on screen. At times, he had even caught her crying with the innocent and cursing the wicked and scheming faces on television. Mr Sikdar, who grew up in an age when television was a rarity and being a couch potato was sinful would wonder how a 50-year-old woman could get so carried away by something so unreal and distant.

Apart from the TV, the blue-walled modest living room had a sofa cum bed. This was meant to be the most decorative and most expensive of furniture the Sikdars had ever bought. It was the pride of the living room. A student’s mother, out of sheer respect for Mr Sikdar’s Mathemagical brilliance had gifted a self-created set of appliqué cushion covers for the sofa cum bed. On occasions when there were guests in the house, and it happened rarely though, this was used as the extra bedding for the special visitor.

But of course, there was a brilliant laminated family photograph of three generations, proudly displayed on the TV top that you couldn’t miss. On a rare moment, when all the three generations of Sikdars had taken a Kundu Special tour to Darjeeling and the entire family of primary school teachers, bank managers and government servicemen had pooled in all the LTC they got, booked company holiday homes and managed to spend a week basking in their own glory in the Himalayan town. The photograph was a memoir of that rare moment one morning, when all the Sikdars, including the young ones Dollar and Sonnet (Mr Sikdar’s youngest brother was a bank manager. His convent educated wife had a fetish for English names and after the twin boys were born, she used her obsession with an overpowering vengeance thereby dismissing all alternate suggestions made by other family members) had arranged themselves proudly in three rows. The men in bright mufflers and hand woven pullovers at the back, the women in wet flowing tresses over cardigans and sarees were seated in between, and the children in road picked Bhutia jackets were kneeling down at the front. The group was facing the sparkling white mountain range with the holiday home as backdrop. Though proud to be framed in a perfect Suraj Barjatiya style family frame, none of them noticed or remarked upon the fact that there would be proof of the mighty Kanchenjunga in the photograph.

Till date, the pride associated with this photograph knew no limits and though neighbours and friends tried to often contest the value of this priceless piece of Sikdars, none were successful so far.Once, Mr Sikdar’s next door neighbour Shambunath Pal, tried to flaunt a photograph that showed his grandson standing below the Eiffel Tower. Now Mr Pal, unlike Mr Sikdar was not a man with many degrees (“uneducated businessman” in Mr Sikdar’s words). He ran a saree shop in one of the bustling districts of the city and had amassed a lot of wealth. A considerable portion of that wealth had gone into sending his only son Babushona to a private engineering college in Bangalore. Babushona, once his engineering degree was earned managed to do an MBA and find a job in a company that was doing a project with a French multinational. Needless to say, Mr Pal, much to the resentment of Mr Sikdar, was extremely proud of the fact that in a family where matriculation was considered sacred, Babushona had added so much glory so as to live in “bilet” or foreign shores out of his own academic steam.

So one day when Mr Pal brought out the picture of the Eiffel Tower and challenged Mr Sikdar on the pricelessness of photographs, Mr Sikdar looked unshaken. Studying the picture with the spectacles right at the tip of his sharp nose, he raised an eyebrow and said, “Hmmm....mane thik e ache, tobe oi amader Howrah Bridge taye beshi loha bodhoi,” (seems ok, but methinks our Howrah Bridge has more iron in it).

It only happened by a sheer conspiracy of fate that I landed up at Mr Sikdar’s door one hot and sultry summer afternoon. Let me explain. Mr Sikdar’s ‘almost umbilical’ ties with a government boys school was destined to weave into my life as soon as I met and fell in love with the brightest and best student the school had ever trained. My fiancé, Sid (Shiddharto to his teachers and all the other trails of his past life) was Mr Sikdar’s favourite student in his entire teaching career. The boy, the first in his school to crack the indomitable IIT entrance exam, as he recalls and narrates to all he knows was the “Braaitest” student he taught.

All that was more than a decade back! And Sid’s life, interim had undergone several changes. From the IIT Campus in Kanpur, he had moved to Rutgers for a Masters and ever since the lure of the greenback and the thrill of international recognition had kept him committed to sharing his bright intellect with the US of A. But he hadn’t forgotten his teacher. “I owe it to him in a way,” he would say. 


Since I was travelling to India, Sid insisted I dropped by Mr Sikdar’s residence and paid him a visit. He even bought a shiny Kenneth Cole watch for his teacher and jokingly called it a “delayed but branded gurudakshina”.  I knew the significance of this teacher in shaping the man I adored, so I agreed without further debate.

So on a hot uneventful summer afternoon, I cajoled myself and took a drive down the by-lanes of suburban Kolkata and landed up straight in the blue walled living room of the Sikdar’s.

“Are you also an engineer like him?” Mr Sikdar asked me as he gestured for me to sit on the prized sofa cum bed. He had not even offered me a glass of water as yet! Fearing that my IQ level was at stake and I might be subject to solving brain racking Calculus before my eligibility to sit on the sofa were decided, I sat down quickly and replied “No No, am into literature” then added stupidly enough, “My Math sucks!”

“What?”

“Er, I mean, I am scared of Math.”

“What are you saying? How can you be scared of Math? What is there to be scared? Only the dumb, dull and lazy are scared of Math,” Mr Sikdar almost roared in front of me.

“Aha...why are you scolding her? She is not your student,” Mrs Sikdar came to my rescue with a glass of red liquid.

I folded my hands in greetings and took the glass from her.

“Rooh Afza...I got it from Moni’s dokaan just yesterday. Dekho to kheye kemon?  (See how it tastes!)”.

I smiled gratefully at her and sipped into the over sweetened artificial flavoured drink. But on a hot afternoon, it did not taste as bad as I had feared.

Mr Sikdar seemed put off by my presence. He sat on a stool, a little away measuring me up inch by inch. Perhaps even contemplating how his brightest student could even consider a life with a woman who did not enjoy calculus or trigonometry. I realised I had goofed up by touching the most sensitive passions of his life...mathematics! Not really thrilled about being classified in a category of “dumb, dull and lazy” I dug into my purse and took out the gift that Sid had sent to appease Mr Sikdar.

“What is this?” He still seemed unsure if I could be trusted.

“It’s a small gift Sid has sent you.”

“Sid? Who is that? Oh, Shiddhartho!” he said while opening the wrapper and seemed utterly delighted as he saw the gift. “Baah...please say my thanks to him,” he stood up as he spoke clearly indicating that our conversation ended here.
Sensing that I had little reason to linger on, I got up to leave, when Mrs Sikdar stopped me.

“Oki? Where are you going? Ei bhor dupure na kheye chole jabe naki? Ami bhaat boshiye diyechi. Kheye jeo.  (how can you leave in this hot afternoon without having lunch? I have started cooking rice for you. You must eat with us).

I thanked her for her hospitality and looked nervously at Mr Sikdar. She perhaps sensed my discomfort and said, “He’s like that. Doesn’t speak much with anyone. Plus, today, they have the Higher Secondary result coming out. He’s tensed.”

“Oh,” I said and smiled with relief. It wasn’t me. The old teacher was anxious because of the board examination results.

She asked me to call her “mashima” and invited me to her little kitchen. I drew a small pidi (a raised wooden platform) and sat watching her chop potatoes and onions on a traditional bothi and marvelled at the finesse of that art. She asked me what I did in America, if I cooked at home, if posto was available in Houston and yes, if I could watch Bangla serials on television. There was something so sweetly simple about this middle-aged lady that I fell at ease immediately and even the ordinary meal of daal-bhaat and alu posto in a shabby oil stained kitchen tasted utterly divine.

Just as I was about to wash my hands after the meal, I heard a loud commotion outside the house. In few minutes, I saw a swarm of young boys rushing into the room, all talking at once and falling at Mr Sikdar’s feet while he shouted excitedly, “Ki holo? Kemon holo?” (What is it? How is it?).

One of the boys, a shy dark lean one in very simple ordinary clothes came forward from the group and touched his feet. “Sir, I got a rank. Not sure if first or second as of now, but I scored the highest in the district.”

Mr Sikdar hugged him to his bosom and said only one word, “Baah...!”  

And I could see all the pride, the affection, the support and the intensity of appreciation encapsulated in that little word.

Then, he picked up the watch Sid had so fondly bought for him and asked the boy to stretch his hands.

On his bare wrist, he clipped the watch and said...”This is your prize.”

As I stood at the kitchen door with Mashima, witnessing the simple selfless act of an old teacher, whose only dedication in life was to shape the lives of others, whilst he continued his own modest living, I realised why Sid had such high regards for his man who never claimed his portion of the victory but nobly passed the baton of glory and success from one hand to another through generations.         

The Black Bud

A translation from Tagore's Krishnokoli 

By Bina Biswas

Hyderabad, India

The black bud, I call her, though

In the village, the folks call her dark.

On a cloud laden day, I saw her in the fields

The dark girl with her dark gazelle-eyes

The head was bare and her loosened

tresses fell over her back.

Dark? However dark she be,

Her dark gazelle- eyes I have seen

Seeing darkling cloud- laden sky,

Two dusky cows lowed,

The dark girl dashed out in a rush

hearing them, out of her hut.

To the sky she lifted her eyebrows

Heard the growl of the clouds…

Dark? However dark she be,

Her dark gazelle- eyes I have seen

The eastern wind raged on a sudden

In the paddy field it rippled a squall

Standing by the ridge, I, was alone

Whether she turned her eyes or not, on me

Only she knows and I

Dark? However dark she be,

Her dark gazelle- eyes I have seen

This is how the darkening clouds build up

In the summer months in the north-east

This way the dark supple shadow drops

On the thicket in the rainy months

This way in the nights of August

Sudden mirth surfaces in the heart.

Dark? However dark she be,

Her dark gazelle- eyes I have seen

I call her the black bud, though

in the village, the folks call her dark.

There in the Mayanapara fields I saw

The dark girl’s dark gazelle-eyes.

The head was bare and her

loosened tresses fell over her back

she had no time to feel bashful

Dark? However dark she be,

Her dark gazelle- eyes I have seen

Bringing up Dad...

By Anindita Baidya
Anand, Gujarat, India

Yes, I had a tough time bringing him up and he has still not grown.

He thinks otherwise. He feels, I have not grown yet and addresses me as he used to, when I was a skinny, worm-infested, thin-armed 8 year old boy.

‘Chhilkaa...!’(Hindi: छिलका), that’s how he addresses me even now. In presence of my wife, my children and my in-laws, he addresses me as ‘Chhilka’. He meant that I was not skinny, but was a skin...! Does he still think the same about his 74 kilos, 43 years small little boy? We need to ask him.

We need to ask him many things. One day I will, surely and tell him how tough it was to bring him up.

When I was a child, Babu (as I address my father) embarrassed me when he arrived at the Parents’-Teachers’ meeting in his blue factory worker suit, straight from his factory, riding his heavy Hercules bi-cycle, which had a black hard seat with no cover. And in the campus of the posh Saint Thomas High School, Babu became very prominent among the cars and two-wheeler owners. I often would refuse to accompany him around the school but then he would pull me by my ears and insist that I take him to the teachers. He never grew up!

Sometimes he visited my friends’ house along with me. I was embarrassed when he would sip the tea out of the saucer with a blissful ‘Sllllrupppp’ sound! So embarrassed I would be that I would pretend to be making that awful sound, just to make my friends and their families believe that I was the one who was ‘unpolished’ between the two.

Babu is an efficient and a very careful buyer. No, actually, I think he is obsessed with reading whatever is printed on the packing material. He would go through the MRP, date of Manufacture, Weight etc of a product t start with, next he would read the composition carefully and then the manufacturers. And he mastered the art. So much so that if you offered to try a new detergent, he would as well say that the new product also contains the same amount of Sodium tri polyphosphate but is costlier by Rs 16 and weighs actually 25 gm less! That was his accuracy. But that sometimes irritated me. When I would be down with fever, he would often prescribe the medicines by the Chemical Composition and I would fumble at the rack, looking for the right medicine bottle. He would also pick up un-read packets straight from the kitchen dustbin and dispose them only after he had memorised whatever was printed on those. No packing material could escape the scanning by Babu. He has not grown up from that too.

During the winters, he would often wear a simple shawl while chatting with the neighbours. At some point of time, in between, his eyes would fall on the antique Celsius thermometer hung above the equally antique television. Babu would look at the temperature and start feeling the chill; and then he would cover himself up with pull-over, socks, gloves and a grey monkey cap.

He did not have mercy on me when he met my Tamil girl friend. “Oh you are a Dravidian...” my wise Babu nodded. And then to my utter disgust, he continued, “So you worship Ravan and curse Ram?” Now, where from he had gathered the idea, I had no knowledge but surprisingly my girl friend and Babu struck instant rapport so much that anyone would doubt that Babu was the Ravan and this Dravidian worshipped him! He said yes to the matrimony and I got married to my Tamil girl friend. My Babu informed the relatives, “My daughter-in-law is from Tamil Nadu, which is a place in Madras.”

He continued to embarrass me by emerging out of the bathroom in his small towel, even in presence of my newly-wed bride! He managed to cook the most inedible stuff and praise his own skills. He even narrated to my wife, how he had caught me kissing the neighbourhood curly haired girl, when I was just 7.

“Did you HAVE to tell her that?” I confronted. To that the proud, broad-chested Babu answered, “So what! I have narrated this to your in-laws also!”

Surprisingly my wife and Babu have been the best of pals. To me he is still the merciless Babu who, according to me, left no stone un-turned to mortify me!

But then, I understand certain things now. I understand that Babu did not waste time to go home and get dressed in his best for my Parents’-Teachers’ meeting. He did not do it to avoid any pending work after the factory hours. He did not do it, so that he could be home on time, to look after me. To look after my food, to look after my studies.

With his meagre earning, he saved enough to send me to the best school in town and pay for my higher studies and build a cosy home for me. He cooked nutritious, however inedible food for me, played in the rain with me, taught me the bi-cycle, bought me the motor-bike and got me married to the girl I loved. He raised me, singly.

Yes, I understand certain things now. The blissful sound while sipping the tea was the result of the painful mouth ulcers he constantly had. He took care not to hurt his open ulcers and practically sucked the tea out of the saucer instead of sipping it. He was over-worked and poorly nourished and that’s why he always had those ulcers, the doctors said.

He was careful to save every extra penny to make my life better, I know now. I understand his wry sense of humour and understand why he has such a good rapport with my in-laws and my friends.

Babu is still the way he was. Today, when my children invite him to watch the old Bollywood songs on You-Tube, my Babu still writes a post-card to Vividh-Bharti to listen to his favourite numbers on Manchahi geet! And I must admit, all of us jump with excitement when Babu’s favourite Neemi Mishra on Vividh Bharti calls out, “Bokaro se Shri Jagadish Kumar ne Abhi toh main jawan hoo..sunnaa chaha hain...”

Yes, when we have an old baby like my Babu, who needs a grown up Dad anyway?

After all....
Zaheed yun hi badnaam hai
Gham se tujhe kyaa kaam hai
Yeh muskuraati zindagi
Zindaa dili ka naam hai
Dil dil se muskuraaye ja
Kuchh gaaye ja, bal-khaaye ja
Abhi to main jawaan hoon
Abhi toh main jawaan hoo

Rendezvous with a poetess...

Is there a poet in each one of us, one who desires to break the monotony of prescriptions and presumptions and sees a world beyond? In an exclusive interview with My Little Magazine, poetess Shreya Chatterjee appeals to the dreamer in you. Listen to the musings....  

MLM: What are the Musings of the Wanderer (you)?

Shreya: Musings of a Wanderer are thoughts, observations, and rarely opinions about incidents I come across. Several of my poems, articles and scribbles are to do with what I happen to see. A teacher had, once, told me-" keep the "I" away from your verses". But if "I" stays away, then somehow it doesn't work you see. Thus the "I" remains hidden in between the lines. My poems are to deal with my neighborhood, my city, and most importantly my mind.

MLM: How long have you been writing poetry?

Shreya: I have been thinking about poetry since my toddler years, under the benevolent guidance of my late Grandfather. He could speak in rhymes impromptu! I first wrote my thoughts out when I was in standard three. But it was one incident in standard four I remember quite clearly. We were asked to write on "If I were a bird"- and what I wrote turned out to be a poetic prose!! But even then, I had not started penning down thoughts seriously.
 Life in between got punctuated with a great personal loss- a loss I can never accept. It was the demise of the ONE, who believed, " I know my words". And as for the little me, I just made a promise I would write as a tribute to HIM.It was not before standard five, that words began to speak to me and that was all because of this essay "a sudden holiday because its a rainy day". Mine was selected as one of the five best, read out in class along with the words of the English Teacher -"This was written within a very short time, for this student had spent most of the period, watching out of the window and ADMIRING the sudden shower...nevertheless, I am reading this out to you, without mentioning the name of the student...reading it simply because I never thought one could assemble brilliant poetic expressions in less than 10 minutes".And that was from were the journey as a poet started... 

MLM: What inspires you most to write? Is there a story behind each poem? Can you share at least one such anecdote with us?

Shreya: I think everything around me has a story to tell, thus they find a place in my poems. Yes, nearly every poem I have penned down so far has a story behind. All my poems are dear to me. still, I think "WiReS" is one of the closest. Though "A Girl Scribbling..." surely has a good story behind it. It is about one of the two years old twin girls staying in my neighbourhood. One afternoon, while venturing out on my own, I saw her sprawled over their verandah, drawing mindless patterns over a piece of newspaper. I asked her in bangla (both of our mother tongue)- "Ki korcho?" (what are you doing?) She quietly replied-" Ami goppo ankchi" ( I am drawing a story). I sat beside her, on the steps of their house, and scribbled this poem on my notebook. She reminded me of my childhood and lonely afternoons, which I would spend scribbling on old newspapers- trying to act like grown ups. 
 After a while, She crept over my shoulder and softly whispered- "ki korcho?" (what are YOU doing?) I turned and replied-"Ami poddo ankchi".( I am drawing poetry.) She beamed and said  two smart words- "goppo poddo"!!


MLM: How is the readership of poetry in today's mad mad race of life? 

Shreya: People shy away from the words like 'poem' and 'poetry'. And I think it is because, many of the poets love to write their thoughts and feeling in the most-difficult-to-decipher manner! I think poetry is the shortest way to express oneself, provided if one is intending to speak to the person sitting next to him or her. My point is, we should write in all the forms existent, a hard hearted topic should be addressed with iron words, but a simple image of a baby sleeping can have soft and common imagery- something every mother can connect with.

MLM: Who is your target audience/readers?

Shreya: Anyone, who loves poetry, 
Anyone, who desires,
To believe he/she can imagine,
Anyone who would like to know,
"She talks, just like I think and live my life",
And everybody else...
My words are written for all of them.

MLM:  Which is your own favorite poem from the book? Why is it your favorite? 

Shreya: I cherish thinking about "Downcast Eyes"- this poem is just a little one, short and crisp, so as to say, but was born out of several vivid incidents occurring in a single day. It talks about men who might be brave enough to face the wild world, but even they need a shoulder sometimes, for even they wish to cry out the bottled up pain and agony surging inside their beating heart.

"Downcast Eyes" can be read from my debut collection of poems called "Musings of a Wanderer".

MLM: What's next?

Shreya: I am planning for more poetry books, as well as short stories collection and a novel, in the years to come, hoping I can keep up all these promises made to myself.

Graft Craft

By Abhishek Chatterjee
Singapore

To say that India's black money problem is a gargantuan one is stating but the obvious, but when some estimates peg the quantum of the parallel economy at USD1.4 trillion, it forces you to sit back and take notice. Remember Jim Carey in 'The Mask'? It’s almost as eyepopping, and then some. It’s a figure larger than the GDP of the country. Much of this wealth sits happily ensconced in tax havens and private banks, safe from prying Governments. While the Indian establishment tries its hardest to get its hands on some of this ill-gotten wealth (even recovering some part of it might significantly ease the country's fiscal imbalance), and even persecutes millionaire studfarm owner, Hasan Ali, not much headway has actually been made. And it’s unreasonable to expect any immediate results - some suggest another Voluntary Disclosure Scheme as a quick fix remedy, but that runs the risk of legitimizing the very scourge from which we need such an urgent cure. And the remedy must necessarily come from directly within the principal players in this sordid drama.

First, the government. It’s not particularly difficult to see why we have such a massive problem on hand. Clean business and clean money both need a clean financial and political ecosystem to flourish and circulate in, respectively. India clearly does not provide that ecosystem. The culture of corruption and gratification runs deep, so much so, that someone doing an honest day's work is looked upon with incredulity. So whereas in developed countries, while corruption exists, it seldom affects day to day life, in India it is all pervading and omnipresent, right from the traffic signal to the parliament. Successive governments have failed to show any degree of political will in tackling the problem and have never been close to showing zero tolerance for corruption. The current lot doesn’t even have disruptive coalition constraints to contend with, yet they have presided over the most damning series of scandals in memory. Clearly no one at the heart of government has been interested in reading out the riot act. And meanwhile...Rome burns. Some shrug and blame offshore havens, but it is important to note that we do have financial treaties with many of these jurisdictions, and the need of the hour is for us to work in more teeth into these treaties so that we can wield more than the current degree of power we possess to go after misappropriated funds hidden there.

An oft forgotten contributor to this problem is the private sector. It is easy to miss part that banks, tax evading corporations and greedy businessmen/professionals play in this monetary circus. Rich and unwilling to pay those worthless taxes with your hard earned rupee? You are almost certain to find an eager private banker willing to provide comprehensive 'solutions' to help you meet your needs. It is still not uncommon to overhear private bankers discussing customers walking in with suitcases full of cash. The profit motive in the private sector allows money, both legitimate and tainted, to escape the system, with willing customers ready to fork out hefty management fees to maintain the tax free status of their cash, which remains safe in complicated financial structures in off shore tax havens. In this regard, stricter Anti - Money Laundering legislation needs to be enforced and sometimes tenacious measures need to be taken against the big financial institutions, as seen in the case of the United States going after UBS AG. While most such institutions tend to remain on guard when it comes to links with drug money or possible terrorist funding, there remains a tendency to go soft when it comes to the rather vanilla issue of tax evasion. There are clear examples of willful collusion and examples need to be made of some of these 'reputable' names. Our rapacious capitalism, regardless of its nature, still needs to have morals, and just as the financial system seems to have learned from the 2008 financial meltdown (or has it?), we need to draw lessons from the constant use of the financial system both as a conduit for money laundering as well as a feeder of bureaucratic greed and tighten the gaps, fast.

The third and final corrective measure that needs to be put in place is one that needs to be directed towards ourselves. We cannot live as a nation of hypocrites. On one hand we pay lip service to Anna Hazare's or Baba Ramdev’s anti-corruption fasts, and on the other, we don't think twice before bribing the neighborhood policeman to escape a misdemeanor, a government clerk to move our file or the tax inspector scrutinizing our returns. We must remember that for every hand that takes, there is a hand that gives. And it is here that the bacterium of black money germinates, everything else is just a matter of scale and detail. We need to stop giving and we need to show patience. Only sustained action can lead to any sort of seismic shift in our embedded graft culture. While this might not bring back the billions already lost, it will at least help reduce this malaise in the ambit of our daily life. And that will be a significant battle won.