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From ULR
Issue 14 – WITNESS
Netting and 1 other poem
Translated verses explore pervasive sadness, the profound loss of life's vibrancy, and the poignant ache of inevitable decay, depicting a desolate, colourless existence.
Original Language: Hindi
Netting
Neither love, nor hatred, only a colourless sadness
keeps falling,
crumbling,
these days.
Our faces look like other people,
how easily the red-pink world disappeared,
a tale that our eyes won’t be able to tell.
Only the veins of our heart will
know something of it.
Not even the women
who were delusional about it,
who, even now, know very little about death.
They’re death themselves,
really,
who came after changing their faces.
Death had developed a relationship of deceit with you.
Neither love, nor hatred,
the sky is a colourless netting,
we
can clearly see sadness entangled in it.
***
Getting Lost in the Weather
A leaf was somehow clinging to a branch,
the Autumn took even the leaf today,
a yellow colour embraced it within itself.
It fell before my eyes,
and the wind lifted it with ease,
as if the wind was waiting for the leaf.
I knew the leaf too well,
each and every vein.
The wind transformed it into an ache,
a little too intense for I knew it so well.
I kept watching the leaf as it descended,
getting caught up in its own flames,
it had accepted the invitation of a fire,
without having asked me.
The departure of the leaf like this is a little like getting lost in the weather,
like blood disappearing from one’s veins.
Savita Singh
Savita Singh was born in February 1962 in Ara, Bihar. She earned her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Delhi. Her published poetry collections include Apne Jaisa Jeevan (A Life Like One’s Own, 2001), Neend Thi aur Raat Thi (There Was Sleep and There Was Night, 2005), Swapna Samay (Dream Time, 2013), and Khoyi Cheezon ka Shok (The Grief of Lost Things, 2021). Two bilingual collections have also been published: Roving Together (English–Hindi) and Je suis la maison des étoiles (French–Hindi, 2008). A collection titled Jeyur Rasta Mora Nijara has been published in Odia. An Odia translation of another yet-unpublished Hindi poetry collection, Prem bhi Ek Yatana Hai (Love Is Also a Torment), has also been published (2021). Besides the Hindi Academy and the Raza Foundation, she has been honored with the Mahadevi Varma Award (2016), the Eunice de Souza Award (2020), and the Kedar Samman (2022). She is currently a Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the founding Director of the School of Gender and Development Studies.
Uttaran Das Gupta
Uttaran Das Gupta is an Indian writer and journalist who lives and works in New Delhi, Goa and Birmingham. He has published a book of poems, Visceral Metropolis (2017), and a novel, Ritual (2020). His journalistic work has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Senses of Cinema, Words Without Borders, Himal Southasian and several other publications. His journalism was recognised by the Robert Bosch India-Germany Media Fellowship in 2018 and the Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellowship in 2019. In 2016, he was awarded a residency by Sangam House, India, and in 2027, he will be at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. He has performed his poetry at international festivals such as the Bengaluru Poetry Festival 2023, the Serendipity Arts Festival in Birmingham 2025 and the Birmingham Literature Festival 2025. At present, he is working on a PhD in Media and Culture Studies at Birmingham City University in the UK.