By: Rati Agnihotri

To get fascinated
By the morbid details of other peoples’ lives
To locate art
In the slip discs of a chaotic composition
To whisper stranger, stranger
In the middle of the night
And then paint all night long
The shape, the form, the contours of that stranger
You have never seen…….
To dip your fingers into pools of a bubbling stream
And then create music using those same fingers…..
To cloak yourself in the skin of a thousand people you meet and see on the street everyday
And then all of a sudden throw off that cloak
To march naked in the middle of a market……
And then get terribly scared of that nakedness,
Shiver with fear and put on back those cloaks, one by one…
To write with precision four letter words
And then put them  away in an old trunk
to begin practicing alien alphabet….
To wash down old forms
with vigorous new age sculptures
To clench rain drops in the palm of your hand
While you know not
Where your feet are going to take you next
To shape up a discourse on your own life
To map the rhythms , patterns and motivations
Of something
That is essentially an artifice……

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[Rati Agnihotri currently works as a TV Script Writer and Reporter for CNC World TV, Xinhua Media Group China. She is based at their New Delhi office.  
Rati has also worked as a radio and online journalist for the south Asian service of Deutsche Welle in Bonn, Germany.
Ms Agnihotri completed her MA International Journalism from University of Leeds, U.K. in December 2007 and BA Hons English Literature from Miranda House, Delhi University in 2006.
Rati writes poetry in both Hindi and English.  Her English poems have been published in journals like Indian Literature, South Asian Ensemble, The Challenge,  Muse India, Kritya, Cerebration, Nether and Misty Mountain Review.  Her Hindi poem ‘Teesri Duniya’ was recently published in the ‘Yuva Visheshaank’ of Samvadiya magazine. Ms Agnihotri also runs a poetry group, ‘Moonweavers – Chaand ke Julaahe’ in Delhi. The group organizes poetry open mics, informal poetic discourse sessions, brainstorming sessions on poetry, etc. ]