From AK

I was in touch with Amitava Kumar, the author of Husband of a Fanatic and Home Products, regarding a story.
He gracefully answered my questioned and then, sent this mail, regarding my blog, this blog.


I just visited your website--and the name you've given your site made me wonder whether you know of my friend Amit Chaudhuri's wonderful poem “The Writers.” You can find it at
http://www.amitchaudhuri.com/writing/writers.html

Regards, AK
_______________________________________
www.amitavakumar.com

I copied the poem from the site:

The Writers

On constantly mishearing ‘rioting’ as ‘writing’ on the BBC

There has been writing for ten days now
unabated. People are anxious, fed up.
There is writing in Paris, in disaffected suburbs,
but also in small towns, and old ones like Lyon.
The writers have been burning cars; they’ve thrown
homemade Molotov cocktails at policemen.
Contrary to initial reports, the writers
belong to several communities: Algerian
and Caribbean, certainly, but also Romanian,
Polish, and even French. Some are incredibly
young: the youngest is thirteen.
They stand edgily on street-corners, hardly
looking at each other. Long-standing neglect
and an absence of both authority and employment
have led to what are now ten nights of writing.

first published in The Observer