HYDERABAD: Divorce papers...
we end up deleting
the ampersand
Reading Paresh Tiwari’s ‘Raindrops Chasing Raindrops’ is like reading a very personal diary. In this collection of haibun and hybrid poems, the poet has told tales of love, loss and longing – some utterly heart-breaking and some sanguine – which can be a narrative on the vagaries of life itself. Though the accounts are personal, the emotions are universal, and the poet takes very little time to immerse you in masterfully crafted imagery, which might have snatches from your own life.
For the uninitiated, a haibun is a combination of a prose and haiku, describing a personal experience. This writing form originated in Japan and can be anything ranging from a short story to a travel account. Japanese poet Basho is said to have started this form in the 17th century.In his book, the poet sometimes uses the haiku to condense the mood of the prose, and sometimes as a garnishing. In any form, the haiku seems to be intrinsically linked to the prose, as if it took birth from the incident described.
The book is divided into four sections – Paper Planes, Kintsugi, Postcards from the Past and Patchwork Quilt. In the book’s introduction, Paresh says: “Put these pieces together and you may as well be building a narrative from the jigsaw pieces of my life. At times, these works shine a feeble light on a life lived with people and situations that may have existed only in my head; but then, why should that make them any less real?”
Thus, real or imagined, Paresh weaves scenes and metaphors, draws conclusions and through his pen, frees the labyrinthine clot of emotions. In his second haibun in the book, ‘Portrait of a heart’, memories have formed a cancerous tumour in the body, and the poet watches the doctor remove the tumour, stripping him of his memories. “Yes there, the peeling plaster of relationships. Do you smell the acrid scent of regrets?” the doctor asks.
Paresh writes beautifully, spinning webs of memories and experiences. He uses his poetic sense to bring out the unseen and it’s not surprisignly that he suceeds in it. It is not wrong to say that inside a drop he packs oceans which reflect his craft. There is a touching honesty about the writing and a certain vulnerability in the way he writes about pain. If you are looking for words to embellish many of your abstract thoughts, this book might help you.
Publisher: Red River Press
Price: Rs 300