Meher Pestonji (nar. 1946) je indická novinářka a spisovatelka. Pochází z indické komunity Parsi a žije v Bombaji. Od 70. let jako žurnalistka bojuje za práva utlačovaných a znevýhodněných. Její tvorba je úzce spjata s osobními a novinářskými zkušenostmi, proto romány Meher Pestonji poskytujípravdivý obraz života indické společnosti v Bombaji a odrážejí myšlení obyvatel města v neklidných časech.

Meher Pestonji has been a journalist for over thirty years actively participating in the current issues of the times. She has written extensively on street-kids, housing rights, communalism issues while covering theatre, art and interviewing creative people. Her two novels ‘Pervez’ and ‘Sadak Chhaap’ were published by HarperCollins and Penguin. Her play ‘Feeding Crows won the South Asia segment of the BBC/British Council Radio Playwriting Contest in 2008. She has been writing poetry for a long time. Most poems reflect a deep connection with Nature, but many also talk about resilience as a survival tool.

Meher Pestonji
501, Little Hut
27^th Road
Bandra West
Mumbai 400050

Mob: 9819156412
Email: meherpeston@gmail.com

Wikipedia

Bereaved

My wisdom throbbed
in the dentists trash-can

while my anaesthetised gum
waited for the pain
to begin

Alone
I sat bereft
of both wisdom
and of pain.

Disillusion

Sometimes disillusion spits
with a salt-sour sting

Other times it creeps
over and into you
like whispering whirls
of poisonous gas
gnawing the entrails
till nothing is left
save one tender
sore spot

Ode to a Christmas Tree

It wasn’t a wet or windy day
when the Christmas tree
gave up the struggle
of breathing
through thick
asphalt.

A long, loud whoosh
And three storey tree
lay resting on a roof
neither denting
nor cracking glass.

Car owner rushed
clicking evidence
for insurance.

No injury
to man
or wall
or car.

Gentle tree
had no enmity
with black beauty.

Dear tree,
Aeons ago
children decorated you
with baubles, streamers, gifts galore…

They,
whose childhood you shared,
don’t even know
you are dead.

Within an hour
fire brigade arrived
chopping limbs,
hacking trunk,
piling the still bleeding
resting place of sparrows
into the garbage van.

Dalals haggled
and squabbled
segregating leaf-limb
from good wood.

Only enraged sparrows
shit-spattered
car glass.

After the Storm

Wounded tree, you lie at my feet
the same feet that climbed
all over you
plucking fruit

Cradled in your branches
I bit mangoes above rooftops
Spitting sucked seeds
to sprout new trees

The day the storm hit
you defied howling winds,
thunder, limbs swishing wildly
roots holding fast to our ground

till lightening split your solid trunk
leaving you blackened and bleeding
tangled arms reaching for the sky

I wept.

Morning came.

Squirrels scampering
among green-gold leaves
showed me a large part of you
still standing tall
hurt but alive
unbent.