Editorial – Sreetanwi Chakraborty

It is the time for celebration

It is again the time of celebration amidst the pandemic. Among the city-panics that we keep on doing, among the corpses of lost souls and graver times, we do keep on asking ourselves, when shall we find the dead end to the tunnel? It is true that poetry cannot resolve the problems and conflicts that we have, but poetry definitely can show us the light at the end of the tunnel. Borders, bastions, democracies, questions and unending answers can only be fruitful when you take up the whole series of ideas that collate not distasteful and distancing, but energizing and encouraging in your mind.
At this moment, I remember some of the finest lines that I read in Agha Shahid Ali, from his collection of poems The Country without a Post Office:
“Again I’ve returned to this country
where a minaret has been entombed.
Someone soaks the wicks of clay lamps
in mustard oil, each night climbs its steps
to read messages scratched on planets.
His fingerprints cancel bank stamps
in that archive for letters with doomed
addresses, each house buried or empty.”
It is Sunday time folks, and the editor presents here a host of lovely writers who have orchestrated their own way at organizing ‘Sunday Talks’- through Sunday reflections, we have a host of poets this time, and we are happy to publish one of our dear poets from Pakistan. Let there be the rays of life, hope, living across borders, partitions, and let the light of Eid cleanse all the dirt and soot of cruelty from us. I wish I had not sounded aphoristic but this really is the need of the hour!
Wish all the readers a rocking Sunday. Happy reading.
Send in your articles, poems, shorts stories, travelogues, thoughts, reflections, anything that you find creative and productive enough to be part of Sunday Talks.
Write to Sreetanwi at sreesup@gmail.com/ or techtouchtalk@gmail.com