A Different Shade of Green

By Rajib Chocroborty

The poems in this collection were written over a period of nearly a quarter of a century. Many of them have been published in literary journals. They express a wide range of feelings and emotions ; and speak of human relations, family bonds, unfulfilled love and longing, disability, gender ambiguity, environmental destruction, ethnic tension, and hope for a better world.
Rajib Chocroborty was born in Manipur, the Jewel of India ; and raised in Meghalaya, the Abode of Clouds aka The Scotland of the East, which has a matrilineal society. After his schooling his family moved to Kolkata, the City of Palaces. This early exposure to the cultural diversity of his country has made him an ardent advocate of pluralism and gender equality.
Most of the poems are in free verse but the reader will also find traditional forms like the sonnet, the ghazal, the limerick, and the haiku. There are allusions in some poems to literature and Indian mythology, which are explained in the footnotes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781543707939

Rajib Chocroborty

Rajib Chocroborty has a Master’s degree in English literature. He works in rural India. He has published his poems in periodicals. He met with an accident seventeen years ago, which left him physically disabled. He lives with his mother in West Bengal, and loves poetry and music.

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Copyright © 2021 by Rajib Chocroborty.

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Hope

Fetters

Desperate

Apprehension

The Pendulum

Three Technicians

Actually

Not Anachronistic

The Cycle

Perfume

The Wait

Liberation

Floods

Opaque

To my sister studying abroad

In A Hospital Bed

Mardian In Mumbai

Dialects

Badly bent

Beyond the binary

Durga

Ifs And Dos And Don’ts For The Queer In 76 Countries

Purdah

A Queen’s Ghazal

A Different Shade of Green

Weeds In Bloom

Cardiac Choreography

The Siphon

Coming Out After 11/12/13

They Laugh

A Joke

Out of the Blend

Initiation

The Political Ganges

Slow Genocide

Concentric Circles

Waiting For A Text Message

The Stream

The Hated

An Online Affair

A Replacement

Thunder

Circular or Linear

Drones

Upliftment

Afraid

Waiting for the Famine

Menakā

The Curse of Parashuram

The Floor

A Catalyst

On Killing a Language

Write Your Mirror

MICROPOEMS

Momspeak

Out of sight

Silently

Conspiracy theory

Abstract

Universal

Unwittingly

Limitation

Childhood

Partition

Alteration

Recovery

A Mistake

Haiku

Jaldapara

Compassion

Local Language

Foeticide

Switched Off

Sting

Peace

The Ganges

Haiku #9

Haiku #10

Haiku #13

Haiku #14

Haiku #15

Haiku #16

Haiku #18

Haiku #19

Haiku #20

Haiku #21

Friend List

Gogyoshi # 2

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all who love poetry.

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude to the members of my family, relatives, friends, colleagues and others who have always encouraged me and also pointed out my drawbacks when necessary ; the poets who have inspired me since my childhood and also kindled in me the desire to write ; and the persons, situations and circumstances, both good and bad, that have stirred me to express myself in verse. My thanks to Souvik Rakshit for the illustrations