SAY NO TO PLASTIC – A FLIPBOOK

ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS CELEBRATING EARTH DAY 2018

Winning Photograph 1 : By Abizit Dutta
Winning Entries

ENGLISH

 The Dirge of a Dying Lake – Sarbani Mohapatra

 Earth Song – Moinak Dutta
 Beautiful things are not immortal – Swastisha Mukherjee
 The Angry Polythene – Adrita Biswas
 Her Last Day – Vibhanshu Doshi
 Within Me – Aditi Stromayer
 Pledge – Oindri Sengupta
 Trees - Jagari Mukherjee
 A Silent Killer – Abhirup Bhattacharya
 An Epitaph left Wanted -Dipanjan Maiti
 The last words of a pond - Amanita Sen

BENGALI

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SPECIAL MENTIONS

 The Earth Pleads - Sharbari Saha

 Can you hear me? – Rahul Dey
 On That Day. – Jagriti Roy
 Does it ever bend?- Surjodeb Basu

Poets’ Corner

Poets Anjana Basu And Sharmila Roy Write On Earth Day

The Dirge of a Dying Lake – Sarbani Mohapatra

They use them to carry goodies for their children

And call them bags.
I call them the hangman’s gags,
That smother me with a vengeance
When the poisons they inject into my veins fail
To quench their sanguine thirst.
My mouth feels like rust, the aftertaste of violence;
Sputtered breaths spewing foam
Covers me white like the pall of death,
As I lay helpless counting my last breaths.
Onlookers marvel at the cancer that assails my body
Oblivious of my blood on their hands.
Almost all of my kin have met the same fate.
Killed with impunity by killers
Who still roam free at large.
I wish the ones who manufacture them in their big proud factories
Could know how it feels to have
their own babies choke on them to death,
Like the little fishes that made me their home did.
A day would come when the likes of us
Would no longer exist,
Maybe then our killers would be seen for what they are
And done away with for good,
As noxious criminals are!
Earth Song – Moinak Dutta

The way you are going

It seems you are sowing
Your own seeds of death,

All over me you have put

Plastic, your moments of truth
Would catch up with you
Burnt plastic as you would chew
With your grains of food,

You would then brood

Why it so happened?
Knowing well polycarbonate
How remain bonded strong
For centuries long
Without getting broken,

You have taken

For granted this earth
And gave here, birth
Of poison, green you killed,
By plastic you have sealed
All that could have made
Our planet, a beauty, never to fade.
Beautiful things are not immortal – Swastisha Mukherjee

To write this poem

I have to be convinced of my poem
Beautiful things are not immortal
unlike plastics
that do not die
but become the reason for our death
this is an average mediocre poem
I wish to hide all my poems
and bury them
so that they can be reborn again
The Angry Polythene – Adrita Biswas

I lie there-
Used and thrown everywhere
Sometimes crushed in all forms.
I beg on the streets of people
“Pick me up”
A little help is all I need
Because you don’t know
I feel like a murderer to watch helplessly
As life seeps out of the land, the sea, and the sky.
Who had embraced me once,
Now spit out blood with my bits
I quiver every day
As I see another human turn into plastic
Only to shed polyester tears
Looking at a polymeric horizon
Under the cold sun
I beg on the streets of those plastic people
“Pick me up”
A little help is all I am asking
Because if this is me unwilling to murder Earth,
Imagine what could happen
Once I stop caring.
Her Last Day – Vibhanshu Doshi

2050- her lungs couldn't serve anymore,

Wrecked with the weight of the tumors, the cysts, the lumps, they couldn't bore.
Stroking, croaking, choking- she had tried to warn,
But they wore blinkers to their mother, their Earth tired of her scorn.
Pla...Pla...Plastics, she kept blaring and glaring and swearing, until her jaws were clogged by
polyester sticks.

Her vessels meant to carry water pristine and pure,

Not swathes of impeding chemical polymers having no cure.
All marine creatures once so distinct, now on the cusp of being called extinct,
Their guts bitter, their bodies tied and littered.
But somewhere she used to smile, for this further was consumed by the makers of this pile.

They were the first to get Cancer, their wombs became infertile crying for an answer.
Still, they ignored
-Ignored how the air they breathed, had micro plastic particles,
-Ignored how every time they flushed those down the toilets, an Albatross choked absorbing
those articles
-Ignored how its cataclysmic formation, made a compound that will live longer than their future's
future generation.

She was withering every time they burnt this toxic compound.
She was slithering, every time this noxious gas soared from the ground.
Her birds, her trees, her air, her breeze- all wept.
Bottles, ear-buds, tampons, condoms, cups, straws, packets- combined and swept.
She kept wondering why did they forget to coexist?
Why did they not care enough drowning me in this mist?

She hoped to go back in time; when she had felt pride floating with other celestials in the
universe,
When the sun would not fear to come closer & closer to her contaminated curse.
Matter can be neither be created, nor be destroyed- was a wrong theory, she thought,
Because plastics created and destroyed everything for which she fought.
Her last words -she said with a clamoring tone- 'Can you now make a plastic bag big enough that
can fit my corpse, and each of my bone?'
Within Me – Aditi Stromayer

Within me
there is life
I cover the earth
like a pacific
blanket.

But are you

letting me be
influential
in the movements
of the earth

You who throw

junk, trash, bags,
bottles, wrappers,
soda rings, toys

Big, small,
macro, micro
doesn’t matter
you leave me

Scarred
the life I keep
pays the price
the island in the Pacific
is my scab
Pledge – Oindri Sengupta

Have we ever seen a dying bird

Or a choked dead whale
While sipping a drink vacationing on the beach?
I know we don’t want to compromise
With that tequila sunrise
And even think about it.
We are happy with our morning sunrises,
And our weekly shopping sprees
That have piled up huge chunks
Around the corners of our house,
Office, parks, museums, hospitals,
Schools, churches, crèche.
Forgive me that I missed naming the rest.
Our deeds are endless.
We have throttled our lakes.
They do not breathe out life anymore.
And the rivers are dying.

When will our eyes learn to see these?

When will our hearts learn to feel the need to remember
That this earth is not for today alone?
Our earth is a beautiful song
That should be hummed forever and ever.
It is time that we should say ‘no’
To what is killing us
And say ‘yes’ to life now and beyond.
Trees - Jagari Mukherjee

In my neighbor’s garden
Stands a tall mango tree
Gleaming at me with
Jade-green mangoes.
After last night’s storm,
Huge mango-jewels covered
The driveway of my little home.
The neighbor, all smiles,
Gifted the fallen fruits to me.
My mouth watered as I visualized
Jars of delicious pickles, and gifting
A couple of pickle jars to my kind neighbor.

The next afternoon, I was disturbed

By a nightmare that the mango tree
Had turned into a plastic tree
With a giant plastic bottle trunk,
Branches of colorful plastic wires,
And leaves of plastic bags.

My heart sinks as I sense

Another storm brewing down the years.
This time, my driveway
Will turn into a plastic dump.
My contrite neighbor will apologize –
And we must throw all away, because
Nothing will be left for us to cherish.
A Silent Killer – Abhirup Bhattacharya

Hey you!
Would you be bold enough to say
You can eat plastic and live all day?
Does it comfort your soul when I profess
You brush with that ugly mess?
If I told you would you feel warm
You murder life who mean no harm?
That plastic dump you burn each day,
Taints the soil and air its way!
You spike the trees, the air we breathe,
You rot us from within, oh how we seethe!
It defiles the seas, the fish, the weed,
It plants in each its murderous seed.
And you eat the fish with the fatal seed,
You suffer the fate of your own deed!
And your blessed spirit seeks to undo
That bloody fact you know is true.
By then the toxin's reached your blood,
And your issue's born a deformed one!
And the gods up there meekly beam
At how man's creation mocks none but him.
By then, I guess, it would be too late to say,
"I'll do away with plastic from today."
An Epitaph left Wanted -Dipanjan Maiti

What if I offer you a smile for your accomplishments!

Would you accept my good will with gratitude?
I guess you would.. after all 'a smile' is all you worked towards;
But if you realize it was a fake one! or let's say if you figure out -
I could bring you the warmth of a mother.. your mother,
would you still settle for a plastic smile?

Every broken dream brings a few tear drops,

And few lucky ones are blessed enough
having loved ones to share their pain with;
But would you ever give in for the fake tears
just for those few moments of comfort! I am afraid you might...

Even while an unheard mother is choked with her own tears

I haven't heard her crying loud enough;
though she feels betrayed
every time there's a drizzle and you are drowning at the street,
every time you cough out the burnt plastic on a cozy winter night by the fireplace,
every time you poison her gifts of food and water and fresh air..
Yet she loves you on - a mother... Your mother

But can you sense the unfathomable grave you have dug for her -
Please let her breathe she is choking on those fancy plastic emotions,
Please quit on fake emotions and plastics,
Save the mother - your mother;
A bereaved world won't survive the orphanage more than a moment -
even the epitaph would remain wanted.
The last words of a pond - Amanita Sen

I am dying, will be dead soon.

My eyes sting, as I write this.
But they cannot well up tears,
for there is no water left here.

But there was a lot of it, before.

Happy fishes swam inside me,
children flung in the summers,
my ripples had their laughter.

A rounded clay-pitcher,
with her earthy-porous looks,
once promised to melt in me,
her desired end, she said!

But then pet-bottles happened,

replacing the mud-vessels,
dumped after their short use,
none looked they could melt.

With my near-impending end

choking up with the plastic litter,
I dream I am gurgling inside,
my beloved, the earthen pitcher.
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The Earth Pleads - Sharbari Saha

Can you hear me ?

Just because no one keeps track of my age
You ignore my screams
I have borne you ungrateful children
Endured all the tantrums that you showered
Then a time came you grew up to ignore all that I gave you
Time and again you looked for chances
And ripped me apart
Today many are waking up
Signing up petitions for those little flowers
Crushed before they bloomed
You have been wildly ruthless for living beings
Did you ever feel my pain? Or you thought I was lifeless
When you carelessly threw those pieces of caustic stuff
Which caused the decay of the various parts
I cried I yearned I became barren increasingly by sheer neglect
All fell to deaf ears and you kept rejoicing
Has anyone walked a silent candlelight march to demand justice for me?
I am lying under your feet helpless dying a silent death....

Can anybody hear the cry? - Rahul Dey

Gasp, Gasp for fresh air,

The fumes rise high
Is there anybody there?
Listen to the cry,
There is no respite.
They die,
Waters dry.
And this despite,
The earth soiled lies.
Can anybody hear the cry?
Does it ever bend?- Surjodeb Basu

It's no longer blue

and it does not flow.
This colour of the Earth I do not know.
The gyres are no longer the clouds
Or that night in Arles
Mr. Van Gogh might not have known about plastic
But could sight return the pacific sore?
The floating islands
in our beached dead whales.
Those turtles with their necks!
Those king of the fishermen, reduced to prisoners.
Swirls and suffocation, strangling in the gibbet.
As we eat, and eat,
and eat, and eat,
Plastic!

But can we?

As I look around this dark night,

This one hope I find,
Our bright faces in unison,
Rejecting this distortion.
Oh Dupont, oh Monsanto, oh Bayer,
latter-day prophets of us all,
deliver us from this evil,
and give us not our daily bread
lest we forget what is real.
The plastic bends again,

But can we?

On That Day - Jagriti Roy

The tip of the tender root of a new tree

is losing its growing spree.
Not because it has been axed down
but it is failing to touch the earth’s infinity.

An artificial sheet is making the barrier on the root’s way.

Thus the roots and leaves are failing to grow and sway.
Not because draught or scarcity of land;
rather some man-made “nuisance” are eyeing for the nature as its pray.

Plastic sheets are altering the natural layer of soil.

Trees and greenery are facing a tremendous toil.
Controlling our reckless insensitivity towards nature is the only way
which has the capability to stop the turmoil.

Otherwise, one-day we can face a grotesque time.

When the nature will get accustomed to some artificial hymn.
May be in those days the trees will be capable enough to
grow their concrete roots even through the stone.
But from that day we all will be
 POETS’ CORNER

1 Prison House By Sharmila Ray

My world is small
you may call it colorless,
you can add all your comments,
commas and full stops.
But I have no desire to think.
You can feed all the clouds in my
world with crumpled plastic,
blood-red, bile-green, jaundice-yellow
still it wouldn’t make a difference.
You can dress the rooms, kitchens, playgrounds
supermarkets with wave after wave of plastic and
throttle seas and oceans…
In fact, make the universe a prison house.
But remember
green and summer squirrels leapfrogged here and
everything is an islet in the lucid sea of change.
 2 PLASTIC OD Anjana Basu

We thought it was fantastic

that white stuff
that light stuff
clear as air
a wisp that floated here and there
holding the blue of the sky
and the salt blue of the sea
holding our fresh cut fish running pink
holding the rotting peel
the soapy fragrance of grapes and lotions
holding our lives till the rivers gasp and the sea
holds its breath
but so light so strong so totally addictive
that we wrap it round our heads
and over our noses
snorting plastic instead of coke
through candy striped straws
and our known world chokes
on this cellophane air
Winning Photograph 2 : By Rajeeb Dutta