Sunday Daryaganj, Delhi, Book Bazaar
By Rachna Joshi
Going to the
Sunday Daryaganj Book Bazaar
In Meghdutam Park.
I see children
Reciting their poems
In Hindi.
Copies of magazines and newspapers
Lie on the benches
And I drop off Raag Darbari
By Shrilal Shukla.
On the way back
I see red silk cotton flowers
On the ground
And click a picture of them
Surrounded by trees and bushes.
Rachna Joshi is a poet and reviewer who has lived in India and North America. She has written five collections of poems: Configurations (Rupa & Co., 1993); Crossing the Vaitarani (Writer’s Workshop, 2008); Travel Tapestry (Yatra Books, 2013); Monsoon and Other Poems (Tethys, 2020) and Unraveling (Authors Press, 2024). She has a master’s in Creative Writing from Syracuse University in upstate New York, and has been widely published in magazines and anthologies in India and abroad. She worked as Senior Assistant Editor at the India International Centre, Delhi, for 28 years and lives in Noida, U. P.