[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you don't mind just introducing yourself by saying your name and pronouns and a bit about who you are.
[Sundaram]: Hi, my name is Vijaya Sundaram. I'm she, her, hers. And I happen to be the Poet Laureate of Medford, the second Poet Laureate of Medford. And I live in Medford.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Yeah, so we'll get into a little bit more about what that what it means to be the poet laureate. But before we do that, I'm wondering if you could answer the question that we ask everybody on the podcast, which is, what is your favorite place to eat in Medford? And what do you like to eat there?
[Sundaram]: So we don't go out that often to eat, but when we do order food or something, we usually get it from Chili Garden. We love Chili Garden in Medford Square, but we don't tend to go out much to eat. I mean, we go out occasionally to an Indian restaurant, but that's not in Medford. And so we really enjoy Chili Garden's food that we get almost every week.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, that one comes up a lot for sure.
[Sundaram]: There's a lovely bakery on Salem Street at the intersection of Fellsway West and Salem Street. And I forget, it has a French Creole name. And they sell really nice things.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's sort of new, right?
[Sundaram]: It's new. And there are Haitian people running it. And I love the stuff that they have there. I wish I knew what it was. It's a two-word name. It'll come to me.
[Danielle Balocca]: If we remember, we'll get back to it. Great. Well, yeah, I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what it means to be the Poet Laureate in Medford, what it means for Medford to have a Poet Laureate.
[Sundaram]: You know, each person conceives of what a Poet Laureate does differently, I suppose. But in the end, what we're hoping to do is to bring the community together in the love of poetry, in the love of self-expression, binding ideas and hopes together, maybe be the voice of the community for some things when we're called on to write poems for occasions. So I've never had to do that before. So that was really interesting for me to do. I'm more an introverted poet and I'm an introspective type of poet. My favorites are the romantic poets and the lyric poets of the 19th century and some modern American poets like Naomi Shihab Nye, who's a Palestinian American poet. It was interesting to be asked to write poems for occasion. So I wrote one for the inauguration of our mayor. I wrote one for the CPA celebrations, for the Medford Arts Collaborative. I never quite remember what to call it. Arts Medford Collaborative, I think. Medford Arts Collaborative. I had to write for that, Gala. And I've written about eight poems, one for Black History Month, one for MLK Day, one for Pride Flag Day celebration, for Haitian Flag Raising Day, and one for the most recent one was for Juneteenth. So it was a lovely challenge for me because I wanted to marry my own voice and my own way of looking at the world with history and with the occasion, which means I had to do some research. And I like doing research. I like learning things. I hate to use a word that's often reviled, but I am an intellectual at heart. I'm a poet, romantic, and an intellectual. That's who I am. I like to know about things, think about things, ponder the meaning of things, and stuff. So I liked looking up more information about, say, Juneteenth. I mean, I already knew something about it. It was really interesting to go into detail. Yeah, for me it means that I get to be the voice of a community as well as my own voice, which is an interesting thing for a poet whose basic tendencies to be introverted. And so that was fascinating. And I also loved learning about Haitian flag, how it came to be in Haitian celebrations and Haitian history, which again, I knew just the barest minimum because they don't really teach us this stuff in school. So I knew a little bit because I followed a little bit of the, you know, the regime of the dictatorship that was there and so on, but I didn't know all the details. So it was interesting to look up the liberation of Haiti and how that happened. So that's just by the by. As a poet, to know these things and to convey these things without being pedantic, without being too overly lectury, and at the same time bring the the passion and the voice of the people whom one is representing and to do it honestly and with one's own voice, that was the challenge for me and I really enjoyed doing it. So I think a poet laureate needs to understand that they represent the community, not just themselves. So it's a layer upon layer upon layer of things that we need to be. At least that's how I conceive it to be. Another thing I want to do, which I have not had much occasion or chance to do as much, but I'm planning to do this coming year. And frankly, as an aside, I think that the Poet Laureateship should be three years, not two. Because in two years, the first year, you're still figuring it out. You've never been a Poet Laureate. You have to figure out what to do. The second year, you probably get to see legs, so to speak. And the third year, you sail a bit. So I didn't realize I was making a metaphor. So I plan to collaborate. I've been sort of talking with Gary Roberts of the Medford Arts Collaborative. And I want to talk some more with them about holding and hosting an open mic for poetry in Medford. And at the same time, seeing if I can use it to bring about some more awareness of things like climate change issues and environmental issues by talking to mothers out front who are in Medford and seeing if they can, you know, do something alongside with that. I just want to broaden the scope of what it means to be a poet. You know, like how Bob Dylan wrote his songs, you know. His songs were not just personal, they were about the world. And I think ultimately the weight falls on the shoulders of whomever is representing the community in the arts. So poetry or music or painting, we have a responsibility to our society, I think, which I didn't realize when I was younger. Is that too long an answer? No, I think this is great.
[Danielle Balocca]: It gives me a lot of follow-up questions as well.
[Sundaram]: I've also held a poetry club at the Medford Public Library. I started it in the spring of this year, and I'll be continuing it in the fall. And I want to open it up to more people, but most people don't seem to find Fridays conducive. That's when I held it. But then I work during the week, so Fridays are the day when I can hold it. So I hope more people come.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, tell me a little bit more about the poetry club.
[Sundaram]: The Poetry Club is a space where we write for an hour or two at the Medford Public Library on Fridays. Originally, I had it separated for teens and for grown-ups. I think in the fall, I'm hoping that I can meld the two, teens and grown-ups, hold it for two hours instead of one hour each. And the teens never showed up because it was school time for them, I guess, and they had to go home at three. But the grown-ups, there were occasionally four, occasionally five. There are others who are interested, but the timing didn't work for them. So I'm hoping for more people.
[Danielle Balocca]: Is it required that you have any poetry experience?
[Sundaram]: No. What I do is a little explication of what some forms of poetry are, what some of the formal aspects of writing are, and then say, give a prompt and then say to them, you can use this prompt or you can write about anything else. And that, you know, I found that if you give someone something to write about, they can choose to ignore it. But if you say write about anything, they don't know what to write about.
[Unidentified]: A little bit of structure and then do what you want.
[Sundaram]: And that way they can, you know, refuse to do it and then be their own, you know, voice or whatever. And I love that. This is what I would like if I were in a workshop. So I try to do for others what I would like have done for me.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, no, and yeah, I like that sort of way of bringing your knowledge and art to the community in that way. I, there's like two things I'm thinking about from what you shared. And one is like, It sounds like there's like a bit of a reciprocal relationship with your role here. So there's something that you're bringing to our city and we get to hear your work at these public events and the city is kind of like sponsoring your role here, which I think is, it sounds really impactful and it sounds like a way of kind of using art to bring in like more of a like a change space or like kind of some of your ideas and maybe kind of like political thought a little bit, which I guess I, I don't know that I'd ever thought about poetry. being used in like the city in that way. And it also sounds like you're taking something away. And like, like you said, the research that you're doing for some of these events that you're writing for. And I guess I wonder like what your hopes are, both for how the city will use that what we can sort of how we can improve or what we can learn from you. And then also maybe that, like the personal growth, kind of what you hope for yourself in this role.
[Sundaram]: So, So it's a two part question what can the city, what can you rephrase the, you know, like what do you hope the city takes from like your role. Well, I hope that the city learns to appreciate the role of the poet as being. essential to the voice of a community, to the soul of a community. Because poets and artists, just poets, all artists, in some ways we're the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. But that's the more dire way of looking at it. But we hold, as James Baldwin said, we hold the mirror up to society. And the role of the artist is the role of a lover holding the mirror up to the beloved and saying, you know, I see you for all that you are, the good and the bad. And this is our history and this is maybe where we should be headed. Maybe we can reduce some of the bad and hope to increase the good by having a more inclusive, loving, caring, global, a local slash global as a perspective on our role as humans in this society. Because you know, I take walks with my dog and I look around and I'm always thinking, I don't know who lives in these houses. And I wonder what what the stories and why don't they come out for these events and why do how can we make them feel more connected and how come people aren't connected with the simple answers that most people are too busy, I mean I wasn't connected with before this I was too busy we're always working. We're trying to make a living and we're dealing with family, I mean that is a given we can't avoid that because that's a first rule of his duty is to a family. and first to ourselves, to our family, to our neighborhood, to our city or town, to the country, to the world, and it's the circles of, you know, I forget what, there's a lovely term that, there's a Facing History in Ourselves organization in Brookline used, circles of something, of dependence, circles of interdependence, something. So I think, you know, from ourselves to our family, to our local area, to the city, and so on. I think if we can feel that way, I hope that poetry can help us feel that way. It sounds rather lofty and it sounds very ambitious, but you know, I've always found that I've been lifted out of myself by poetry and poetry that speaks to the universal as well as the personal and the individual. So I would like people to feel like they can do that. Not everyone needs to be a great poet. But what we need to feel is the sense of release from our own muteness. We feel mute in the face of the world. We feel unheard. We feel un... unsupported and if we speak those words first thing they're out of ourselves and they're out in the air and next someone else will hear them and maybe if we speak them with eloquence and with some passion and some some beauty and not just bluntness and boring words maybe we can affect some change affect some change in the world yeah And so that's the more, that's what I hope for, for the community. And for myself, I think it's just, it's been a challenge to be a poet writing for occasions. That's my big takeaway. I've never done that. I've always waited for inspiration or I write as an exercise. So I'm using this as both. And it's been lovely. I really, really I like figuring out how to shape my thoughts to the occasion, without lies, without obfuscation, with my own poetic visual imagery that I like to use. I'm an imagistic writer. I use a lot of metaphors and similes. I prefer metaphors to similes. And also just symbolism and so on. Not all poems need to be symbolic, but frequently they end up, even inadvertently, without one planning it, they become symbolic. Sometimes the simplest poems are the most direct ones. So those are also lovely. So there's a place for everyone in everything. So I'd like to become a better poet through this, if one can use the word better. More facile, more willing to try new things, less resistant to being told what to do. Not that I'm resistant, but it's not my nature. So I've learned how to do it and I'm enjoying it greatly. I love challenges, so this is great.
[Danielle Balocca]: It does seem challenging to have like a to have that kind of like pressure to write something for a particular event. That sounds stressful for me to think about.
[Sundaram]: I know I was like on for Juneteenth I was. The whole week, I had not written a thing. And I thought, oh, God, I am going to fail. I cannot have this happen. And I thrive on last minute tension. I think it's my nature. And I've always done it. And it's a very bad aspect of me. I'm not proud of it. But that's who I am. I just like pressure. And this was too much. And I thought, I'm getting too anxious. I don't like this. I should have done it earlier. What was I thinking? So I stayed up in the night. And I thought, I need to find a hook on which to hang this picture of this poem that I'm trying to write metaphor. So what was the hook? I ended up looking up quilts that were woven by black enslaved folk in the South into which they wove messages to tell each other when Moses or Harriet Tubman was going to come and help them escape from the plantations and head towards Canada. So they wove messages into the images. They were not allowed to read and write. So they had to use images, pictures, so they would use wagon wheels and various things, it's just fascinating, rosary and all kinds of things into their quilts and then they use these to tell each other, send messages to each other. So when I look that up, I thought, okay, I found my symbol, I found my metaphor. So I used a symbol from each of the quilts as a hook for each of my stanzas. And I talked about how, I can't explain it here, but I talked about how without using words like enslaved and slavery, how people sent messages to each other, and then came a time of bloodshed, and then came liberation, and Texas, and the proclamation, and then Juneteenth. And so I managed to weave it by using, for each stanza, one of the symbols of the quilt. as a sort of subheading and that was, it saved me and I was rather proud of the poem. So I wasn't, I was like, it wasn't a piece of rubbish. I was really happy with it.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it sounds too kind of like reflecting our conversation right now of how like, you know, those enslaved people were using a form of art to sort of help, you know, yeah, help express themselves, help communicate to each other, which sounds like what you were doing right now.
[Sundaram]: Thank you. Thank you. You know, you've you've given me something more to think about, right? The role of poet is to do that, I guess. Thank you.
[Danielle Balocca]: No, I'm always interested, too, to like hear maybe like, I think everyone because Medford is becoming like an increasingly diverse place, I think we always have more we can do there. But like what people kind of feel like they bring to the table in terms of, you know, what's you know, what do you feel like is unique about your voice? Or what are you kind of proud to bring to this role as the poet laureate?
[Sundaram]: Well I love writing lyrically and imagistically and so that's my particular thing and I think I do a lot of it and I shouldn't sound boastful but I do it very well. I know because I'm my own worst critic so when I don't do it well I know it's horrible and I shelve it and you know so I work I work at it, but it comes easily, if you know what I mean. And I think it's because of years of writing, of years of reading. If I were a raw poet of 18, it would be different. I know my early poems are very raw. I look back on them and I smile, but there's something sweet about young people's poetry too. And so it's nice when one becomes older and more seasoned, it has its own beauty. And so I like, I'm proud of, my particular slant on things for example for Juneteenth I had to take care not to write because you know I'm I'm not black but I know about oppression so I try to use that empathetic lens through which to write about something. I will never be able to say what it means to be black in this community and growing up with the weight of history and growing up with the sorrows and the heartbreaks and the anger and the, you know, all of the complicated feelings of being a black American. But I've read a lot. I've read a lot of black American literature. I teach black women in literature as well in my college. And so I know literature is the way for me to completely feel what someone else is feeling. to do that with my own poetry and I feel like I do convey that when I write. People have come up to me after these readings, black folk and white folk, they've come up to me and they told me specific things about what they like, which really touched me. And I thought, wow, okay, so I did do this, you know, it wasn't just me spouting words. I mean, I know I don't do that, but it was nice to be able to have it resonate with people. And I would say it as a preface that I'm not trying to usurp anything. I'm not trying to be something I'm not. I'm telling this from my stance as an Indian American poet. I think if one is honest, others can hear it. So I don't know. I'm sort of a long-winded answer to your question. What do I hope to communicate as a poet?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, like, you know, I think you answered it well, but sort of what's sort of your unique perspective here? And I appreciate that sort of, I think that it's not the perspective of a black American. It's also not this perspective of like maybe somebody who grew up in the sort of particular sort of racism we experience, you know, black people experience here, but having your own perspective from your life experience and then what it's like to observe that here and experience that here is. I think that's really unique and important. Thanks.
[Sundaram]: Likewise, you know, when I had to write for Pride, I'm pretty heterosexual, but my first hero was Oscar Wilde. I didn't know what gay meant. I was 10 years old, I read the complete works of Oscar Wilde and I wept over his story and I thought what they did to him was wrong. I didn't even know what the word homosexual was. All I know is he had every right to love the man he loved and they shouldn't have put him in jail for it. And I was so angry when I read about it and I was 10, I couldn't talk about it with anybody. I just knew that he was a wonderful writer and no one should have done to him what they did. And so I'd always understood at some level what it feels to be other, even when I was in my own country. And so while I am heterosexual, I think I'm very bi-romantic. So I got it. I understood. what he must have felt and what others, various other writers whom I always ended up reading and they turned out to be gay writers. It's like, what the heck? Anyway, so I said, mom, other people, you know, I'd read all these people and I thought, okay, so I do have some kind of resonance with this. And so even though I didn't, I couldn't write as someone who was a gay person about pride, I could write about to use an often used, too worn out term, an ally. It's used a lot, but one needs allies. And so I wrote as an ally. And so I have people around me who are gay or bi or trans. There's a whole slew of young people that I know who are my students. And I think it's in the, I think the air has been cleared for a lot of people to be that way. I'm sure it was there for a long time, but now they can, they're not afraid, and I'm really happy about that. So anyway, I use all of these perspectives to think about what it means to write for Pride Flag Day. And so again, using empathy and, I don't know, literature to help me.
[Danielle Balocca]: I was going to say empathy was like the word that kept coming up for me when you were describing that and sort of your process and researching and learning about these events. I think allyship, right, it can be kind of like a meaningless term, but when you're when it's backed up with empathy, right, when you're really trying to understand the experience of someone and, you know, understand their emotional experience, their experience in the world, like that feels really powerful, right? Yeah, yeah.
[Sundaram]: My husband and I are so happy about what's going on right now. Young people being unafraid to declare what they are. Oh my God, what a relief. Because he grew up here, he went to Lincoln Mass and he said the number of unhappy people he knew and many of them were probably hiding who they really were. And it was hard for them. He knew just one person who came out as trans and gay and all of that. But that person had a lot of grief given to him.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah. And I think like what I've learned about Medford, mostly through doing this podcast is like how Medford, I think, does a really good job of using art and all different forms and mediums to support people's self-expression and to offer opportunities for communication and engagement with the city and throughout the city. It's not something I ever would have expected.
[Sundaram]: The Pride Flag Day was lovely. I wish more people came. It was already quite crowded, but I wish more people had come. And I think maybe we need more Maybe we have to do a sort of leaflet campaign to put it on people's doorsteps. Come for this. Come for that. Check out your city. It's a good city. Don't feel alone. We're here.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, Medford does have a lot of great community spaces and community events like that. I do think my often the critique that I hear is like, there's not a great way of communicating about all of these things in a way that everybody is going to get right. We use social media, there's like the website, there's these different things that aren't always accessible to everyone. But yeah, I think we're coming a long way.
[Sundaram]: We're coming along. I think we need a leaflet campaign. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but no one's going to look at something. I barely look at stuff that keeps on showing up on my feed. Too much. It's an overload of information sometimes. So I can understand if people don't see that. But maybe if you pin something on someone's doorstep, send young people out to each street and say, OK, come for this. This is cool. It's going to be food. Come on.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, the young people actually I think are mostly responsible for the beginning of that pride. The GSA at the high school has had a lot of impact on the city. Yeah, it's great. Well, I'm wondering if there's anything else that you were hoping to talk with us about today before we wrap up?
[Sundaram]: I'm also a musician, but that has nothing to do with this, I guess, or something. I use music as well. For Juneteenth, I sang a song by Rhiannon Giddens, and I read my poem. I try to combine song and poetry, because I think people remember songs really well. They stay in another part of our brain, so I like to bring that into my music. And I, nothing more. I just want people to feel unafraid to express themselves, to read more, to not feel like, oh, you know, I see the look on some people's faces. And I've taught for many years. I taught in public school in Winchester, and I teach at Bunker Hill Community College as a full-time English professor there. And I had five different preps, black women in literature, immigrant experience in literature. College Writing II, American Culture, and Introduction to Poetry, five different preps. And I know when students come in, both in my school and college experience, when they come in and there's a curtain behind their eyes or in front of their eyes, I can see that curtain. The curtain has fallen and it says, I'm not going to be able to learn a thing. And then through the semester, I see the curtain rising and I see something behind. And I wish people wouldn't put the curtain down. And I wish that they would not think of themselves as not intelligent or too stupid to get it. I've had the look, I've seen the look on people's faces. When they think they're stupid, I know that look. I've seen it too often. And it hurts me. And I want them to not think that. I want them to feel proud of what they can be. So maybe they weren't there before, but maybe they can be now. And I think intelligence is a fluid thing. It's not a fixed thing in space or time. And so intelligence changes. And I think poetry is an entryway into that. into expression, into language, into understanding, into perspective. I think poetry really helps.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it sounds like it gives different ways of measuring intelligence, right? Yeah, that's great. Is there any poetry that you want to share with us today?
[Sundaram]: All right. All right. This is called Pasting, and this is a non-rhyming poem. Everything passes, even this feeling. Everything passes, and I mourn it all. In the impermanence there is imminence. And when they pass, all things, all loves, all lives, I mourn them all, and the godhead in them. I mourn backwards through time, all the things I remember and all I didn't. The whistle lollipops on which I, a child, would suck with a relish I cannot recapture. The enormous trees up which I shinied, agile as a monkey, or an imp in childhood. The green tamarinds I ate, sour and succulent, hanging off branches in Poona's woods, so mysterious, so alluring to a child who never wanted to read or write, just play and live and make believe all day long. I mourn backwards through time, the passing of my school days that I valued my life so little that I cannot remember much of it, only the sensory world in which I swam, and those things I do remember fill me with a spiky regret. Sharp winter air in Pune when I was seven, the slipping of sunlight and rain over polished mango leaves, the songs on All India Radio, the world of books into which I was plunged after my first reluctance and rejection of them, my mother's fragrant foods which were a fact of life, like love or joy or goats on the street or birdsong or jasmine flowers at my window. I mourned backwards through time, but these days I also mourn these, the stores that closed down, billboards which would stare down at me while I paid them no heed, now gone, given way to unbearable gloss. The decor and banks I used to visit, now so clinical and perfect, like mannequins with no skin pores. I mourn lost bookstores in Arlington, or Harvard Square, or Porter Square, or Davis Square, or Medford Square. I mourn the missing street performers, jugglers and puppeteers, storytellers and singers. We're all gone now. I mourn the minutes, hours, days, years of my life, the lives of those I love, the lives of those whom I have not yet met, the lives of all the creatures vanishing before I shall ever meet them. Everything passes through me and through you, and somewhere we'll meet, you and I, you with your memories, I with mine, and we will let them flow through us and beyond until all fades away.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's awesome. All right. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired that poem?
[Sundaram]: Because, I don't know, I have great nostalgia. I remember everything. But I don't remember, you know, if you ask me specifics of someone's face or clothes, I might not remember. But I remember the feeling I got from things and the sensory details.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's pretty evocative, that poem. I really enjoyed it. You felt it too? Yeah. I mean, I think the concept of mourning is close to me right now, but it's, yeah, it was beautiful.
[Sundaram]: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, it's okay.
[Sundaram]: All right, this one's called My Body. And then I'll go to topical poems. A body is a curious thing to possess. I am conscious of mine as a friend with her own blind needs, her own mute sorrows, her loud joys, her love of some fragrances and loathing of certain smells, her ears that welcome all music, her eyes that see beyond facades but forget to see the facade itself. She is the entity who shares my other consciousness. When she is out of sorts, when I am sanguine, we confuse each other. But sometimes it's the other way around. Mostly we keep peace between us. She keeps track of time, so that even when I'm not near a clock, she lets me know. When I'm hurt, she forces me to shut down my other self and attend to her. This is as it should be. She has given me space to live within her and I love her and thank her for giving me room. She is a map of my journeys and the road on which the journeys took place. And her imperfections, so many, fill me with quiet affection. She has shed her skin so many times and donned new ones, and her hands, all veined, have held this earth and other hands with love and trust, ready to give, even when she lost sometimes. Yes, she has failed me at times, but then I failed her even more. Mostly, we are at peace. I shall miss her when she dies. I do not think she'll remember to miss me at the time of her passing. All right. Here's a poem that I wrote for Haiti. the Haiti flag day. And I looked it up and I learned about what their slogan, what they say to their flag, L'Union fait la force, is their motto. And Haiti is called Haiti, so it's called the Rappo Haiti flag of Haiti. O Haiti, beloved land of Taino and African, land of hills so green and tall, of you I sing a song for all. O Haiti, O Haiti, O land of pain and sorrow, and joy and power and rage and blood and hopes for new tomorrows. I salute you and embrace your flag that emerged in triumph after war, the upward march to claim your fate, sing l'union fait la force. I see you and salute you for the land you wish to be, embrace you and I honor you and pray for harmony. O Haiti, O Haiti, O land of mountain stall, Land of struggle, land of beauty, I sing your rise and fall. I see you and salute you, and I sing the song of you, Of those who fought to take back that which belongs to you. In fateful 1791, O Haiti, you raised your head, And in the year 1804, you claimed your land and led. I see you, I salute you, and I sing about your own, Of Toussaint, the all-saintly, who led the way alone. I see you, and I sing about the man who led the way, L'ouverture, the opening, brought in the light of day. And Toussaint was betrayed by one who did not keep his word, He died in France and never saw the dream which had occurred. Your own flag flew, the white torn out, the red remained with blue, With the palm above the mountain, the year your story grew. You hold your head up, buoyed by the hopes of one another, to live, to work, to eat, to dream a land where none are other. O Haiti, O Haiti, O land of pain and sorrow, and joy and power and pride and blood and hopes for new tomorrows. O may you fly, both high and free, above the land that you adore, leave hurt behind and work for peace. United evermore. O Haiti, O Haiti, O land of pain and sorrow, and joy and power and pride and blood and hopes for new tomorrows. On this your day, to you I say, may you not be denied. Your sovereignty, your right to be, may peace be at your side.
[Danielle Balocca]: I can hear the research in there. Well, those are beautiful. I kind of wish we'd started with the poetry. Thank you for sharing. Anything else that you want people to know?
[Sundaram]: Well, my husband is a climate activist and he stands at the corner of Roseville Circle on the exit from 93 South and he holds signs every day, every morning at 7 o'clock. I've seen him there.
[Danielle Balocca]: No, that was your husband.
[Sundaram]: Warren. And he says he puts up with a lot of abused people giving him thumbs down and other people giving him thumbs up, of course. But people tell him, get a job. They don't know he's working all the time. This is his way of being an activist, calming his mind about the anxiety about the future and doing his part to bear witness for what's going on. And then he comes home and he works. He works, works, works, works, works. Because they don't know that. So all they know is that they must think he's some kind of homeless guy or something. He laughs at the thought. So that's my husband. He's a musician and a scholar and an Indian classical vocalist. He grew up in America as a white American, but he's very well versed in Indian culture. and my daughter is at UMass Amherst and she's a musician and she is an activist in her way as well and so we're pretty happy we have a dog and that's me that's my family and I haven't I've tried not to lose track of my own culture There are a lot of things about my own background I deplore. I don't care for Hindu... I shouldn't say that. I don't care for Hindu casteism and Hindu nationalism. It makes me really upset at what's going on right now because India was a very pluralistic society and that's what made us great. We had Hindu, Muslim, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists. We have them still, but many of them are feeling under attack now. That really hurts me. You know, all the earlier movies in Indian Bollywood, they were all about, you know, Hindu-Muslim-Christian unity. I mean, many of the early movies were like that. And now we have all these ultra-nationalist things going on, and that scares me. The world is tilting towards nationalism everywhere, and it forgets that to be human is to love the world. And people always cite the Bible, but they don't ever cite the Beatitudes. They always go to Moses and the commandments, but they forget what Jesus said. And so this stuff, I mean, in America, that bothers me. In India, the Hindu stuff bothers me. In various countries, all the different religious factions trouble me. And I wish people would just rise above and see humanity and just stop this nonsense. You know, we need a profit. We need a profit for peace and we don't have one.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's my other thought. Yeah, no, I think that's a also like very relevant and in sort of all of our environments, like even like the sort of micro environment of Medford, you know, you see the exact same thing. And I like what you said earlier about sort of holding the mirror up. And I think there's a lot to appreciate about our community. And I think there's a lot to be critical of, right? And like to think about, I think like the term being a critical lover of Medford is something I think about is like, you can love this place and you can also help to improve it all the time. And it sounds like that's what you're working hard to do.
[Sundaram]: Thank you so much, Danielle. That was lovely.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, thank you. And yeah, hopefully we can, like, you know, hear more of your work at some events. And yeah, it was lovely to talk to you. Thank you.
[Sundaram]: Is there, could I read one more poem that's not topical?
[Danielle Balocca]: Of course.
[Sundaram]: Do you have time? Okay, this one is, this is just a cute, this is about wanting to sing with a voice like Ruby's. Let's see, where's that? I should know my poetry book by heart, but I don't. A ruby song. I crave rubies in my throat so I can sing like a clarinet. The pomegranate in my fridge is tired. I regard it with fondness, my partner in enervation. Its redness is beyond the price of rubies. It calls to me coldly like a clarion, a question shaping its urgent need. Somewhere else a beat sings of redness too, Far beyond my ken, I'm sure of it, But it sings a darker red, a sombre passion. I will seek it at some other point. I have need of clarity, coldness, red fire, And this other pressing matter at hand, My pomegranate, which has but one purpose, Since its other purpose was abrupted When it was cut down from the mother tree. I will answer its call, but not now. Tomorrow I shall cut into it, inhale its weary fragrance, suck its tart juices. The pomegranate will bleed in delight and die on my tongue, and I will sing with a voice like Ruby's. I just wanted something light. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Daniel. I hope to meet you in person. It was a pleasure to talk to you. You too. And to see you here. And I love your responses and your comments on what I said and your insights into some of the things I said. They made me think as well. Thank you.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Idonis. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.