‘After Gujarat’, the first section of this volume, contains twenty-two poems that are a response to the events following 27 February 2002, in Godhra, Gujarat. Here, a train coach carrying kar sevaks returing from Ayodhya caught fire, leading to the death of fifty-eight passengers. The next day a massacre of Gujarat’s Muslims began. ‘Before Gujarat’, the second section of sixteen poems, covers a quieter, more reflective world. But this too is not untouched by events such as India and Pakistan’s nuclear detonations and conflict in West Asia.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Seeme Qasim
Seeme Qasim was born in 1958 and edcated mostly on the west coast of India. She started her career as a journalist in Bombay and then worked for some media groups in Delhi, including The Times of India and The Indian Express. She is the author of an earlier collection of poems, Beyond October (1997), which dealt in part with the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and the subsequent riots. Seeme Qasim’s articles have appeared in several publications, including the Penguin Book of Indian Journeys (2001) edited by Dom Moraes, and City Improbable (2001), edited by Khushwant Singh.
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