Subash.M | Assistant Professor

     Walt Whitman says, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” If he had met me during my PG days, he’d probably high-five me and say, “You got it, buddy!”      While my classmates were busy chasing PowerPoint perfection and seminars, I was in the canteen, sipping chai like it was the nectar of Nirvana. External achievements? No thanks, I once forgot to submit an assignment and proudly told my professor, “I’m focusing on internal growth.”      I didn’t memorize theories, I lived them. When others quoted Freud, I quoted the tea shop uncle’s wisdom: “Pass or fail, tea will never betray you.” Deep stuff, right?      One day during our viva, I just smiled and said, “Ma’am, your questions are good for the mind, but my soul wants silence.” I don’t know if she was impressed or confused, but hey, I passed!      You see, I follow the Whitman way, dance like no one’s watching (even if the warden is), nap guilt-free ...

       Life has its own way of testing us. Sometimes, it buries us under self-doubt, societal judgments, or personal setbacks. But every now and then, a poem like Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise comes along not just as a poem, but as a reminder that the spirit cannot be crushed unless we allow it.      The line “You may trod me in the very dirt , But still, like dust, I'll rise” feels so personal to me. There were days when I felt I was not enough professionally, emotionally, and socially. Opportunities passed me by, voices around me grew louder than my own, and I questioned my worth. But even then, somewhere deep within, something whispered, “Rise.”      Today, I got another opportunity, one that opens the door to new people, a new place, and new ideas. It’s not just a chance to work or grow, it’s a moment of becoming. I feel like I’m turning a page in my story. And the courage to embrace it? I owe a part of that to this poem.  ...

       Life never gives us a map, only crossroads. Every time I read Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken , I am reminded of the quiet yet powerful decisions that shaped my journey. The poem isn’t just about two paths in the woods, it’s about life’s silent moments where we stand still, unsure, yet compelled to move.      I remember one such moment clearly. After completing my post-graduation, like many of my friends, I was expected to enter a corporate job. But deep inside, I felt a different calling, teaching. Everyone around me was taking the “safe” road, but I couldn’t silence the pull toward education. So, I chose the less-travelled path. I applied for a teaching position at a small rural college, a choice many questioned. Today, as an Assistant Professor who has delivered guest talks across Tamil Nadu and inspired hundreds of students, I know that step made all the difference.      Frost’s lines, “I took the one less traveled by, and...

     Poetry has a strange way of finding us exactly when we need it. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses came into my life not just as a literary text, but as a mirror reflecting my own restlessness, my quiet hunger for meaning beyond routine. The line “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” didn’t just stay in my memory, it became a compass.      Balancing life as a teacher, a researcher, and a traveller on academic missions hasn’t been easy. There were days I left home before sunrise to give guest lectures, returned with tired feet, and still sat down to work on my thesis or plan lessons. It wasn’t ambition that kept me going, it was a deep inner restlessness, the kind Ulysses himself feels. The thirst for growth. The hunger to keep moving.      Ulysses is not simply an aging warrior longing for adventure. He is every soul that refuses to accept routine as destiny. I’ve always felt a quiet connection with that refusal to settle. Wheth...

     Some days, I wake up with enthusiasm. Others, I wake up only because I must. It’s in those quieter mornings, when energy is low and purpose feels distant, that Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” speaks to me the loudest.      Duty is not a glamorous word. It doesn’t sparkle like passion or excitement. But it stays steady, silent, and unmoving. In the poem, Wordsworth calls Duty the “stern daughter of the voice of God” a reminder that some paths we walk not because they’re easy or joyful, but because they’re right.      As a professor, I’ve had my share of tired days. Days when the classroom feels heavy, when students are distracted, and when I question if I’m making any difference at all. But still, I show up. And somehow, in that showing up over and over again, I’ve realized that duty has its own kind of grace. It’s not loud, but it’s deeply grounding.      Wordsworth understood that real strength lies in doing what must be d...

     Some nights, I don’t want answers I just want silence. Not the kind filled with buzzing thoughts, but the deep, weightless stillness that John Keats writes about in “To Sleep.” His lines feel less like poetry and more like a whisper to the weary .      Keats doesn’t glorify sleep as a dreamy escape filled with fantasies. Instead, he sees it as a quiet refuge from the noise of life. I remember one night, after back-to-back classes and an unexpected family argument, I sat by my window, emotionally exhausted. No words, no energy just the weight of being awake. That night, I opened Keats. His line, “Seal the hushed casket of my soul,” made me close my eyes. For once, I wasn’t trying to sleep. I was inviting it in like an old friend.      I’ve often found that poetry meets us where no one else can . Keats understood that some days feel too loud, too real. And what we need isn’t escape, but a pause a gentle covering of all that aches. His...

       A few weeks ago, I sat at a table surrounded by familiar voices, each speaking with ease, confidence flowing like coffee being poured. I smiled, nodded, even laughed at the right places but inside, my words were pacing in circles. I wanted to speak, I had something to say… but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not because I lacked the language but because I feared it wouldn’t land right.      T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock is not just a poem to me, it’s a mirror. A voice that stumbles, hesitates, and questions, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” That single line echoes in those moments when I overthink a text before sending it, when I edit myself in conversations, when I tone down my enthusiasm because I worry it might seem “too much.”      Prufrock’s paralysis isn’t weakness it’s the exhaustion of constantly performing in a world that rewards certainty. I’ve felt that tension in classrooms, conferences, even casual meetups. Once, in a department me...

     There are times in life when everything outside falls silent, dreams are delayed, plans fall apart, and people we trust walk away. Yet, even in such silence, I’ve felt something quietly fluttering within me a small, unwavering voice that says, “Move forward.” Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” captures that feeling so perfectly. She compares hope to a bird that perches in our soul, singing wordlessly through the fiercest storms.      What struck me most is how Dickinson says this bird “never stops at all.” That line stayed with me. In my own life, when I felt lost after rejections, personal losses, or simply long nights filled with doubt, I didn’t always have someone to lean on. But this soft inner song remained. It never asked for anything in return. Just like Dickinson’s bird, hope never demanded food, praise, or reward. It just kept singing.      I’ve learned that true hope doesn’t come from external success o...

     There are days when I pause not out of tiredness, but out of reverence. A bird resting on the wire, an old woman’s smile, the smell of soil after rain all these remind me that life isn’t rushing toward an endpoint. It’s unfolding, slowly, like the figures on Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, forever in motion, yet forever still.      Keats said, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” I never quite understood it until I stopped trying to chase grand things. I began to find beauty in the mundane. In the steam of morning coffee, in the crooked laughter of my friend, in the silence after a storm. These weren’t just fleeting things; they were truths. They didn’t ask to be remembered, but they stayed with me.      I remember one evening, standing alone on my terrace. The sky was painted with golden orange, the kind of colour you can’t mix with any brush. For a moment, I felt infinite, as if I t...

       There was a time I feared change. I used to hold on tightly to routines, to expectations, to people. But life, as I’ve come to learn, is like the wind Shelley speaks of in Ode to the West Wind  wild, purposeful, and always in motion. And now, instead of resisting it, I choose to rise with it.      Shelley’s wind doesn’t only destroy it clears space for something new to grow. That image has become a symbol for me. These days, I no longer argue with what life brings. I don’t waste energy on asking “why me?” or trying to control every outcome. I’ve trained my mind to move with the rhythm of change to accept, adapt, and evolve.      This shift didn’t happen overnight. It came from experience from moments where life surprised me, pushed me, and at times left me speechless. But slowly, I understood, what feels like chaos often becomes clarity. What breaks you down also builds you. Now, when the winds of life blow hard, I don’t an...

Dylan Thomas’s Fern Hill is more than just a poem, it’s a mirror to my own lost days of childhood. When I read those lines, "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea," it hit me hard. I too was once young and easy under the shade of simplicity, living days without expectations, without pressure only play, laughter, and curiosity filled my world. Back then, waking up didn’t feel like a task. Life was not about proving something. It was about being simply being. Just like Thomas roamed the green fields of Fern Hill, I too wandered through the innocent lanes of my early life, where everything felt eternal. I never knew time was quietly pushing me forward. Now, as an adult, every single day feels like a heavy burden. People around me expect so much to be perfect, responsible, successful, understanding. But the truth is, I can’t fulfill everyone’s hopes. I carry a smile, but my heart often feels tired. The freedom I once had is now just a memory I rev...

     There are moments in life when time seems to stretch endlessly moments where hope clings to the edge of routine, and all one can do is wait. Reading Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot felt like reading my own inner diary two men, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for someone who never arrives. Much like them, I too have stood in the silence, waiting for opportunities, for recognition, for a single sign that all my efforts were not in vain.      “Nothing to be done,” Estragon sighs, and how many times have I echoed that in my own heart? After submitting applications, preparing lectures, and working tirelessly, the silence that followed often felt heavier than rejection. The play isn’t just about waiting for a person it’s about waiting for meaning, for clarity, for validation in a world that often offers none.      There were times I prepared for an interview that never came, or stayed hopeful for a reply that never reached. And like Vladi...

 In the rush of everyday life, I often find myself returning to W.H. Davies’ poem Leisure . The line “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare” doesn’t feel like a distant poetic imagination anymore it feels like a mirror. I look around, and I look within. The world seems more connected than ever, yet the bonds feel fragile. We text, we scroll, and we post, but do we truly talk? Do we truly live? My phone buzzes more than hearts beat in my surroundings. Even a smile now seems like a planned emoji, not something born out of real joy. I realise, painfully, that somewhere between deadlines and devices, I have forgotten the meaning of being alive. There was a time when evenings meant watching sunsets, not watching screens. When silence was peace, not awkwardness. When walking meant listening to our thoughts, not playlists. Today, life is about projecting happiness, not feeling it. We decorate our social media walls while the walls of our hearts remain b...

  There’s a silence in my home that speaks louder than any words. It’s the silence of my father’s sacrifices the kind that never asked for recognition, never demanded applause. I often think of the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, where a father rises in the cold, quietly tending to the fire, unthanked. That poem is my father. My appa isn’t rich. He never chased luxury. But I never once felt poor. He gave up his comfort, his rest, and his needs for us. His savings were never his own; they were dreams folded into school fees, groceries, and a better life for his children. He used to love sleeping in, but now sleep seems to have left him. His eyes carry tiredness, not complaint. He rarely buys himself a new shirt unless it’s Deepavali or a wedding. And yet, his heart overflows with giving. There was a time when I thought he was boring. Now, I think he’s brilliant. He handled life in a way I could never replicate. I don’t even know where the borewell switch is, or h...

Today, I began writing my blog not with clarity, but with a curious uncertainty. I didn’t know where to start or what to write. Once, I was filled with questions. I constantly asked: How? Where? When? Why? What? These questions shaped my journey, my identity, my hunger to understand the world. But something changed. I’ve stopped asking. I’ve begun accepting. Life has slowly revealed its quiet wisdom to me not in answers, but in acceptance. I no longer seek explanations for everything around me. I no longer expect people to explain themselves, prove themselves, or live up to my vision of who they should be. Why should they? Everyone is walking their own path. It’s not my responsibility to evaluate their pace, their truth, or their struggle. I’ve learned not to expect, not to demand, not to act out of pressure or illusion. Instead, I’ve chosen to receive what life brings openly, peacefully. “I don’t expect, so I don’t act. I just accept.” That is my mantra now. I’ve found that ac...