The following poem by Yashi Gupta won the third prize of Twenty Five Thousand Rupees in Wingword Poetry Competition 2018
This poem talks about her heart, which she says is the most ignored organ of her body. Yashi says that her heart is frozen and is beneath all the worldly things. It is beneath a guilt that is not even hers to bear. Yashi says that in the angst of doing everything right, she lost herself. But she points out that one can not lose something that was borrowed. From the fire she would light lives, from the water she would wet the grass and from the earth she would support the needy. She speculated herself wondering if she really lost herself and found that it was there the whole time, her heart. It was just beneath all the emotions of guilt, fear, anger and anxiety.
Yashi’s poem is a reminder that despite everything, our heart is there which often gives out the best advice but is ignored for most of the time.
I found it beneath the dust,
that was frozen in the timelessness of our perpetual splendour,
beneath the memories that occupy the space between those events unusual.
It was hidden, beneath the guilt that wasn’t mine to bear,
beneath the heat of my belligerent anger,
beneath my habitual curiosity of knowing the unknown,
and beneath my natural wish to know the known!
The metaphor fails me and your
presence encourages me to breathe again,
breathe in the freshness that follows the rain,
breathe in the momentous occasion of fame.
breathe in spite of the caverns of truths untold,
breathe in spite of the abyss of the lies unsaid.
In the angst of doing everything right,
I thought I lost myself somewhere.
But you can never lose something that was never yours,
for it was all borrowed on interest.
From fire, let me light the lives,
From water, let me wet the grass,
From earth, let me support the needy,
From air, let me make you breezy.
And in all the self-speculation that I did,
I found it beneath the dust,
beneath the particles frozen in time,
beneath the memories stuck on the edges of my rhyme,
beneath the layers of pages that always remained unturned,
beneath the fine lines of frowns of sequences firm
I found it, my heart, the most ignored organ of my body.
Yashi Gupta is the third prize winner of Wingword Poetry Competition 2018. She lives in Jaipur.
How did winning the prize change your life?
Well, I'm not exactly a morning person so when I went to my morning class, checked my phone and saw the notification of a mail and read the first few lines, I turned off the phone. After hyperventilating in my mind, while trying to study Budget, I relaxed myself, turned on the phone again, read the entire mail and let a smile grace my lips.
My life has always been about proving. Proving that my brothers aren't better than me just because of their gender. And when I share results like these with my parents and see them getting speechless and their eyes shining with pride, that's when I know I'm on the right track. And thank you, thanks a lot for giving me this excuse of proving myself again. For bringing up the levels of slowly deteriorating self-confidence.