Capturing the Melodies of Mind

Melody of a Muddled Mind by Kashish Mahtani

Poems are but whimsical words that take shape in the mind, and disperse like whispers with the wind… It’s fortunate that Kashish Mahtani has penned her words, in verse after beautiful verse, in her book ‘Melody of a Muddled Mind’.

They say, the human mind has 70,000 thoughts per day. That is roughly about 50 thoughts every minute. We hold on to some of these, and we let go most. Kashish has delved deep into the myriad thoughts passing through her mind, and ‘carefully… jot(ted) every stray rhyme, plot and thought’, and has penned gems that truly deserve a reading.

Poets are thought to be moody people, struck with a paralysis when commanded to summon words. Not Kashish. If in ‘A 2-minute Poem’, she has ‘conjured verses off the top of (her) head’; she opens the poem ‘Fill My Heart with Love’ with a delightful verse describing love’s exhilarating effects, that is sure to bring a smile to your lips.

“You fill my heart

With a love so sweet,

It trickles down my spine

And tickles my feet!”

Her eclectic choice of subjects, from insouciant to the serious, takes the reader on a roller-coaster of sentiments. One moment you are on a high before dipping unexpectedly to a thoughtful, sombre mood. Consider for example, the poem titled ‘The Admirable Stranger’. You stumble into it just after reading a love’s missive. And when you peek into the world of the ‘boy who grew up too fast’, the poet tells you of the ‘the pain… in his smile’ and how ‘his stories tore through (her) soul’.

The book is divided into five segments – Whimsical Whispers, The Heart’s  Rhapsody, Segue into Chaos, Death Knell, and The Phoenix Song, which appropriately ends the book with poems such as Closure, Don’t Cry, Rise Phoenix – Rise!

I would love to write about each of the poems in each of the segments, but I don’t want to take away from the reader’s joy of diving into the ‘Melod(ies) of a Muddled Mind’, and discovering their own interpretations in the poignant words of the poet.

About the Author

Kashish Mahtani – born & brought up in Kolkata, now living in Pune – is a blogger by passion and copywriter by profession. She is perpetually enamoured with those who spin magic with words. Old-school at heart but a millennial in spirit, you will find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Mehkashi. Melody of a Muddled Mind is Kashish’s first book.

Year of the Virus

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@pamslens

With Covid deaths in India touching alarming numbers, history will remember 2021 as the Year of the Virus. And my only hope is that we learn from the pain of losing those we loved, and imbibe the self discipline of masking up and social distancing to keep everyone safe.

Year of the Virus

Warnings about the second wave were always in the air,
But no-one wanted to believe, calling them just a scare,
Now we are caught unprepared,
Falling prey to the virus snare,
And still needing to be told to mask up to avoid a third flare…

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Xenophobia

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@franki

Xenophobia: Fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything foreign or strange. (noun)

Xenophobia

Xenophobia

Both were humans like you and me,
Yet they were different, as different can be,
She wore a bindi, he wore a cap,
She folded her hands, he prayed on his knees,
Imprisoned within cages of xenophobia,
And that was their only similarity.

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Words

I am no revolutionary, no rebel, no mutineer… I am just human. Words is all I have. A witness to what I see, hear, feel.

Words

Words.
Poignant.
Wise.
Fragile.
Pregnant with emotions.
That remain unshed.
Like a torrent.
Washing over.
An arrow too.
With a poison-head.
Words.

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Vultures

The vulture and the little girl, NYT, Kevin Carter, 1993

Also known as “The Struggling Girl”, this famous photograph by Kevin Carter first appeared in The New York Times on 26 March 1993. It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken boy, who had collapsed in the foreground with a hooded vulture eyeing him from nearby. The child was reported to be attempting to reach a United Nations feeding center about a half mile away in Ayod, Sudan (now South Sudan), in March 1993, and to have survived the incident. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography award in 1994.

Carter took his own life four months after winning the prize.

Vultures

Discoloured / with old blood
The vultures circle / low
Over the young girl / watching
Greedily / with dead
Beady eyes / waiting
Knowing / delighting / in
The moment / when
Their talons will / sink into
The raw vernal flesh / ripping
Out the guts / tasting
The pain / drawing
Pleasure / lower they
Swoop / on the
Gamin / unsuspecting
Unknowing / unconscious / until
With wings outstretched / the
Vultures plunge / casting
The pervert shadow / of
Death.

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Unequals

All men are created equal.
A few acquire power. Some accumulate wealth. The rest become unequals.

Unequals

It is a / well-ordered
Parade / a cavalcade /
Of the powerful
And / the wealthy /
With exemplary
Composure / safe /
In the knowledge
That / hierarchy is /
The golden shield
Against / the dance
Of death
Raging unrestrained / unbridled /
Sucking the breath
Out / of lungs /
And fuelling pyres
Of unequals /

Jyotsna Atre
01/05/2021

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Tears of Shame

Have you noticed? How you will subconsciously stick to well-lit roads if you are walking home alone? How you will pull your bag across your chest in a crowded bus? How you will not look a man in the eye because you dont want to send him ‘signals’? Because in this world where the victim takes the blame, the onus of rape is on the woman.

Can we change it?

Tears of Shame

You are young and beautiful and attractive…
They said.
Men will lust after you…
Its all your fault.
And she cried tears of shame.
Sometimes she jumped down a well..
Sometimes she kicked a chair.
Then one day…
They raped an old, wrinkled grandmother instead.

Look at how ambitious you are, when home should be your place…
They said.
Men will lust after you…
Its all your fault.
And she cried tears of shame.
Sometimes she cleaned and cooked all day
Sometimes she resigned the job she loved…
Then one day…
They raped a stay-at-home mom instead.

Look at the way you walk and laugh and dress…
They said.
Men will lust after you…
Its all your fault.
And she cried tears of shame.
Sometimes she stifled the laughter…
Sometimes she covered her legs.
Then one day…
They raped a baby instead.

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Song of a dream

Centuries of women have gone before us, and centuries more might go by before the dreams that they passed on to to us can become reality. But every woman who has had the courage to stand up in face of oppression, had the strength to withstand the pain, who fearlessly walked over coals… She lives on, because we carry her within us… like the song of a dream.

Let’s make sure, it is heard. We owe it to every woman, who will come after us.

Song of a dream

Her laugh echoed / long
After the song / of
Her dream
Had frozen on her lips / and
The words had / dissipated
With the cold winds / Blowing
Over crumbling walls / of
Stifling dogmas / and
Craggy chasms / of pain
That stood powerless / now
Against her laugh / resounding
In / A thousand voices
Uncontrolled
Like / Frothy bubbles
Spilling over

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Red, Stained with Good Fortune

Aai and Fauzia, her Libyan friend from office had been talking in hushed tones in the women’s drawing room for over an hour, their conversation dotted with muffled sobs. When the tearful sounds subsided, muted words would fill the room. I wondered why Fauzia was crying. Just a couple of months back, she had seemed happy, effervescently announcing that she was to be married. Was she not getting married anymore? But of course it was not my place to intrude or ask.

I did steal a glance at the strikingly beautiful girl, while she adjusted the white farrashia before leaving. The thick chador fell like a tent around her, hiding her shape and identity. She kissed Aai thrice on the cheeks, and clutching the white cloth close under her chin, made sure that it completely covered her lovely face… all of it, except the kohl-rimmed left eye, with which she peered out at the world.

That was the last time I saw Fauzia.

Many years later, when Aai thought I was sufficiently grown up, she told me of the custom of the white sheet. The virginity test… the proof that groom’s relatives needed… the red stained white sheet on which the marriage is consummated. Fauzia had been returned to her father because the white sheet was not bloodied.

All these years, I thought of Fauzia as a proof of the subjugation of women in Libya. Until last week, when a news held my attention. A girl was sent back to her parental home and her marriage annulled by the caste elders in Kolhapur because she too had failed her virginity test. And it made me wonder…

Red, Stained with Good Fortune

I smear / the red
In / the parting of my hair
Wearing / proudly
My streak / of good luck
And fortune
That is /mine
Will be / mine
Until
The day / that I pray
Will / never arrive
When / they will wipe
The red / out of my hair
And
Cover me / in
A white sheet.

Jyostna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge

Queue

Photo Courtesy: https://unsplash.com/@internetztube

The numbers are climbing. People are dying. Old and young, alike. Everyone knows someone who is gasping for their next breath. Because the virus knows no difference of age, wealth, status. It just knows to invade a body. And when you get fever and chills, a cough, maybe pneumonia, unable to breathe… you can still make it… Maybe you will recover at home. Maybe you will need medical care. Perhaps, oxygen support. But such great are the numbers that hospitals are overrun. Crematoriums too.

And in the grip of a devastating second Covid wave, there are those, who are profiteering, making money off the dying. Extracting a pound of flesh. Scooping up the coins scattered around the dead. The irony is, what guarantee is there that they will survive to enjoy their ill-begotten money? Who guarantees that a number won’t become a name?

Queue

The nights are / the worst
When / the silence of the curfew
Is pierced / by the banshee wail
Of white coffins / their
Blue lights / announcing
The presence of the / dying
Encased inside / as they
Race / on deserted roads
But / no hospitals are
Taking them in / no beds
Mostly / but no oxygen
Either / and definitely no
Hope / as
People die waiting /
To suck in the next breath / in
Serpentine queues.

Jyotsna Atre

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z challenge