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Oct 23, 2024 | 
thedailystar.net | Mitali Chakravarty
'Shabnam' is a dewdrop in Persian. Shabnam (1960) is the name of Syed Mujtaba Ali's passionate love story that stretches beyond the history of nearly a century ago. Like the writings of his teacher, Rabindranath Tagore, the polyglot scholar Mujtaba Ali's story is more than just the plot and the telling.
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Sep 8, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Soumyanetra Munshi |Moumita Alam |Mazin Qumsiyeh |Mitali Chakravarty
The night never was oursIt was by them, for them, of themNot made soft for the rest of a tired bodyNot made fragrant for the ease of sleepLullabies didn’t play for theHappiness of the soulThe velvet wasn’t spread to absorbThe sweat that smelled of dutyThe lights weren’t dimmedBecause eyelids were heavyWith too much exhaustionThe window wasn’t opened for theSoothing night wind to caress her face…How many nightsShould we walk the streetsBefore we can see the day?
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Sep 7, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Soumyanetra Munshi |Moumita Alam |Mazin Qumsiyeh |Mitali Chakravarty
I don’t want to be nice and decent I want to tear off my skin And bludgeon my patience And rip apart my smiles I want to expose All that’s inside of me Rugged, sharp, torn Shorn of all loveliness and care Smells of fumes of anger Layers of dreams That melt away into nothingness All coiled up Boiling roiling Like mirrors of stagnant time That reflect something’s wrong All that’s wrong Like curtains of lies and deceit That hang down heavily On richly decorated truths Like the cries of honesty...
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Aug 30, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Jayakhosh Chidambaran |Joseph Benny |A K Shiburaj |Mitali Chakravarty
Industrial Revolutions and the Great Acceleration in the second half of the 20th century, witnessed the planet, irrevocably transitioning from the epoch to the Anthropocene era. Unbridled human activity, rampant urbanization, mechanization of production, proliferation of factories, industrial scale manufacture and employment of fertilizers and pesticides and the resultant emission of greenhouse gases have adversely impacted nature.
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Aug 3, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Mayank Dwivedi |Sumit Gupta |Sanjay N. Parate |Mitali Chakravarty
The tragic incident that occurred on 27th July which caused the death of three civil service aspirants due to flooding inside the basement of a coaching centre in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar was long coming. There is a whole system which is working day and night to bring such tragedy to fruition. A system so robust, inexplicable and incomprehensible that it grinds dreams and aspirations to produce profits.
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Aug 2, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Sanjay N. Parate |Manas Jena |Mitali Chakravarty |S G Vombatkere
The government is now the mother and father. It makes laws so that the general public remains within its ambit. But whether to follow this law or not is its wish! Even in these laws, enough backdoors are kept so that the dominant class of the society, on whose support this government is based, can easily violate it. This is the relationship between corporate Adani and Modi’s government, which is clearly visible in the case of Hasdeo.
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Mar 17, 2024 | 
dissidentvoice.org | Mitali Chakravarty
He packed starvation into boxes when he started the slow annihilation of it all. They ask: Is this war? No food. No water. Children suffer. Die. Siege. Buildings shred to bits. Missile-hit. They ask: Is this war? Death packs into shells children who have not known what it is to live. They ask: Is this war? The Weeping Woman wept at Guernica. Were cities splintered to extinction when acid fields spewed poetry — poetry that gave lie to Horace’s dulce et decorum est pro patria mori?
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Dec 31, 2023 | 
dissidentvoice.org | Mitali Chakravarty
Weaving webs of dewdrop dreams, she awakens to sunrises that evade Christmas, happiness, celebrations that ring sorrows with a haze of yellow fog. The past is now forgotten. Auld lang syne’s notes vaporise to the pain of loneliness, darkness that halts life for others. Sing Noel, they say, as missiles have the last say. The world is chaotic with her pain, their pain and your own need of not to see pain.
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Aug 16, 2023 | 
countercurrents.org | Mitali Chakravarty
I grew up in a country that thrived with diversity. I grew up in a country where we were taught to accept diversity of cultures, languages, religions as a normal way of life. The phrase used was ‘Unity in Diversity’. Of course, there were many issues in a country that was fairly young — bled anaemic by the greed of a company that cared only for money and profits at all costs — the East India Company. Long ago we had been a rich country.
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Jul 23, 2023 | 
dissidentvoice.org | Mitali Chakravarty
by Mitali Chakravarty / July 23rd, 2023 Scorched out of existenceby fire glows hell. Giantsshamelessly feed on theroasts of dead they kill. Those who never care forthe air, the water, the land,dig their way to wealth,polluting with bombs. Will they be sentenced inthe court of Gaia? Theinnocents burn whilethe giants feast. The innocents ‘sacrifice’for the Greater Good tosatiate the giants. Citiescrumble. Life shards. Gaia unleashes Furies.
