Author Archives: Parneet Jaggi

About Parneet Jaggi

Parneet Jaggi teaches English in a Post Graduate college in India. She has four collections of poems in English-" Beyond Words" (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 2018), "Show me How Not to Grow" (Cyberwit, Allahabad, 2017), "Live Love Light" (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 2014) and "Euphonies Of Heart And Soul" (Cyberwit, Allahabad, 2013). Her poems have been published in journals like The Enchanting Verses International Journal, the Taj Mahal Review, Contemporary Literary Review India, The Criterion etc. Her books, "Matthew Arnold and the Bhagavad Gita: A Study of His Poems" and "Social and Economic Values in the Teachings of Sikh Gurus" reveal her love for religion and philosophy.

A Gift

9 Replies


Went around searching

the market, the mall, the narrow alley,

all brimming with colourful

bargains to take home.

Went around peeping through the windows

of bedazzling jewellers,

looking for a glittering relic,

to honour you.

Tried much to look into my wardrobe

to part with a special possession of mine.

Tried still to craft a necklace

of the  rare jewels I had collected over the years.

Thought over to present you a token of my talent-

 an immortal melody in my voice,

write a lyric or an ode to our friendship.

But I found them all low for you.

The  pedestal holding our love is high,

Therefore,

my prayer is the only gift

I offer

 in no wrappers,

or sparkling ribbons tied around,

just silence and a glitter in my eye.

Reducing Humanity

2 Replies

Concinnity we wish on earth

Effulgence we desire in personalities

Beauty we want to relish all around

Peace we prognosticate

Ebullience we look for in ourselves.

But the arduousness to expunge others,

devising canards

is getting intrinsic

as haemoglobin in blood,

using chicanery in all spheres

reducing humanity to a mere formicary,

walking in long queues

from paths of heaven to gates of hell.

Time in Love

4 Replies

T

 Time presses the neck

like a beaded choker

glittering with stones of myriad colours

 fascinating the world

like nectar to a humming bird .

It strangles,

 restricting each breath to flow freely

 at least the counted ones ,

one’s number is ordained –

they say so.

 In love, each little moment

is a moment of immeasurable counts,

 while the world rejoices

 at the lost sanity of another creature.

Aroma of Love

8 Replies

One emotion encompasses all piety,
not needed to showcase
in the splendour of colours and perfumes.
Love has its own colour- matchless.
An aroma,
that swirls inside the core of existence. 
The heart may be made of cells-
(living or dead)
or whatever else scientists may name.
Aroma touches the core,
spreads like smoke,
invisibly in the whole being,
emanates from the voices
and gaits of lovers.

Aroma of love embraces
all pathies, isms and faiths.
A  puff  of locked gases
which can be locked no more,
erupts like a volcano,
flows down , 
stratifies uneven lands.
Hot molten lava of love
holds the power
to eliminate filth of the world
and to erect high peaks 
on new mountains.

 



Love This, Love That

4 Replies



‘Love this, love that’,

‘Like this, like that’,

seems like a script given to act,

a few moments of rehearsal,

then the performance,

then time to slip back to one’s tiny shell,

As  Cleopatra sits on a burnished throne on stage

to find herself back on floor back-stage,

Come back again,

the script is ready,

‘Love this, love that’,

Like this , like that,

love the dog on the street,

an ant entering the hole,

the cow feeding its calf,

not to forget the peepal tree

emitting oxygen day and night,

and yes, one’s parents too,

each lesson taught in books,

defining words,

constructing languages,

barriers along with,

when the heart feels not the same.

Where has the inherent humanity gone?

‘Love this, love that’

has to be taught each day

to prevent grasslands

 turning into arid deserts.

A Class for Expecting Mothers

6 Replies



A class was held,
Expecting mothers sat in a row,
ready for a fruitful lecture
from the most erudite scholars.
Their babies were expected
to add to the light of their world soon,
resting in dark for the few blessed days.
Class had all arrangements
to dress up the thirty upcoming leaders
with cloaks of treachery. 
There were lectures on identity, 
a favourite topic with the learned elites.
Talks on race, caste, religion 
topped the pudding.

Talks on mannerisms, grooming, polishing,

Losing the inherent human etch,

Losing the real breath connection with the universe .
Do’s and not do’s garnished 
the food of living.
Very soon,

 programmed and chipped beings

 with two arms and two legs
would grace the earth
and prepare lectures for unborn generations.

Waiting for the Gift

8 Replies


Denatured by the patriarchal umbrella

Cannot breathe well,

peepal tree trying hard

to transfuse sufficient oxygen

but  lungs do not let enter.

Invisible cobwebs strangle tight

stifling all passages of air.

Artistic rapture seems a tale of last birth

the verve faded away-

to write,sing, dance,

sway with the breeze,

flow with the wind,

feel the drops of rain

 on the parched face,

watch the rarest birds

compliment nature .

Will wait

for the gift

of another birth

to tune with the chords of nature,

to feel the zest of being a human

in the dichotomized world of

“Let her live”

“Let her not live.”

Climbing a Hill

4 Replies


Climbing a hill

 mind drew beautiful pictures,

 Ensnaring beauty of the sky

I was close,

Grandeur of pine trees

 shaded with a perfect hand,

Cool breeze tickling the face,

Tiny droplets teasing the skin,

 A Journey to relish

 reaching an el dorado

 glittering as a jewel

 I always wanted to adorn myself with,

 Climbing was a pleasure

shins ached yet lent a joy,

 Reached well in time

 Before it was the dark of life,

 now no air

 live without oxygen. 

 On the lofty hills of love

 carry a special heart

 designed to beat like the one

 not the millions. 

I Think of You…

5 Replies


When hands tremble

and refuse to lift the requisite loads of life,

When legs shiver

and refuse to take me to places,

When eyes feel the pain

due to the dust of life-

Invisible yet irking,

When brain is clouded with a grey haze

not letting light inside,

I think of you

who will adore me without these,

Embrace me in the dark of my life,

Hold my finger to help me tread

the remaining path of my life.

A Dramatic Story of Humans

4 Replies


Humans were
he-men
High-men
Heaven men
All was true.
Now they are hue-men
coloured with shades of ego,

It is a world of the minds
wanting to subdue more minds.
The real ‘we’ disappeared 
somewhere amid the clouds.
We sit in meditation to find the lost ‘we’.
Mind takes over
to see the existence evaporating repeatedly. 
Humanity now
is a story of minds
not of existence.
Ideas proliferating like cells in body,
Seemingly outweighing oxygen in the air.
A dramatic story of humans,  the superior race.