Haikus
Few Haikus…
In December 2019, I attended a four-day workshop on Creative Writing led by Prof Alan Maley. We got to know a lot about creative writing and were made to do hands on exercises. We were asked to write Haikus- a Japanese genre of poems of three lines with 5 syllables each in the first and last line and 7 syllables in the middle line (5-7-5). The last line is usually striking and may contain some revelation. Selections from what we wrote during the workshop will appear in a book. Here are some of the Haikus that I wrote:
Haikus
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Cold and sleepless nights
Long wait on deserted bed
In painful fragrance -
On a dark evening
Burning pyre of my teacher
Enlightening all -
On a classroom wall
A worm creeping up, falls down
Tries again- succeeds
…and a Haibun
A Haibun:
Haibun, is also a Japanese literary genre in which a prose narrative is combined with Haikus. It is usually an account of a travel or some event. We were taken for a day expedition to Golkonda fort and then asked to write a Haibun about the trip. Here is that Haibun:
Haibun- Trip to Golkonda
It is 9:30. Almost all are here. We are waiting for some people. I am thinking of booking my return tickets. The very thought of climbing three-hundred steps of the Golkonda Fort makes me tired already. My inherent laziness makes me feel tired before I start. At the foot of the fort, we by ourselves hats to protect us from the unusually hot sun.
A poor young mother
Begging in vain for her child
Shaming affluence
The entrance of the fort is very huge. It has a big gate where they check tickets. Carved at the top of the gate are the frescoes of a lion and lioness. But they look very similar to each other and it is not easy to differentiate between them. As we enter the fort, we see fortifications and elephantine rocks lost in unknown antiquity. The fort is well maintained and clean. There are mending works going on, but on an ancient structure, the modern mending work looks-
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Prithvirajsingh Thakur 