triveni spotlight: 25th August 2025
- Mohua
- Aug 25
- 2 min read
triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY hosts: Anju Kishore and Mohua Maulik GUEST EDITOR: Kala Ramesh
25th August 2025
triveni spotlight August 2025
as an and you and you and you alone in the sea
Richard Gilbert
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
Like Alan, the first thought that struck me was the book. But the thought passed soon because for me, what was more striking was the contrast between "as an and" and "you and you and you alone in the sea". The first section seems to suggest that you are just one of the countless things in the universe. The second section with its repetitions and the word 'alone' throws open the universe to oneself and fills it with the immense experience of one's self. Something only the sea (and to some, the sky) can do.
A divine piece of writing. Thanks for sharing, Kala.
Thank you Spotlight and Kala Ramesh for such an amazing spread of poems, each to be read as much as possible to understand.
I feel I have to read this one several times. I like the sing-song quality to it that makes me think of several interpretations.
as an and you and you and you alone in the sea
Richard Gilbert
First published: Roadrunner 11:2 (2011) ed. Scott Metz
This haiku stayed from the first reading in Roadrunner to unconsciously pervade some of my writing!
I feel the haiku which might be marmite to some readers, which surprises me, feels like "The Old Man and the Sea" is a novella by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1952, about an aging Cuban fisherman, two years before Richard GIlbert was born. A 1958 film adaptation was made starring Spencer Tracy. Two more adaptations were a 1990 television film starring Anthony Quinn, and a 1999 production by Aleksandr Petrov which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Urashima Tarō (浦島 太郎)…