triveni spotlight: 21st August 2025
- Mohua
- Aug 21
- 2 min read
triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY hosts: Anju Kishore and Mohua Maulik GUEST EDITOR: Kala Ramesh
21st August 2025
triveni spotlight August 2025
hot afternoon
the squeak of my hands
on my daughter’s coffin
Lenard D. Moore
naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary world haiku, 2016
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Naad Anunaad
Sound and Resonance
Haiku are word paintings. In film jargon, we could refer to them as shots frozen in time. But a haiku doesn't just stop there; it pilots the reader beyond images into a sacred realm. For a poem complete in just a few words, ‘resonance’ becomes the keynote.
In Sanskrit, the primordial sound in the cosmos, referred to metaphorically as AUM, is known as naad, and its resonance as anunaad. According to the ancient Indian texts, an instrument, such as the voice, only resonates the cosmic sound in acts such as singing or speaking. The cavities in the body — the oral and sinus cavities and the spaces from our toes to our brain, all act as resonators or amplifiers for the ‘sound’ to reverberate, and this resonance is termed as anunaad in Sanskrit.
The poet Kabir has expressed this in one of his spiritual songs, and says that his body is a musical instrument that only transmits the timeless cosmic resonance.
wave calls …
haunting melodies linger
in the mind’s abyss
I hope the theory of naad and anunaad will draw a new generation of readers and authors into the kind of intimacy with nature that our grandmothers once enjoyed. Nature here does not mean just the hills, rivers, and forests — it includes cities and the life we live, our day-to-day activities, taking in stride the agonies, failures, successes, and idiosyncrasies intertwined with the natural world.
lotus viewing
the flowering
within
These haiku are all from the contemporary haiku anthology, NAAD ANUNAAD, which effectively capture sound and resonance. Do leave your comments and haiku that, in your opinion, incorporate both nāda and anūnāda. Go for it!
Kala Ramesh
About the anthology
naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary world haiku
Published by Vishwakarma Publications, Pune, 2016. Edited by Kala Ramesh (editor-in-chief), Sanjukta Asopa & Shloka Shankar (co-editors). Available on Amazon.
This first haiku anthology from India won the Merit Book Awards in the Best Anthology category instituted by the Haiku Society of America in 2017.
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Thank you, Kala. Poets, we hope you will enjoy this selection and love to contemplate the poems. Each resonates in a unique way, and is presented in triveni spotlight just for you! Please share your thoughts.
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triveni spotlight team
My all-time favourite.
Lenard, when I met him said that after his daughter's death, he wrote dozens and dozens of poems to heal himself.
And in HAIKUcharades (a collaboration with a dancer) I had chosen this poem and called lenard to talk about this ku.
Most poignant.
The last line hits hard and is unexpected. The loss of a child is heart-breaking.
I find today's ku very relevant to the concept of naad anunaad as explained by Kala in the intro. The loss of a daughter is heartbreaking. On the surface, the ku is about that loss. But even in grief, one observes apparently mundane things like the heat of the day and the squeak of one's hands...This is so true. A natural side of grief which one need not feel guilty about. Though the simple words are about a random, casual observation, the grief hits hard.
Heartbreaking...