Musings Before Dawn
Description:
Pages: 65
Year of Publication: 1999
Price: HB Rs 80, FB Rs 50
ISBN:
HB 81-7595-560-0 (8175955600)
FB 81-7595-561-9 (8175955619)
About the Author:
Born in 1974, Ateesh Tankha spent the first 24 years of his life in Calcutta, a city he loves passionately, for which he composed a monograph, Old Calcutta, in 1997. After attending St. Xavier’s School and La Martiniere, he joined Presidency College. Besides creative writing and reading, he is deeply interested in theatre and has directed three plays.
Teaser:
The Bachelor
A dark street and the house’s lambent glow
A Christmas tree, lights and bon-bons fitted
Are all I remember of long ago.
How father sang and mother knitted
And I rocked while the dog slept at my feet,
More than woolies the beating hearts heated.
I have a white Christmas now, full of sleet
Enough snow to build a thousand snowmen,
To have one of cotton-wool is a treat.
Now life has flitted by, full five times ten
And gurgling voices speak with mature breath
Confusing my smoke, mightier than my pen.
No gifts to give, not even surrogate debt,
My arms outstretched to an eternal void
The mind mists over, the babes swoon to death.
Contents:
The Legacy of Jasper Spell / 15
When You Are Old / 18
The Bachelor / 19
Satan / 20
The Journey / 21
The Test / 22
Under the Sun / 24
A Dream / 25
The Last Vestiges / 26
Public Opinion / 27
Ebb-Tide / 28
Homage to Aristotle / 29
The Bathing Crows / 30
The Lonely Fish / 31
Consolation to Orpheus / 33
Forgotten / 35
On the Beach / 36
The Great Deceiver / 37
The Lesson / 38
The Emerald Green / 40
New Year’s Eve / 41
Voice of the Nightingale / 42
Fear / 46
The Unfulfilled Blossom / 47
Bird Song / 49
A Parting Word / 50
Interludes / 51
Six Songs for Children / 55
Sonnets / 62