PROSE STYLE: 4/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5
In the words of the famous Leonardo Da Vinci “Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen”.
Poetry is an essence of human life for it portrays all that is beautiful in the world and all that is beautiful in life.
Going by the recent trend, poetry in the Indian publishing industry is surely on the uptrend and why should it not be? After all, it is the lifeline of every language and every civilization.
Most recent on the block is Manish Ranjan’s Glittering Shadows, a book which in my opinion is a beautiful tribute to love and all of womankind.
The book is divided into three sections – Love and be Loved, Life and Reflection and Womanhood and Her Crisis.
The first part deals with love, love stories, feelings of love and all that is there about love. This section has a total of thirty-two poems all of which are dedicated to love and its mysteries.
My favourites among them are – She is Daddy’s Girl, Our First Kiss, That Forlorn Smile and That Old Banyan Tree. All the poems are hopelessly romantic and deeply emotional.
Each thought, each emotion and each feeling has been captured so intensely by the author that the heart cannot help but melt at the exquisiteness of those words.
The second section of Glittering Shadows is dedicated to Life and Reflection. The poet gives thought to the various aspects of everyday life which often go un-thought and unspoken.
This section has twelve poems out of which my favourites are Let There Be Love, Being a Man and The Drop of Dew on the Lotus Leaf. Being a Man is all about the various shades/roles which mankind had shown and adorned itself with since times immemorial.
These various roles are that of savages, sages, warriors, hero and gentlemen. How the roles have changed with times and how today’s man should be a combination of all is what the poet wishes to express.
Another poem called Let There Be Love is also a lovely tribute to the cause of peace and harmony.
The third section is called Womanhood and its crisis and it contains six poems. My favourites among the lot are The Little Fugitive and Let Her Be a Woman and a Human.
The first one called The Little Fugitive is about a girl child who runs away from her home from the fear of torture at the hands of her dad. On being asked why her Dad will hurt her, she simply answers because she is a girl.
The second poem also speaks for the cause of women. Both poems are intense and somehow depicts the injustice which is meted out to women every day.
If I am given one word to describe Glittering Shadows, it will be “Sensitive” and that is because all the issues it addresses and all the feelings it portrays are nothing if not sensitive.
It is hard to believe that this book is the author’s first because the writing seems so mature that the fact is rather difficult to digest. That being said, I rate the book three and a half out of five stars and recommend it to all poetry enthusiasts.