Exhibiting at the Ann Bryant Gallery, East London

Acrylic on Canvas by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Protesting

Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Poems from Makiwane

two blind men
at makiwane
held each other and screamed at
a broken sky
asking for alms
they wanted to smell
light
they wanted to taste light
they asked for a reason
and the unforgiving long years
of silence
of fettered undergrowth
a sun remained quiet
a wall grew taller
we only heard them shuffling
two blind men
at makiwane
mdantsane.

Poem and Pastel Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Rural, East London

Ink Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

St. David Road, Selborne, East London

St. David Road, Selborne, East London on a cloudy day


Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Southernwood Jacaranda

jacaranda colors in november
violet is not the river nor a street
not even an insidious sky
it’s just another time creeping up trees
at night
past dreams
and lips
a train screams down in
collateral junctions
past known faces
and uncalled remembrances
am i there
have i left
violet is daylight
seeping nerves
patterns of unequal
destiny.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Ceramic Clay Sculptures of Tamsanqa Mabo

I first saw the ceramic clay sculptures of Tamsanqa Mabo today at the Ann Bryant Art Gallery in East London. Tamsanqa, a B. Tech student of the Walter Sisulu University in East London was still in the process of arranging his work. The exhibition opens to the public tomorrow on 2nd November 2010.

I as a water color artist found Tamsanqa’s work uniform in its dimension, the bland color of the brown clay which enveloped all his work felt almost against the colorful traditions of his community, yet a cold shudder created an abstraction, one that makes you look at his work again and again

Is there a visual narrative style which is common to Xhosa creative artists in their work or is there more than that in Tamsanqa's sculpture ? A political emblem in bold has been stamped to each sculpture which obviously has been a personal experience in the journey of Tamsanqa.

Tamsanqa’s long journey from the hinterlands of Transkei to clay modelling in W.S.U., a clay blown into an object with baggy shoes and baggy shirts, yet a cruel indisposition that shackles his thoughts remain vulnerable.

The long thin tubular neck of one of his sculpture reminds me of an illusion of a height of a black man and the insults that he had to swallow imprisoned in his thoughts, mind, body and soul. It also expresses a certain dilemma of South Africans of different backgrounds.

Tamsanqa’s work has raised a voice of revolt, the voice of the voiceless, somewhat mute yet so resonant

I won’t call, Tamsanqa’s work, innovative nor decorative, they wouldn’t adorn corporate lounges primarily because it disturbingly sends a message of an improvised hurt, it pulls you and makes you think beyond reasoning and a marginalization that still continue to flourish in this country.

Tamsanqa Mabo remains one of those rare creative artist who is driven by a thread encompassing years of understanding and existing in South Africa.


Amitabh Mitra

1860 - 2010 Indians in South Africa

Celebrating 150 years of the arrival of Indians in South Africa with an exhibition of my art, poetry and films at Gonubie, East London, 30 October 2010.

Call for submission to a radical left poetry anthology

and let this sun
shatter in our thoughts
shards, lets pick up again
roofless
skyless
in drought
come
lets strike
lets form
in shapeless rivers
lets ride
a multitude
star again.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Black Boy

black boy
you are alone
south africa shimmers
in the darkness of streets
post world cup halo
finding way into veins
old trees tell tales
black is the sun
lingers long in riposte
in afterthoughts
in crippled nights
in hammering
black boy looks around
freedom birds
peck upon
an unforeseen
order
bullets still
love tattooing
a bluewhitesky.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Ma Ngobo's Place at Scenery Park

ma ngobo lives in the far stretches
of scenery park
a tiny house amidst shacks and shanties
seems to challenge still
an unburnt sky
lush greenery in abundance
has taken over the tiredness
of old thoughts
flaming tyres around necks
and a flaming jungle
are as remote
as long lost anc promises
i often drink here to
the laughter of myths
a rebellion of conscience
seems so far.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Scenery Park, East London

and next to the trees, shrubs and homes
women laughed, loved and drank
a spring evening at scenery park
when seasons excused themselves
joining the revelry
nothingness is here
and the trees revere to it
a sky jumps up in nude
a chant believes in streaking
a sudden heckling
stranger is oneself
stranger is a night
here
blooms
in untold eviction.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

The rainbows last evening

two rainbows woke up
last evening at east london
eyes still heavy in slumber
in rebellion
in unequivocal shadows
clouds gaggled away in
a rush of quarrelsome gulls
about
who is who
more beautiful today
I remembered you at hauz khas
behind the ruins
when you had touched
me with your smile
on such an unlikely day.

Poem and Photograph by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Black

fireflies burn a blue sky
black
black are we
grown from unseen embers
black is mdantsane
black is the river soul
and a runaway season
black is the night
of hurts
and tangled
thoughts
of sudden you.

Mdantsane Photograph by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Laughter

mdantsane grows on its own
piece of sky
and land
its birds live there only
occasionally the grass grows
crossing the perimeters
a taxi swerves into another
white collared land
honking madly
passengers laugh
at caged zebras
rushing around in
a strange dress code
trying to shed
its timeless riverguilt
a girl laughs out aloud clutching a tree
back in rural mdantsane.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Didnt I tell you

didn’t I tell you
there would be a night
a sea
drifting to a far edge
of memory sand
and there would
still be darkness
in random corners
of our woven talk
we shall then merge
in numerous skins
on numerous streets
eyes hawking a breaking storm
when a colored moon suddenly
opens a sky to just another sea.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

When the sun broke in Mdantsane

a sun broke into many pieces
over cecilia makiwane hospital
that day
we all went out collecting pieces
patients held out their palms
colors camouflaged hopes and infections
yonela too smiled
somebody laughed out
aloud
in
mdantsane
again.

Poem amd Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Gary lives in Mdantsane, Poems of Mdantsane

gary laughed out aloud
there is a white man
in his cage
it must be raining down there in Newcastle UK
and the school teacher left his umbrella behind
ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! ho!
rain trickled down his mind
in cold stillness
among his inflamed sulcis and gyris
till a river struck him
his eyes dilated at the strangeness of things
the knobbly tree of all things reaching for him...
today I wondered
even in his disjointed form
he happily gazes at consummation of mortal
beings.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Nights at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, Mdantsane

and the child gasped
a caged wind screamed
noiseless of a last night whimper
trees swaying outside
in restless tribulation
refused
I asked a late night
for an answer
yet a black sky
revolted.

Graphite pencil and ink drawing by Amitabh Mitra

Another day

an evening stained
with a hurtle of
unassuming talk
louder
louder
they diminish somewhere
close by
tomorrow would be
just another belief
of another
day.

Poem and Pastel Drawing by Amitabh Mitra