Keralite Writing in English-II | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

Keralite Writing in English-II | Literature DIY | Dr Ampat Koshy

Poetry and Keralite Writing in English - 1 - Learning and Creativity

Poetry and Keralite Writing in English - 1 - Learning and Creativity

Written on August 18, 2012

The diary of leaving Leaving is not leavings. The landscape of a childhood with its plantain trees yams and creeping bitter gourd vines is the richest source for one's future discovered much later. The language unlearned is a loss. Living in books, printed pages and far away realms of the imagination is not enough, dear Breath Looking at the 'kaduvas' from a distance and not knowing what the others were up to, not being sunk in native soil as if they were oddments, all of it was something that added up to and increased my losses. Not that I don't hate the culture terrorists or the moral police and the religious fanatics but the broadening, widening canvas of colours also loses much specificity. Search for essence makes one lose all sense of belonging. The child now forever floats in an empty sky like those winged seeds, tiny parachutes in which unseen fairies cuddle my 'appooppan's thaadi' with its silvery gossamer filaments so ethereally beautiful, but searching desperately for crannies, places to lodge, safe catchment areas, sheer and mere good ground to call home and flourish but all that's left is the nature of the 'udumbu' Won't you love me? We are different and most of what you are or what I am will never be known by each other separated by languages and customs and rituals and rites and a million other things of strangeness and differences. Yet love me, please - sex is not a construct and touch, taste and smell can create memories - a new his and herstory that can overlay if assiduously pursued an eternity of palimpsests and give us for a while or ever , if destined, a feeling of completeness but even that is not real anymore in these new whorls where the voice I hear is once removed from reality as is the moving image I see, the words are not material; your hands made no paper want to make you blush and the writing is deflected as if by the lack of calligraphy that might have charmingly hid more than it revealed. So, as in under the water experiments for seismic disturbance from a great distance I hear the earthquake faults being plumbed and if everything collapses like the new games that thirst more for destruction than alleviation or value, brownling, my Breath, let us close our eyes and return to our childhood gardens, a little kanthari will spice up our poor man's meal of kanji and salt and a few button onions balance it off while the swing awaits and your ribboned pleats fly in the air already in anticipation of the hands that will push you up up up unreachable into the infinity of the blue sky and the spinning green up there and the white clouds and sunlight dazzling in the summer with crow pheasant calls and kuyil songs the leaves falling down occasionally under the mango on your hair and blouse and skirt. Still the heart beats with restless questions. Who am I? Why born? When to die? What is life? Like the pulse and breath and heartbeat, air, water, food and the other unanswered because unasked question Do you love me? Did you ever really love me? Will you, forever? Eternally? Village girl, can't you see it was that in you that I loved and that imaginary imagined child that usurped my heart leaving me and you helpless, bleeding silently mutual this suffering but endless now my wandering leaving leaving leaving... walking endless roads alone. Is this leaving like leavings? I refuse to acknowledge it.

Organic

Not just the size
the shape
the form
the feel
the colour
the smell
the texture
the taste
the contours

all -
matter

Earthshake

Earth, you are killing
unreasonably
not where you should
but where you want
Have you also turned
human like us?
Please return
to your goddess-ness

It hurts me

It hurts me
only when I think of you
trapped in a body
wordless

Maybe it hurts me more than it does you?

The tears fall from my eyes
like torrential rain
thinking of how
when I go away
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, then
and when I return
you cannot express -
I cannot ever know -
what you feel, again
and then, thinking of that one day
when one goes away to stay
my chest constricts more
my tears fall faster
even as I pray
that I will not be the one to, first
or you
or she or them
but it may all happen together
though I know such prayers are not answered
so I hope again, that it may happen the other way
you first, then she and then I
but if it  goes the way of nature
then I know it will go thus
I first, then she, then you

Thinking of that
I get upset
but do not know what to do
except to wipe my eyes
go on
as if
there is a choice
when there never was one.

War Plane

War is over
but it is never "Happy Christmas"
anymore, on earth
Copters still fly overhead
Border skirmishes continue
Last night a bomber flew overhead
loud and thunderous
penetrating into my sleep
so deeply
that war seemed  real, its price as steep
as ever, and night its only natural keep.

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/35396.gif

Reuel

Can you understand God?
Do you need to? No
For to you He is not the Word.
Is He the Image?
You do not need to understand God
You "live and move and have
your being in Him."
He is for you beyond word and image
in love, in deed and being.

Earth, make me move, under my feet

As earthquakes have an epicentre
so are you mine

Wild, the tremors rip through me
in increasing magnitude
The last one was 7.6
on the Richter scale

The bed was shaking
the lights swaying
though the time was day
and the windows, closed

I wondered if it was Exorcist
and you had come to possess me
lovely in your disheveled state

You are my earthquake
but I cannot stay away
anymore
though the panes are rattling
the pots and pans
haunted by your sway

Whether the tremors subside
or you kill me
I want you there, to make us quake
I want  you, to stay.

Breaking the Rules

When I said she should pay
she went away.

The Significant Anthology

Review of Wake Up India by Shruti Goswami (Bengali poetess)

Review by Shruti Goswami (writer) of Wake Up, India Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy & Dr Bina Biswas

A Review:
I have been asked by Dr Koshy to read and comment on the book Wake Up, India Essays for Our Times by Dr A.V. Koshy & Dr Bina Biswas jointly .While going through the book the first thing that came to my mind was that both in our schools or colleges, we have been mugging up the same syllabi and most of the teachers and professors have been passing on the same notes down to us over generations with little or almost no updates to them. Here, I felt we need more teachers like Dr. Koshy who dares to think out of the box and also dares to implement them in his own way.
I am not much of a reviewer. However, I found almost all the topics in this book related to my interest areas, either personally or professionally or as a mere reader who takes interest in a variety of things. In this book, a variety of subjects ranging from population to poverty to land to autism to planning to politics and politicians to environment has been dealt with in a new way. For example, in the chapter where Dr Koshy addresses poverty and creates a new index for it, far removed from what we know as the standard parameters for determining poverty, namely, clean air, potable water, access to health care etc as against the calorific measure of food intake is an idea worth pondering. Similarly,Dr Koshy in his attempt to rationalize the fact that we must be informed enough to oppose development, mainly in moving from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors, and that blanket opposition without even knowing the pros and cons of a particular development does more harm than good,is something I heartily agree with. India, as he rightly points out, is a fertile land and most states have double cropped land. Since land is an essential component for any development, crying hoarse at every instance some double cropped land is taken in public interest isn’t really conducive for development and people should be well informed before opposing such a cause. The case in Nandigram is one such glaring example where neither the car factory came up nor the land could be returned to the land owners due to land policies that exist.
Since Ananya has already touched on the autism project which is also very close to my heart due to personal reasons, I would just like to mention that people need to be more sensitized specially in respect to differently abled persons. That, to me is proper education. Dr. Koshy has started an excellent job regarding this and I wish him all success. The plans for his Autism village are an excellent one and I hope it translates his dream into reality. His take on Mahatma Gandhi is also different and while I would say he was a great politician, I am not very sure about him being a great person, having read his book My Experiments With Truth. But then very few people in India actually can dare to bare all in their autobiographies. His take on black and white money and gradual loss of faith in politics and keeping faith in humanism only is something I can identify with and yet, it is educated people who should foray into politics and not goons and muscle men if we are really to have some work done for the people of this country.
I found one thing lacking in areas where Dr Koshy has proposed new ideas. It is the lack of statistical backing of such ideas or the quantification of those ideas. Many a great idea never translates to reality or is not executed due to lack of statistical parameters. I would request Dr Koshy to look into this area in his next edition. With proper quantification, they might well turn into some path breaking ideas.
Dr. Bina Biswas's writings are very concise and a pleasure to read. The feminist in me could well relate to the struggle of the Irom lady and admire and look up to the life and deeds of An Sang Su Kyi. Most people turn the word feminism as a tool to ridicule the fights of women for other women. Feminism is not demeaning the rights of others. It is to restore the rights that women have as human beings and they are for nobody to give. Sadly, most men don’t realize it. Dr. Biswas has also rightly pointed out the plight of the North East people and how they are discriminated against. The issues of E- waste are a burning issue and it’s an irony that countries like USA who are among the leading ones to produce it did not sign the treaty. Another topic, the loss of honesty in today’s world is something I can well relate to. The moral fibre of the citizens of a country very often determines its progress. If each and person decides to be honest, we wont need god men and god women and corrupt people preaching about honesty. Honesty is imbibed during the formative years, and then thrown for a toss because people have started measuring success in terms of money and power and not by the kind of person he or she is.
The book is a must read for people who want to have a different perspective of the same problems we face and for students who are tired of reading the same text books that have seldom anything new to offer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

by Shruti

Reflections

The houses I stayed in were always full of books, the main treasure my dad and mom had to give me, over and above love, food, shelter, coffee, clothing and education. It was my eldest brother's gift to me too. When I won the Shanker's I got a huge cheque and went to Pai & Co in Trivandrum with him and my elder brother and sister and we bought books to our hearts' content. I did not know what to buy but my eldest brother did. I got my first Tintin that way, 'Black Island', and became a lifelong fan of Herge ever since. Though we were Christians we did not buy any book based on the Bible but when Shanker's sent me the certificate and anthology with my poem in it they also sent me, strangely enough, a book of Bible stories, beautifully illustrated and published from abroad! Four such incredibly unique collections made of unforgettable children's books by four of us prize winners in the same family made up my infant years of reading! As a result I started to live in my own imaginary world and was often found talking to myself. I never wanted to visit the places in the books I read as visiting them in my head seemed a better option, besides which such things were, of course, beyond my reach then. As I grew up my love for children's literature remained. Though led astray briefly by the tortuous language of literary criticism and theory and by the impenetrable density of philosophical language what I really got from years of reading children's books was the ability to write in a clear, flowing, transparent and limpid style that was easy to understand.

While doing my P.G. and my research I found many of my friends going abroad to UK, USA and Canada. I also tried for a scholarship once but did not make it. I did not pursue it by applying for more and more scholarships being tied down by the feeling of not having enough money or by what I now recognize as false ideas of patriotism or rather by a world view that taught me that excellence has no need of the props given to it by things like validation from foreign shores or universities and other colonial crutches. 

A long, long journey later through many jobs, I had learned to read carefully, analyze well, interpret well, and do critical thinking all on my own without knowing such a term existed, for a long while, In all this I was and am like Siddhartha. I was naturally led to writing which was where it could be put to most use and teaching, where its presentation-al and spoken skills aspects could be used. In a way my whole life has been, you could say, not about making and doing but about reading, thinking, speaking, presenting, teaching, writing, observing, describing, imagining, analyzing, questioning, critiquing, seeking and finding etc. But as all things are connected one cannot stay out of making and doing and learning by hands on experience eventually, and remain only in the ontological realms of being and existence, and I too started to 'do,' as the world around me changed from being word centred to technology centred.

I am on the verge of becoming fifty. I have achieved much and will more. I am naturally thankful to all who helped me on the way but most of all to the new technology which made it possible for me to realize what my gut feeling told me, which was that excellence cannot be hid under a bushel for ever, whether it has to face adverse circumstances or not. Seven books old now, my hugest successes have come about, not in terms of money, but in terms of popularity, respect, fame, name and influence, as a teacher, yes, but in more recent times in larger measure through making use of the global reach of the internet, new media and mixed media and not through the so-called to- me- outdated traditional routes of quality validation.

When tempted to get discouraged that I have not got much recognition in places I would like to get more of it in, a little bird on my shoulder tells me the other side of the story, how for a slow learner and late starter, I have achieved much. By writing to my readers directly, that too from the heart, I have carved out a niche for myself in their hearts and won literally thousands of readers. I have not let middlemen interfere in the process, my greatest strength. My books appear in Googlebooks, Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and many other international online book portals and Indian portals like Flipkart, Infibeam and homeshop18, though not yet in bookstores for which I blame not myself but the partiality driven, cruel, faulty world of publication, advertising, marketing and distribution, a system that exploits writers and readers. Many people in all the English speaking countries and even other countries have read what I write in part or full and have liked it. All kinds of big writers and scholars and writing Prize nominees have told me that my writing skills as a poet and critic are extraordinary. Most of all, my readers keep on reading me and keeping my works alive, against all odds, and coming back for more. I am most grateful to them as they are the ones who have really made this whole enjoyable journey of discovery as a reader and writer online exciting and possible. Starting from on journalspace where I used to appear in the top ten often, under five different aliases, and going on through being 'learnertransmitter' to Urgent Evoke where everyone in the community waited eagerly for my posts to appear, to Facebook where I get enough attention without tagging I have proved, not alone, but along with the help of many other beloved friends, some of whom are also writers, that if one gives all one has to what one loves, which is writing in my case, being unsparing on oneself for the sake of what one considers as the best, which for me is the great books I have read by the great prolific authors of the past, the likes of whom are not so easy to find now on earth, one cannot but make it eventually.

With all my love and respect, and written at a point when I am going through what seems to be a trough in my life but is not, I wish this reflection finds you all in the best of spirits and wish you all too all the best.

To all my many readers and sincere and genuine well wishers,

Dr Koshy A.V.

Latest interview of Dr Koshy A.V. by Ajit Kumar for The Criterion

http://www.the-criterion.com/V5/n4/Ajit.pdf

Book Review by Dr Santosh Bakaya of Wake Up, India! Essays for our Times by Drs Koshy A.V. and Dr Bina Biswas

REVIEW OF “WAKE UP, INDIA! ESSAYS FOR OUR TIMES by Dr A.V. Koshy and Dr. Bina Biswas

by Dr. Santosh Bakaya

“Wake up, India! Essays for Our Times” is a cornucopia of 36 essays by two acclaimed scholars of our times; Dr Koshy AV and Dr Bina Biswas.
22 of the essays in this "extremely idea riddled book" have been penned by Dr. Koshy in the first part- The Road to Shangri La and 14 by Dr. Bina Biswas in the second part - Corrective Seeds. Most of these essays have the potential to wake India up from its sonorous slumber, jerking it out of its Rip van Winklesque sleep.

I have no qualms about conceding that as an almost comatose citizen of my sleepy nation, some of the essays made me sit bolt upright in bed , making me knuckle away sleep kinks from my eyes and look at the world undulating around me with new eyes; the vision being provided by these two scholars.

This enchanting eclectic mix ranges from themes such as reservation, ideology, poverty and class, population and land, politics and the populace, corruption, debt, black money, the Grand Narratives, inflation and yes two more articles which delve into the personality of Gandhiji, trying to answer the question whether he was a mahatma- a term Gandhi himself was never very comfortable with.

In the second chapter [pp 4 to 16], Dr. Koshy deals at length with ideology, reiterating that ideologies tend to work only if they address injustice and aim at distributive justice across all borders, but the moment they start propounding systems, stultification starts, and they end up" tilting at the proverbial windmills a la Don Quixote." [p12].

The piece de resistance are the twin essays- the 20th-The specially gifted and Shangrila and 21st - Shangri La-The dream of an autism village in India- which set the mind churning and the heart burning with the ardent desire to shake our comatose nation out of its callous indifference to the needs of the specially gifted, and shame it into doing something for these special children of special parents.
With a heart -wrenching honesty, the author tells us that none has looked at the world through the lens of a differently abled child, and poignantly enough the needs of a specially abled child were revealed to him accidentally; by his son who, he says, has influenced him the most in his life.
"Autism, like death, is a great leveller," he says and goes on to outline his dream of an autism village where money will definitely be used for building up the edifice but happiness, love, compassion, peace, patience and mercy..... will rule graciously and gracefully.

Part two, titled Corrective Seeds , has been penned equally beautifully by Dr. Bina Biswas, having a variety of essays on Irom Sharmila, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Arvind Kejriwal ,Tagore- the poet eduactor, honesty in today's world, dreams vs reality of FDI, the lessons to be learnt from the first war of independence, biodiversity, E-waste,and the future of the Indian youth.
The essay on the Irom lady, in the context of her recent release and arrest is very topical.
How many among the youth know that 'this' iron lady, Irom Sharmila, has been protesting against the AFSPA for the past fourteen years? Caught between the official view that AFSPA with its overriding powers of arresting and killing is absolutely essential and the simmering public discontent, it is human dignity that has been mercilessly bludgeoned in this story of resilience and incredible moral courage. The essay pleads for a repeal of AFSPA, maintaining that "at the centre of it all, steadfastly, inspired by the Gandhian way in a land no longer Gandhian, the Irom lady has gone on, unperturbed, to make a visible dent in the infrastucture of India's democracy,"[p146], and unless her grievances are redressed, India will not be a democracy in the real sense.

I would happily gift this invaluable book to my student who asks,"why reservation?", and to the one who raises a quizzical eyebrow wanting to know who Irom Sharmila is and to the blatantly ignorant drifter not knowing what to do with himself, and yes, to the authorities who are in a position and have the wherewithal to convert the autism village into a reality - into Tagore' s "tangible poem", where love and compassion abounds.

Running as a common thread through these two parts is the theme of Truth, non violence, compassion and the almost obsolete values of honesty and sincerity, which even succeeds in tying the two parts beautifully into a meaningful whole. Honesty, the author believes has almost become extinct in the present world , where we merrily turn a blind eye to injustice and a deafening silence in the face of gross unfairness has become the accepted way of doing things.

The book is addressed specially to the youth who, alas, are breathing the toxicity unleashed on them by selfishness, in a world fragmented by narrow domestic walls, which is smouldering in the fires of orchestrated hate. In the article on the youth of India co-written by Dr. Koshy and Dr. Biswas, the two scholars hope that the youth of the country will move from selfishness to altruism, and with fearless minds tirelessly strive for perfection , and tackle the burning issues of food security, water security,rapid urbanization and education. They hope that the youth , armed with Truth, rationality and broad visions will strive tirelessly towards a world "where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high", "where knowledge is free" and the "world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls."

Hats off to the erudite scholars for this timely and intellectually stimulating book, and also to the publishers Y S INTERNATIONAL who have done a wonderful job. No , the book does not merit "any book or author burning", but yes hints at a fiery annihilation of all negativities that have plagued our country and our youth.
As an educationist who has been dealing with students of all hues, I highly recommend this book for all students and hope to see it adorn the shelves of all university and college libraries.

Published by YS BOOKS International YsBooks Intl Mahip Chadha

Pages: 195
ISBN -13 978-93-837932-0-4
Available at: http://www.homeshop18.com/wake-up-india-essays-our-times/author:dr-bina-biswas/isbn:9789383793204/books/education/product:32548565/cid:10735/?pos=1

Sole (c) for this article Santosh Bakaya 27 August 2014

Book Review

I got this email today to cheer me up  Comes from an eminent scholar and lady who is most probably or rather surely the foremost and leading oral historian in India today. 

"Dear Koshy,

Thank you for giving me a copy of your book "The Art of Poetry". I read it quickly and enjoyed your reflections. I am sure this will be of great help to those teaching language and creative writing so I shall pass on your book to ********* who heads the writing centre at ********** now."

Book launched finally on the online portal homeshop18.com :D

Our book is finally out on homeshop18.com. Thrilled beyond words and thanks to YsBooks Intl YS BOOKS International Mahip Chadha once again. This is a grand debut and unveiling to the world of online portals for this book.

with Bina Biswas

http://www.homeshop18.com/wake-up-india-essays-our-times/author:dr-bina-biswas/isbn:9789383793204/books/education/product:32548565/cid:10735/?pos=1

Our latest book page

https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswashttps://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas

My fb page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-AV-Koshy/232091103474997https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-AV-Koshy/232091103474997

Two essays from Wake Up India: Essays for Our Times by Dr Koshy A.V. and Dr Bina Biswas

Our new book's teaser -read and enjoy two essays, one by each of us, before it hits the stands.
The book will be released on August 9th 6pm at Cafe Coffee Day by ColChadha with both authors being present
Tivoli Talkies, Tivoli Gardens & Cinema, Rani Gunj, Bolaram Road
NCC Ground, Gunrock Enclave
Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500003
AT SIX PM AUGUST NINTH, 2014.
ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
Signed copies will be available for buying. Cost: 400 Rs

http://www.destinypoets.co.uk/?p=13051

https://www.facebook.com/avkoshybinabiswas