BOOK REVIEW : By Dr. Sunil Kaushal

                                                 
                                               LOPAMUDRA BANERJEE’S

                                                      BOOK OF POEMS

                                                  ‘LET THE NIGHT SING’

 
·         Paperback: 114 pages

·         Publisher: Global Fraternity of Poets; First Edition edition (2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 9383755342

·         ISBN-13: 978-9383755349

 

Attempting to write a review of ‘Let The Night Sing,’- a book of poems by

 Lopamudra Banerjee, a writer, poet, editor and translator, currently based in Dallas, USA, was not only a daunting task, but an educative one too.

Her bio reads almost as extensively as a full-length article. Below is an extract from an interview by Sufia Khatoon, an activist and art curator based in Kolkata. It gives the reader an intimate glimpse into the poet’s heart and mind and what makes her tick.

Lopamudra Banerjee is a writer, poet, editor and translator, currently based in Dallas, USA. She is the co-editor of the bestselling anthology on women, ‘Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas’. ‘Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey’, her debut memoir/nonfiction novel, published by Authorspress, has recently received Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Book Festival 2017. The manuscript has also been a First Place Category Winner at the Journey Awards 2014 hosted by Chanticleer Reviews and Media LLC. Her literary works have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, both in India and the US. Recently, she co-edited and co-authored a ghost story anthology titled ‘Darkness There But Something More’ with Dr. Santosh Bakaya.
She has received the Reuel International Award 2016 (category: Translation) for her English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novella Nastanirh (translated as The Broken Home) instituted by The Significant League, a renowned literature group in Facebook. It is now part of the book ‘The Broken Home and Other Stories’ (Authorspress, 2017). She is also a recipient of the International Reuel Prize for Poetry in 2017. ‘Let The Night Sing’ is her debut poetry collection, published by Global Fraternity of Poets.

 

                                                                 

        The book recently received Honorary Mention at the New England Book Festival 2017 in Boston, USA (category-poetry).                                                         

Read more about her and her writings……https://dialoguetimes.com/poetry-cathartic-reality-intervi..../

                                                              

                                       

                 ' With Dr. Santosh Bakaya and others at the launch of Let The Night Sing'

 

 

 

Lopa Banerjee is one of the most intense and passionate writers I have ever read.

Let The Night Sing has been divided into five sections, probably depicting the poet’s own phases in life containing several meaningful poems to her credit, which manage to cast a spell.

Most of her poems are profound and seething; I had to go through them more than once. I first read the book appreciating it as an outstanding work of art, written with brutal honesty, a boldness that makes Lopa stand out in a crowd. 

The second reading was to follow the life story of the poet, which unravels before the reader through her writings. I also wanted to prolong my sojourn in the land that she creates so spontaneously yet intricately and would go back to certain poems to taste the flavor again and again.

Lopa weaves an exquisite tapestry of life, the threads of love and the longing for it, weaving bold patterns, as a blue print of her own intense life that has been devoted to writing profound, passionate and enchantingly lyrical poetry. 

Her words speak to the reader, not only in perfectly woven verse, but also as a study of human character, the life of a young Indian child, through the lonely journey of an only child, an adolescent struggling in an era when most Indian children grew up by default without much attention being given by parents or society to the rights of a child as an individual.

The book touches on multiple aspects of life, stepping from adolescence and the pains of puberty as depicted in the poem, ‘Learning to Fall’…“It’s dark,” a shout, “Come back home at once,” - it is the loss of freedom a girl suffers that kills her innocence on one hand, yet the desperate yearning for her maiden life that had been her first stepping stone to unravel the world around her. Her cumulative experiences of leaving her homeland, absorbing the foreign land that later became her home, motherhood and unapologetic womanhood shape the autobiographical aspect of the book. On the other hand her poetic responses encompass a variety of the happenings in her world around, including the life story of Malala Yousufzai, the story of a commonplace house maid, the story of the children of sex workers, child marriages and brutal abuse of girl children in various countries, including India.

Birthday re-remembered’, the poem is a passionate ode to her own birthday as she completes three decades on the earth…“an announcement of age leaping”, which is pertinent both physically and metaphorically.

 In the poem ‘Father’s Day’, her poetic expressions: ”languishing for a face that gleams ……the hiccups of failed conversations echo” …..her failed attempts at communication with her father are painful.Though apparently she writes the poem for her daughters and her husband, she is also recalling the bond with her own father and yearning for a childhood that remained an unfinished story.

 Her romantic poetry is notable for heightened passion, the anguish of separation and lover’s agony - expressions of the pathos of youth. There is pensiveness and pain, the pangs of passion, a lust for life. Helpless and gloomy at times she yearns for true love as her dreams remain thwarted and she writes of relationships that never fructified in the conventional sense.

In the poem “Surrender” she writes - ’My love, don't you know my charred flesh
longs to make love to you?’

There is a fire lit inside her which makes her write; she becomes an agent on behalf of other women to tell the story of the lives of so many oppressed women, as many are not brave enough to speak out themselves. She sees and feels their pain and crisis and expresses it through her writings, sensitive to the agony of women who face the menace of lust, rape, hunger, deprivation of love and care. She ruthlessly exposes man's false sense of superiority of gender.

The poem –‘FIREBIRD’, written for  'International Women’s Day, has been recited by her often on different platforms and been widely acclaimed when she hits at the lopsided patriarchal values of her land where female feticide is rampant:

                        “And then, you who have crushed and torn my silky petals,

                              You who have made me sing lust-ridden songs,
                           You who have taught our mothers to kill us in the womb   
                            To mourn our birth while their cherished sons blossom”

In her latter poems, there is a definite rebellious slant to her writings. Lopa surfaces, bold enough to live life on her own terms, which can be spotted in her writings, as in this poem:                     

                                                    UNBOUND
                                                  

                                                   I, am myself.
                                     A woman, unbound and whole.
                            Do not look for me inside the painted walls
                           And the crushed mirage of the old concretes               
                                   Inside every brick and mortar

                                Inside every chipped, peeled crevice
                                      Of my body, freedom breathes
                                               In its own symphony.

As she leaves the familiar shores of her beloved Kolkata, her homeland, facing the loss of both her parents, death seems to haunt her, and a fear of losing life, uncertainty prevailing over what is next, as the waves of life and death ebb and flow.

Her last poem reveals the poet’s mellowing and a philosophical outlook towards the mystery of life and death.

                                                     REBIRTH

                           I know that in every birth, human or not,
                                  I will resuscitate in the womb,
                                  Murmuring in angelic sounds,
                          Eager to germinate through splattered splashes
                                   Of blood and leftover wounds   
                                      Of a life that lay behind

                              Compromised, forgotten, cold, fading.

As I finished reading this collection of amazing poems, I was struck with the range, her intensity and the pain she must have lived through to create such a work. With time I see her evolving and writing with a spiritual strength, born out of a tumultuous journey of fiery writing.

Already being widely recognized both in India and abroad for her versatility, I am sure, soon, modern literature will boast of her as a prolific writer. 

 

 

                                                                   

                                                              THE SHADOW 

                                                                             

A powerful tale of child abuse and it's repercussions on the inner child's psyche that tugs at your heart. Set against the backdrop of a poor family craving for a male child, it is a narration of injustice at the hands of the rich.

The story goes on to unfold as the little child grows up and takes destiny into her own hands.
                                                               *************

Kesari had been in labor the whole night.  While her four little daughters slept in spite of her loud moans and cries, their father Balwant had been pacing up and down the small room waiting anxiously, as the midwife bustled in and out. His fifth child was being born and he had propitiated all the Gods in the village temple to bless him with a son this time.

 The sky turned a faint golden red as the sun struggled to melt the fog that enveloped the earth in a thick blanket. The biting cold refused to relent its hold and everything was covered with a layer of frost till the sun came up fully and warmed the earth. With the first piercing ray of sunlight falling on the thatched roof of his hut, Balwant heard the cry of the newborn, feeble and barely audible at first and then loud, shrill and demanding. His heart missed many a beat while his mouth went dry and his hands cold and clammy, as he waited for the midwife to come out. Fifteen minutes later she stepped out, wiping her hands dry, shaking her head sadly while avoiding looking towards Balwant. His face fell and his heart sank as he guessed a fifth daughter had been born.

 The tired old woman knowing that even her services would not be fully paid now, felt cheated at the time and labor spent. She gestured to Balwant to go inside but he walked out instead. Blowing with the iron pipe, he got the dying fire blazing again. As he sat in the open kitchen enclosure in the courtyard, wondering how to console Kesari, he heated some milk, adding some sugar and clarified butter, poured it into a tumbler. Then he put some water in the tea pan to boil as he knew the girls would soon be awake. The midwife too must be tired and cold, staying awake the whole night, and would appreciate some hot tea before going home, he thought.

 Holding the hot brass tumbler with his muffler, he went inside the room where Kesari and the newborn were tucked inside a tattered old quilt, the tiny infant fast asleep in the crook of her arm. Kesari understood why her husband had not come inside immediately when the midwife went out. She felt deep anguish at having let him down yet again. Gratefully she drank the hot milk, sipping it loudly to avoid looking at or talking to Balwant. She was surprised at the composure on his face for she could fathom his disappointment. Being a gentle and kind man he did not want Kesari to feel guilty because of her failure to present him with a son. They had both prayed and fasted throughout the nine months of her pregnancy. She had also been given a talisman by the old Muslim ‘faqir’ who lived in a small hut outside the village precincts, on the periphery of the cremation grounds. They had been very hopeful this time.

Looking at her with tears in his eyes, he said “Try to sleep. You need to rest.”

Kesari stared at him stonily and said, “Why does God not listen to our prayers?”

“It is our Karma. We have to bow before His will,” he replied letting out a deep sigh.

 The baby started whimpering softly. Kesari pulled the child closer and put it to her breast. Instinctively, the infant bobbed her head all around till she could feel the nipple of Kesari’s breast and latching on to it , started sucking ,first slowly and then a little more greedily.

 Just then their eldest daughter Soma, woken up by the infant’s cry, came into the room rubbing her eyes and shuffling her feet, still half asleep. She came close to her mother wanting to lie down next to her as she did daily, but stroking her cheek Kesari showed her that with the newborn baby there was no space left on the narrow string cot. Feeling disappointed but amazed as well, at the sight of the baby, Soma looked at her mother with a questioning glance. Her five year old mind could not comprehend how a baby had arrived while she slept.

 Although, a little sad at her place being usurped by the new born, she said nothing. Quietly she went outside the boundary wall of the courtyard of the hut and finding a suitable place in the adjacent sugarcane field, she finished defecating. Coming back she washed her hands at the hand pump, cleaned her teeth with a piece of charcoal and then removing her ‘dupatta’, splashed water on her face. The freshly pumped water felt much warmer than the sleety wind blowing and she found it comforting. Drying her face and hands with a corner of her ‘dupatta’ she poured some tea for herself. It was sweet and hot and while sipping it she warmed her hands on the brass tumbler. The glass washed, she called out to tell her father that she was leaving for work and hurriedly walked out of the courtyard before she felt tempted to stay back to play with the baby.

 Every morning she went to work in the landlord’s house who owned the hundred acres of land where her father worked and where their hut stood at the far end of the land. Skipping and jumping she reached the large palatial ‘haveli’ where Puran Chand, the landlord and his wife Parvati lived with a huge retinue of servants. Married for twenty years, they were childless. Some years ago they had given up all hope and brought Ramesh, one of Parvati’s nephews, to live with them. Ramesh a teenager, was a distant relative’s son. His father had fallen into bad times because of his vices of gambling and liquor and had died when Ramesh was barely ten years old. The mother was relieved to have one mouth less to feed. Ramesh enjoyed living in such luxury and abundance and took full advantage of Parvati’s tender heart starved for the love of children her own.

 Balwant owed the landlord a huge sum of money which he kept borrowing every time a child was born to him, which was every year. The loan kept multiplying due to the interest piling up. While he labored hard in the fields the whole day, Soma worked in the kitchen at the ‘haveli’ and did other odd jobs, paying off a negligible amount and getting to eat the leftovers from the kitchen. Sometimes she was given some food to take home also.

 A week later, as the winter set in further with fierce severity, her parents on the suggestion of Parvati, decided that she should stay at the ‘haveli’ and not come home in the cold in the evening. They were already finding it difficult to rear so many off springs and were secretly relieved and glad for Soma when Parvati said she wanted her to live at the ‘haveli’ like family. Torn between filial love and practicality, they chose the latter.

 For some days Soma was happy living in the large house with a clean, warm bed to herself and plenty of good wholesome food. But soon, she started missing her parents, sisters and thinking of the little baby sister she had hardly played with. Like most poor children she too wanted to live in the familiar dirt, deprivation and cramped proximity of her loved ones. She asked Parvati if she could go home for a few hours. Feeling insecure about the child returning back or not, Parvati sent her nephew along. Soma sat on the front bar of the cycle, as Ramesh cycled down to the hut on the other side of the fields. For three hours she and her sisters talked, played and laughed. She cuddled her baby sister; cooing over her and helping her mother bathe and pat her to sleep after she had been fed. By the afternoon Ramesh was ready to leave and she left her family reluctantly, with tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat.

 Passing the fields thick with the maize crop Ramesh suddenly stopped the cycle saying, “Come, I’ll show you something wonderful”.

 She followed him into the field. A little further he stopped and holding her wrist so tightly it hurt, as he whispered, “Come let’s lie down here for a while.”

 Dusk was gathering and the biting cold had started permeating through everything. A few birds startled by the sounds of their feet crunching on the ground and the swishing sound that the maize stalks made as Ramesh parted them, twittered sharply and shot skywards in alarm.

Spreading her ‘dupatta’ on the ground, so her new clothes would not get spoiled, she lay down. Above her she saw the long stalks of maize swaying with the sharp wind passing through the fields. Further still she could see the thick canopy of ‘neem’ trees whistling with the wind. The hum of the machine of  the tube well and the sound of the gushing water under the trees, combined with the shrill twittering of birds nesting in its branches, with the leaves rustling, were the sounds her attention was riveted on when she felt Ramesh’s hands groping her body and tearing at her clothes. He had already pulled open the string to his pajama and it lay aside in a heap. While she wondered why, he started pulling her clothes down too. Before she could open her mouth to speak he roughly clamped one hand on her mouth whispering, “Shh! don’t make any sound. We will have fun just now. You will like it.”

 Forcing himself on her, he repeatedly assaulted her small body violently as she struggled to free herself but was pinned down. Her body bruised and hurt from the rough ground below, while he clawed and tore at her small frame, frothing and foaming at the mouth like an animal. With one small eye partially open she saw his quivering nose with a mole on the right nostril, very close to her face. His right eye, a light brown color was smaller than the left one, was what she noticed as she was almost passing out.

 The odour of his male breath reeking of lust filled her nostrils with their sickening stench. While she choked on her own saliva from swallowed tears and throttled screams, he pulled apart, stood up, straightening his clothes and sharply told her to get up too. Bruised, bleeding and in shock she lay there in a crumpled heap with her clothes torn and her limp body half naked. Seeing her lying almost lifeless and bleeding profusely by then, he panicked and hurriedly put on his clothes. With a vicious kick that rolled her body over revealing a large patch of bleeding seeping into the ground beneath her, he fled, hissing viciously at her, “Come when you want to, if you don’t want to come now. And mind you, not a word of this to anyone or I’ll kill you.”

 Reaching the ‘haveli’ he went straight to his room while Parvati waited for Soma’s return wondering why the two had still not returned. The girl lay there in shock, bleeding and moaning, chilled stiff with the frost descending fast as the darkness crept up and night started swallowing everything.

 More than an hour later, Balwant walking past, going home that way, heard the feeble cries of a small child. Parting the sugar cane stalks he searched frantically following the moaning sounds and came upon the small naked body, blue with the freezing cold. In the thick descending fog with the dim light of his kerosene lamp, it took him a few moments to register that it was his own daughter lying in the dirt and congealed blood.

 Outraged and devastated, he quickly bundled her up somehow in his blanket and carried her home running all the way with tears blinding him. Covering her daughter with another blanket and massaging her hands and feet to warm them, Kesari tried to question the child as soon as she gained consciousness, all this while changing the cloth between her legs to stem the bleeding.  Half delirious, between choked tears and stifled cries, in a faltering voice Soma told her mother what had happened, hardly being able to describe the act as she herself did not understand what had happened. All she kept seeing repeatedly were those lust filled brown eyes. The acrid odour of the boys scent still assailed her nostrils and she vomited before falling back into a stupor. Numb and hurting, she was too terrified to answer many questions.

 But it was enough to send Balwant marching to the ‘haveli’ fuming at the monstrous act. His bloodshot eyes and choked voice, as he frothed at the mouth and spat on the ground repeatedly, frightened Puran Chand but he listened to him fully and then sent for Ramesh who was nowhere to be found. The boy’s guilt was proved when the gateman said he had seen him leave hurriedly about two hours earlier, with a small bag, his clothes dirty with blood stains on them. The gateman thought he had been embroiled in a fight.

 Driving his car himself, Puran Chand along with Parvati, accompanied Balwant and Soma to the nearby city hospital. The lady doctor was personally instructed by Parvati to give the girl the best possible treatment. There were no witnesses. The screams of protest were silenced with a show of kindness and concern, both by Puran Chand and Parvati. However, both of them spent sleepless nights haunted by the sounds of stifled screams. The wretched father was given some money for providing better food to Soma while all bills and expenses were paid for. Her tiny body ravaged by fever, her genitalia repaired but mutilated, Soma the little child had grown far beyond her years during the treatment. The mental trauma was deceptively masked by heavy sedation but left permanent painful scars.

 After a month at the hospital she came home, subdued and withdrawn, feeling defiled and invaded. She became fearful of sounds or touch. Even when her parents tried to be solicitous, she felt betrayed. The incidents of that evening repeatedly haunted her as she spent sleepless nights in fear. When she did sleep, she would wake up screaming and crying as choking nightmares replaced her dreams. After some time her sisters and parents stopped paying attention to her torment and she herself learnt to stifle her cries, not allowing her sobs and screams beyond her throat while her inner child cried silently. Her suppressed misery settled down somewhere in her chest and mind, burning and smoldering like the lava of a dormant volcano.

 That night when Balwant carried back home the frail, mutilated body of his daughter, a shadow which had been born just then out of the blood soaked earth, arose along with her body, stretching much bigger than the body or mind of the little girl. The shadow attached itself to everyone that Soma encountered after that, projecting its own dark attributes on to them. All beings including her parents, took on the darkness of the shadow and she could only see and feel the black color of disbelief, distrust, shame, guilt, repulsion, anger and revenge. Her child’s eyes were downcast when she spoke to men but her mind would be seeing much more as she taught herself to live on the edge, ready to spring at the slightest wrong movement. As the years passed, the memory of pain, transformed into a knot of bitterness and hardness towards herself and others. It protected her from vulnerability, but the desire for revenge grew with approaching adolescence and she learnt to distrust all men.

 Nature stepped in to undo the damage a man had inflicted. At twelve years of age, the harsh winter of her shame was slowly moving on to the spring of youth and she wished to cast away the heavy cloak of her biggest curse. In spite of the winter’s savagery, her calloused self struggled to throw off the hardened shell, to soften and bloom again. Destiny played its cards once again and she was married to a widower, fifteen years older than her. He paid off the loan her father owed the landlord and was ready to accept Soma in spite of the limp and scars of that night. The shadow lengthened and when her husband forced himself on her every night, she latched on to the shadow for that had become the reality of her existence.

 Her daughter born after a year, was the only joy in her life and yet the cause of much anxiety too. Soma, paranoid about her safety did not allow the child out of sight at all. She took her along where ever she went. The child was never left alone with her father even. A healthy and beautiful girl with the mother’s large eyes and thick long black hair framing her delicate face, Rano looked just like her mother.

 Soma’s son Vishnu, born two years later resembled the father and was equally good looking. The children grew fast and Soma stayed busy with the house work and looking after them. They were already five and three years old. Though not happy with her marriage she had acquired a certain dignity and composure with motherhood and did not look her old self any more. Youth had filled her body voluptuously and she looked as beautiful as any woman does in the prime of her bloom.

 The children looked forward daily to the afternoons trips with her when she took them along, as she went to cut fodder for the cattle. She picked up the large sackcloth and the rope with which to tie the bundle of fodder, tucking the sickle into the band tied around her waist. Straddling Vishnu on her hip, she started for the fields, holding Rano by the finger. The children were happy to romp around on the edge of the field playing, while she cut fodder. With quick and practiced movements she cut some spent maize stalks, laying them on the sack cloth and then went a little further into the field to cut some millet stalks too. Twilight was descending and the chilling winds whistled through the stalks of millet.

 Having finished she went back to the edge of the field to tie the bundle. Seeing Vishnu alone she looked around for Rano, when she heard a rustle in the field behind her. Stepping swiftly and nimbly, she went in that direction. Parting the stalks, she saw her daughter standing with a young man. Seeing her, he paled aghast and was further amazed when she smiled at him enticingly. Puzzled, he stopped for her next move as she sidled towards him lustily. Her vivacious looks and slender body mesmerized him and he smiled back at her.

 She spoke to her daughter, “Run along and play with your brother. I’ll come soon.”

 The man confused and yet tempted by her lewd gestures stood still. She caught his hand and said, “Let’s go to the other side of the field. No one comes towards the canal side and the reeds are a good cover.”

 Standing close up behind him she embraced him tightly, rubbing her body against his. Anticipating pleasure he relaxed, guiding her hand. With her left hand she reached into his pajama, letting it drop to the ground. As he responded to her touch, the right hand arced in a swift movement as she dismembered his penis with the sharp sickle, flinging it somewhere far into the canal.

 He gnarled like a wounded animal as blood from the wound spurted on to the ground, his eyes fully dilated with horror. She looped his scarf around his neck dragging him towards the canal. He shrieked with grunts and groans, his body writhing in agony and his face contorted with pain. Heaving with all her strength, breathing heavily, Soma pushed his convulsing and bleeding body over the edge of the canal into the icy cold water.

 She picked a handful of mud and plucked some leaves to clean the blood off her hands still seeing the horror of mutilation, in those brown eyes, one smaller than the other, with the mole on a nostril, quivering with terror.

Soma had reached the end of her pilgrimage.

Copyright@Dr. Sunil Kaushal 08/04/2014


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                                                   INNOCENCE LOST

 A gripping narration of the psyche of a child violated. This short and simple poem dives deep into the experience of child abuse. Innocence lost is an important message that we all need to hear.

                                                                     

 

A tender tendril groping for support,

clinging and climbing

not yet leaving the earth

divine angels above,

showered blessings as she took birth.

 
Innocence, trust and wonder

in those large round eyes

shone like diamonds far beyond

any wealth or price.

Cooing, gurgling, sometimes crying

she made sure she got

all attention worth trying.

 

And then all this started changing

slowly, very slowly the world touched her.

Kisses, caresses, cuddles changed meaning,

parents, siblings, friends and folks

sugar-coated poisons, mostly feigning

ideas, orders, comments and jokes,

groping and pawing she could not decipher,

voices, eyes, hands no longer good in feel--

some would hurt, and others

that were downright heel.

 

Suppressed anger, feeling dirty and the shame

made her feel guilty and full of blame.

She cocooned herself from the world around

yet looking for support

that was nowhere to be found.

Not mother, father, any could give

the support she needed now to live.

 

The tender tendril slowly hardened up

and turned to thorny callous stuff.

Those wondrously luminous, innocent eyes, started looking down,

dark and brooding, in denial

she now spoke with a frown.

The art of lying slowly poisoned her tongue

as she started looking

older than a child that young.

 

Her wealth of innocence by strangers plundered,

and near ones also, each tearing asunder

the faith and love

she hungered to get and give,

with nobody caring

how she loved or lived.

 

Her innocence lost,

through what she’d heard, felt and been--

life became a nightmare

no child should ever have seen.

@CopyrightDrSunilKaushal 08/04/2014

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