THE FISH

ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow

Of the pale tide when the moon has set,

The people of coming days will know

About the casting out of my net,

And how you have leaped times out of mind

Over the little silver cords,

And think that you were hard and unkind,

And blame you with many bitter words.?

THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS

At the coming of night-tide, And dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride. He heard while he sang and dreamed A piper piping away,And never was piping so sad,And never was piping so gay.And he saw young men and young girls Who danced on a level place,And Bridget his bride among them,With a sad and a gay face.The dancers crowded about him And many a sweet thing said,And a young man brought him red wine And a young girl white bread.But Bridget drew him by the sleeve Away from the merry bands,To old men playing at cards With a twinkling of ancient hands.The bread and the wine had a doom,For these were the host of the air;He sat and played in a dream Of her long dim hair.He played with the merry old men Of her long dim hair.He played with the merry old men Of her long dim hair.He played with the merry old men,The handsomest young man there,And his neck and his breast and his arms Were drowned in her long dim hair.O’Driscoll scattered the cardsAnd out of his dream awoke:Were drowned in her long dim hair.O’Driscoll scattered the cardsAnd out of his dream awoke:But he heard high up in the air A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad?

ARUNDHATI ROY (Writer & Social Activist)

Susanna Arundhati Roy the first Indian woman to have won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, was born on 24th November 1961 in Bengal and grew up in Aymanam village, Kottayam, Kerala. She was born to parents Mary Roy a well known social activist who won a landmark Supreme Court verdict that granted Christian women in Kerala the right to their parent's property and father a Bengali Hindu tea planter. Arundhati's parents separated when she was small and she did her formal education in Corpus Christi school run by her mother in Kottayam District, Kerala. When she was just 16, she left her home and settled in Delhi. There she did her degree in Architecture at the Delhi School of Architecture. During this period she met Gerard Da Cunha a fellow architecture student and married him but their marriage lasted only four years. After a brief stint in the field of architecture, she found that it was not for her. She left for Goa, making a  life out at the beach, got tired of it after a few months, came back to Delhi. She took a job at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, met Pradeep Krishen, a film director now her husband who offered her a small role in 'Massey Saab'. She went to Italy on a scholarship for eight months to study the restoration of monuments. She realised she was a writer during those months in Italy. After she returned from Italy she worked with Pradeep Krishen and they planned an episode television for Doordarshan called the 'Banyan Tree' which didn't materialise and was shelved by the producers after shooting 2-3 episodes. She wrote and starred in 'In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones', a film on college life in India, based on her experiences in the University of Delhi, and wrote the screenplay for Pradip Krishen's film 'Electric Moon' (1992). She quickly became known for her work as screenwriter.

Then she wrote a series of essays called 'The Great Indian Rape Trick' which attracted media attention, in defense of former dacoit Phoolan Devi, who she felt had been exploited by Shekhar Kapur's film 'Bandit Queen'. Then came her debut novel 'The God of Small Things' which shot her into prominence in 1997, by winning the prestigious British Booker prize in London and becoming an international best seller. The book, which took almost five years to complete, gives an insight to the social and political life in a village in South India through the eyes of seven year old twins and how it effects/disrupts their small lives. The book won £20,000 as prize and sold nearly 400,000 copies globally by October that year. In the years following her success, she has turned to activism, writing 'The Cost of Living' a book comprising two essays 'The Greater Common Good'(1999) and 'The End of Imagination'(1998); the former against Indian Governments massive dam projects which displaced millions of poor people and the latter; its testing of Nuclear weapons. She has been an active participant in public demonstrations against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in Western India and has donated a substantial amount around 1.5million rupees, equivalent to her Booker  Prize money, for the cause. She was even arrested along with other protestors for campaigning for the cause. 'Power Politics' her latest book published, takes on Enron the power corporation based in Houston trying to take over Maharashtra's energy sector. She has also spoken on and published several articles such as 'Promotion of equal rights' supporting equal rights for lower caste in India and 'War on Terrorism' (2001)against the Iraq war. ? 

THE EVERLASTING VOICES

O SWEET everlasting Voices, be still;

Go to the guards of the heavenly fold

And bid them wander obeying your will,

Flame under flame, till Time be no more;

Have you not heard that our hearts are old,

That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,

In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.?