Jaylan Salah, Egyptian writer, on Satish and Santosh Babusenan, Indian film directors

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Satish and Santosh Babusenan
A Journey through Bodies, Souls and Time

(Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan)

(Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan) 

During the 38th edition of Cairo International Film Festival in 2016, I had the pleasure of watching an unconventional Indian film. Prejudices aside, for me Indian cinema represented Bollywood, which is an overabundance of melodrama, dancing and dreamy looking Indians who –I am sure- had nothing to do with how real life Indians looked like. It came as a surprise for me to discover brother directing duo Satish and Santosh Babusenan’s film “The Narrow Path – Ottayaal Patha” which was a sensual masterpiece, with minimal lighting and a camera that keeps rolling to allow the characters to evolve in front of the audiences’ mesmerized eyes. A meditative look on life, death, desire and familial conflicts; “The Narrow Path” was a testosterone-infused film oozing with the sensationalism that only sensitive artists could capture.

Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan; who are they?

Two Indian dreamers who abandoned the materialistic, commercial, fast-paced world of MTV India where they worked as music video directors and returned to Kerala; their hometown where they explored their artistic ventures through their movies. Since then they have mutually agreed not to promote their works unless a curious 30-year-old feminist critic decided to do that on their behalf.

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Poetry from Linda Imbler

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Gossips
Both inside an outside a haunted house
the dead fear you more.
So, avoid them in dark alleys
on account that you do not startle them.
For, I guarantee that they are there.
They like to wander because
they are as curious as cats.
They do enjoy a good look inside windows,
especially of places where they once lived.
Would you deny them the pleasure of remembering their past?
They only want to live up to their eulogies
of having connected
and the questions of life never cease,
even for them.
They watch closely
to see and hear what goes on around them
for there are very few spirits without a face
and none without ears.
They share news of what they have seen and heard.
I have been told they are some of the most
consummate gossips on the planet.
For this reason, beware of seances,
where the dearly departed might tell all your secrets.
It might make for a most embarrassing day!

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Story from Don McLellan

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Squatters

ALICIA LETS THE towel slip from her sunburned shoulders and adjusts the goggles. A volunteer secures a number to the strap of the swimsuit, nudging her into a procession of shivering girls dropping off the end of the pier. In the dream the river is cold and muddy, the current swift.

Awake, she listens to the snowflakes rake the side of the house, its spare cedar frame shuddering in the bracing December gust. Somewhere nearby a patch of ice splinters; a fox crossing a pond, she guesses.

In the top bunk, Dougie kicks off his blankets.

“You awake, sis?”

“Count giraffes,” she says. “You like giraffes.”

He goes quiet. Asleep, she hopes.

     “He’s back!” Dougie disappoints, pushing away from the window, dropping to the floor and crawling in beside her. “Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

But Alicia is tired, and Dougie is an imaginative boy. When his breathing evens she tiptoes to the kitchen for a sip of water. She peeks out the window, but sees no sign of – what was it he saw this time? Oh, yes: a little man. A little man who looks like a leprechaun.

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Story from Ann Tinkham

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The Forever Snow

 

I go back to find her, and it’s all different now. Everyone’s changed, the little ones grown, the ones in my heart ancient. They’re not the auburn-haired Jackie-O or the wide-smiling JFK cruising city streets in a mustang convertible playing the easy breezy sixties. They’re the ones I thought they’d never be, the diaper-clad, walker-bound who brace against pain, straining to grasp words that remind them of who they were.

That life behind a dome-glassed snow globe is picture-pretty on a shelf. I shake it, and the flakes dance down, lovely like, but I can’t melt them on my tongue. I cradle the frosty globe in my palm and remember.

I’ve become who they were when they were Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke, forever grown-ups in the living room. But I’m still her, wanting what she can no longer have, wanting what is no longer hers, wanting what was given away. In a garage sale. Pennies on the dollar. Covered by layers of decorating in the shade of apathy. Traded in for Glen Campbell with bell bottoms, loose hips, and fast money.

Careless with the sacred, they let the gypsies in, their aching bellies and grubby hands snatching ours to make it theirs. They, of the new dad, no longer ours. They, of the polished shoes, private schools, and gazebo living.  They, of the ever-changing storefront window. We, of the faceless mannequins, exposed. Shirts off our backs, for sale.

We crowded into a clapboard house with jagged paint, velvet sheen walls and electric blue shag underfoot, distracting us from flimsy instability. It shook when the wind blew. It shook as a reminder of what was. It shook as a reminder of what would never be. It shook when he exploded in rage. It shook when he exploded with desire. It shook when he slammed the door for the last time.

The gypsies have prospered; the colony, whole in its brought-to-you-by-him togetherness. He spilled out his eyes, ears, and steps for them. We are scattered and shattered. Desolation pods. Empty-handed, they come to us, the broken ones, asking for what is ours. If not for him, we’d shutter the store, dismantle the window, and take our mannequins home.

I still can’t find her. The girl. Perhaps she’s inside the globe too. I’ll shake it and see. Or maybe just shatter it and release her from the forever snow.

Poetry from Piotr Kasjas

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Children of the Stars
translated by Artur Komoter

We children of the stars –
Atoms of life
Born of cosmic dust
In the cold darkness of the galaxies

In a tiny fraction of their existence
We children of the stars –

They arose from silence
Descendants of the white dwarves
Thrown out of the emptiness

In their rocky blocks

We children of the stars –
Lonely wanderers
From the stellar tumuli

Lost in the abyss of self-discovery
We create and we die

We children of the stars –
The only source of life
The pagans and believers
The only ones present

With the soul of the universe

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Poetry from Gwil James Thomas

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Poem on Multitasking 
in a Brightonian Dive Bar.
The kitchen doors flew open
like some gunslinger
had entered a
Spaghetti Western saloon –
the landlady then stared over
to my section and rolled her eyes.
“Y’know what your problem
is sunshine?” she screamed.
“What?” I’d asked.
“You try to do everything at
fucking once!”
My boss then tried to
demonstrate how to operate
the dishwasher and make
desserts at the same time
before failing at my
minimum wage
Sisyphean job and leaving,
but she’d been right –
there I was trying to pen lines,
sneak in drinks from the bar
for the chefs and myself,
whilst texting my friend in
response to his “business idea” –
one that was risky,
but paid enough in cash money
to pay for two months,
write freely and search
for a new job.
I knew that in a couple of days
it’d also be payday at the pub
and time to prioritise
things again and I knew that
my job there wasn’t going to be
one of them.

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Poetry from Arthur C. Ford

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DEAD BOOK

(For those who don’t read)

 

Don’t let me sit

And rot away

As you walk

Through ages.

 

I once was pulp

Some spruce, some pine

Now my blood

Is words on pages.

 

Closed covers

Are confining

Strangulating!

Each veinal sentence.

 

Ignoring me

And all my kind

Would bring

Global repentance!!

 

So grasp me, open me

Digest life’s cultures

Make sure!

That I am read,

 

For if you don’t

Do this mankind

For sure

We both are dead.

 

By: Arthur C. Ford, Sr., poet

wewuvpoetry@hotmail.com

 

 

 

Bio-Sketch

 

Arthur C. Ford,Sr. was born and raised in New Orleans,La..While in college he performed parts in several plays and did the lead role in Ossie Davis’s “Purlie Victorious”. Acting catapulted him to writing and presently publishing poetry.

            He received a B.S. Degree from Southern University in New Orleans(S.U.N.O.), travel to 45 states of America, resided in Europe for two years(Bruxelles, Belgium) and travelled for 30 days(July/2011) throughout the country of India.

            His poetry, lyrics and prose have been published in many journals, magazines, etc..

            He presently lives in Pittsburgh,Pa., and continues to write and publish poetry.