Title: Stillness; Author: Feroze Varun Gandhi; Publisher: Harper Collins; Pages: 206; Price: Rs.399
In
today's day and age, it wouldn't be wrong to say that every other
individual is either an author or wants to become one - and that
everyone has a dormant poet within him or her, waiting to be published
by a publisher who "believes" or sees "promise" in his or her verses.
But
the same rules might not be applicable if you come from a heavyweight
political background and are lucky to have a publisher waiting to
publish your "amateur" poems.
This is how lucky BJP MP Varun
Gandhi is as he has managed to get published "Stillness", a book of
poems that seemingly take the reader on a nostalgic trip to relive
college days when the struggles of life offered unlimited fodder for
thought, everyday drudgery was tiresome, the battle for love was
lonesome and silence was golden.
There are 51 poems in the
offering that touch upon themes of guilt, love, control, dreams,
illusion, hope and want, among others. The intention is that through
Gandhi's words, readers would attempt to read his mind.
While
trying to do so, it was the poem "Inside" that got me wondering whether I
was reading a poem by a 35-year-old and not someone who is in college.
Sample
this: "... I've taken off my mask/It was starting to bleed/ Without
message/ Without protection/I sit alone in this room/Night after
night/Calming myself against a nothingness/Which refuses to show its
face..."
Similarly, "Slow Days" is meant to bring to mind a
dreary day in parliament when the house is in session and MPs are making
efforts to be heard amid the din. "Ending in an open door/Watching
people perform/Preparing for the abyss/Choices are ladders/Moral
codes/Schems/Avenging the wrong word..."
The inference drawn from these lines might be wrong, but given the liberty of open interpretations, I have made my own judgment.
The
beauty of a poem lies in its layered message that doesn't only reflect a
writer's state of mind but also examines his manner of perceiving
reality. Poetry, in many ways, has been a powerful social critique to
address issues in a few, yet powerful lines.
However, this power
punch is lacking in Gandhi's poems, which are more of a reflection of
his inner self than a reflection of the outside world. They deprive a
reader of a social commentary one would expect from a young politician
whose work allows him to interact with the real India and its issues.
The
grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi had published his first
poetry book "The Otherness of Self" in his early 20s but it seems his
writings have refused to grow up and are stuck somewhere in between the
bubble that reeks of immaturity.
If there is something that
really stands out in this book, it has to be the images, contributed by
different photographers, to complement the poems. They are the real
heroes of this hurriedly-planned book, which does nothing to take
forward the publisher or the poet.
(Shilpa Raina can be contacted at [email protected])
