Released on August 15, 2018

Excerpt

Her smile was sky
Her touch was earth
And everywhere I turned
With eyes of blood
I saw her face

And I saw in her eyes
A nightful of stars
And the forehead of moon
And I longed to hold
The limbs of space
As I heard in her laughter
A giggle of waves

And I saw in each face
Of the innumerable men
That toiled lonely
In quarries of Sun
The hidden assurance
Of a mother’s gaze

And I felt the tears
Of countless children
That welled in my throat
And dried in my eyes
Unseen

And I held them as my own
In the widening stillness
As I cried alone
In close embrace

And I see her smile even now
With waves of gold
In mustard-fields
And huts of neem
With floors of clay
And I feel her presence
In the sparkling grain
As my heart is replaced
By a silent throb

And I see her now
Smiling as I
And her globe of glow
In her lover’s place
And I tear no more
Breathing in her temple
The sandal’s incense
The lotus’ fragrance
I know her play

There was a girl I loved once

Review

“And on a single point/ Of her star I turned,” says the gifted poet about his mystery muse.

Who is she? An all too human, true, but now lost lady-love of flesh and blood from the past? Or the sorrowing, toiling, typical, everyday woman of India, still retaining her child-like hope and innocence, despite a life of hard struggle? Or the primal Mother Goddess, Prakriti or Magna Mater, endlessly creative and terrifyingly destructive? Or the secret and coiled inner force of spiritual awakening and realisation inherent in each one of us, traditionally known as Kundalini?

Or the Rose of God, the Supreme Shakti, the agency of transformation and realisation, the Mother of Delight, Consciousness, and Power? None or all of these?

In his deeply moving, lilting, and inspiring compositions, the poet traverses effortlessly through these possibilities, integrating with song-like cadence and chant-like intonation, the personal, social, political, and philosophical dimensions and symbolic possibilities of his subject.

He spirals up through layers of consciousness and experience like an artist divinely impassioned, then plunges down into the depths of human suffering and pain into the worlds of darkness, pain, violence, and nescience. Ranging from familiar rhythms of pop music, to the sonorous mantras of ancient incantations, these songs of the spirit play upon both known and unheard chords of our being, shifting us out of the mundane and mediocre into the enchanting and extraordinary only as significant art can or aspires to.

The full and fulfilling play of rasas—the rich textures and flavours of life, from compassion (karuna) to piety (bhakti), romantic, even erotic love (sringara) to violent fear (bhayanaka) or revulsion (bibhatsa), and, finally, from searing pain and anger (raudra) to the utterly marvellous or wondrous (adbhuta)—make these poems stand out from ordinary, with their sincerity of feeling and purity of expression.

A successful doctor, medical entrepreneur-businessman, karma yogi and social worker of the highest order, it is clear, has “turned” on the single point of a star, as his poetic persona says. Reading his song-offerings, tender blossoms of his innermost spirit, we, his readers, are sure to turn too, strummed and tuned with similar sentiments and sympathies.

Makarand R. Paranjape
Poet, Critic and Professor of English,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi