English Original
Mumbai commute
each train window
colored with people
Wild Plum, Spring 2015
Sonam Chhoki
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
孟買通勤
豐富多彩的民眾填滿
每個火車窗口
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
孟买通勤
丰富多彩的民众填满
每个火车窗口
Bio Sketch
Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan's non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the United Haiku and Tanka Society journal, cattails.
Written through a sympathetic lens (by using "coloured" not "crowded"), Sonam's train haiku keenly captures an overcrowded train scene in the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 23 million.
ReplyDeleteThe verb (in the past tense), "colored," is layered with multiple meanings, which could refer to the colors of clothes, many ethnicities, multi-cultures, diverse religions, ... of Indian commuters,
And the following train haiku could be read as a sequel to Sonam's:
train tunnel --
the sudden intimacy
of mirrored faces
Best of Issue Haiku, Presence, 22, 2004
Beverley George