Thamaa hua Aakash

Thamaa hua Aakash (The sky stood still) is a collection of Hindi poems, written in last 4-5 years, and during the existential turmoil the world has faced, and is still facing. The poems are in clusters. Khabari (Newsmaker) poems are snippets of things, good, bad or ugly, unfolding around us. The unprecedented exodus of migrant labourers, the student unrest in a certain institution, the almost lost struggle with COVID, till the vaccines came along, children we were unable to save on some excuse or the other, our brave soldiers attaining martyrdom, death of an ex-prime minister who was a poet and a philosopher, etc. There are short sketches, of mind and matter, in the Laghu Kathayen series. Having come from Bihar-Jharkhand ancestry, the eastern dialect is close to his heart, and the author has put some poems, emanating from our closely guarded, day to day lives, in the Purabia section. An extension of this can be seen in the Gud Kathayen (jaggery tales) section. However, some poems have escaped this process of clustering, and demand independent voice, of their own. So, a call has been taken, and they are, just, Nirbandh, literally, un-labelled. I am grateful to my wife, Dr Shikha Mathur Kumar, who is my colleague as well as a prolific painter, for allowing me to use one of her works for the cover design. I grateful to my son, Samvit, for his insights. I am grateful to my co-workers, Mr. Sundaresh and Mr Raman, for providing necessary support to make this work a reality. I am grateful to Blue Rose publishers and its very supportive editorial team for bringing out this poetry collection. This book is dedicated to Shashwat, (10/10/2001-04/03/2019) my younger son, who we lost to severe illness followed by his heroic struggle for 14 years. Niraj Kumar Kolkata, January the 3 rd , 2022.