Sangeeta’s poem explores the tension between beauty and goodwill in modern life, questioning mindless housing developments, exclusively for Different Truths.

Like a philocalist
I believe in eunoia
 
It was a moment of wunderwei,
When I gazed at the stars, glittering like silvery sequins
Tucked in a dark velvety sheet of grey welkin
Tch! That’s desiderium!
 
On way back, the compact, identical, lined-up houses
Appeared, from a distance,
Like thermocol models and match boxes
 
Situated one next to other
With no green patch
Two, three and more vehicles parked back-to-back
The residential area looked more like a car-shed
 
Is it living life? Or surviving a terminable decree?
 
People, unknowing, heading towards a slow death, suffocating already
In this completely contaminated, concretised, and commodified society…

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Dr. Sangeeta Sharma

Dr. Sangeeta Sharma, a Toronto-based academic, is the Senior Editor of Setu, a bilingual, international peer-reviewed journal and former head, English, in a degree college affiliated to the University of Mumbai. She has authored a book on Arthur Miller, two collections of poems, edited six anthologies on poetry, fiction, and criticism (solo and joint) and two workbooks on communication. Currently, she hosts Setu’s Limited Video Series of Literary and Critical Conversations available on YouTube.

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