Design Pendulum
practice
compoundeye
The Vessel
image:medium:actor
Textures
shop

Textures

+ content
+ poems
+ essays
+ reportage

surreal agra

volume of 7 poems on few relics of Aga, written in '20 - traversing the macabre, the surreal and the spiritual
mail@designpendulum.com

terms of use

site design : compoundeye compoundeye

site development : malkum malkum

© 2020. Design Pendulum.

surreal agra

The 7 English poems in this collection were first published on Instagram sometime in 2020. Except Uprooted from Altars, which was revised today morning, all poems are in their original form – created in a spontaneous moment, reacting to the images and the memory of their experience which they triggered.

While it is not possible to ignore the great Taj when in Agra, most of the poems are impressions and reflections on the relics haunting the Paliwal Park. Located pretty much at the center of the city, the large swathes of undulating vegetated land and lake of this urban garden now lie fragmented by roads and indifference.

The collection is an attempt at meditating upon how memory and monuments can turn into relics as the contexts of time and society metamorphose. While they’re fodder for opportunists to manipulate meanings, the timelessness of relics can also provide for an overwhelming emotional experience.

20.10.21

vision

the miserable journeys
there and thereafter
seem to matter little

caressing the beautiful Taj
in a sideways embrace
as though a dear friend

and dawn bidding farewell
to the soothing full moon
with soft warm sun rays

bare and barren beauty

a bridge to nowhere
treaded upon by no one
spanning across emptiness

promised land

the nymph offers
inviting pictures
to quench the
insatiable thirst
but just ravage
her loins for now

macabre

our dreams have run aground
strange carcass washed ashore
though threat still looms around
let’s play like we used to before

uprooted from altars

whether of royalty or divinity
it matters little to statues
and sculptures where they lay

the meanings invested in them
or their laying or uprooting
are but only time bound

take note instead of tasks
taken up in the charged
vicinity of the symbols

those who know know
tasks matter much more
meanings are manipulated

fallen emblems and floating laundry

there are many peddlers
who deal only in symbols
erecting and protecting
imagined glorious pasts
while pulling apparently
offensive ones down
their lives however
have little meaning
perhaps they never
wash their linen ever

what is it?!

a mausoleum – a monument to the dead; yes, there is a mosque as well and chambers for erstwhile royal guests, but no one has lived there for centuries…

what is around?

precariously hanging, over populated urban fabric and slums to the South and South East, near dead river to the north and reminders landscape of forests and parks on the east and the west.

what does this mean?

don’t know, but it’s overwhelmingly wonderful to stand gazing in silence at its astoundingly beautiful stillness.

Share

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on Linkedin
  • Share via Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Share on Reddit
mail@designpendulum.com

terms of use

site design : compoundeye compoundeye

site development : malkum malkum

© 2020. Design Pendulum.