Tag Archives: #sanctuary

Our Land Remains Green in Our Souls

Poetry as Sanctuary – A column where we explore poetry as a means of expression for voices of the South Asian Diaspora.

Like everyone else who loves poetry, I too see it as an art. An art of saying everything without saying much. A means of conveying the felt, without needing to justify the said. A formation of words which read like a garland, or convey the fragrance of a delicate rose, or sometimes the anguish of the pain caused by its thorns.

 But I am no poet, for I lack that art.  

 I seek a voice

which is free

from the burdens

of the identity

of the face,

 

a voice 

that can reach you deep,

irrespective of the distances

we seem to have created

based on 

unfounded

ungrounded

unwarranted

egoistical states,

 

hear me 

from where I hide,

and you’ll see me 

with a knowing clarity

far beyond

the simplistic visions,

mechanically reflected

by your 

curious eyes.

For me, my writings remain a liberating one-way communication.  A release, a vent, an outpouring emanating from the palette of emotions that simmer within. Sometimes for identifiable reasons, and often, just out of a longing for an elusive, imagined, or wishful state of being. 

Sunrise image, taken by the Author.

Divinity enters life
in many ways,

 

not all can be seen
or held in tangible forms,

 

to feel the invisible deeply
is often an insane job,

 

and I’ve never felt any remorse
for letting my sanity go.

Words help me find myself and sometimes lead me to discover and identify parts of others which over the years have become an intrinsic part of me. Till it lasts it is a fun game of hide-n-seek, in which thankfully, there are never any losers. 

A fellow blogger friend invited me to join a poetry group, the Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley, which instead of their routine physical meet-ups had started connecting virtually due to the COVID restrictions. And I found myself virtually amongst a group of strangers,  strangers who slowly began to seem more my own than them that I often see around. 

Was I diaspora where I sat, or were they it? Them who carry their roots with them even when far away from a land which still remains green in their souls. 

It is a thought which renders me somewhat eligible to be a valid part of this group, for in those hours once a week that we meet online, I too am ‘diaspora’ connecting with my own. 

Personally, this space has been a journey of discovering my words in my own voice (a first for me). Listening to the many other voices which can write, recite, and even sing poetry in different languages. A sharing of worded sentiments emanating from different cultures, regions, poets, writers, and time periods. An interaction which invariably touches and tingles various chords of emotions within. I remain grateful to each one of them for this very unique experience and for giving me an opportunity to share some of my own.

Gentle souls,
past
their own
painful
transformations,

 

flit around
like angelic
butterflies,
uplifting
falling spirits,

 

by their
thoughtful,
cheerful
presences
alone,

 

and in those
moments
of soulful
gratitude
within,

 

I bridge
the distance,
between
earth
and sky.

Vidur Sahdev is a 50-year-old guy who lives in Delhi, India, and writes on his blog titled VerseInEmotion. In its essence, his blog is a collection of some thoughts, some words, some memories, some moments, some dreams, some fiction… inspired by the elements of nature, the people who came and those that went away, some remembered, none forgotten, a few bits of his journey over the lived years. The rest ‘about him’ keeps changing faster than he has ever been able to pen it down.

Kartikaye Mittal

Indian American Devises Collapsible Chamber to Manage Panic Attacks

An Indian American has designed and fabricated a sanctuary that one can retreat into during moments of panic, in a bid to address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a widespread condition in America and the world over. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition, can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event. It could cause significant issues in the social life of a person and interfere with the ability to perform daily tasks.

Mittal's Reboot, a collapsible PTSD chamber.
Mittal’s Reboot, a collapsible PTSD chamber.

Kartikaye Mittal, 32, who holds a master’s degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in New York, has created the prototype called Reboot, employing his knowledge of design and engineering, and combining it with his research in psychotherapy and wellness, according to a statement issued on Monday.

Reboot is a collapsible chamber that can be used by survivors of PTSD in moments of panic and is intended to be installed in university campuses, hospitals, airports, malls, and other crowded places. The chamber alters sensory stimuli and creates an environment in which the person can manage one’s emotions without disturbance, distraction or aggravation. It gives the user a personal space to retreat into when needed, to practice the therapeutic exercise prescribed by his or her therapist, to meditate, or just be, it said.

Kartikaye visited PTSD support groups in New York City and consulted psychotherapists as part of his research for Reboot. He discovered that in a trauma-survivor, panic may be triggered at any point in time, especially when in a public place, where one doesn’t have immediate access to his or her therapist. The drive to empower the user made him build several models, experimenting with material, size, shape, and color.

The telescoped space is 5 feet wide, 7.5 feet high, and depth extendable to 4 feet. The chamber collapses to merely 15 inches and can be instantly extended when necessary. The internal surface is designed to absorb sound, the statement said. The primary objectives of this space are dampening the noise from the surrounding environment, spatial comfort, collapsibility, and adaptability to available space in the buildings.

With inputs from clinical psychologists, Mittal was able to keep the look and feel of the structure benign and non-evocative. Neutral grey was the overall color chosen for a muted look. Reboot is Phase 1 of Kartikaye’s initiative to create an aid for trauma survivors. Phase 2 is scheduled to commence soon under his STEAMplant residency at Pratt’s Math & Science department.

Lalit K Jha is the Chief US Correspondent for Press Trust of India (PTI), the largest news agency of India subscribed by over 500 newspapers as well as scores of TV channels and radio stations. Based in the Washington D.C. Metro Area, Lalit extensively covers the White House, the State Department, and US Congress from an Indian perspective, besides writing about Indian Americans.

This article was first published here and has been republished with the permission of the Author.

Finding Poetry as Sanctuary

Poetry/Song-writing came to me when I was around 16 years old. Until then, I had no taste or interest in the poems that I had to mandatorily read and memorize as a part of my school curriculum. At that time, the school was the only place where I got any exposure to poetry or writing. I was not the kind of boy who would bother to go out of his way to buy a novel or a book of poems.

However, when I did read poems in my school textbooks, I enjoyed reading the works of William Blake, George Cooper, and numerous poems which now float around in my mind only as faint images of reverberating words superimposed on top of the faces of my friends, teachers, and the places where I spent most of my childhood and teenage years.

Fast forward to 2019, and I found out that I had been writing for nine years now. I came to the conclusion one introspective evening after a recent move to San Francisco from Los Angeles, that a disparate amount of poems I had written all revolved around the broad themes of unrequited love, admiration of the lover, and just silly love songs. Sure, there was nothing wrong about having a consistent theme across your work. But I did feel that I was quite limited in the way I was repeating my experiences over and over again. It is strange that we choose to feel what we already know.

Until that point, I had thought that new life experiences were capable of enabling new channels of creative outlets. On the contrary, it was the opposite. It was, in fact, the conglomeration of beliefs, attitudes, personality, biases, and a myriad of factors that decided what one was actually capable of experiencing.


How many times does one need to fall in love before he can write about love with the utmost veracity? In clinical psychology, it is said that people high on Agreeableness tend to divide their lives into epochs dictated by the romantic relationships they have had at the time. Boy, was I agreeable! That was all that I was writing about. A psychologist may have recommended an assertiveness training for me, but instead, I just chose to diversify my writing style a bit.

I was lucky to have found a poetry group in the city through the Meetup app that year. I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of talent that was concentrated in a radius of 15 feet around me. These were people that I couldn’t have met anywhere else in the whole world. Hanging out with them had opened up new doors of perception and possibilities for me. Of course, it wasn’t apparent that I would associate with them in the very first meeting. Still, I gradually started to open up to this group of oddly passionate people who appreciated some of my eeriest poetries that would otherwise bring two likes for a friend list of 1500 people on my Facebook.

Now it is 2020 and right before the COVID lockdown, I was fortunate enough to become a rather regular member of this group called Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley which, hosts a poetry circle through video conferencing apps each Saturday.

Writing and reciting poetry has ever-changing meanings for each individual.

At times, poetry is a psychological toolkit that enables me to express my feelings in a way that others perceive as novel and a work of art. On some occasions, poetry becomes the irrefutable divine law of nature that each man inherits but of which loses the appreciation as his life progresses into taking upon an increasing amount of responsibilities.

At other times, poetry is how one could showcase their intellectual fitness and creativity to a member of the opposite gender that they’d like to woo. Poetry is also that friend who comes to sit down with you in solidarity when the world seems too chaotic or too orderly (in a dystopian way) as you look outside your apartment window and say, “Man! None of this makes sense!”

Poetry can be your very own self when you have successfully identified your being as an entity compartmentalized into several flavors manifested out of a hitchhiker’s diary describing his journey across the country.

Poetry can also be this:

The Paranoid

 

In a world with so many places to see,

I’ve never seen a tree that touches the sky.

Tangerines so high, invite me for a tea,

In a treehouse with nobody else but you and I.

 

And in a treehouse so green,

There are places where I’d like to be:

 

In your arms, in your eyes,

Watching you gaze, the paranoid.

 

In a country with so many people to meet,

I’ve never seen a man reading from a monocle.

Sidewalks so alone, hear them greet –

that lonesome band dressed in canonicals​.

 

And with a band so quiet,

There are places where I’d like to sleep:

 

In your arms, for a hundred years,

Hearing the sound of the paranoid.

 

At a clinic with so many beds to sweep,

I’ve never seen a bed with strangers on a feast

Nurses so shy, ignoring those who weep

They only smile to pacify the familiar beasts

 

And along the rooms so sterile,

There are tables you’d like to clean:

 

In your hands, a surgical knife

Watching you operate the paranoid.

*****

Regardless of how I conceptualized this abstract phenomenon of poetry, this group had made me feel that I wasn’t the only one trying to make sense out of the daily experiences and operations of the human ordeals and pleasures.

This article is part of the column – Poetry as Sanctuary – where we explore poetry as a means of expression for voices of the South Asian Diaspora. 

Vishal Vatnani is a man as ordinary as you can imagine. He is a 26-year-old data analyst working in San Francisco for a Fintech company. He enjoys writing poetry, playing guitar, reading self-help books, and slaving away his days working.