A Door Somewhere? by Jaydeep Sarangi/ Cyberwit

Reviews, Vol. I, Issue III

Doors to Freedom

Jaydeep Sarangi in his latest poetry collection ‘A Door Somewhere?’ grapples with the living with glowing eyes and a wide view of the horizon. He rekindles the urge for exploration of the elusive mystique and summons side by side the dissipating humanity.

In her excellent introduction, Dr Usha Bande mentioned “When words and ideas rush through the mind, there is no choice but to express them, to write them down and offer the world a vision albeit a personal one.” That is what Jaydeep believes and conveys from word to word, from image to image in constructing a ‘living totality’. He reiterates, “Poems are the ventilators for fresh air to come in a suffocating life of fact and reasons.”

Jaydeep is easy on ears and his readers will enjoy reading especially for that reason.

Each death has a story./Each story has a reader./You and I are in the story. (Counting Beads)

Some of his poems are insufferably emotive. Always drawn to lyrical moments and allure of truth, he captures the essence of life bit by bit.

Life’s ember/Sparks with a flash/A tender journey within/With a magic rod/To enlighten each rock/Speaking to one another.

Most of his poems are held together by the intensity and the urge to share the visual beauty and lyrical grace but never have they shrunk from showing the actual space and time. We can figure out (they have long roots) what they mean and what their world for all the same.

Life’s acts are shadows of the past/Shadows are residue/Of light and lighted trajectory./The optimists you. (Playing with Shadows)

Keki Daruwala, the noted writer, very aptly said “Jaydeep Sarangi gives a fresh paint to everyday living.” The firmly worded and contoured or glistening, his poems are full bodied painting.

A place has an echo of the people/All around the power circle./Night’s crossing over/Embracing the red Sun at the horizon/Radiation of a power hub/Sweet birds twitter for/One being and consciousness. (Dawn at Pondicherry).

Admittedly, ‘Door’ is the word that lift the soul submerged and Jaydeep knows well that words using as metaphors (‘a door is always a door’) can have consequences, just like actions. Yet in many instances, it’s in the repetition of the signature word ‘Door’ in a symbolic motion, the whole details are told in a perfect manner.

It’s a door between the self and the world,/Despair dances in Hope’. (A Door- Somewhere?)

Or

A poet is a translator/He translates for his reading world/Through a door,/Whispers in time/To another door somewhere. (A Door)

It’s not so much that the poet is scared or unwilling to enter into the burgeoning mix and the complexities of the modern world but still he finds his way to the mind of the readers who share resonance with their life and experience. He is a word artist, not fighter, no dewy doubt about it.

Blood is sold at low price, all can buy it./May be with a discount/One bottle free, if you buy one (Globalised manners)

So creative, so vivid and rich are his poems that they inlet at a deeper level than the normal process and change the direction of the thought streams. The visual imagination is always tested in his verses.

You and I/Alone in this circle of actions/The coconut tree my father and I planted/Dances sweetly along the monsoon thunderstorm./My father had left me alone./Wheel runs on me, I wait for my second coming (Lonely Bard)

In spite of good intention, a few of the poems are more like wish-fulfillment or the pleasure principle. (A mirror or In memory of an Inkpot etc.). That said, the beauty of the language in undeniable in spite of the subject of the poems sinking into insipid conversations. In a way, his sympathy for the ‘Caged Bard’ is understandable and he can wait and surprise the passionate readers later on with these gems,

The daybreak is leaning/On the doorway now, with shadows of an earlier night,/Night’s lullabies welcome the yellow sun (Day Breaking)

or

I conjure, I wait./everyone is only waiting,/patiently waiting./each one for the other… (Waiting)

In his note, Jaydeep mentioned emphatically ‘Poems connect continents’. Reading the book, cover to cover, does provide a rich experience of a long walk across the continents to the door of poetry and his poetry is always a pleasure to read. Staying resolutely independent, he is surely forging ahead a path, embedded in history and peerless in dissecting the humanity and beauty in their simplest forms.

Rob Harle’s Cover design and Artwork is in tune with the metaphor of this poetry collection. You readers do yourself a favour and read this book at the earliest.

Reviewed by Gopal Lahiri