As I open my eyes to the bright day
I am pure dew
The daily trifles make me human.
It’s always a difficult thing to critique a friend’s work,
but in the case of Subhashini’s newly released collection of poems, it was
easy.
I’ll tell you why in
a bit, but first a little about how I got to know this poetess
Subhashini is a Twitter friend and I was drawn to her by…okay,
let me do this the way they announce the winners of a contest.
So, the second runner-up was the occasional messages and
tweets we exchanged – it seemed that there was a common ground of
like-mindedness. The first runner-up was her beautiful name and the
incandescent smile in her Twitter “DP”. (Which also happens to be on the book
cover.) But the winner, by a million miles – and what made me “follow” her in
the first place - was those exquisite little compositions that she’d post every
now and then.
And that go by the awful name of “micropoetry”.
Awful because I always read it as “microproperty” and that always
reminds me of the tiny, cramped Mumbai matchboxes that squash “1bhk” in 500 square feet of space
and unashamedly call themselves flats. Also, ‘micropoetry’ is misleading
because it implies tiny slivers of poetic offerings, stunted by the cruel
binding of 140 characters.
So, the description that I’d like to use for these beautiful
compositions is English haiku. Because haikus are tiny concentrated drops of
the universe that you put on your palm and then gently lick again and again to let
them unfold in front of you. (What is it that William Blake said? “Eternity in
a grain of sand…” ?)
And that is exactly what Subhashini’s poems are…
A pawn thinks it is the queen
when it moves forward.
Or…
She calls me to her side –
Shows me how lovely her children are-
With a whiff of their fragrance-
White jasmine
After my first reading of these poems, I had a quarrel with
the title and even told Subhashini so. It was mainly with the word ‘homemaker’
and the often apologetic (when women use it to describe themselves) and
sometimes more than faintly derogatory (when others use it to describe women) connotations
of it.
But on second reading – yes, this is a book that you can
read over and over again as all good anthologies of poems are – ‘homemaker’ is
just right. Because the poems conjure up Subhashini, sitting quietly in centre
of the vortex of everyday life, watching to its everyday-ness swirl around her, listening to it talk to her
and unfold its wisdom.
Dew. Vegetables in a
shopping bag. Bird song. Electric Wires.
Perched on –
High tension wires –
A pair of doves –
Tension free.
Toys. A clock. Love. Puddles. A pillow. The rain. Non-stick
pans. Traffic signals.
Traffic signal
Vehicle stops –
Thoughts do not
Books. Disappointment . The sky in all its many moods. Even
a gibbous moon. And a plate…
Whatever happens
the plate –
seeks food.
And I imagine Suhashini carefully plucking this very everyday-ness and then weaving it
into these delicate little braids of poems. And as I read them, little windows
open this way and that and their fragrance wafts in and the words, the nuances fall inside my head
like the soft, silvery sounds of anklets. Cham. Cham. Cham. Cham.
Write on me, I will remember
Said the paper to the pen
So that was the easy bit.
And now, we come to the part where I have to talk about
something that I didn’t like about the book or I’ll be accused of gushing.
Well, there are a few things.
The poems are divided into three sections - Reflections of a Summer Rain, Rivers of
endless desire, Meditating Ocean. But for me, the divisions unnecessary and the
poems are interchangeable. And, a
few poems stick out because the words are
uncharacteristically clumsy, explaining too much, lacking the delicate subtlety
of the rest of poems .
There. I said it.
But Ali McGraw wouldn’t be Ali McGraw without that crooked
front tooth and nor Jay Leno Jay Leno without that jaw
So let it be.
And I’m done. And if all that I have said hasn’t already
made you order this book, here’s my final word on the subject. (On Twitter,
they’d call it a ‘re-plug”)
Or rather Subhashini’s
Be my sky, he said.
Am I the clouds, sun, stars or rain?” she asked.
“You are its essence,” with closed eyes and –
A deep smile –
“Be my sky,” he said
Cham. Cham. Cham-cham-cham-cham-cham
