Aruni Kashyap (Assamese: আৰুণি কাশ্যপ) is an Indian English writer and translator.
He grew up in Guwahati and studied at St. Stephen's College, Delhi.
He works as the Assistant Editor of Yaatra : The Journal of Assamese Literature and Culture. An excerpt from his forthcoming novel set against the secret-killings of Assam was published in Tehelka Magazines annual fiction issue 2010. Along with fiction, he writes extensively on socio-political issues and his opinion based articles have appeared in The Guardian, UK, Open Democracy and Tehelka.
He is the winner of the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing in 2009.
He is regarded as a strongly emerging young literary voice from the north-eastern part of India. His work published online and in print has been able to draw interest and critical acclaim.
If you come back,
There will be no sun,
like the day when we met for the last time in your room.
...
I have known this river like tea leaves.
I have bathed, ran on its wet sands.
Grappled in its shallow banks for fishes and caught tadpoles.
...
There was no sun. So goats didn't bleat
and rush under trees, sheds; the stray dogs
that roamed around quarrelling over pieces
of meat in garbage dumps hotfooted to
...
Trees moved along, clouds too
with the moon, the about-to-drown orange-sun
in sooty hours, slow;
they boiled down to a single feeling:
...
We huddle around Ma as
our gabled tin-roofs vibrate
during round-moon nights,
when bee-hives drip like wasted howling desires
of an elephant tethered to the banyan tree trunk.
...