Top 7 Indian Poems
Ancient and modern poets craft their words to evoke strong emotions, as vivid imagery suggests. These poets talk about British and Asian culture and explore deep emotions, explore poignant themes.
The attractiveness of beautifully crafted words has long delighted readers of poetry. These poems inflame the mind with passion and skill, and excite the passions of those who admire them. The poets carefully express their desire for deeper understanding and personal awakening, conveying genuine emotion.
Immersed in deep history in India, these poems transport readers from fertile agricultural landscapes to the quest for humanity’s past, drawing us in with raw emotion.
1. "What He Said (gently moving bamboo)" – 3rd c. Oreruravanar (translated by A.K. Ramanujan)
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Her arms have the beauty
of a gently moving bamboo.
Her eyes are full of peace.
She is far away,
her place not easy to reach.
My heart is frantic
with haste,
a ploughman with a single ox
on land all wet
and ready for seed.
The reader is entranced by the juxtaposition of the calming bamboo with the urgency of ploughing the damp earth.
2. "Lover’s Gifts V: I Would Ask for Still More" – Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
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I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars,
and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with
the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine.
Even with the vastness of the sky and the world's riches, he would still crave more.
But if she were his, a small corner of the earth would suffice.
This poem highlights the immeasurable cost of affection over cloth wealth, evoking the profound yearning of the human coronary heart.
3. "Description" – Nissim Ezekiel (1924–2004)
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I will begin – but how should I begin? –
with hair, your hair,
remembered hair,
touched, smelt, lying silent there
upon your head, beneath your arms,
and then between your thighs a wonder
of hair, secret
in light and in darkness
bare, suffering with joy
kisses light as air.
And I will close – but is this fair? –
with dawn and you
reluctantly
binding up your hair.
He begins by remembering her hair, recalling its texture, smell and presence in the moment. The memory of the experience lingers, leaving behind both sadness and an insatiable desire for more.
Ezekiel draws the reader into a private space where leaving feels impossible, each word a temptation to stay.
4. "Tale of Fire" – Amrita Pritam (1919–2005)
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This is the tale of fire
— the tale you told me.
My life was like a cigarette
and it was I you lit.
Look at this account from Time’s pen –
it’s been fourteen minutes
it’s been fourteen years.
In this my body, your breath moved.
The soil bore witness to the rising coils of smoke.
Life, like a cigarette has burned down
the fragrance of my love –
one part mingled in your breath,
the other drifts away into the air …
See, this is the last butt.
So the fire of my love may not scorch them,
let it drop from your fingertips.
Forget about my life
just be wary of that fire.
Save your hand,
Light a new cigarette.
This metaphorical tale of love and passion, like a cigarette slowly burning, captures the intensity of a relationship that leaves its mark even as time passes.
The imagery of smoke, breath, and fire evokes a sense of both love and loss.
5. "The Stone Age" – Kamala Das (1934–2009)
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Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind,
Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment,
Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite
Dove, you build round me a shabby room,
And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while
You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,
You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And
Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink
Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood,
Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.
When you leave, I drive my blue battered car
Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty
Noisy steps to knock at another’s door.
Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch,
they watch me come
And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,
A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like
A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,
And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is
Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price…
Das explores despair in relationships, portraying a husband who traps her emotionally, turning her into a "granite dove" as she craves the love of others Her raw, erotic desires and unfulfilled desires speaks to the universal struggle to balance emotional needs with social expectations.
6. "White Asparagus" – Sujata Bhatt (b. 1956)
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Who speaks of strong currents
streaming through the legs, the breasts
of a pregnant woman
in her fourth month?
She’s young, this is her first time,
she’s slim and the nausea has gone.
Her belly’s just starting to get rounder
her breasts itch all day,
and she’s surprised that what she wants
is him
inside her again
Oh come like a horse, she wants to say,
move like a dog, a wolf,
become a suckling lion-cub –
Come here, and here, and here –
but swim fast and don’t stop.
Who speaks of the green coconut uterus
the muscles sliding, a deeper undertow
and the green coconut milk that seals
her well, yet flows so she is wet
from his softest touch?
Who understands the logic
behind this desire?
Who speaks of the rushing tide
that awakens
her slowly increasing blood – ?
And the hunger
raw obsession beginning
with the shape of the asparagus:
sun-deprived white and purple-shadow-veined,
she buys three kilos
of the fat ones, thicker than anyone’s fingers,
she strokes the silky heads
some are so jauntily capped…
even the smell pulls her in–
In the poem, the pregnant woman reflects on physical and emotional changes, her intense desire and fascination with her body and her hunger for intimacy and pleasure manifested in the sensory experience of everyday objects, drawing powerful connections between material and sensory objects
7. "Tryst" – Sunanda Tripathy (b. 1964)
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When the whole city is asleep
I take of my anklets
and come into your room
with soft, stolen steps.
You lie there, unmoving
on the disordered bed,
books strewn all around.
In their midst, alone, you lie asleep,
the smile of some strange contentment
on your face.
I sit quietly by the bed,
smooth your dishevelled hair,
then bend down and with my sharp nails
tear open your chest,
and with both my hands scoop out
a fistful of pulsating soft pink flesh.
I’m spellbound by the odour of the flesh,
I hold it to my breast.
For a moment
word and silence become one –
then sky and earth
become one.
Before you come awake
I put the flesh back in its place,
caress your open chest.
The wound fills up in a moment
as if nothing had happened.
As before you go on sleeping,
and I walk quietly from your room.
In a surreal and dreamlike setting, the narrator quietly enters her lover’s room, touches him tenderly, and imagines tearing open his chest to hold his heart in her hands. The moment is brief and intimate, blending elements of magic and reality, before she returns everything as it was.
Conclusion
These poems skillfully convey emotions of passion, love, emotion and conflict, and even in today’s fast-paced world, poetry touches readers with an escape from everyday pressures, aspects of experience a sense of depth, from love to lust, and everything in between.