Dr. INDRANIL BANERJEE, India's National Honour, September 2026
Dr. INDRANIL BANERJEE wrote the highest-scoring poem from India in the Writory International Poetry Contest, September 2026: Echoes, scored 86 out of 100 by the blind judging panel across five published criteria. The poem was read in English (Latin script) with Bengali cult.
Echoes
Echoes Since you asked me, doctor, to leave the dark untouched before sleep, I have been learning its language silently. I put the phone on an aeroplane. And slowly, the room forgets me. A lane appears— old like a forgotten name, night jasmine leaning over its edges, white flowers loosening themselves onto the earth. I pick them up. Their fragrance is older than I am. It carries me to the school trunk my father once opened to show me my grandfather’s diaries— pages breathing the dust of another afternoon. I walk miles until the lonely lane forgets its end. But last night, you know, doctor, I saw Babusona, Daku, and Tuntai playing. On a big ground beside the lane; I shouted with my childhood voice. “Which side will I play?” They turned. Then Tuntai asked, “Who are you?” Daku laughed. “We have never seen you before.’ Something inside me stumbled. I ran. Down the lane, past the fallen jasmine, towards the brown door of our old rented flat— Through the door came the Sunday afternoon news of the radio. From the kitchen came the sound of ma cooking. I stood there, my hand raised, ready to knock three times, as I always did. Then I stopped. Because, doctor— what if papa opens the door and asks me, “Who are you? We have never seen you before.”
Every country's leading poet each month is named on the September 2026 National Honours. The contest is open to poets in India and everywhere else: enter the current round, and every poem receives a score out of 100 and a certificate.