Going back is not possible in the literal sense,

And yet every thing, which is passing through the present, is automatically going back to the past. In fact, we are moving to the past every minute. It means that the past is dominating our present. Thus we think for the future and live in the past, where is our present then?

When Bulle shah asks, "Ki jana me kown?" (Who knows, what I am?), the same question echoed in the Rig Veda comes to my mind-

What thing I am I do not know
I wonder secluded, burdened by my mind
When the first born of truth has come to me
I receive a share in that selfsame world
R.V.1.164.37

Poetry is again a search for our self on the foundation of the past and with the vision of the future. Poetry is like a lullaby, which never gets old and never loses its charm. It is like prayer, which never loses faith. It begins its journey at some point in the past and proceeds to the future.

Kritya started its journey five years ago in search of the poetry, which is as strong as iron and as pious as prayer, as soft as a lullaby, and as sweet as the smile of the beloved.

We are happy that a number of poets have joined us in this enterprise, and we also had the good fortune to learn a lot from our senior poets. This month while searching for the poetry of Bulleh Shah, I could get a number of soul-searching songs. And I don’t know why, every moment I spent in front of the computer was like a prayer because of his songs. That is a special power of poetry. We are bringing some of his songs in Our Masters section for readers to enjoy.

In the section Contemporary Poetry, we have poems of a new group of Italians, which are very different from these prayers, but very important as regards showing the mirror to us. We have poems written by contemporary poets from India as well.

In the section In The Name Of Poetry, Biji is talking on many aspects of poetry. And the editor’s choice this time is Hindi Poet- Ashok Vajpeyi.

Dear friends, the artist of this issue is Henry Avignon, a photographer and poet whose primary artistic interest is creating technical processes and new, methodological approaches to traditional tools and materials that reveal nature’s light and the infinite variety of her signatures on both the material/objective and immaterial / pycho-spiritual worlds.

Henry believes the thrust of art is to be an expression of artifice and absence, signature and silence of nature by and through the invention, manipulation and recorded apprehension of color, line, shape and shadow references to the realest core values of lightness and darkness, in order to manifest relevant symbolism for our daily lives in our time and place.

Other paintings (faces) are made by Aksha Ameriya, a young artist.

Friends, we are moving to the sixth year of our journal, www.kritya.in . We have walked a long way, and you can read about Kritya’s journey in our organization site we launched recently - www.kritya.org .

It has always been Kritya's objective to provide a platform for other art forms such as painting. Accordingly, we are expanding our activities in the form of workshops on poetry, creative writing, painting and more. Kritya welcomes new artistic works, and hope to bring together the best creative minds for healthy interaction and more productive output.

With lots of poetry,

Rati Saxena