On Fire…A Movement with Words and Images

On Fire is not just a publishing house but it is more than that. Here we encourage talented poets and writers to enhance and display their talent – young and old, experienced and inexperienced. On Fire gives them platforms to perform in different media: books and magazines.

Fouqia Wajid is the founder and director of OnFire, a creative youth movement. She is the chief organiser of the national poetry contest called ‘The Great Indian Poetry Contest’. It also has an international category for poets outside India. She has written and directed two plays on Doordarshan called ‘Ghar Ke Na Ghat Ke’ and ‘Jaago’. She is the author of a collection of poems ‘Screech’ which was published when she was 16 years old. Her poems and short stories have been published in different anthologies like ‘Love In Verses’, ‘Musings: A Mosaic’, ‘Haiku Collection – Poets International’, Haiku Treasury, Poet International – Haiku Special, Aatish, Winds of Change, Remember the Forgotten, etc.

She also has few Hindi short stories to her credit. Her compilation of an anthology of poems and photographs on social issues, Aatish – with a tag line of “ Sensitizing Sentient Sentiments” was launched in Delhi & Bangalore in 2016. The second volume has been recently launched.

Amit Ranjan (Editor)

Amit Ranjan will be Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at FIU, Miami this year.
His PhD research from JNU, about John Lang – lawyer of Rani of Jhansi, as also a prolific writer and journalist – is internationally acclaimed. Amit has been a recipient of Fulbright, Endeavour and Inlaks fellowships earlier. He has also been a delegate at Australia India Youth Dialogue, and a writer at Sangam House Writers’ Residency. Amit has taught literature at St Stephen’s College, FIU and other places. He currently teaches at Miranda House, Delhi. Before taking up a career in academia, he was a journalist with India Today and Outlook groups.

About the journey of Aatish 2

On Fire embarked on the long journey to create Aatish 2. The idea was to bring together beautiful people, there-by their beautiful poems from different walks of life, different stages of growth, different experiences and different eyes that see the universe. They have explored how the universes within see the universe outside and all these threads get intertwined into one ball of thoughts, poems, people or universes. So, how did they choose the representatives of our upcoming creation called Aatish 2.  They  organised ‘The Great Indian Poetry Contest’, an international poetry competition.

It was judged by an eminent panel consisting of Kalki Koechlin and Kausar Munir. It was an extensive process which started in May 2018 and took several months to conclude. It included multiple rounds of screening, reading and re-reading the poems on various levels, discussing and arguing our choices of winners, reasoning out each selection with the jury, and finally declaring the results in November 2018.

Editors – Fouqia Wajid & Amit Ranjan

Managing Editor  – Ramya Iyer

Project Coordinator – Sourav Kumar

Layout and Cover Page Design – Rizwan Khan

Aatish 2

Aatish 2 features poetry by Gulzar, Taslima Nasrin, K. Satchidanandan, Abhay K, Deepak Ramola, Erik Lindner and more. It also features winning poems from The Great Indian Poetry Contest. While the book is in English, it features translations of poets writing in many languages including Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, Dutch and others. This ensures a book with many views in many tongues, and the thoughts it brings with it. Most poems are also accompanied by an illustrator’s interpretation of them, making the book a unique blend of raw artistic and poetic voices alongside seasoned ones.

This project was rowed by several hands to make it come through, and it goes on to sail as you read this book. Aatish 2 would never have been possible without our great poets and illustrators. My heart is filled with gratitude to the Jury, Kalki Koechlin and Kausar Munir for all the cooperation during the selection process. I would love to thank all those poets from different places who write in different languages, and the translators who have all joined hands for this.

Hope this journey continues to enable us to create many more such musical notes and beautiful universes.

Aatish 2 features poets from Telugu States:

Afsar Mohammad –Name Calling (p. 37)

Vadrevuchinaveerabahadrudu—The Poem that I write Today (p.38)

Srinivas Vasudev — Confessional Chambers (p.164)

To get your copy, click https://amzn.to/3eZzNgQ