Chitra Govindraj’s poetry assortment, Essence, is a tribute to the universality of the human situation. We’re all totally different, but in some methods, we’re all the identical. All of us are looking for which means, happiness and objective. Voltaire as soon as stated that God is a comic taking part in to an viewers too afraid to snort. Regardless of how joyful, unhappy, conflicted, or questioning we individually are, collectively we’re all a part of Voltaire’s viewers.
That’s the reason Chitra’s poems – alternatively contemplative, clever, whimsical, and hopeful – will communicate to every of us. As a result of we’re all on this journey known as Life collectively. It isn’t many individuals who will provide you with an all-access cross to their innermost fears and convictions. However deep calls to deep. A few of the most charming poems within the assortment are those the place we get glimpses of her vulnerability. Within the poem ‘Honesty’, for instance, she writes, “Can we all have our personal truths and totally different variations? How do we all know which is the fitting one for sure?” In ‘Social Media and Me’, she writes in regards to the deceptiveness of social media, and the way in which it weaves a “net of lies”. However the clincher for me was the final line: “I want to search out out if I’m who I’m.” The depth of that sentiment goes past the boundaries of social media. We’re promoting so many variations of ourselves to the world that we’re at risk of blending up our actual self from the counterfeits.
The poems handle an array of different modern points as effectively, from dependancy, overparenting and binge-eating to home abuse and despair. Life doesn’t at all times include a ‘how one can’ handbook, and too usually, we’re left to make sense of it alone. So, it was refreshing to navigate these points by way of one other individual’s perspective. It helped that they have been within the type of poetry, with a measured rhyme and cadence that gave them levity, at the same time as the themes they addressed had a core of seriousness.
Essence was written in the course of the pandemic, when an uncle would share his assortment of poetry on Chitra’s household WhatsApp group. It impressed her to put in writing one and publish it on the group as effectively. It was effectively obtained and inspired her to put in writing extra. Chitra says the poems “intuitively moved in the direction of the human values” that she was taught in the course of the Bal Vikas lessons she attended between the ages of eight and 15. It was in these lessons that she was taught that the universe is a manifestation of the 5 parts – earth, water, air, ether and fireplace. These 5 parts are current in an individual within the type of 5 life ideas or values – prema (love), shanti (peace), dharma (proper conduct), satya (fact), and ahimsa (non-violence). To present the gathering a “objective and route”, Chitra has divided the poems into these 5 values.
A few of the poems are within the type of tales. For instance, ‘My Love’ is a few soldier who returns house to his lover, who now has a toddler. ‘Forgiven’ is about friendship between two boys and the way the pal forgives the narrator though he punched him. “I punched him within the eye, however I’m hurting dangerous,” writes the narrator. In a few of the different poems, like ‘Unbeaten’, it’s unclear whether or not Chitra is writing about herself or one other. However it does probably not matter. The poems touched a chord, regardless of who they have been referring to. Good poems present us one thing of the poet. Nice poems present us one thing of ourselves.
Essence
By Chitra Govindraj
Revealed by Authorspress
Value Rs295; pages 161
