THE STORM AND OTHER POEMS BY I.M. JAYAKAR

The pages let the reader look at the poems in full range with works from all phases of Jayakar’s evolution as a poet. Every page showcases a different mood. The collection is a great intensity of a body of emotions covered with a subtle coat of words.

In ‘THE TYRANTS’ so perfect to his nature, there is a muffling “Unborn babies/Like voices/In the womb.” The tyrants of the world are diseased with hatred; “And spread his own/Private disease/ Like an epidemic/ In the country.” And as a result of this disease, “Sent down/ Spasms into history.”

Finding philosophy absurd and just a play of words; in ‘BERTRAND RUSSELL’ the poet expresses and shares his thoughts; “All philosophy/ (He had reason to believe)/ Was humbug. And ‘humbug’/ was word.”, and words jus t play around with “Reality and appearance/ Is the Shapelessness/ Of words.”

In ‘GRANNY’, the old woman slips in and out of life like playing hide and seek with death. She lives in the past with her old tales. “The near-past and the far-past/ when gods for women falling/Dropped down to earth/ From heaven.” She grows weak with time. “We used our eyes to tell her/ That just a stray bit of soul/Was lingering somewhere/ In her body.” Till one fine day, “Then possibly for a change/ She died. And with the consent/ Of the doctor/ We believed in her death.”

The interest of a child in the simplicities of living is too well expressed in ‘A CHILD IN MY ARMS’ (FOR PRIYA) An adult sees crows daily and turns away but a child, “The child craned its neck/ And watched the bird/…..I moved out of the alley/ Apathetic but aware/ That the child had left behind/ Its eyes for a crow.”

In a mother’s ‘ADVICE TO HER SON’ we see a poet letting about his ideas leaving “The cage doors open/ And let your ideas/ Of birds sneak out./ Let them turn to birds/ Moulting feathers.”

A beautiful and peaceful reading of universal thoughts expressed individually. A wonderful collection of his own and translations from the Marathi poems of Sadanand Rege and also translations of the poems from Hala Satvahana’s ‘GATHASAPTASHATI’ a compilation made in the First century A.D. in the Prakrit language.

(1.4) “Look!!/ Perched among/ Lotus leaves/ The lady swam/ Waits with the gift/ Of her loneliness./ Like a pearl/ In a priest’s/ Prayer pot.”

Indeed the poems are like small and big drops of pearls in the ocean of life.

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