AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

Sunil Sharma is principal at Bharat College – affiliated to University of Mumbai, Mumbai – at Badlapur, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India. He is a bilingual critic, poet, literary interviewer, editor, translator, essayist and fiction writer. His short stories and poems have appeared in many international literary journals and anthologized in national and international collections. Also a freelance journalist. Areas of strength are Marxism, Literary Theory and Cultural Studies. His critical book on the Philosophy of the Novel – a Marxist Critique is well-received. The debut novel – The Minotaur – dealing with dominant ideologies and sociopolitical realities of the 20th century was also published from Jaipur (India) in 20009. The novel was released in South Africa in December, 2009.
His six short stories and the novel Minotaur are prescribed currently for the undergraduate classes under the Post-colonial Studies at the Clayton University, Morrow, Georgia, USA. He has also edited, along with Dr Jaydeep Sarangi, an anthology of shorts: The Editors’ Choice: Contemporary Short Stories in Indian English, published by Gnosis Publications, New Delhi, 2010.
He is one of the editors for the NFJ (New Fiction Journal), an international journal devoted to the short stories. A collection of poems: Poetry amid the Golden Barrel Cacti was released in November-2011 from Authors Press, Delhi.
Sunil was declared as the International Poet of the Year 2012 by UK-based poetry group Destiny Poets.

In Aarhus Via Sweet Skype

by Prof. Sunil Sharma

Through the Skype sweet,
Family talks to a son in
Aarhus, Denmark;
A daily fix,
The distances crumble
In an instant,
We see each other,
Smile and wave,
And exchange tidbits:
Weather,
Prices,
Cuisines,
Rains, fog,
Dormitories,
Bonding rare, among students
From Africa, Asia, China and Europe
The camera rolls and pans,
And captures the everyday
Domestic scenes
Unfolding in a small room,
With vast circulating global dreams;
The images are great and gritty
And realistic,
We see
Feel the love transmitted,
Through the sweet Skype,
The medium that brings the
Separated kin together
And re-unites momentarily—for re-separation;
The images comfort
The exiled,
The way picture postcards do,
As we glance greedily
At snapshots,
Of skyline,
Courtyards,
Cafeteria,
Taken at Copenhagen,
Aarhus,
Or,
Paris,
But they lack intimacy,
Immediacy,
Fulfillment,
Of real-time encounters,
As we,
Still cannot
Visit persons,
Places,
Events,
Physically;
The painful
Yearnings,
Remembrances,
Still
Unresolved and unaddressed.

Snow in Aarhus
by Prof. Sunil Sharma

The soft
Snowflakes
Falling down
Like cotton balls,
Being tossed away,
By some invisible hands,

From a white sky,
Dispersing fast,
Like kids returning
From school,
Happy feet pattering,
On the ground,
With a sense of release;

The drifting flakes,
Tiny and cute,

Wandering in the crisp air,
Vagabond-like,
Searching a suitable landing-place,

Scattering everywhere around,
In a gentle constant stream,
On the grey courtyards,
Red-bricked buildings,
With shuttered windows,
Trimmed hedges around,
And decorating the solitary urban-scape

With a soothing touch of
Virgin white!
The entire scene
A magical country,

Transmitting a feeling of peace
And wonderment,
To an international student,
Who has never seen such
A mesmerizing sight,
In real life,
On a Sunday afternoon,
Again—

Buried in his management books,
Chasing distant American Dreams,
Now—globalized in its reach,
Like their Big Mac and Disneyland.

 

Another poem by Prof.Dr. Sunil Sharma
Pictures
A piece of yellow
Sun-light
Glinting
Outside the
Apartment-window
Of my son in
Aarhus, Denmark,
And
The earlier glittering snow,
Take me there
Where I cannot
Immediately go;
I feel lifted up,
Transported there,
Instantly,
And play in the snow
With him,
And walk in the soft
Morning light,
Holding his hand,
As I sometimes did,
When he was a kid,
I am with him,
In a foreign land,
Feeling everything,
United by light and snow,
A happy duo, again—
As the movies often show,
Enjoying precious togetherness,
Despite the physical distances,
Between
A remembering father,
And a far-away
Struggling son;
The pictures,
My dearest,
Like words,
Have a unique power—
They take you away,
Make you glide easily,
Across time-space continuum,
And make you see,
Vividly,
Strongly,
What is not out there,
Outside your own,
Limited window!

Related articles