From Dulung to Beas

flow of the soul

Jaydeep Sarangi. Authorspress 2020. Pp. 84. ASIN: B08NYXFMRB. Price Rs. 295/-.

“From Dulung to Beas” : Tales in poetry

By Ansulika Paul

 

Jaydeep Sarangi is a bilingual poet. He writes in both languages Bengali and English. He is also an academic, critic, editor and translator from Kolkata.

The title contains 50 poems and an interview by Sutanuka Ghosh Roy in conversation with Jaydeep Sarangi.

Each poem is a story, one can sing. Stories are told in the verses of each poem through nature, through locations, through emotions and human dealings.

The poems in the title picture a story in itself. A story of a place. A place that comes to being with the poetry like a human alive with its emotions.
The poems have a prominent intercession of “ ghats, stations, abode, heaven and Earth” in the story-telling. It is a magnificent proclamation of reality with the imprints of locations in the verses. Like in the verse from”Pain across the salt desert” the poet locates the story-telling around a tea stall.

A few days later, the villagers
Assembled near the tea stall
Where dry muddy paths meet. (P.no.. 37)

The poems are an ambassador of nature and everything it carries in its bosom. From rivers to mountains to hills. It is the liveliness of nature that depicts stories of itself. In the poem “ Life beyond” one could find “desiring stones” as an epitome of portraying emotions.

All morning I sat at the arm chair
hands folded and ponder over limitless waste.
I smell its loneliness. Desiring stones
gather all ancient shadows I visited (P.no. 18)

Can humans be without nature? This collection of poems is a lingering thought that stays forever with the title. The comparison made between human emotions and the tumultuous power of nature is a muse to the senses. There are comparisons made of human emotions and deeds with nature per se.
Like long trees in autumn, in the poem “Sap is history” the poet compares love lost with long trees in autumn. It is a beautiful comparison of the ever essence of life and the ever effervescence of living.

I sit near the bank of Dulung
And whisper in love lost
Like long trees in autumn
Barren as history books
Where dry hard thoughts
Write their names in black ink. (P.no.33)

The poet in the poem “Relationship” beautifully captures a relationship like a fairy over a garden.

Love is an untamed force.
I want my relationships to
Hover around me
like a fairy over a garden;

a child with her mother
not like a wasp or snake
that coils and coils (P.no. 34)

The other comparison can be well read in the poem “Where the lamp is lighted” as the logistic human mind to river disappearing into the ocean.

Mind that has engulfed within
Disappeared as river into the ocean (P.no. 36)

Every poem is a scene of a magnificent story. A story of mountains and rivers. A story of human emotions and conducts. A story of places and locations. A story of enormous portrayal of natural beauty and the begetter.
The poems depict the ever inseparable forest, lakes, rivers, hills, mountains with the human dwellings and dealings.
The poems brilliantly manufacture tales of a life and many lives chained forever. The indomitable comparison of humans with nature and the use of “ like and as” as simile is imperative.

The poem “Beyond my face” alluringly compares love with Uruguay rivers.

Love is the only law of life
All my experiences sparkle bright

Like Uruguay rivers emptying into the Rio de la Plata. (P.no.48)

A similar soulful comparison is witnessed by one in the poem “I’m ready with my painted house”.

 

You illumine my old
house, My inroads
Like river Beas in dream. (P.no. 55)

The poem “Eklavya for his guru” inquisitively compares a pupil’s obedience to a passionate moth following the star.

 

You are my Dronacharya
With the skill and art.
I follow you like a moth for the star, (P.no.56)

The poem “Stand up, dear friends” puts an inanimate object “a clock” in logical comparison to the human mind.

 

Let me watch my mind act
Like a clock. Two hands. (P.no.58)

The poem “Loss” is a story of the recent trends, the mask and distancing and the pandemic.

All that’s left are these
masks and distancing, imprinted
on the road: graffiti,
and air of warning, the news
of someone not coming
home today. Not even tomorrow. (P.no.64)

One can read verses of love, loss, beauty, deeds and everything that the Universe breathes. The poems are gems to ponder and thunder the emotions of body and mind.
One could feel the book as a collection of emancipatory and emancipation of human strings.

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