Foreword to the Book of Poems
“Symphony of Night-flower”
Opening Stanza
It was a decade ago when my eyes met a Tagore’s poem in a magazine! The poem walked away with my soul, heart, blood and flesh, right from the very first line! It was my first encounter with a “knock-down” caliber of poetry!
To quote my own words describing this “sweet accident” in my life:
“My life sacrificed my heart,
To the dancing poetry
Of your musical limbs,
At a breath-taking turn,
Lapsed into a lush green dream!”
Further venturing into his poetry, I became speechlessly curious about the secret formula he employed, making every single one of his poems smile with a breath-taking quality, right from the opening line. There was always a silent spiritual under-current throbbing underneath his every line, rewarding the reader with a sublime experience of spiritual enrichment, apart from gratifying senses!
 Khalil Gibran |
As I explored works of more authors, Khalil Gibran and Chekov appealed to my heart for having reached the similar heights. My poem “Poetic Story” in this collection highlights how these giants have captured my heart in their own characteristic manner. |
 Anton Chekhov |
Why should a research engineer usually immersed in savoring the joys of mathematics and technology get interested in poetry and short-stories? Because, it fascinated me to crack the mystery behind the alluring appeal of great literary works and tried to fit it in a rule based “fuzzy algorithm” to understand the source of its magic. I tried to replicate this algorithm in my own humble manner and started writing poems for the last few months, initially only to verify my “algorithm”. To my surprise, my poems drew exciting response from the general crowd on the net, with some of them openly wondering if I had stolen these poems from some great poet! This encouraged me to keep writing and was overjoyed to discover side-benefits of this hobby. My mind was rewarded with a welcome breather from my engineering research, every time I surrendered myself to the charms of this hobby, with the result that it accelerated my patents and research papers in my engineering profession. My mind also was able to evolve some out of box solutions to some long standing engineering puzzles which had plagued me! My poem “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” paints this newly acquired dual image of my soul.
The protagonist of these poems is a soul set-up on a treasure hunt to discover himself… following the fragrant trail of love which perennially lures him along her path. This treasure-hunt begins and ends with the treasure of love hidden in his own soul! Poem “You and Me” aptly charts this journey.
This makes me utterly grateful to the internet crowd in general, who encourage me to keep writing; Pam and Kalwant Sandhu of Aasra Publishing in particular for making birth of this book possible! I was impressed by the meticulousness with which Pam worked on type-setting, evaluation and selection of my poems. Finally I must acknowledge that I am the product of my immediate environment, shaped by my family, viz. daughter Swarali, wife Sunita and mother Pushpalata who have been authoring the poetry of my life all these days!
Foreword to the Book of Poems - WritersPayItForward
Opening Stanza
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