Thamaa Hua Aakash

Thamaa hua Aakash (The sky stood still) is a collection of Hindi poems written in last 4-5 years and during the existential turmoil the world has faced and is still facing.The poems are in clusters. Khabari (Newsmaker) poems are snippets of things good bad or uglyunfolding around us. The unprecedented exodus of migrant labourers the student unrest in acertain institution the almost lost struggle with COVID till the vaccines came along children wewere unable to save on some excuse or the other our brave soldiers attaining martyrdom death ofan ex-prime minister who was a poet and a philosopher etc.There are short sketches of mind and matter in the Laghu Kathayen series. Having come fromBihar-Jharkhand ancestry the eastern dialect is close to his heart and the author has put somepoems emanating from our closely guarded day to day lives in the Purabia section. An extension ofthis can be seen in the Gud Kathayen (jaggery tales) section.However some poems have escaped this process of clustering and demand independent voice oftheir own. So a call has been taken and they are just Nirbandh literally un-labelled.I am grateful to my wife Dr Shikha Mathur Kumar who is my colleague as well as a prolific painterfor allowing me to use one of her works for the cover design. I grateful to my son Samvit for hisinsights. I am grateful to my co-workers Mr. Sundaresh and Mr Raman for providing necessarysupport to make this work a reality. I am grateful to Blue Rose publishers and its very supportiveeditorial team for bringing out this poetry collection.This book is dedicated to Shashwat (10/10/2001-04/03/2019) my younger son who we lost tosevere illness followed by his heroic struggle for 14 years.Niraj KumarKolkataJanuary the 3 rd 2022.