This is the book that I carried from India 2 years ago to Bahrain. I mostly leave all the books in Lucknow in Papa’s cupboard.
I read this book often and keep it next to my laptop due to my heart-to-heart connection with her or I learn from her style of writing, I am not sure.
As she hummed her songs of belligerence, her heart bled for the idyllic times. She grieves on the path the world as a whole is trotting on or rather slipping downhill.
Santosh Bakaya offered us food for thought as the mist darkens at the Prinsep ghats. As the nocturnal trysts and murmurs grow at the Pahalgam the songster does not lose her notes.
She caresses the cascades of tears that she witnesses around her. Her quill grieves as the sun sets in terms of the moral values in the society, as the dust and clamour rises that peels the walls of the temporary home of the malnourished children and immigrants.
As I read her inking, I sink and rise while I am perched on the ledge of my window.
Her verses wail for Layla Al Ghandour on that thirsty night as she beckons the little brother to share a sip of water.
Her words wander to the space where the languid moon wonders on the truth and fallacy of the far away land.
Quoting from Love still bloomed-
The moon was a man in rolled up sleeves, carrying a flashlight
It watched intrigued as love bloomed
While Santosh Ji delves deeper into the human frailties her mind is akin to a helicopter looking for nothing but the truth of these thousand and one moon beams.
Her throat is parched like the thirsty women at the water kiosk, she feels the horror of another venom pockmarked night as the stars dazzled on.
The unmissable miseries of old age loneliness and a woman who suffers a drunkard husband are so well portrayed in the following lines of the said poems.
Or
Peeling walls ( about the menace of drinking )
Drunken brawls, peeling walls,
lined with empty bottles of liquor
The neighbouring brewery, the resultant penury
And the smouldering fury
Of a silent woman
Her rhyme bleeds at these horrendous times as she stifles a soft murmur of the throbbing tiny feet eyeing a delectable saucer of milk.
No Not a Halloween prank
Was someone playing a Halloween prank
Near the shimmering Hudson River bank ?
Buddies hung out with buddies wearing masks and caps
Absolutely oblivious to lurking terrors and mishaps
A fun filled Halloween afternoon
Morphed into a gun-chilled afternoon
She weaves a rich imagery as the aggrieved spouse of Helen tries to grapple with life without her.
No salt-( on separation in old age)
Why is her presence so palpable, so real?
….he too raises a gnarled finger to wipe the salt from his eyes
Usually, an optimistic and a hopeful songster, Santosh Ji has voiced out her pain and anguish on murders, rapes, daylight shooting and the separation of families at the borders.
For Layla Al Ghandour: A Gaza Child
There she lay the green-eyed child,
Limbs cold and blue, just eight-month-old,
With a headful of gold,
Whose gurgles of happy mirth
Now no longer could be heard
On the hate ravaged earth
These painful yet relatable stories are hidden in verse and my heart palpitates as I read and write about her belligerent verses dipped in tears.
Her style of writing is an encyclopaedia of vocabulary and rich imagery. She takes the readers on a journey of the miseries of the world whilst she knocks at our conscience as she composes these verses in her book with her belligerent ink and a pained heart.
I am in awe of her ability as a writer and a poetess.
Nivedita Roy
Biography
Nivedita Roy is a teacher by profession and writing is her passion. She is a bilingual poetess and author. She resides in the Kingdom of Bahrain and belongs to Lucknow, India. She is the recipient of Reul International Poetry Award -runner up 2023 bestowed by The Significant league, Independence Day Literary Honours 2021 and 2022, Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Certificate of Literary Appreciation 2022 awards by Motivational Strips and Gujarat Sahitya Academy. She is the recipient of many other prestigious awards from prestigious literary forums.
She is the author of 6 solo books in English and Hindi. She has co-authored around 40 national and international anthologies in English and Hindi. She hosts poetry meets and author interviews on online platforms. Her poems and articles are often published in national and international ezines, newspapers and journals.
