A stream of children headed excitedly to Bombay’s Kitab Khana on October 6, 2019 to participate in the eighth poetry festival of The 100 Thousand Poets for Change, founded by two American poets, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, whose pathbreaking idea was that poetry should change the world, from violence to peace, from destroying nature to preserving it. This has grown into a global movement, spreading to more than 100 countries. The poems, photographs, etc generated by the festivals are preserved in the archives of the Stanford University of California.
This year saw the launch of the third book of poems composed by children, titled The Miracle of Life. It was dedicated to two remarkable persons — Shanoor Forbes and Divyansh Atman — who retained their joie de vivre despite living with colossal challenges and triumphing over them with a smile on their faces.
Forbes, who fell from a horse, broke her neck and became a tetraplegic, lived for 30 years in a wheelchair breaking all records as tetraplegics have rarely been known to live beyond eight years (see "Struggle for survival,” Parsiana, April 7, 2019). She was a livewire arranging family trips and functions, attending every play and concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (thanks to her this writer was able to witness all of Shakespeare’s plays she had not seen earlier). Forbes was a mother to her motherless grandsons, attending PTA (parent teacher association) meetings and participating in every poetry festival while she was alive. Ayra Cama, author and guest of honor at the function, read out a poem she had composed for Forbes, her relative.
Atman was a brilliant, hardworking and persevering student suffering from leukemia. He scored 94% in the ICSE school leaving examination despite studying at home, as he was unable to attend school. He received a special award from the principal of his school at the hands of maestro Zubin Mehta. Not only was he a sincere student, he was also kindhearted, loving, thoughtful and loved by all who came in contact with him. The braveheart fought his nemesis tooth and nail before he succumbed at the age of 22 while studying electrical engineering in the USA. He was very creative and had written many poems, letters and articles which are to be published. He also had a blog:
http://divyanshatman.blog, for those interested in visiting it. His parents, Nidhi and Sushil Poddar, were present to launch The Miracle of Life.
Poet Menka Shivdasani, who has been curating the three to four-day annual festival, was felicitated on receiving the Ethos Literary Award for 2019. She was presented a shawl by the popular writer of children’s books Katie Bagli and former principal of Queen Mary School, Rati Wadia. Chief guest for the festival, journalist and author, Lubaina Bandukwala, spoke a few words of encouragement for the children.
The theme for this year’s festival was beauty and the children showed through their poems how a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Some children spoke of inner beauty and beauty is as beauty does. Wadia summarized the famous short story The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, about an ugly hunchback who created beauty through his paintings of birds and nature. He finally sacrificed his own life while saving those of many British soldiers trapped in Dunkirk in the north of France during World War II.
Shiraz Aga, a student of Bombay International School, recited a verse from The Rose and The Thorn by Frank Lebby Stanton: "This world that we’re a’livin’,/ Is mighty hard to beat./ We get a thorn with every rose. /But ain’t the roses sweet?”
As John Keats wrote: "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty/ That is all ye know on earth/ And all ye need to know.”
The wisdom of the world is contained in the words: Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram (truth, godliness, beauty). In many instances East and West do meet: William Shakespeare’s words match the philosophy of the Bhagvad Gita. When Hamlet says "To be or not to be,” he is speculating along the same lines as Arjuna in the Mahabharata questioning Krishna: "Is endurance preferable to action?” In this spirit Vareega Thakkar, who heals people through music, sang Satyam Shivam Sundaram with accompaniment from her mandolin. She had all those present tapping their feet and swaying to the rhythm.
Some of the wonders of nature as well as manmade ones were displayed on a screen. One child expressed in her poem how even a snake can be beautiful! Another wrote about the beauty of comedy. This was followed by a play written, directed and produced by Bagli, and a rendition of The Insect Song.
The story of the fourth Magi was narrated. The three wise men/Magis were the highly evolved souls of Zoroastrians who had traveled far to greet the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem. The fourth Magi gave his three jewels to save a wounded man, a baby and a young girl, and never managed to see the child Jesus.
Vocalist and teacher Dhwani Pandya concluded the festival with Rabindranath Tagore’s song on beauty rendered with feeling in Bengali.
Paintings by the students of Queen Mary School on miracles, compassion and beauty abound in the book and were on display at Kitab Khana during the festival. RATI DADY WADIA