Fragrance | Karishma Padia

The following poem by Karishma Padia of Mumbai was selected in the shortlist of Wingword Poetry Prize 2020 and won ten thousand rupees

My father changes his perfume often

The clouds

Bubbles of exotic smells

Announcing his arrival wherever he goes

He's territorial about his expensive scents

Telling us off for sneakily using too much

Taking from him feels like a sin

We do it regardless

Bathing in the mist

Walking around with our noses in the air

Till sweat wins over by evening

And we're back to earth again

My mother's fragrance is more reliable

Pond's talcum powder

Doused heavily morning and night

Routinely building up in our AC

Leaving the repairman coughing in clouds of white

It has no airs

It's easily forgotten but always there

Soaking sweat relentlessly

Neither demanding acknowledgement

Nor asking to be used carefully.

My Dad's Visits to America | Neethu Prasanna

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY NEETHU PRASANNA OF TRIVANDRUM WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

They say, India: That is a mini world; And when my dad used

to visit me, a mini India used to come along with him, hooking

the fish of it in a dilapidated banana leaf, wearing an uncanny

urgency to come first, slum in the armpits pushing the heat out,

coalescing into a cologne, blocked somewhere between inners

and a blazer. Surge of pickles about to burst, contained well within

the pots by shackles, tapes, whacked by batons, belans, silenced

even in peak altitudes to look like nothing ever happened. Ankle-torn

socks covered with elite Woodland shoes, whose last letter is a t

instead of a d which nobody can really spot, other than me, since

he had bought me many Adidaz, Pume and Tommy Hilfigr before.

Jingle of aluminium molds, which are the future of a thousand

idlis, smoke and love, absorbed by spongy electronic carriers and wires;

Never shown to the mist or the skies since they’re born are the fries,

the fritters, taken the shapes of triangle or square in cartons, in tiffin

boxes, wrapped around by one round of paper, one round of silver foil,

still oozing out their curiosity through the multi pads of cotton towels,

touching every possible untouchables; For every hour that he couldn’t

kill, for a missing headset wire, for an occupied lavatory, the back-pedaling

it gives, for a waning boundary, it’s unstoppable anxiety, for a sudden

lift, a doodle was donated to his servant’s son’s experience certificate. His

dexterity with tight knots is remarkable. In spite of all the turbulences,

it kept the adult’s night creams and children’s DVDs, well within their

territories, though both were compartmentalized in the same bedsheet.

How much time he could have taken to send back with the driver, that

excess baggage which included my books, some grains, all nodding happily

in the trunk, having sent a deity, agarbattis and a mini pooja mandir abroad?

You're Allowed to Leave | Rhea Johnson

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY RHEA JOHNSON OF MUMBAI WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

It is impossible to shake off the pigeons

from their dogged grasp onto everything,

the loft, the terrace, the roof-

the loft back again.

That blue-grey huddle,

that wooden whir always wheeling.

Nothing can make it give,

to leave and not look back.

Haven’t I chased enough ones to know

that a stone would only send them so far

as to half-moon right back?

Have I not wondered so much more

if they wouldn’t, just for once

in a long while,

surf the wind that blows

or perch on a branch or ledge,

not for anything else, but simply because

they liked the way it caught the sun?

Is that what I should have done too?

The Plague | Rhea Gupta

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY RHEA GUPTA OF NEW DELHI WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

I access the apocalypse

through the guard

of screens;

a labyrinthine virtual insanity.

I exit multiple tabs

of reality

with one touch

I order around

with one click

I mindlessly scroll

past news articles

living through my black mirror

as a passive,

ever-ravenous consumer,

my reality is governed

by reductive, condensed headlines,

dehumanizing numbers,

graphs and pie-charts.

I navigate

through a capitalistic jungle -

hissing coils

of social media advertisements,

spider-webs

of IDs and passwords,

insect-like buzzing

of text messages in chat boxes,

a torrent

of OTPs,

rabbit holes

of online propaganda;

my world is a whirlpool

of alphanumeric seductions

and blaring rhetoric - 

“We are all in this together”

Are we? 

Easing into the sheer abnormality

of this ‘new normal’

seems smoother

on a Saturday evening

with a piping hot pizza slice

between my moisturized fingers

and my air purifier

softly cooing in my ears

as my house-helper sweeps

leftover crumbs off the floor.

Escaping the horrors

of a global pandemic

only takes a split of a second

and the soft tap of my fingers

against my remote control or

my cellphone or

my laptop

or I turn up the radio

in my car

as I rush past

the ribbed-pot-bellied

lying on the pavements, zombie-like;

the music drowns out their silent screams

and the stench of decay

floating through the air.

I conjecture

they despise me,

as they tap their dry fingers at my car windows

for a couple of pennies

to get through another night,

or perhaps

they’d give away everything

to be who I am.

I’m both Satan and God in their eyes.

I’m both a detractor,

as well as

a beneficiary

of this gaping divide.

The plague

is in the system,

in my system,

in everything

I see,

touch

and consume.

This contagion

renders invisible

the social distance

between the classes

in the minds of the wealthy,

whose ignorance and avarice

no sanitizer can deterge, 

whose hands

no soap can rid

the proletariat’s blood and tears of,

whose bank balances continue

to skyrocket

faster than the pandemic cases

as they transmit the virus

of exploitation

through their masks

of online donations

and exhibited philanthropy. 

I wonder

if there’s any pharmaceutical company

developing an antidote

against this universal pestilence,

thriving

on the dehumanization

of the necessitous.

I wonder

if my lyrical criticism suffices

in fighting off the infection

of consumer culture

contaminating my head.

I wonder

if I’m any different

from those

I showcase contempt towards

as I type away elaborate words

on my laptop,

in my air-conditioned room,

with a belly that’s more than full,

in a language accessible only to the privileged.

I wonder

if my wonder is substantial enough

to save a world

afflicted by hierarchies.

I wonder if

“we are all in this together”,

are we?     

We are safe | Ipsita Banerjee

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY IPSITA BANERJEE OF KOLKATA WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

The rain lashed the walls of my face

Each drop piercing the skin as I chased

The old unused tent that threatened to fly

Off the terrace. Someone gave that tent

To my daughters for them to play with,

And there it stayed for years thereafter, out-grown,

But not remembered to be thrown.

The clouds raced their chariots across the sky

In gun-metal grey and charcoal, as birds

Flapped their wings against the breeze searching

For a way out of the storm, a place to call home

Even for a while. The wind blew in a flower

from three houses down. The maid silently weeps

As her daughter cannot be reached

She did not go to the evacuation centre

And the embankments have been breached.

But we are safe here, in our homes.

Outside the cyclone rages, winds blowing

In every direction, nature is so fierce, someone wails.

Nature reminds us now and again how small,

How helpless we all are. How small and useless

How weak and ineffective in our mighty towers.

Aluminium sheets from that fancy building

Rained from the sky, others danced the streets

Turning jagged corners as the wind

Spun them in the air. Trees have fallen

As trees in concrete tend to, their roots

Not deep enough to withstand a cyclone. The wind blew

In a flower from three houses down. How strong

Are the roots that you cling to? Where do you go

When you want to be home? Can you endure

This devastation? Do you have yourself to hang on to?

Do you seek or do you provide shelter in a storm?

For we are safe here, in our homes.

There is a mother unable to feed her child

Who feeds her hunger with drain water tonight

A father that carries the world on shoulders

That never have shuddered in delight.

Then, of course, there is Facebook

Asking, are you safe in the cyclone?

Have you kept your distance, have you been spared,

The whimsical vagaries of nature, are you home?

How are they, those who were walking?

Those whose homes have been washed away?

The wind has no sense of direction, it blew

In a flower from three houses down.

But where does the blood and water flow?

These are things we only debate and discuss

Talking in hushed voices, watching, wide-eyed

Videos forwarded in clusters.

You see, we are safe. In our homes.

Amma Can't Cook | Nila Lenin

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY NILA LENIN OF THRISSUR WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

Overcooked rice sprinkled with leftovers from yesternight

carefully crammed into her little lunch box,

spared no effort to embarrass themselves

among lip-smacking pickles and spicy Mughlai

from Devi's and Aisha's,

adorning the lengths and breadths of their classroom lunch table,

whose flavoured aromas sculpt another dimension

with no friendly facades to hide behind and smirk. 

She lowers her head,

a matter of utter shame,

her Amma can’t cook.

Too much spice or too little salt, never too perfect,

for the taste buds had a tough time dealing with her mixtures.

A hair strand uncaressed for so long, that jumped to death

or a tiny pebble eloped from the ration shop, a souvenir unasked-for,

two meals a day provided a shelter home 

for the undesired and the lost.

From braving the breadline

to breaking the bars to make it,

class, caste, gender, you name it,

Somewhere between leading dawn to dusk,

mining multiple jobs to make ends meet

and customary yielding to nocturnal liquor-scented slaps

and choke marks that cling like a tattoo

around her long scrawny neck,

day-to-day offerings in vain for their only child's sake,

Amma kind of forgot to tend to

frowns, giggles and get-together belly laughs

that forever mouthed,

"Amma can’t cook.”

Fuck Boy Math | Dyondra Wilson

The following poem by Dyondra Wilson of New York, USA was selected in the shortlist of Wingword Poetry Prize 2020 and won ten thousand rupees

Add one chick 

Take away another 

My math game strong with 

“I’m not like that dude” or “I love feminism” 

Raise my chance in a power of seconds

I multiply my lies by the 100th increasing my decimal and rounding out the edges 

Divide my clothes by hers and we both back at zero 

Finding her slope I make her feel good as I hit my plateau

“Hey girl, why you so emotional?” 

I brush off her ​y as I get my ​x 

Adding on more women than I have eyes 

No need for fingers as I keep tabs in my head

And my hands on her thighs

Achaar | Aditya Vikram Shrivastava

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY ADITYA VIKRAM SHRIVASTAVA OF LUCKNOW WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

Grandma scurries across the balcony

with her walking cane in hand.

Lazy city monkeys sit on the edge

of the parapet, feasting on raw

mangoes spread out to dry.

They play with pickles, sunbathing,

the tips of their fingers colored

golden in turmeric and spice.

On the clothesline, in the claws

of steel clips, an old sari hangs

loosely, fluttering over their small heads

as the mother monkeys pick lice.

They tear the clothes into halves,

granny winces, shoos them away

with all the loudness her breaking

body can muster, a prayer more

divine than her evening shloka,

until her voice cracks at last.

She keeps beating the marble floor

with the long stick that is

bent at the end like her back, till

all of them flee, become a distant dot

in the glare of that hot, quiet afternoon.

She picks the scattered pieces of

unmade pickles and checks them

for teeth marks. Unpins the torn

bedsheet and the torn sari,

carries them inside.

Her eyesight has grown weak,

and she can't sew it back.

So she holds it in

her shaking hands, and cries.

.

The fruit vendor hawks his lorry

on the clustered street, grinning

at her when grandma peers

out of the window, asks the price.

Her lungs shrink, wrinkles deepen,

Dasaratha weeps under her eyes.

The pickles should be ready

before the kids arrive.

Not a word | Keya Bergeron-Verma

THE FOLLOWING POEM BY KEYA BERGERON-VERMA OF MUMBAI WAS SELECTED IN THE SHORTLIST OF WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2020 AND WON TEN THOUSAND RUPEES

Conversation slips into the emptiness between

sidewalk tiles and sofa cushions,

grows old

forgotten,

unseen.

Listen:

a shy wind picks up,

permeates the vacant folds of day

that crave whispers not uttered

by withered people who know

that losing sleep is finding time

so they collect the darkened hours

following themselves back to houses they once knew

where the trees spring taller than the papers at their feet

and the heat is bearable because it once was born

and the air doesn't smell like half-filled suitcases and foreign shoes

but of lemons

and midnight

and silence testing time,

waiting on park benches

that have seen too many faces speak

but none that stop

for a moment

to be.

Breathing is a business

the price of air is high

why waste it on words that

                                           fall

                                                linger

                                                         say nothing at all

                                                                                     and are gone.