Rajib Chakrabarti

Rajib Chakrabarti

Rajib Chakrabarti teaches English and hopes that scientific rationalism and secular ethics will one day replace religious dogma.

  • The photograph shows a close-up shot of a large collection of clocks with wooden casings in different shapes and sizes. There are large wall clocks, much smaller table clocks, and many sizes in between. Most clocks are round, while some are square or hexagonal. Some of the clocks have ornate hour and minute hands. The clock faces show different times, but all the clocks seem to be dysfunctional, discarded, and piled up in a container, which is not visible in the photograph. Photo credit: Jon Tyson on Unsplash
    Poetry, Vartanama Feb '25

    The 51st winter

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    Rajib Chakrabarti has no qualms about accepting the severity of old age

  • This photograph taken in the fading light of an autumn sunset shows a close-up of a bunch of yellow, brown, and reddish leaves that are on a tree. The rusty yet colourful leaves are juxtaposed against a fine mesh of branches, twigs, green leaves, and the background sky visible through the gaps in the mesh. Some of the leaves are lit up a yellow-orange with their veins clearly visible as the sunlight falls on them. Photo credit: Syed Ahmad on Unsplash
    Poetry Jan '25

    Nurture sub rosa

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    To mellow is not to lose lustre, says Rajib Chakrabarti

  • Quote: Somewhere amid all these positives, I also expect queer people with disabilities to be more visible, do well in life, and not be silenced in both queer and disability communities. Homophobic, transphobic and ableist people will still be around, but they may well be pushed to the fringes. A decade hence we may sit down and compare the predictions made by various authors on the pages of Varta and calculate the percentage of those that have come true.
    My Story Aug '23

    Cautious predictions for 2033 CE

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    On ‘Varta’ webzine completing 10 years, Rajib Chakrabarti writes about the changes he expects to see for queer people and persons with disabilities a decade from now

  • This is a graphic that stylistically presents a small extract from the accompanying poem in bright colours and patterns that may be reminiscent of youthfulness. The extract says: “Invisible minorities in every land, many will try to dress like the rest, to be like the rest, as if there’s no difference between them and us. Inscrutably deprive others to save themselves.” Graphic artwork credit: Pawan Dhall
    Poetry Mar '23

    A few will be different

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    Rajib Chakrabarti on adolescence and queerness

  • This photograph is an early evening-time long shot of a spectacular view of the north-western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It shows a vast expanse of blue and placid sea water leading up to a number of icebergs and partially snow-covered mountains stretching across the horizon. The light of the setting sun has turned the white of the icebergs and snow on the mountains into a striking gold that contrasts sharply with the deep blue of the sea. Above the mountains, grey-pink clouds adorn a greyish sky. We stand to lose the incredible beauty and serenity of innumerable such scenes because of global warming and the resultant melting of the polar caps. Photo credit: Murray Foubister via Wikimedia Commons
    Poetry Feb '23

    The polar caps

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    Rajib Chakrabarti is cautiously hopeful about our planet’s future

  • This photograph is a daytime mid-shot of a bright red ‘jaba’ flower, glistening in the sunlight, growing inside a lane somewhere in Kolkata city. The colour of the flower contrasts with the cheerful green of the leaves of the plant. The grey wall of a building, a water mains fitted on the wall, and a bunch of cable TV wires form a rather mundane backdrop to the eye-catching flower and plant. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall
    Poetry, Vartanama Mar '22

    Verse magic on and off paper

    By Rajib Chakrabarti, Pawan Dhall

    Rajib Chakrabarti’s poetry mingled with summer colours helps Pawan Dhall make the most of his day

  • This main graphic is a sketch of a person who appears genderqueer – they have flowing crinkly hair framing the face, stark wide open eyes with gracefully arched eyebrows, luscious lips, and a face outline that cannot be discerned as typically masculine or feminine. While the person’s sketch is in simple sharp lines of black and fills up the graphic frame, it is overlaid with abstract and flowing patterns in pink, yellow, green and blue, with white spaces balancing out the colours. There is a fluorescent touch in the riot of colours. But the person’s eyes seem to peer out from behind the colours and gaze at the reader. The sketch is drawn with pen ink on off-white paper, while the coloured patterns have been created with highlighter marker pens. The graphic has a thick border that works as a frame. The graphic is undated. Graphic credit: Anupam Hazra
    Poetry May '19

    Purdah

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    Sniggers at androgyny are a poor purdah on our insecurities, says Rajib Chakrabarti

  • The photograph shows a pre-dusk long shot of a public park with a walkway gently curving around a lake. There is an ornamental blue and white iron railing running along the edge of the walkway on the side facing the water. On the other side of the walkway are tall trees. The water is covered with large lotus leaves and flowers floating on the edges of the lake. The gentle ripples in the water are complemented by a cloudy sky and the serene trees that line the walkway. The walkway is made up of tiles with arc like patterns. Everything in the photograph seems to convey a sense of circularity or non-linearity. Even the linear spokes of the railing have a spiral design that adds to the overall effect of the photograph. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall
    Poetry Jul '18

    Badly bent

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    Rajib Chakrabarti on the twistedness implicit in straightening out the non-linear

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    Poetry Oct '16

    Gogyohshi #2

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    The poet uses Gogyohshi, a form of Japanese micropoetry, to express what he felt when he heard a man ridicule filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh soon after his demise in life and...

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    Poetry Sep '16

    A joke

    By Rajib Chakrabarti

    A poet’s rebuff to ableism and homophobia

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