Coda: Selected Poetry - a fifth volume of verse - Paperback

by Rupendra Guha-Majumdar (Author)

CONTEXTS

Temple Street, New Haven--Along Temple Street beside the central Green in New Haven, Connecticut, stand three churches in a row, built in Puritan times of the first settlers in the 17^th century. / Durga's Battle Goddess Durga in Indian mythology was the chosen champion of reprisal amongst the despairing pantheon of heaven when all attempts at destroying the rampaging demon emperor, Mahish-ashura proved futile because of his invincible powers gained through stringent invocations to Shiva. To her own strength was added the combined forces of the gods, symbolized in the weapons she wielded with her dasabhuja, or ten arms. The entire cosmos stood witness to the resounding ten-day battle, the conclusion was marked by the triumph by Durga and her lion mascot over the formidable titan. The mythic memory of that cosmic relief from a degrading annihilation is celebrated in Bengal and other parts of India every autumn in October./ Kargil: War on the Mountains/ A tribute In summer of 1999, Pakistani troops intruded into Indian territory in the Drass-Kargil sector of Kashmir along the north-western frontier, triggering a fierce three-month war in which thousands from both sides perished. Since Independence from the colonial yoke in the subcontinent in 1947, this was the fourth war between the two countries over the Kashmir issue. It became known as the Kargil War./ Bamian Buddha Blues Of the pre-Islamic, Gandharian heritage of Afghanistan, the colossal statues of Buddha (175ft. and 120 ft.) cut into the sandstone cliffs of Bamian were the prized exhibits of the land, that drew countless viewers worldwide. On March 21, 2001, however, they were razed to the ground. This was the barbaric handiwork of the ruling fundamentalist regime of the Taliban. They chose to make a politico-religious statement to the world against all "idolatrous" images through the complete, albeit labored, demolition of these two magnificent, fifteen-hundred years old monuments of faith that the famed Chinese travelers Fa-Hsien (400 AD) and Huan-Tsang (630 AD) had observed and recorded with awe. / Ashoka's Lion Capital, Kingly Quartet.. King Ashoka (268-232 BC), son of Chandragupta Maurya, ruled of almost the entire subcontinent of India. After a caeer of bloody conqusts initially, he converted completely to Buddhism, spreading it as far and wide as he could across India and South East Asia, through the medium of stone-edicts, pillars, stupas, etc. The Lion Capital of Ashoka stood as his emblem and subsequently became the National Emblem of India following Independence. It is a sculpture of four lions standing back to back together. The wheel from the base has been placed at the centre of the National Flag of India./ In Limbo, Coetzee's Michael K . Refers to J.M. Coetze's novel, The Life and Times of Michael K / Revisiting Botticelli's Birth of Venus Gaea, the Earth Mother gave her sickle to Chronos, her firstborn Titan son from her union with Uranus, the Sky, in order to mutilate the body of his father. The deed being done, where the sundered body parts fell into the sea, there emerged out of the turbulence of foam, fully born, Goddess Aphrodite, progeny of Uranus, sans female womb or care. / Tribute To Ustad Bismillah Khan. Bismillah Khan, who lived all his live in Varanasi, was a great Indian musician credited with popularizing the shehnai, a subcontinental wind instrument of the oboe class.'Ustad' is a title of honour.