damn you

issue one
version 1.0

theme rangzen

Dedication
To the ones who remained youngArvind Krishna Mehrotra, Amit Rai and Alok Rai

Statement
This is not a movement, and it is definitely not a god-damn platform
for aspiring poets. We dont have the spirit for the former, and we hate the
later term; besides we dont have too much money to make us absolutely
sure that we will sustain.
Indian poetry has its own story and several anthologies and histories
have done the painful task of explaining that history and the ethos behind
that history. In the present time however, we do not have a particular
setting where young poets find a place. There are plenty of online
magazines, here in India itself, and we appreciate their efforts of carving
out an alternative. But there is no place exclusively for our own. Also,
poetry competitions have turned poems into investments with entry fees
and a restriction in the number of lines a submission can have, with a cap
on the total number of poems that can be submitted. There is no space we
can exclusively call our own, without these restrictions. Besides, we do not
promise to publish the best poetry written across the world because we
are not quite sure what that means. We are interested to publish raw but
promising voices that are Indian. By Indian we dont mean Indian
nationals; it is a broad term, and we wish to let it remain so. So basically
we decided to publish exclusively those poets who write poetry, are
Indians, and are below thirty years.
The reason behind calling this magazine damn you is a way of
going back to tradition and paying our own little tribute to it. The one
thing that has kept the literature of this country alive since independence
has been those little little magazines. And one such little magazine in

English was started by a young Arvind Krishna Mehrotra as a BA English

Honours student in Allahabad. Of course, nobody cares about finding
copies of those four issues, but a very small section does. The reason for
calling this damn you is perhaps out of the sheer sadness that I can never
see those four issues without resting my hopes on some great piece of luck
and coincidence in stumbling into one copy or, better still, copies.
The other reason is to reinstate that we believe in the tradition of
poetry we have inherited. Apart from the age cap we do not conform to
any style, form, or any particular kind of poetry. However, we are
interested in exploring what we like to call a poetics of disillusionment.
Sometimes, this comes across as protest poetry, but we would like to
expand the limits of this protest: see what is this disillusioned individual
feels about other issues which might be deeply personal and not just social.
What is the social in the personal and the personal in the social? What
does this mean for poetry? Does it affect the form; is it merely in the
content? We dont have the answers; this magazine is an attempt to find
some of them.
Also, the point about disillusionment is political. There is not a
single day when the news does not make a point about the youth of this
country who form the largest percentage of the population. We have been
constructed as a job-hungry, development oriented, and technologically
savvy bunch always looking ahead into the future. Well, we just thought of
looking into our past as well. And it does not need my insistence to state
how much that rhetoric falls behind the actual ethos behind what we are. It
must, however, be conceded that a vast section of our generation has
indeed grown up listening to motivational speeches by chick-lit authors.
As a friend points out, only engineers and MBA graduates can write

novels now. But this country may well be doomed if the entire generation
is shaped by that construct. Our attempt is to find a little space of our own.
I am not going to explain what each poet/poem deals with, as
editorial standards today have become. You can read the poems for
yourself and know what each is trying to convey. I will, however, make a
point or two about the theme. Like pundits making comments about the
youth of this country, another hot cake for absolutely free opinions is
Tibet. If I find the former irritating, the latter is revolting. Almost anybody
can picture a group of monks and talk about a lost land, an imagined
country, a permanent loss of home and a host of other issues. Most, of
course, fail to see the politics behind the use of such words. The
construction of Tibet as a homogenised whole has done as much harm to
Tibet as the Chinese occupation. We hope to make the point across that
there is nothing abstract about Tibet. It is a protest that is alive; it is a
struggle that is real. Also, on calling the theme for this issue rangzen, we
wish make it clear that we support Tibetan independence without bounds;
we do not want Tibets freedom to be merely a political one; it cannot be
an autonomous region that is a part of China. We give our little, but
unconditional support for rangzen and our absolute opposition to ume lam,
or the middle way. Our only regret is that we failed to find enough Tibetan
voices in this issue. Also, not all the poems deal with this theme but fall
within the scope of what this little magazine stands for.
We hope you do not enjoy reading the poems. We hope you read this
issue and read a little bit more about Tibet.
Souradeep Roy
Founder, Notice Board Collective
and Editor-at-large, damn you
Mail damnyoupoetry@gmail.com

Poets, Page Number

Gyelek Khedup Atisang, 1

Ishan Marvel, 9
Sahana Mukherjee, 13
Souradeep Roy, 19
Little Chandler, 21
Aritra Sengupta, 22
Stuti Chandra, 25
,
Prateeksha Pandey, 27
Anirban Roy Chowdhury, 28
Contributors, 33

Gyelek Khedup Atisang

Untitled I
Geography is destiny.

Copa America
Second hand corduroy jackets and denims
Remind me of you
Wish I could frame memories
In empty bottles of Gold-Spot
Because they still remind me
Terribly of you
The color of all the flags we honored with Khadas1
Received ample blessing
But none that had the sigil of the Tibetan Flag
And though we waited
For our heroes to outshine
The baseless and trivial
Football was my palas 2 religion
An inheritance that he passed along to me
So the flags that we honored once in every four years
Was more than just a game
It travels geographically
And has been documented historicallyIn the corner side pockets of Southern India
Which is Hunsur Town
Argentina vs. Germany
My Pala in his hay day
Huddled with ten of his best friends
Along with a few others
For the Finals in color televisionThe high definition of my palas time
And the Hand of God
1
2

Tibetan silk scarfs

Tibetan word for father
2

That changed history

Gave wings to a man
That my pala worshipped like a god
And so it has been five cups that have come and gone
Five cups have been celebrated away from home
Five cups that my pala recalls
Talking about the reckless joy of rooting for a country that isnt
even ours
He laughs a bit
And this is how I am reminded of you
With a shared poverty
Because everything now
Still reminds me terribly of you

Sky Burial
I
Gyelek
Khedup
Have
stood

Atisang
alone

For twenty five years or was it twenty six

Im a little confused you see because Ive forgotten which calendars I
follow
Yours
Always

or

mine

measured

carefully

I ask whether the colloquial I speak can match the shade of my skin or the
Colour of my eyes
I can speak a little of everything
So when I speak a little bit of Assamese
I become Jackie Bhai of Satya
during chai at Tinku bhaiyyas
To relieve ourselves from last nights hangover
Im in search of translation as well
Translation, which would cater to my needs
Translation, which neednt be too harsh
Translation for the word
Phangho that was flung across the room
Where once at a place I sought for a home
That taught me people who live with fear also live with hatred
And that stain bed sheets for a lame excuse as an act of love
And that those spread their legs for middle aged men
Often spite others who live freely
And after being thrown out of Lajpat nagar C-40
I know that now I can never be rendered homeless
Just as this poet once scribbled in my notebook
That Rangzen is in the mind and not the Visa
But I need just more than that
Just more than Buddhist philosophies
Those that only cater to the upper elite
4

Of ample amount of bored spouses

Who find their way into Tibet House
In search for Nirvana
For the Buddha that I converse with
Lives in the subway that connects us to the A.I.I.M.S metro station
We often meet for late night joints
And talk about the rise of rent in this city
He smiles at me mockingly when he tells me that the government has
Sanctioned the space he lives in
And that some truths areTo get high
Is just really to forget

My fathers Rucksack
I heard that my fathers Rucksack was sent from America
He told me it was Noorface
(He meant to say Northface)
Made in America and not china
Even on vacations or on pilgrimage they seemed to be one for a lifetime.
(Translated into English from the original in Tibetan, Nyga Pala Gee
Rucksack)

Untitled II
Souradeep when at Old Camp
R
E
M
E
M
B
E
R
Me like the smell of wet paint
Because all dreams are buried here
And when at Old Camp
Careful what dreams you may unlock

The Milk Went Bad

The milk went bad
I had forgotten to refrigerate, so the milk went bad
I wonder what other things I would start forgetting.
The red, they never seem to forget
some kind of medication I presume?
If its come to that then Id like to forget everything
Remember nothing
Even though I forgot to refrigerate the milk
I dont think I would forget the colour of my skin
How can I? Im reminded that Im an outsider everyday
Thank you India
For today the milk went bad
But I hope that my mind never goes bad and churn into cheese like the
milk did
Today
(Translated into English from the original in Tibetan, Homma ryusoo)

Ishan Marvel
Because We Can Always Protest
something is happening
you can smell it in the air
of the monument
where rats come and go
dripping revolution.
because old men know what is unnatural
and holy men, the grey spot
because beef is virginal
and terror hung in whimsy
because granny and godhra are gone
and the brooms are haggling
because the wolf grew a mane
while the boss was raping our kids
and because america is stripping us
while pakistan is a monster again.
for there is no need to think
speak and all is forgotten,
like a terrible beauty
dancing in abortion
and because it wails like a teeming cat
each time you write a cigarette.
ghalib,
will it ever stop,
this bitch of a city?

The Harpic Challenge

Graphite is potential diamond,
doesnt mean you stuff it up your ass.
Never let your head get bigger than your ass
unless you want to lose the last place to hide it,
and never laugh in the labyrinth of common street.
Everyone loves Harpic in the weird republic.
Nice face, whered you get it?
Be good, not robotic
perhaps Harappa was just scribbling.

10

I AM JOB
Brave new world stares
from a glimmering strand.
An anthem tears between
sanitary snap and jingle,
wanting to mingle
in the carnival.
Fumes of clots and tots
huffing glue for the reverend.
The overwhelming buffoonery of it all
travesties boring relentless
in puppy eyes trampled
under steel-foot spittoons
and the noses, unashamed and sniffing.
One for my master,
one for my gimp,
one for little Aryan
brewing down the lane
gin for poets who puke
all night
free and flowing,
honey dripping
on cloud and shifty ear,
lonely mirrored in the eyes
of men who stuff rats for bread.
Family gorges on daddy strongest
in bacon suit and latex cataract.
And Suzie impatient for coke ration
it almost drives her crazy,
rubbing swords with fat globs
from Shimla.
A big fat sausage in chocolate
vaseline
and a huxley ode-wipe to go.

11

Its 2020,
we clean our buttocks with bad poetry.
Get your navel across that if you can
all about the yes,
no?
Its alright,
I like doing my life
I AM JOB.
We must love one another or die
(WH Auden)

12

Sahana Mukherjee
Dear Lenin
I
You've never been a refugee,
Lenin.
Like my father,
a drunkard perhaps,
but you've never known exile.
Kanu's last letter to me
described their nights at Lal Bazar.
With the constables,
they sat chatting,
smoking a pipe,
wondering if they'd too
end up in Maidan,
dead.
He didn't die in Maidan,
Lenin,
as you will know.
In the Autumn of 2010,
he hanged himself in his own room,
and like an ideal drunkard,
my father stumbled upon his corpse,
re-claiming 12 years of liberation.
How has Asansol been?
I seem to have lost
all my connections with Manipur.
Sometimes,
from somewhere,
he appears and updates me
on the latest curfew,
How the nights are awfully long,
and how the stories
13

are getting awfully old.

The other day
someone spoke of unmitigated anger,
and I wondered
how much anger Gujarat
and I have known
since '92.
My father tells me he'll come to University
one of these days,
claiming
we'll be reduced to arseholes
that day.
He claims too much.
Can you gather the profound chaos, Lenin?
It's finally setting in.
While I try
to reconstruct my course of action,
and figure out the words
in my head,
he has proved himself once again,
and at 11:30 tonight
they're still wondering
if another barbed wire
will finally settle feuds between
Kashmir and us.
After all,
it is you and I who are responsible,
Lenin,
never the next world.

14

II
My dear Lenin,
has Asansol been on your mind?
Kolkata tests your will,
doesn't it?
So, every weekend,
you take the train
and visit your missed land.
Are all our native lands
infidel, Lenin?
It's been a while
you've been in love,
and I've been happy,
if you're bent on learning
about me.
Why my bed-sheets are often red,
I could never explain,
but you probably understand the catch.
I like to be your Trotsky all right.
Lenin,
will we ever see the sky of Bangladesh?
will we ever know how many really died
in the War?
Genocide is something
I can't deal with.
Has our precious Kolkata never witnessed one?
I've been talking to you last night
and wondering
how many pills
a day
cure a Bipolar patient.
So ludicrous
15

how the doctors take everything for granted.

It's early in the morning
and I've been thinking of
writing for you
what I promised long back.
There are confessions I'll always run away from,
and conditions I'll always embrace.
It's true I loved you once.
So, Lenin,
on another note,
as you rightly said,
on our battle of the 21st,
I have chosen to distribute myself.
Ideas are always taken,
or borrowed
or sometimes brutally stolen.
I see my bed-sheets turn red, Lenin,
and the walls
gradually breaking down.
Will there really be a third world war,
or did we fight
for no reason whatsoever
once again?
I will turn in now,
and let you be,
for Lenin,
I have always lived in a missed land,
where my infidelity
never seemed to let go of me.

16

III
It's a fine morning, Lenin,
and this
shall be our final conversation.
You've been on the banks
of Subernarekha,
and spent a few days with our Nagorik.
Have you, then, finally decided
if you'll be returning to the other side?
Contrary
to what you said,
in your last letter,
I barely cry every night.
Even a Bipolar patient must know
when to stop
even though the barbed wire
keeps getting in between.
Have you been interchanging fragments again?
Tomorrow marks the end
of the sixth month,
and Kashmir
hasn't recuperated yet.
Will we ever see the end of it?
The mass graves at Baramullah never sleep.
My house is under mortgage,
and the demolition
is on its way.
Come January,
I'll be as infidel
as I've always wanted to be.
Albeit, Lenin,
I mind the displacement.
Standing on this side of the border,
17

I've often wondered

how the bodies on the other side
look like.
Are they as much in demand?
My grandmother's house
was in Borishal,
and only a few days ago,
they beat up women there.
She passed away,
like her stories,
in 2008,
and ever since
I've been trying to convince them
how independence instigates the oppressor.
whenever you go to Bangladesh,
think of me.
Standing at the ghat of Ichhamoti,
I am trying to come up
with new names
for the new land.
After all,
I am as bourgeois as you,
in Asansol,
Lenin.
There is indeed no decent place
to stand in a massacre,
and the name of the new land
has always been the same not what they named it in 1947;
I've always liked to call it Opar Bangla.

18

Souradeep Roy
Land, Native
When you speak bilingually,
fluent Tibetan scattered with English words
and flip through that pile of papers,
I see Tibets proud march towards rangzen
in every ruffle of a page.
And in my phones memo
I check the name of my native land
which I saved
so that I can look up when I forget:
Bikrampur, Dhaka
Tibet has to gain freedom Gyelek.
This is the only way I can visit my native land.
My native land called Bangladesh
in a free Tibet.

19

Find synecdoche and metonymy and if you can, home in this poem
I come back home but because of you I remain in Delhi. I do not worry if
you were jailed, yet again. I worry if you were hurt. You tell me that the
IG is a chutiya, and then ask why I sound so tired. I should be tired now.
I suppose its because of the endless questioning in the lock-up. I washed
clothes all day man. And this is how you teach me bathos. Always a step
ahead of me, you, Gyelek Khedup, like the tortoise when the finishing line
came and the rabbit before it came. And then you ask, how coming back
home was. I have to calculate my words now, as if Im Ezra Pound writing
an Imagist poem. Every description of coming back home has to be
selected carefully because I know, beneath that light voice of yours, is an
ocean of tears, and a volcano of anger.
But where am I? Where am I in all of this? I am in the knot of the Tibetan
flag you made around your neck when you were protesting in front of the
Chinese embassy. In that knot is my identity as an exile, as a Bangladeshi,
as a refugee. The government of two countries had successfully kept that
identity tied up safe in that knot. But why, why Gyelek Khedup, why did
you have to untie it?
Because with every wave of the flag one moment I see Chanakyapuri in
Delhi, and in the next, I see Tibet.
Because sometimes, I have nightmares of Bangladesh.

20

Little Chandler
Mornings with newspapers
I
Supreme Court Reverses Delhis High Courts Verdict on Sec 377;
Homosexuality a crime
The dome of my pink penis
is now much larger than yours.
Will you still wait
for me to ejaculate
at your back
and paint it white again?

21

Aritra Sengupta
Charred
So one fine morning,
this one fine monk,
realized that there's no
middle path, after all.
Either they will burn you completely
and sell your ashes in shiny packets
with labels which read "negotiated piece"
Or you can alternatively set fire
to yourself.
And write a small, casual poem about it,
where the last line goes like:
In between China and Tibet,
there exists no border,
there exits no line,
there exists no sign of control,
just an endless void,
full of naked flames.

22

Statue
I had bought this small figure
of laughing buddha, after I returned
from border duty.
It had this tender, serene glow,
the closest to peace,
a mere statue can ever be.
I had placed it on my study table,'
next to this huge map of China,
and the medals I won during wartime,
and a shabbily framed photograph
of chairman Mao.
It began with bloodstains.
They appeared suddenly and
disappeared at will.
When they operated on the
forever smiling idol,
they formed the odd uncertain contours,
of some fragile, forgotten territory.
Last night, the worst happened.
I woke up to the laughing god's whisper,
"Comrade, remember Tibet?"

23

Made in China
Bosebabu was our beloved councillor.
He had this knack of sharing brieft anecdotes
about his days as a student leader,
and how he had first met
Pramad Dasgupta and Jyoti Basu.
But those stories were hardly as interesting
as the heartbreaking tale he told us often.
It was about this trade union veteran
who dropped Lenin's name
every ten minutes and claimed
that he knew the first few pages
of the manifesto, by heart.
He was once asked at some leftist convention
about his views on the human rights violation
By China in Tibet.
He seemed very, very perplexed.
After a long pause, he replied,
"TIbet? ummmm...momo, thukpa..all that..
great contribution to the world food culture..
Human rights and all, that I don't really know"
Every time Bosebabu finished telling us this story,
he smiled a little. It was then I realized
disillusioned communists,
have the saddest smiles.

24

Stuti Chandra
You Think We Need New Names
"Shiyoli."
Siyoli?
"Shiyoli"
Its too long a name for a whore.
Too beautiful too.
There is the danger of syrupy poets...Lovers.
Sona is nice. Or a Salma.
Healthy names for you.
Or let's cut you down Shiyoli...to...
Shi.
"Shiyoli."
Its too fancy a name for a maid.
Hollering out would be a problem.
She cannot have a longer name than Iti.
Meenu is nice.
Or a Anju.
Dulari?

"Shiyoli."
Its too tough a name for a child.
Its a cloy killer.
Doesn't work.
Let's call her baby
For now.

25

,
,

, , ,

, , , )






,


?

26

Prateeksha Pandey
Those women in the burqa
(In those bazaars that sit only on Thursdays
it is not possible to know the difference among hundreds of women
roaming around inside a black piece of clothing
if you are not
a bangle-seller,
a tailor,
a seller of
clips, combs, strings for the hair, nail polish,
or maybe needles, threads, buttons, or a maker of shiny shiny laces)
Can you,
through that voice of yours that filters out of the veil, tell me
how does it feel draping yourself in nights
during the tempered afternoons of June?
Nights which are sometimes plain,
nights which are sometimes richly embroidered.

27

Anirban Roy Chowdhury

Of anchoring ships in the sand.
Sit down,
Your head between your knees
Try to own
The frosted room you are in.
Square box-ed ice
And,
Glass walls tender and fragile
Eyes of a world outside
While,
Gawk with marble-eyes of marvel.
Utopia stands today,
beneath polished stones of decay
Stones that the slaves,
Through day and night shine.
Angel-eyed locusts of plague
cover the tiddler grass of imagination.
And they shut me away,
as a relic of forgotten dreams.
Just as,
An old part of a city
Kept safe by narcissists.
It turns gradually then
A memento
by the corner street.
Until,
All that remains is a single brick
shingles and red shards.
Now tell me:
Is it wrong
To believe
Darkness is dawn.

28

Before the blackout.

Everybody is taking a walk
In reverse,
On infinite roads of time.
Houses on the street
are forever quiet
Miffed doors shut,
Their lights have been left on
lest they feel alone.
Children play marbles on the pavement.
The older smoke weed,
On the rock of front doors.
The oldest,
Fly around in wheelchairs
Scattering colours from spinning spokes.
They fly past forgotten windows
Ducking at ropes
That drip water from clothes
left to dry.
They wink at pretty ladies from the past
At a wedding below
The bride in
Patterned dress
Coiled and coloured
Hiding the white.
Then the lights go out
All but,
A closing star
From top-left of the sky
And novate the new
Through prisms of shade
in ruby-red.
Some paint the skin,
Trees, shops and bus-stops.
Some like,
Raindrops in white
29

smudge the edges

and fade in.
Carnival and confetti
Stops.
Marbles won and lost.
Joints abused.
Wheelchairs come crashing down.

30

Making a birdhouse.
I am not a poet.
I simply am a cog
out of a wheel,
of an old man's wheel-chair:
Institutions
and one's unsurprising greed.
But everyone is a creator
and a creation
of the creator,
I don't mean god
i simply mean
an artist,
it is then we see
a mirage and a moon
in a desert
of night and fog
and that,
illusions are real.
Do i become ,
a 'real man'
and an adultthe question they ask.
What they really mean
"will it feed you"
in all perspectives of want.
Sadly, no.
It won't unless
everyone of you
rise above
conventions and your comfort.
Once that is possible,
this disease,
as they put it
would be incurable.
31

And then:
The bud of the tree of life,
would gingerly be woken
to a new day.
A day of silence
and complete darkness.
Darkness is THE dawn.
For dreams that turn cold under the stone.

32

Contributors
Gyelek Khedup Atisang has only one wish - to have a sky burial back
home. May the vultures feed on some seasoned meat marinated for a
lifetime in rum, beer and cannabis.
Ishan Marvel was born in the mountains but has spent most of his life in
the city of Delhi.
Sahana Mukherjee is a graduating student at the Department of English,
Jadavpur University. She likes to read the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and
Mahmoud Darwish. Her poems are mostly conversational and
confessional. She writes out of the necessity to express herself.
Souradeep Roy is from Calcutta. He is currently in Delhi, trying to figure
things out.
Little Chandler is a student. He talks to himself, is directionally
challenged, likes being in love, and hates any conditions to loving by any
authority.
Aritra Sengupta is a 22 year old playwright, theatre director and actor
based in Kolkata. He is presently on the verge of completing his Masters
in English literature from Jadavpur University. For the last three years,
Aritra has written and directed several acclaimed productions with his
theatre group Mad About Drama and has performed in more than seven
cities across the country. When he is not busy with rehearsals, Aritra's
interests are quite diverse, ranging from playing his bass guitar to ghost
hunting and black magic!
Stuti Chandra has done her Masters in English Literature from Delhi
University. Her poems and short stories are published or in the process of
being published in The Indian Review, Writers Asylum, and by Writers
Melon. Her writings are mostly based on her experiences of growing up in
her hometown of Patna and the adopted city of Delhi.

.
33

Prateeksha Pandey, hailing from Kanpur (UP), is an amateur poet and a

postgraduate student of Delhi University. She is currently working with
India Habitat Centre, Delhi for Samanvay, an annual literary festival
dedicated to Indian languages. Her poems have featured on Kabaadkhana,
a well-known blog for Hindi poetry.
Anirban Roy Chowdhury is a tattoo artist. His first collection of poetry is
called Puddle, from where these poems are taken.

34

The broad themes that we cover are not bound to one print run. Each issue
will have several versions. Please submit poems in any Indian language or
in Tibetan if they relate to this particular theme rangzen or if they fit the
overall scope of the magazine. The only restriction is that the work has to
come from those below thirty. Submit your queries, poems, opinions at
dammyoupoetry@gmail.com
dy shall be issued as frequently (or seldom) as we feel, what is more,
we'll even try and get some money off you for it. the financial benefits are
not meant for ourselves, poor boys' fund. vietnam. (before you pigeonhole
us, we didn't specify which side.)
-

Price - Anything commensurate with your dignity-and ours

Cover Art and Photograph Yethok Rangzen
A Notice Board Collective Publication
35