How do you spend time in a train journey? Many choose sleep, a few people food, some gossips, I poetry. While they talk and eat and sleep and date to kill time in a train, I retire to my poetry book. Friends this is the first part of the story of my affair with poetry in a train journey at night. I’ve read the same poems at home, but there is something in a pitching train that slips words deeper … Continue reading
The second part of the story – Poetry in a Night Train “A blank ivory square of brightness”. I didn’t know emptiness is more expressive in light than it is in darkness until I began to travel with a poetry book. Especially on trains at nights. Or else why should yellow lights and lanterns scald my soul so deep in a journey! Tell me, dear reader. Do you too feel depressed in a night train at the sight of a … Continue reading
Read the 1st part of The Alathur Yakshi before you to get down to this story. Click here for the First Part. Long ago a man went to a festival in a distant village. It was late night when the temple closed and he decided to return. As he was walking back along a deserted road in the darkness, he was stopped by a figure who asked him for a matchbox to light a beedi. He gave it to him. When … Continue reading
Almost all my students have already heard this story in bits and crumbs. I always refused to go into detail even when they press me hard. Well, here’s what happened that night. “Mashe, you’re lying! We know you haven’t seen any ghost. Rubbish! No sane man would believe your tale.” For a moment, I didn’t speak but read his nervous face with the serene eyes of an old sage. Then I sighed deeply. I put my arm on his shoulder. … Continue reading
