Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is an Indian author. His debut novel The Last Song of Dusk (2004) won the Betty Trask Award (UK), the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy, and was nominated for the IMPAC Prize in Ireland. Translated into 16 languages already. He has written a much thought provoking piece here on why labourers are […]
Almost Holy
The longing for you is almost holy. Warm you sleep; your eyelids closing are the night coming for me. Inescapable love of lives, my lingering ache is the origami crane tucked in your breast. Doing undoing wills and possibilities: with each breath, life raises itself and with every exhale it returns. As it is with all […]
How to Say Goodbye – 1
So much time has passed since I’ve seen you. Still, the memory of you remains an ever-fixed mark on all I see. The image of your face recalls itself, with delicately woven fibres, patterning the windows in my house and the frozen glimpses in hallways, pathways, byways. I can’t look at my own face in the mirror […]
Hunger for Hunger
No more songs for all you fools, broken-hearted and twice innocent. The ones yet too unripe to know what awaits you. The living years of loving are mostly futile and will end in disappointment and cold tea. Didn’t they tell you? You too will grow weary of what little the world offers by way of […]
To Less
Fewer books, and only those which hit that hard-to-find sweet spot. Books that lay back basking in your mind not unlike satisfied lovers on crumpled bedclothes. Fewer friends, but deeper connections. Fewer relationships; grander love, greater passion, incontinent desire. Less buying, more giving. Less impatience, less intolerance, and less apathy. Here’s to less.
In love with a dead thing
How long do you stay in love with a dead thing? It doesn’t speak. It does not take my name. It does not stir night or day. I say my I love yous into the void. I send missives that land with a weary thud on the doormat in a house unopened for three full […]
Kermes
Helen, you look like a new wound tonight. Your lips rubbed raw by one thirsty for your skin. Helen, the red you wear begs you for mercy. Your cloak of blood brings even the night to shame. I cannot speak the language that asks for you to take it in its mouth. I know […]
