Page 22 – The Bangalore Review

February, 2023

My Baba, Myself

The author and her daughter relate to their roots via the ashtonishing route of blueberries and how it represents the author's grandmother.

Poetry

February, 2023

i, momentary luck

if the wind caught open scars and distant checkbooks there was no indication it was broke

February, 2023

O(ra)cular

The author studies the interaction of sunlight with the stirred water in a bowl.

Poetry

February, 2023

The Word of Mouth Spiritual

We made love in the kitchen, dinner cooked In the stove, and then burned in the stove. I don’t recall what the third mouth was doing As her first mouth kissed me and the second mouth Talked and inhaled and talked and exhaled.

Poetry

February, 2023

Confluence of Three Rivers

One of three brothers, one of three sons, he tells me, one Sunday his oldest brother choked him unconscious onto the kitchen floor just to see what might happen.

February, 2023

Grandma Stone’s Hair

The house seemed to be riddled with mysterious happenings. One evening, while he was climbing up the stairwell to his room on the second floor, he felt an unexpected gust of cold wind. It was the last spell of winter, and he knew there could not possibly be such a wind from the south, yet he could clearly feel its bite.

Poetry

February, 2023

My City 3 – in my head -1995

Elsewhere. she plays dumb, prefers the old school dumpster meeting in silence. Or the local Pentecostal bad boy and his one-hour evening advice sessions. Or playing dutiful daughter, Or playing tad dumb.

February, 2023

Sounds Heard in a Tent at Night

I am not sure if they made any sound. Returning to the tent, I poked my head into the flap and saw myself still asleep on the ground. With an emerging daze at the back of my head, I looked up from the bag to see that there was nobody at the tent’s entrance. It was zipped shut.

Poetry

February, 2023

Mumbai Local

A country of broken tiffin-boxes we are- If you come from my village for lunch at my city home let me know beforehand; we shall meet at Curry Road station, both you and I...

Poetry

February, 2023

You and Me

Both will be stuck with the tab at the end of the night. I’ve been the lawyer, so sure that I can argue down disdain; the doctor, trying to heal the broken at all costs. Nobody wants to drink alone, but everyone does.

January, 2023

A Way of Seeing: How to write like a Woman

The author circumnavigates the world of literature, along with the intent of discovering the know-how of women writers and comes back satisfied.

Poetry

January, 2023

Second Sleep

My second sleep, where red, white and blue are burning, the ashes gleaning and glinting as they die. I wake to the carmine rays of dawn and fall asleep to the sound of fireworks outside. I cradle the ivory dove in its mourning, whispering, “Am I alive? Am I alive?”

January, 2023

Our Many Longings – Contemporary Short Fiction from Bangladesh: Edited by Sohana Manzoor

Sucharita Dutta-Asane reviews a collection of contemporary short fiction from Bangladesh edited by Sohana Manzoor.

Poetry

January, 2023

My Mother

My mother rationed it like electricity, food enemies had to be beaten, bombs avoided fires put out Love would be shown in a more practical way through duty, service.

January, 2023

The Closet

I was fond of that little place. There were costume-like clothes dangling above my head, willowy branches of a protective forest, and the walls formed an impenetrable edifice, bumpy and cold like Rapunzel’s tower. The clothes smelled of starch and my mother’s youth.

Poetry

January, 2023

Homeshores

The bleached armory of the sea Lay ever-washing on the shore In casques and blades and bulwarks. In your hand a gray medallion crumbles To powder And is claimed with haste By the wind

January, 2023

Piece of Petrified Son

I grinned at her and her enviable energy, soaking in her palpable brightness. She practically hopped around the kitchen, half humming a half-familiar tune, as she noticed every detail most people seemed to miss. There was no use in trying to stop this on my own.

Poetry

January, 2023

Happy Birthday, Spider Plant

Spider plant is the wrong name for my immortal perennial. In all her newness, she remains the same tuberous roots that I touched with tiny fingers, eyes illiterate, but full of love.

January, 2023

Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Ghalib

Sekhar Banerjee reviews Mirza Ghalib's poems on Banaras

January, 2023

The Curator

The Body. My body. My body thus became insignificant, irrelevant even. I owned it, but I didn’t own it. I felt it, but I didn’t feel it. But I felt the times it was battered, abused, spited, pinched, pushed around, shut down.

Poetry

January, 2023

Of Blue Skin and Invisible Suns

They'll be tests, machines that spin famished tubes with eyes like steam engines hanging in space, and no matter how deeply infrared you are, no matter how many mean dogs you put out front

December, 2022

Riding to Ladakh

The author experiences the idiosyncratic romance of riding 2 wheels into Himalayan valleys and crosses paths never crossed before.