Among Indian poets who wrote in English, Gopal Honnalgere (1942 - 2003) is one of the best. His poems show his sensitivity and deep rooted Indian sensibility. He has been largely forgotten by Indian anthologists and his books of poems are out of print. I had copied three of his poems by hand some forty years ago. This one is an all-time favourite. If your eyes mist over by the time you finish reading this, there is still hope for the world:

My mother’s saree

(Gopal Honnalgere)

sometimes when they had differences

perhaps my father tugged her saree

my mother’s saree was torn.

sometimes when he came

even intimately close to her

perhaps his cigarette burnt

again a hole in my mother’s saree.

then we were eight children;

how many pisses

shits, vomits and kicks

of us the saree bore.

yet sometimes when we were

in a hurry to go out

mother dipped

one edge of her saree

in warm water

and instantaneously cleansed our faces.

and how many menstruations

forced copulations, dragged love,

conceptions, misconceptions,

abortions and deliveries,

the saree gracefully concealed.

perhaps endless.

even when the saree was flung

to dry in the backyard

it looked endlessly

affectionate;

around which we grew

playing hide and seek.

and another old saree was somewhere

kept to quilt the cradle

for a new arrival.