Winner of International Reuel Award for literature for Oh Hark, 2014, The Universal Inspirational Poet Award [ Pentasi B Friendship Poetry and Ghana Government, 2016,] Bharat Nirman Award for literary Excellence, 2017, Setu Award, 2018, [Pittsburgh, USA] for ‘ stellar contribution to world literature.’ Keshav Malik Award, 2019, for ‘staggeringly prolific and quality conscious oeuvre’.Chankaya Award [Best Poet of the Year, 2022, Public Relations Council of India,], Eunice Dsouza Award 2023, for ‘rich and diverse contribution to poetry, literature and learning’, [Instituted by WE Literary Community] poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, TEDx speaker, creative writing mentor, Santosh Bakaya, Ph.D has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu [Vitasta, 2015], her poems have been translated into many languages, and short stories have won many awards, both national and international.Part of her column, Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity website, is now an e-book.
She has penned twenty five books across different genres.
Authorspress:
Where are the Lilacs? [Poems, 2016]
Flights from my Terrace [Essays,2017 ]
Under the Apple Boughs [Poems, 2017]
A Skyful of Balloons [ Novella, 2018 ]
Bring out the tall Tales [short stories with Avijit Sarkar, 2019 ]
Oh Hark! [ Award winning long poem, 2022]
Songs of Belligerence [ Poems , 2020 ]
Runcible Spoons and Pea -Green Boats [Poems ,2021]
What is the Meter of the Dictionary ? [Poems, 2022]
A Sonetto for the Poetic World and You heard the Scream, didn’t you ? [With Dr. Ampat Koshy, 2022] The Fog, A Liquid Ditty Floats [2023]
Only in Darkness can you see the Stars [ Biography of Martin Luther King Jr, Vitasta , [2019]
Collabortaive E- Books :
Two collaborative e- books : Vodka by the Volga [with Dr. Koshy, Blue Pencil, 2020]
From Prinsep Ghat to Peer Panjal [with Gopal Lahiri, Blue Pencil, 2021] have been No # 1 Amazon bestsellers.
Other collaborations:
Mélange of Mavericks and Mutants[ With Ramendra Kumar, Blue Pencil, 2022]
For Better or Verse: Passion. Profundity. Politics [ With Ramendra Kumar and Ampat Koshy, AuthorsPress, 2023]
The Catnama [ With Dr. Sunil Sharma, Authorspress, 2023]
1 Foul is Fair
Hey, what was that explosion?
Was that a harsh splitting of wood?
Did a window pane shatter?
A lampshade clatter to the ground?
What did I see?
Another window pane shattering!
Or was it just the night nattering?
Soliloquizing? Yak- yak – yak.
Maybe the rain pitter- pattering?
I saw glass fragments shooting through the air.
Foul was fair. Foul was fair.
Who was that master – blaster glaring at me?
Baring tobacco -stained teeth, staring at me?
Cracks of plaster sliced the wall.
It was indeed so droll. I shuddered.
The cracks reminded me of jagged edges of black lightning.
I saw something eerie slithering out of those cracks.
Instinctively, I lashed out my right hand,
the lamp on the side table spiraled off the table.
No fable this – but there was also a hiss…
Was the night done with yakking, and was now packing?
Turning in? Feeling sleepy? But, it all felt so creepy.
Another bullet cracked the plaster.
Faster – faster- Faster – flew the bullets, ricocheting off the wall.
Bullets, blustering breeze and bombs!
Foul had suddenly become fair.
Life had become so unfair.
2 The Golden Oriole of Granny’s Memory
I remember my grandmother
sitting so elegantly under a tree,
crowned by a shock of white hair
lost in the world she left behind.
Wistfully, she looked at the skeletal branches of the tree,
where the noisy parakeets doing somersaults
did not amuse her much.
Her mind’s eye, saw only a golden oriole
perched on the pine tree back home, in Kashmir,
her ears riveted to the sounds of the splash- splash of oars,
and the ripple of the waves in the River Jhelum.
She smiled half- a smile recalling the houseboat folks
waving out to her, with cheery greetings.
But now for miles around,
she sees nothing but an expansive, arid desert.
She furtively wipes a tear from her wrinkled cheek,
and smiles a fake smile at what for her is a fake world.
The Golden Oriole of her memory chirps on. Unstopping.
3 The Haze
She looked dazedly at the man in front of her.
He looked familiar. Quite so.
“Every day I am losing more and more of myself.
I want to grasp those precious chunks
before they completely vanish and hide in dinghy bunks.”
She mumbled looking at the man anew.
Something clicked.
It was the spark in his eyes.
In that spark, there was something she knew.
Tightly patting herself on both cheeks,
she tried to remove the fuzziness from her mind.
The man looked familiar and kind. Quite so.
He kept staring at her, looking grim.
She kept looking and looking,
wanting to capture that moment for eternity.
And then she smiled a victorious smile.
She remembered their first hug outside her house,
and the way she had blushed.
All of a sudden, a hush fell. A haze too.
She stared glassily at the man who looked familiar and kind,
when he asked her kindly,
“Do you remember our first rendezvous?”
She stared at him, wondering why the glass had become more opaque.
4 The girl with the Haystack
The ten-year-old girl with the haystack on her head,
looked this way and that, cautious her tread.
Her eight-year-old younger brother followed her,
eyes darting toward the stalls selling fast food.
The girl kept looking back over her shoulder.
"Can't you walk faster?’
The girl bellowed to her kid brother. He walked faster,
running his tongue over his lips,
and his eyes over the fast food.
Then putting her arm over her brother's shoulder,
the girl pretty burst into a ditty.
The twosome skipped onwards.
"Mother must be waiting for the wood."
Said the sister.
“Yes. I am hungry, I need food."Said the boy,
tending to a blister under his foot.
This scene quickly crept into my mind,
as I stood watching from the sidelines,
giving me immense food for thought.
5 The Man in his Easy Chair
The man sat in his easy chair, recalling the uneasy times-
the time he had been caged.
The struggle, the strife, the frustration and the rage.
The gnashing of teeth, the wringing of hands,
the flowing of tears- and the stink.
The Overpowering stink! The filth and the contaminated air.
He ran his fingers thoughtfully over the arms of the chair.
He still felt numb. Indignant.
But then he heard something. A tiny melodious trill.
Ah, it was a tiny robin which had swooped down on the window sill.
It trilled with full throated- ease; gone was the man’s unease.
He shook away those memories,
and sat riveted to the robin’s song,
slowly forgetting that strangled existence. Those caged times.
No longer tense, he too lent his voice to the robin’s song.
