Friday, July 10, 2009

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

About 50 years ago, folks in the family got the first inkling about my poetic tendencies.

Any event in the family was good enough for me to get going with a paper and pencil, snuggled up in some corner with some raw mango and tamarind pieces, along with some salt and cayenne pepper , just stuff to nibble on, as I came up with all kinds of poetry, that celebrated things as diverse, as my best friend's father getting a national honor, someone having surgery (complete with anatomy details), Nikita Krushchev's visit to Pune (my hometown), the terrible dam-burst-floods (July 12, 1961) in Pune, and visits to various relgious pilgrimage places we went to, as a family.

Most of this poetry was in Marathi, my mother tongue, and some of it was published in magazines, and was once even recited by me at 9 years of age, on the All India Radio children's program, Balodyaan , where the compere kept signalling to me to pipe down my volume :-)......The intervening years saw me making poems for folks retiring at work, for a well-liked yoga instructor (with details of exercises), and countless poems to celebrate the engagements of daughters of various friends.

The prominent feature of all this great poetry then, was the rhyming.

A few years ago, my late father, in one of his demento-geriatric anti-paper, anti clutter phases, suddenly dispatched a file to me in Mumbai, through his visiting grandson. In a divine intervention, in what was a "get rid of this paper" campaign in his house, he recognised the file in which he and my mother had painstakingly kept some of the cuttings of newspapers and magazines where my poems appeared, and had it sent to me before it got unknowingly unmindfully trashed . (Read this).

Today, many many blogs (in prose) later , at a different stage of my life, the poetry is coming back. It no longer needs to rhyme, and is often triggered by events, inside and outside the family, anger, confusion, frustration and appreciation .

I've been commenting lately on some blogs in verse form. As well as writing verse on my own blog .

And so I now introduce "Strewn Ashes", my poetry blog. Despite what may appear to be a morbid name, the blog has a fair amount of cheery stuff.

Isnt technology amazing ? Years ago, my father was the archive. Today, he is no more, but technology has changed , the poems are paperless, and I dont need to do anything to archive....

Have a look. There is Indian music on the site if you get the urge to shake your head or tap your feet, and it disappears if you hit the back button :-)

Click "Strewn Ashes " ............







13 comments:

  1. Good evening, Ms Mumbai :) Finally I'm able to comment after 3 wks of not being able to!

    Actually now that I think of it, there are many who won't be happy about that....
    :)

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  2. Love your post -- as always and now I'm going to read your poetry! I know I'll love it as much as I did the one you posted earlier. Enjoy your weekend, Ugich!

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  3. I read your poetry and enjoyed it immensely. However, I did not hear the music. Maybe I did something wrong.

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  4. CONGRATULATIONS! On your new poetry blog!
    Have been reading your posts in verse as well as comments in verse!

    Will surely visit your new blog!

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  5. Ah ! If only they had some time of 'Britain has talent' type of show back then in India...i am sure you would have already been a star !

    Whatever it is...Strewn Ashes is lovely and proves once again technology is indeed a great enabler !

    Many many congratulations !

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  6. Congratulations on the new blog!

    And this was a lovely post. Nice to read about your 'poetic' history!

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  7. I am off to check out the new poetry blog. I love poetry and used to write it in my younger days but not so much recently. I know I am going to enjoy yours. I would love your comment on my most recent post about healthcare in our country. Maybe, you could tell us about the health care system in India. Thanks, Hugs, Judy

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  8. A poetry blog is just the right thing to give full scope for your creativity, I have enjoyed reading your posts which contain some touching imagery.

    Best wishes and looking for more and more from you,

    Vivek

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  9. "The congratulations has already been mailed,
    How you can manage your blog-trio - my imagination has failed.
    But I will definitely follow, like the faithful Vodafone pug,
    And the next time we meet, will take an autograph and give a hug"

    - Isn't it a good thing that rhymes are no longer needed and free verse is the order of the day!

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  11. so thoughtful of your parents to have preserved your poems.Lucky you and lucky we that get treated to such wonderful information.We seem to have a lot in common.I too tried poetry till I wrote on a bully in my class and the matter was referred to the class teacher.She did not scold me but advised the bully not to bother other kids or be prepared to be 'glorified' in a 'vers'atile manner.

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  12. I'm happy of course to hear about your site; and came to tell you that you've inspired me to post more poetry....x

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  13. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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