Rooh E-Book

Rupinder Kaur

• Herausgeber: Verve Poetry Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 60

Beschreibung

For Rupinder Kaur, writing, along with any other art form, should be azaad – free: free to express what the artist wants or needs to say, without any censorship. Rupinder is known for speaking her mind and this is reflected in her poems. In Rooh, her debut poetry collection, she takes us on a poetic journey that transcends borders and arbitrary boundaries of subject and style. Her work straddles English and Punjabi culture – fusing words from Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu and English. Her poems look at love, religion, identity, politics, history, taboos, society – often questioning orthodox views, particularly around the roles that different genders are expected to adopt. Rooh has a grand scope, and stares unblinkingly at the world. It is a stunning first collection from this young, intelligent poet. To reflect these concerns the poems in Rooh have been detatched from their own moorings, to become and single river of verse. A river that by turns widens and narrows, meanders and charges rapidly onwards, that is contained when it isn't breaking its bounds. The poems move with the freedom that Rupinder wishes she could see in the world around her – and with this in mind this book can be read in one long sitting or can be dipped into and out of like a cold river on a hot day, as your own rooh or soul dictates. Rupinder Kaur is a Birmingham born Panjabi poet and biomedical science student with an immense love for South Asian arts. She sees writing and reading poetry as a way to liberate the soul.

Leseprobe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rupinder Kaur is a Birmingham born Panjabi poet with an immense love for South Asian arts. She sees writing and reading poetry as a way to liberate the soul. This is her first collection.

Twitter: @rupinderkw

Instagram: @rupinderkw_

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rupinderkaurw/

Website: rupinderkw.com

PUBLISHED BY VERVE POETRY PRESS

https://vervepoetrypress.com

[email protected]

All rights reserved

© 2018 Rupinder kaur

The right of Rupinder Kaur to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

FIRST PUBLISHED SEPT 2018

REPRINTED MAY 2019

Printed and bound in the UK

by Imprint Digital, Exeter

ISBN: 978-1-912565-08-5

ePub ISBN: 978-1-912565-74-0

Cover art by Maryam Mughal

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MughalART/

Peacock feather art by Derya Rasit, Instagram: derya141

Rooh

A word which unites Panjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic and Persian meaning soul.

The soul sees no religion. The soul sees no border. The soul is free.

Art, poetry, writing; where does any creative expression come from? Through music I discovered poetry. I remember quite clearly the first time I fell in love with the Panjabi language, listening to a Qawwali sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The Qawwali, originally penned by Shiv Kumar Batalvi, a well renowned Panjabi poet who I now consider to be my favourite, began as a poem: “Maye ni maye, mere geetaan de naina vich birhon di rarak pavey.” The Qawwali transported me to another world and inspired me to begin exploring poetry. It was during this journey that I first came across Amrita Pritam, a female Panjabi poet known for her famous piece calling upon Waris Shah, the greatest poet in the history of Panjab. I feel that it was through Amrita’s words that I truly began to find myself.

People often say to me “You must have been born in Panjab, to have such a love towards your mother tongue!” In fact, it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I learned how to read and write the language. These days I spend as much time as I can to read Panjabi poetry to understand my mother’s words.

At a time when many children in the diaspora are losing touch with their mother tongues, others are finding them through poetry and through music. Today there is a real sense of reclaiming our cultural identity and heritage. Unlike our first-generation parents, we are now rediscovering our voices and telling our histories through the medium our ancestors once favoured – through poetry. The very folk songs our grandmothers sing at weddings to the tales of bravery that is recited, to the way that we pray it is all brought to life in the very same way – poetry. I’m grateful to my mother for telling me stories while putting me to sleep. From the folk tales of Panjab to the Udasis of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the influence of these stories now heavily shapes and inspires my own poetry.

The beauty of language is that it is ‘azaad,’ – free from borders, independent of nationality and state. The language you love becomes yours, it becomes your home, your country.

Our ‘Rooh,’ our pure and true soul (where I feel expression itself is born,) is fluent. The words have always been inside, lying dormant, waiting for us to pick up a pen and spill the ink across the paper, to give them new life.

My Rooh is a journey through which I transcend borders and rivers. Poetry is my mode of transport.

Rupinder 2019.

Rooh

From the ruins of a Masjid

to the streets of Delhi

to a room where old songs are playing Urdu-Hindi-

Panjabi fusing to the remains of a Mandir

searching for the beauty of a different century walking

across Amritsar

wanting the purity of raags with the

words of Guru Nanak leaving it amrit

thirsty for another time.

And it hears the flute of Krishna and

dances just like a Gopi, traveling to

another time, sitting with Sufis at the

dargah, hearing the kalam of Bulleh Shah.

It travels through space and time coming

alive in a new body, hearing the voice of

Nusrat

and the poetry of Shiv Kumar Batalvi.

And somewhere between time’s beginning and end

it wanders and travels

between countries

across oceans

landing in Birmingham,

lost somewhere

and found somewhere

in the chaste of Panjab.

– rooh, soul.

****

Delhi

the home of Ghalib

and my mother’s city –

Delhi

the lanes of Chaukhandi,

where Mandirs, Masjids and Gurdwaras

are at the same distance

with colourful bazaars at each corner.

Mother says the best days were spent buying dolls

and eating chole bhature

and the best time of the year

was when classes would change

and fresh new notebooks would be given.

Mother says the best thing about school was drying

the takhti, the mud slates.

While they would dry she would sing Bollywood songs

with her friends

and they would shake their hips like Sridevi

trying to do the naagin dance.

Then coming home and climbing to the rooftops,

trying to see Qutub Minar,

with evenings spent watching Vikram aur Betaal.

There was always a light problem

but there was so much happiness in little things

from buying cycles to washing machines.

It all meant so much...

She turned thirteen

and crossed to a whole new world by aeroplane,

from Delhi to Birmingham.

****

I am carrying the lines of borders in my veins and arteries.

My chromosomes carry the sex of partition.

I cross borders in my body

to become my own country.

I carry trauma inside my DNA –

years of searching

years of finding.

I am the generation after parting

yet I do not truly know what it means

to leave your home.

Every night –

I hear the sounds of sitars and tablas in my dreams.

I hear the sounds of anklets with silhouettes swaying.

I see swords making love to pens

with lovers uniting at dusk while waves meet the moon.

With snakes hissing and tigers roaring

the monsoon comes, and the peacocks dance,

and my hands become stained with mendhi.

Each night, the fragrance of some place comes and wakens me.

This foreign land is not my home

but perhaps the ocean in-between

that I pass to reach home

in my dreams

is my home.

Maybe that is where I am not foreign

and I am just right.

To be there and here...

maybe that is my home...

****

Forever missing my train

just by a second

and forever at every bookshop

going to all the local libraries

searching for names of authors that look like mine

with some English Panjabi Hindi Urdu –

Bombay mix writing like mine

stuck in this

colonial and postcolonial

literature of absence

longing for that back home essence.

Searching between lines

searching for the truth

I am forever searching...

I am forever searching...

****

poetry

[poh-i-tree]

(noun) art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken.

Not just English literature

nor the works of dead men.

Poetry is the art of women too.

Poetry is the art of black and brown too.

Poetry is living and breathing every day.

Poetry is the way my people live.