Fania stormlike usraginglike usruthlesslike uscirclinglike usrisinglike usspirallinglike ustiringlike usrepentinglike uswearyinglike usrelentingunlike us.[Written while travelling to the ancient village of Gohaldia in the hinterland of Odisha, India, which was recovering from the ruthless cyclone, Fani, in 2019. The cyclone displaced more than a million people in the state as a result of the indiscriminate destruction of naturalecosystems. A visit to Mayurbhanj that year was almost a beckoning of my own ancestral history, deeply intertwined with that of Odisha’s from a time of the Bengal Renaissance. It was during this journey that I witnessed the aftermath of the cyclone – and, more importantly, the resilience of the region’s people, hard at work.]No cure but poetry is surewhat if I told you a poem was stronger?what if I told you a poem fought longer?the poem worked from away and worked from homeon burning lands, bursting seasdebilitating injury and diseasea para’s cetamolrhyma moclobemidesane-itiserprose-theticshealing the cursedaiding the nurseda spell four thousand years oldwith the universe in its foldwhat if I told youit’ll fix this anxious, cold youa poem in quarantinea poem in a glass of wineenough to cure a species diseasedenough to resurrect a humanity deceased.[This poem was written in the early days of the pandemic to reiterate the mysterious beauty of the poetry we all carry within us as individuals and as a collective humanity; how the medicine to the ailing situation of loneliness is partly within ourselves, how we are capable of living, working and thriving anywhere if only we believe, and how one line, one expression of art or the experience of it could come to our rescue just as strongly as science.The Sumerian epic from ancient Mesopotamia, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the oldest known surviving long poem that first appeared around 2100 BCE.]Tempest for the timesthis time the clouds kept racingfast and furiousin city swarms like oursthey never stopped,only grew heavy,ate darkness and dustbut never pouredbut then came the days unbearablethey roared quaked thunderedslashed the sky with violent silverslashing at land, flashing in floodtearing roads, unleashing blooda maelstrom of malevolencethey became us – the Tempest.To be loved like the endcan you betouched by that pious pourdomkissed by those dropscovered in countless diamondsof dancing natural ecstasyfrom heaven’s purest watersupon a 600-million-year-old seatimeless soulsap of the universein deepest Langkawican you be filled drenched quenchedbetween those ancient islands taut and widecan you be that rainforest of a thousand lifetimesswept in a moment, dancing upon eternity?[Reflections from a time of being briefly stranded in the middle of deep sea in Malaysia, flanked by 600-million-year-old rainforests that are dwindling due to deforestation and climate change. Instead of fear, a feeling of unprecedented bliss, love and grace suffused my being on this travel assignment. In that feeling of absolute abandon, even the possibility of death seemed like the perfect finale.]A flame in the darkmy trātaka yoga in tune with the music of azānI say a prayer for the seven tiny soulsdevoured by agni in a corner of my cityand one for the 17,000 sacrificed to goresome gone to a smoking “fun” zoneothers played to ground in the war zonetwo, to reckless fast-track racingin a generation tom-tomming slow-living reelsbut a bunch of Shameless girls giving hopeveracity cutting through veils of vile vanityAll That We Imagine as Light may shinebut reality, sometimes a brute of a blaze(years later, a burning building in my neighbourhoodand a plane with a lone survivor)and yet, to keep the sparkis to stitch yourself together –like Nancy’s cool frills at Cannes that yearand dance around this ceaseless fireof hell and hopelike ancients in abandon.[The Shameless (2024) – a film by Konstantin Bojanov; All We Imagine as Light (2024) – a film by Payal Kapadia. “Nancy’s cool frills at Cannes” refers to stylist Nancy Tyagi’s appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, 2024, in an outfit self-made from scratch.]Notes of nourishmentis it possible to cook a poem?simmer it on low flamerhyme spinach leaves and lentilsin mild flavour for soul souptoss potatoes till they’re the shadeof golden words by the greatspluck cauliflowers to branch beautyin the basic – or bake sublimethe spaghetti of natural sightwith greens of broccoli conifersred peppers of rhododendronand yellows of peeping sunolive rainstorms of oregano dustsmoked chicken of lover’s heartmorsels of bubbling magicafloat simple nourishmentnothing makes sensetill it swims togethershares meaningflavour fire essence bodyan offering – just as a poemof life itselfThe touch[i]there’s somethingnow so rareabout paper soaking the tip of penlike a parched creaturequenched, relieved, revivedplant of soul watered with inkan ancient tree coming alive againin its veins, drenched in dreamsof the writer as the writtenof the human and the rootof you – anewmoistening the wired mindwith meaning magic meditation musewet is not a word of shamenor is to drink and to pourto each elixirous letter – another drop of hope in flow[ii]pen to paperas sky to scraper –oh when do we touchwhen do we touchExcerpted with permission from Cries, Soumya Mukerji, Westland Books.