Sunil Bhandari is a poet by compulsion. He says he survives in this world because he can get to write poetry. This podcast is of his poetry.... more
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Uncut Poetry
By Sunil Bhandari
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FAQs about Uncut Poetry:
How many episodes does Uncut Poetry have?
The podcast currently has 249 episodes available.
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September 28, 2024Home Tonight I'd written this poem years back. I can't even remember the context or the time. But it brings an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, of evanescence - of people and loves who move on, always too soon it seems.Parting seems like demise, and its irrevocable passage doesn't make it any easier.Bitter lovers have often talked of such periods as those of wasted opportunity, as if anything which doesn't have a classic consequence or a desired denouement is a phase in futility. The fallacy of endings being more important than the rush of the journey.But those who know about transience, who know that life is only a zen exercise, an observance of moments, know how life is both accumulation and movement, of experiencing and moving on.All my poet friends keep telling me "Don't wallow in nostalgia! It is treacly. Too much sentimentality is dangerous to health." Maybe. What I do love doing is to think back and smile. Of having reconciled with what travels, what hurts, what sustains, what follows, what stays. And of looking back at it all, as the hurt and gain of irrevocable passage.f you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on departures -- Letting Go (because I am alive)
- Favourite People (who we love and leave)
- Departures
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Golden Journey Under The Sky of Autumn by Musiclfiles...more September 21, 2024Quietly Yours Ara (who goes by the name 'petrichara' on Instagram) writes "someone who allows you to rest is the relationship dynamic of all time".And I think - it's not only people but places too.Places we're familiar with, places which allow us to ease into ourselves. Like a home. Where we know everything, where everyone knows us, and all we have to be is what we are in our own skin.And often when we move in our home with awareness, we find the new in the old, messages we hadn't got earlier, congruities we hadn't encountered before. We know our home's oddities to be our own, we find its nooks suffused with hidden histories, and it is our witness and sanctuary. A home is a friend, silently seeing us unwind or unravel with equal sang-froidness.Familiar people, familiar places are a boon to our hearts, solace to our souls, as we step into the unfamiliarities of an unforgiving world. We start our days, unaware what it would bring, our guards up, a thin tensile strain keeping our spine straight. Are we funny, are we competent, have we met the world on its terms without losing ourselves, have we stamped it with our individualities? The modern-day stress we keep hearing about is merely a result of these unmeasurable presences of a normal day.When we step into our homes, leaving our shoes and artifices behind, it's the medicine, the panacea, the equaliser, which brings us back to our sanities.We would be deranged without our homes.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the healing and beauty of homes -- Her Breasts as Shelter
- A Home as an Open Dream
- Changing Your Address (on marrying and moving homes)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -True summer love by MusiclfilesTranquil Fields Peaceful by Alexander Nakarada...more September 14, 2024Recalibrating Dawns The relentless agency of living, its insistencies to persist - until it no longer could - its proclivity for drama, its calmness to tired souls:that's one way to see life, when you are about to give up on things, when there seems to be no redemption to distress, when life seems to be an unending travail - something which doesn't give up even when you are ready to.And you search for a reason to carry on. Viktor Frankl said "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." But, alas, you simply can't find a reason - and you can't let go. So you strain to come out every morning. And you see that the ones who are always present are - the sun, the morning, the birds. They find joy without anticipation. They find a sense of being in the very act of repetition. Without expectation, without thinking of the past or future, just letting the nature of what is uncontrollable to do what it does best, and going along with the repetition and the ride.And you step back, and look at this with a new eye. Not as a wound which doesn't heal, not as pain which keeps nagging incessantly. You start to look at it as benediction, a faith that things will unravel the way they have to, that agony is not preordained reality - rather, to be in the incident of life is to be in the full glow of its grace.And everything changes.You look at life with new eyes. Not as anticipation or affliction, not as scar or suture, not as the space between sighs and celebration, but as presence, as stillness, as sanity. The time to create, and find the beyond. Because that is where we always find ourselves.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of healing tired souls -- What is Loss, she asked me
- Loneliness (oh these rains)
- Ruins Have Permanent Flames
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Rising Sun by Sascha Endehttps://filmmusic.io/en/song/86-rising-sun...more September 07, 2024I Can Sense Her Loneliness How much we are afraid to say what often simply needs to be said. It's an unavoidable fact - the conversations we avoid are the conversations we require the most.Often we are afraid to face the black-&-white of the spoken truth, often we fear the unpredictability of confrontations. Maybe, in the past, we've had to face the consequences of a scathing talk, and have now sworn to avoid anything which has the potential to break or hurt, welt or injure.But subtly, irrevocably, what lies unspoken also changes us as persons, as it does our relationships.On the surface, a calm descends. The need to avoid conflict overwhelms the need for stark truths. And the elephant sits fat and solid in the room, munching away time, growing fat on what's unspoken.And by including avoidance in the definition of love, we chip away at truths. We become politer but less honest, we want to confront monsters by pretending they don't exist.In the song of life, we try hard to avoid the discordant note, and thus lose the soul required to give love not only its longevity but its singular breath.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness -- Old Poems for Old Lovers
- The Art of the Lonely Good Deed
- Loneliness (oh these rains)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Loneliness by Sayan Mukherjee...more August 31, 2024Old Friends What is important to us? This question needs to be asked every morning, because weeks, which have been days, soon become years, and when we look back, we find that things have changed and people have drifted.It's not that we lose ourselves in the trivial. It's how we let things subtract our lives rather than add to it. And we regret the time where we let go of opportunities to be with people who mean everything to us, or do things which we feared at that time and now regret not doing.Time and again we are told to live in the moment, to embrace the passage of time, to know that living in the moment is the only way to find meaning. Time and again we regret not embracing it, and to let go of the opportunity which life gives us.Akin to this are the small stones of resentment which grow inside us, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, for people we care for, which become boulders stopping us from reaching out.
When we look back we can see the reasons of withdrawal were so slight that in the schemata of lives, sorrows and admonitions, they really counted for nothing. But then we would have wasted time, we would have wasted years.
We would have lost out on someone holding our hands in grief. We would have lost out in hearing voices with laughter in them speaking to us. We would have lost out in seeing familiar faces in front of us, growing more loved by the minute, because we love their mind and their heart and what they stand for and what they mean to us.
More than anything else, it is people we should always reach out to and be close to and pick up the phone and talk to, because our true meaning comes from only two things: the things which we do, the people we reach out to.
Our lives are always lesser when not filled with who or what we love. And in turn we are lesser as people.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of friendship -- Memory Keeper
- Compatriots of Trust
- Aaschi
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Spring fervour full version by MusiclfilesMystical autumn by Musiclfiles...more August 24, 2024The Party is Outraged!!! It's been a tumultuous few days.
According to WHO, one person is murdered every 60 seconds in this world. One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds. One person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds.
And busy with our quotidian struggles, we let the numbers swirl around our consciousness before slipping away. Until one day, our blasé conscience finds something which goes beyond even our overburdened shock meter.
And in strange infinitesimal ways, our world shifts.
Something inside us breaks - and something else breaks open. The overwhelming feeling that a public tragedy is a personal visitation, beyond a dining table conversation, starts to haunt us. The tragedy becomes our own.
We want to go beyond the pale of our usual cynicism - "what will change? what can change?" - and want to demand change.
Of course, the patient procrastination of officialdom, the slow overtures of bureaucracy, the survival instincts of political whataboutery kicks in - as do attempts to wear us down.
And we understand the strategies, we know how we will grow angrier and progressively frustrated - and our lives will begin to call, our duties will come to the fore. Our livelihoods will begin to be at stake - and we do give up. But we don't give in.
For we know the long game too.
Along the years we have also learnt the power of giving the long rope. We know that beyond the immediate sufferance, there are a few knockout blows which we hide beneath our sleeves. The streets, the polls, protests, poems, a non-cooperation movement, emptying halls where they speak, refusing their doles, walking out in the middle of speeches, a continual call to conscience.
Beyond the pale of greed and corruption, which we all see and bear on a daily basis, we unite ourselves from cynicism, of not giving up because struggles often take years, maybe generations. We ensure that the blow is significant, and political parties, for years to come, will remember that those who bring them to power can never ever be taken for granted.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of what politics does to all of us -- Politics on the Dining Table
- Mr Hoskote, have you visited Kashmir recently?
- No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined Soul
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Refugees by Sascha Endehttps://filmmusic.io/en/song/539-refugees...more August 17, 2024Memories of Sex Addiction Who are we if not slaves to our addictions? In the annals of definitions, we are often what we are at our worst. Which is the world's way of prioritising simply - and slotting conveniently. But much worse than our ruthless judgement is what we do with our own judgements about ourselves.Within the tumult of being a sex addict or an alcoholic or being bulimic, there are those despairing battles where we fight our worst indulgences, and heartbreakingly, lose, and lose again, till we stop even putting up a fight.And to live in the shadow of this continuous defeat is to realize how much of a lie we live in, and how everything dwarfs, even in our mind and soul, in front of this assault of unrelenting indulgence.And after a while there's no place to hide - from the world or ourselves.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on sex as life -- Her Breasts as Shelter
- Such are Such Days (or the days I make love to her)
- Finding Souls Between Their Legs
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Sleepers by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3232-sleepersLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license...more August 10, 2024Old Poems for Old Loves Our feelings are a yo-yo. Forever seeking more, something different, something ultra energising. As if different is better. We are not able to figure out the difference between excess and endurance. Everything around us moves so rapidly - technology, circumstances, opinions - that even relationships fall victim to the syncopated rhythm of indulgence & desertion. And in this cornucopia of life, we lose sight of what is actually enduring, what is flippant, what we need to hold onto, what we need to release.We indulge in a hurry, and regret at leisure. And in the hullabaloo of choices do not even realize what we've lost. Till, someone recognizes our gold, and realises the unmindful flippancy of our directions - and refuses to let us take them.And in the blessings inherent in our lives, the accumulation of the good we've done in this world, we are able to embrace what finally endures. Our life is changed, we go past the nightmare of options, and find both the compass and the perch, the arc and the direction, the zen of the passing and the depth of what endures.We are then blessed, because we have been found.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems full of nostalgia for love -- Living Tragedy Forward
- Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)
- Favourite People (who we love and leave)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -The Children Of MH17 by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/268-the-children-of-mh17License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license...more August 03, 2024What is Loss, She Asked Me Loss is embedded into our lives. Its advent has both unpredictability and inevitability written into it. It never comes as a stranger - but never ceases to break us. As humans, we are too embroiled in the now, too sure that the inertia of happiness will never cease its trajectory, to even mentally (leave aside emotionally) prepare for it.The definition of loss, for each one of us, lies in whether what we lose is in our care, is our concern. Whether it lights us up. In concrete (often amorphous) ways, whether it gives meaning to the breath we take. Every which way, loss has a wake of tragedy. It could be a pinprick in the routine or a chasm in our soul. However robust our defence systems, however practical our relationship with reality, loss which means something to us, leaves us desolate.It's this fear which leaves us unprepared.Conversations on death - the ultimate loss - are avoided, because we think it's bad omen. There's no one to blame - we are humans, we have our quiddities, weaknesses, blind spots.But the loss which leaves as deep a cut is when someone we love decides to move on. The sadness fractures us because the occurrence is not inevitable, and is often unexpected.To lose someone who brings gold to our lives, and amber to our hearts, is to lose treasure.We are then no longer the lees of loss, but its extension.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation -- Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck First
- Letting Go (because I'm alive)
- The Things We Become When We Leave
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 (Sadness) by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/304-blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadnessLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license...more July 27, 2024Living Tragedy Forward There’s nothing like tragedy to make us feel dreadfully alone. The particularities of what afflicts us is so personal that very few can find ways to hold us together as we fall apart. We seek the shoulder of those whose contours and smells are familiar and make our desolation feel less lonely. But often their presence is merely a body to hold onto, even as we tear up inside.So, paradoxically, if there’s anything which exacerbates the implosion, it is the non-presence of the one we expect to be beside us as we disintegrate. Because what could be more devastating than not having a loved one, whose mere presence lights us up, to be not there to hold us up. One can travel across the globe in multiple hours, there’s no office, no binding, no power - except probably deep illness - which could or should hold a loved one back.And in that absence lies the deepest cut. Because human beings are tactile, and sorrow requires presence. And hurt CAN build upon tragedy.We shrink inside when love gives intimations of deserting us, particularly when it still hasn’t deserted our hearts. However much we find ourselves self sufficient and centered, we are special when people find us so - we are the validations we receive, we are the unexpected call, we are the sidelong glance, we are the deer caught in someone’s glance, we are the unplanned trip, we are the early-morning love-making.Our life is often full because of the smallest gifts. When we are denied those, our lives shrink into decimal places. And our tragedy multiplies.If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of lovers who move on -- Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)
- I Will Leave The Last Line for You To Fill
- Favourite People (We Love & Leave)
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on [email protected]The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -A Sad Toy Story by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/563-a-sad-toy-storyLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license...more
FAQs about Uncut Poetry:
How many episodes does Uncut Poetry have?
The podcast currently has 249 episodes available.