# *Conditions Apply

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2015/07/20/conditions-apply/
- Published: 2015-07-20T21:23:14+00:00
- Author: admin

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**Author:** Shobhana Kumar (Art by Jitha Karthikeyan)
 **Pages:** 88 **Year of Publication:**
2014 **Price:** Rs 200 **ISBN:** 978-93-5045-084-0 (9789350450840)

_**About the Author**_
 Shobhana Kumar’s first volume of poetry, _**The Voices Never
Stop**_, was published by **Writers Workshop**, India, in 2012. Her poems have appeared
in several journals in India, Canada, USA and UK and in anthologies like _The Dance
of the Peacock – An Anthology of English Poetry from India_, edited by Dr Vivekanand
Jha and _Suvarnarekha – An Anthology of Indian Women Poets Writing in English_, 
edited by Dr Nandini Sahu. She has authored five books of non-fiction, including
_Coimbatore: The Emerging Indian Cosmopolis, SIMA – A Journey through 75 Years_,
which is a detailed study of the textile industry with a specific focus on south
India and _Dr. P. C. Thomas in Conversation with Shobhana Kumar_. Shobhana holds
an MBA and, when she is not writing, she works as an advertising consultant, communications
trainer and storyteller. She also runs Small Differences, with her husband, C. G.
Kumar, an NGO that uses storytelling and other creative art forms to empower disadvantaged
children and rehabilitate old, abandoned people in safe and healthy environments.

Shobhana and her husband live in Coimbatore with their two children.

_**Teaser**_

_an elegy for remembrance_

for how long will you remember me?
 gone as i am already from the pages of your 
newspapers and headlines on your television

you will remember me of course,
 in fleeting glimpses when another like me is molested,
another girl child, drowned, a mother’s foetus ripped lest she births her own kind,
a bride’s cries stifled, or set afire.

you will remember
 when my tormentors are brought to book, when they are hanged 
or sentenced to life, if ever. when governments swear by their children and their
mothers to never let this happen, only to play witness again and again. you will
eulogize me when you light candles in my memory year after year.

but
 you will also forget in the mundaneness of your life in the everyday struggles
you must meet in order to survive

you will forget
 when you see beauty around you happiness, joy and innocence and
you will then foolishly believe that life is still beautiful. and that there is 
still hope. you will forget because it is scary to remember.

how many more of us will it take
 for you to not just remember but never forget?

_**Contents**_
 52 poems spread over 4 sections