HYDERABAD: The heart is a compass; it aligns your itinerary to the places you are yet to visit or people you probably didn’t even dream of meeting. But somewhere at the point of convergence, the cities, their denizens and you inhale and exhale the same story, the same phantasms. The risk of reaching this point is that you become the tale yourself. A risk worth taking. The danger of losing your ‘self’ in the exotic nature of a place looms large especially when you are a wordsmith, but the reward at the end of the maze is to taste the foreign flavour in your verses, which quite surprisingly, belongs to none but you. Tikuli Dogra in her second book of poetry ‘Wayfaring’ takes the bold steps of letting her ‘self’ go free and bring back what she, if she weren’t a poet, could otherwise have found it difficult. No wonder Anais Nin said, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
The book contains seven sections titled: ‘Trains’, ‘Exile Poems’, ‘Remembrance’, ‘Travel’, ‘Mosaic’, ‘Acrostics’, and ‘Delhi Poems’. The poems send radio signals of smells and scenes to a reader’s senses who in turn disseminates them to find his/her own connection subtly embedded inside. Words are tiny museums of experiences, they actively record what the wordsmith may have felt at a particular moment which makes it easier for the page to engage in lyrical conversations. Tikuli creates a montage of the same though there’s a disconnect sometimes, but the linguistic beauty levels that up making the stanzas memorable. For example, the first line in the opening poem ‘Winter’ is:
The sky was stained the blue of berries.... which reminds you of Scandinavian landscapes where blueberries grow in abundance during summer, the colour palette is apt for winter in tropical parts of the world for it brings freshness of the colour–––a new beginning or registry of an old memory seen from the prism of Blue Period emphasising on its magnanimity. But at the same time the poet chooses to reduce its massiveness by bringing toy trains and tea under that very sky. The contrast, here, is both acceptance and rejection of big and small things of life. Her poems fit the page and choose not to spill. Though his doesn’t set standards for the greatness of a work, it brings attention to verses that hold the ordinariness of life bringing forth the hidden beauty for that’s what art does: it introduces you to beatitude.
Tea trails travel throughout her poems becoming an essential companion to both the reader and the poet whether the landscapes fill with snow or mist. And when it rains, her cup brims bringing to her what Stephen Dedalus may have found in the brown whirpool of his tea. The commonality of the findings concoct stanzas which trundle train-like both inside and outside the reader’s mind. S/he stands on the platform watching the blue light within the compartments. This haziness is his/her focal point to visualise the poem(s). Tikuli travels to seasons as well bringing the blaze of Gulmohar trees on a sleepy Delhi afternoon or the ghats of Benaras reminiscent of Agha Shahid Ali’s description of the same. She stands on a cliff watching the topographies spread on a game board. She doesn’t disturb the pattern, just bends a little, dives deep into a body, holds onto a dark mole and positions it as a star. The heart becomes refulgent, even though it’s just a twinkle, and sets off for another journey, this time with stanzas raised on the mast. For a trip to different seasons in your heart, this book offers an enjoyable ride.
Publisher: Leaky Boot Press, England
Price: `1,009
— Saima Afreen
saima@newindianexpress
@Sfreen