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Now

Adil Jussawalla

S. Vijayaraghavan, ‘Collective Waves’, archival pigment on paper, 2013

Sea made of newsprint, ships made of newsprint
there just an hour ago and gone down a drain
we refused to confirm existed.
A full month’s rumours didn’t take hold.
This incident too may not be reported.
The radio is playing sa-re-ga-ma after
‘And that is the end of the news’
and no one seems able to stop it.
Now I can see the sky’s grip loosening.
It looks sickly, it crumples, it goes.

 

‘Collective Waves, detail’

Poem © Adil Jussawalla; images © S. Vijayaraghavan.

Adil Jussawalla was born in Mumbai. He spent most of the years between 1957 and 1970 in England where he studied to be an architect, wrote plays, read English at the University of Oxford, and taught English at a language school. Returning to Mumbai, he taught English at St Xavier’s College between 1972 and 1975. He is an influential presence in Indian poetry in English. He has written four books of poetry, edited a seminal anthology of new writing from India (1974), and co-edited an anthology of Indian prose in English (1977). His publications include Trying to Say Goodbye, Almost Island Books, 2011, The Right Kind of Dog, Duckbill Books, Maps for a Mortal Moon: Essays and Entertainments (edited by Jerry Pinto), Aleph Books, 2014, and I Dreamt a Horse Fell From the Sky, a collection of poetry and prose, Hachette.

Born in Madurai, India, in 1981, S. Vijayaraghavan is a visual artist, video artist, painter and photographer. He holds an MFA in painting from the College of Art in New Delhi and has also participated in an advanced studio art program at the Berlin Art Institute, Berlin. He has had major exhibitions and has participated in various shows and biennials internationally, and across the country. Some notable exhibitions were held at the Lily Agius Gallery, Malta, CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK, Casablanca International Video Art Festival, Casablanca 25thand 28th Nomadic Festival Les Instants Vidéo, France, 10th Berlin International Directors Lounge, Berlin, Espaco de Art’es Multimedia Performance and Alliance Franchise de Coimbra in Portugal; Sarai Reader ‘09 curated by the Raqs Media Collective in collaboration with Devi Art Foundation and Sarai CSDS and supported by the Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi. He currently lives and works in India. He can be contacted at vijay.svhavan@gmail.com; and +91-9100774769. For more information visit his website.