DRENCHING MEMORY - A REVIEW OF MEMORY RAIN

LATHAPREMSAKHYA

Calicut: Monsoon Editions, 2008.

Pages 79 Price Rs. 150/-

The sixty odd poems that make the collection, Memory Rain are delightful to read and reflect the poet's personality_in I!!greways than one. Written as the poet says for her 'personal delight' they are of special moments in life, which make life livable and sweet. ~emory and nostalgia are the golden skeins that hold the poems together. Predictably the poems begin with the memory of childhood games that are played in the golden years of childhood around the homestead. The first poem thus unwinds 'the spool of yearning' that leads one through the twenty year span during which the poet had jotted the lines and which she had perhaps revised many times.

Spaces are important to the poet as time is for she has the 'attic of the soul' to dump her not so sweet memories. The poems themselves have given the poet the 'space to exist'. This age old yearning of the woman writer that the poet expresses finds an echo in some of the poems in the collection. For example, the poem 'Wild Terrain' talks of the unmapped wOrld of the woman that surprises one at every turn and which is 'unpredictable'. The poem ends with woman being equated to a mystery that has not (read will not) be unraveled.

The spell of love, both love of nature and the flush of first love is the magic that predominates in the collection. There are two poems of the same name entitled 'Magic Spell' in page 16 and page 53. If the first poem speaks of the magic spell of love when the lovers literally hold their breath and dare not shatter the magic spell of love, the second one is undoubtedly of the spell that natural beauty can cast on one. The shining sapphire like crystal pool that the poet finds ensconces in a world that is pure magic.

Love is the theme of many poems. The first flush of love is described as 'light in my heart' and 'flight in my steps' (17). The love of the mature woman is equated to 'a blanket spreading warmth to all under it'(28). Loss of love may leave the poet shattered like 'shards of a broken pot' (38) .Through the varying shades of love one is however conscious of the poet's nostalgic yearning for youthful love in the prime of its power that manifests itself as a 'wailing banshee' (40) and a quest for the 'gentle shower of love' (41). The echo of the red rose of love that haunt the valleys in the dead season and the image of the chasm of life that is devoid of vitalizing showers are counter pointed by the images of the vital and crimson rose that is like life giving blood and the summer showers that refresh the hot and dusty earth. Another asp~~ of love that the poet explores is motherly love that surface in poems like "Tiny World', "My Child', 'Comeraderie', 'Girl' and 'Corina' that is contained in five consecutive pages from 19 to 23. The poem 'Dream Child' talks of the sorrow on the loss of a child who is paradoxically also a part of the poet's self.

Nature holds sway in poems like 'Swirling Current' (31) which allows the poet to partake in 'nature's daily celebration' and 'Evening Sky' (33) in which the poet uses the cloud to ride to fancy's abode. Other poems celebrating nature and depicting her various moods abound in the collection. 'The Crown of Creation' (35) and 'The Winged Offenders' (36) depict the darker side of life revealed as the poet contemplates the crown of creation who alone in the gay and wonderful world are 'flurried and harried'. The poem entitled 'Tree' (56) depicts the tree as the paradigm of warring humanity. The winged offenders that rape the flower without dreaming that their 'natural act' can kill life is the reverse of the image of the caressing sunbeam that sweeps the stream into his golden arms in the poem 'The Rill' (55). Poems like 'Notes of Joy' (50) "Little Mynah' (51) and 'Minnows' (52) share the joys of the winged creatures that live and enjoy the present moment. 'The Uncanny Singer' (49) is of the bird whose cry portends death and leads the reader directly to poems like 'Magic in the Air' (72) and 'Earth Mother'(74) which can be read together as poems that spell the doom of earth. The poet sheds tears for the reprieve of the herons and the water fowls that have migrated to fresher and safer fields. She knows that like Cassandra her words may not be noticed by those deafened by the 'roar of materialistic living'.

Though nostalgia and memory colour all the poems in the collection, it is perhaps the theme as well in three poems entitled 'Memory', 'Reminiscence' and 'Aria'. Memory in the first poem is the painful marking left by the sea on the shore. Reminiscence in the poem of the same name is of wistful images that give the poet to carry on the business of life. The last poem in the collection, 'Aria' is a requiem that is informed in large measure by memory for it is of a friend who is no more and who is linked in the mind of the poet to a haunting song to recapture which the poet crashes through the labyrinth of the mind.

Dreams, hopes, thoughts, friendship, old age, sorrow faith and even natural disasters are themes that the poet touches on. 'Paattie' and 'Amma' are undoubtedly the persons who have influenced and inspired the poet while her husband and daughter prove to be her solace and salvation. The romantic rather than the modernistic sensibility is evident in the collection. Reading the poems proves to be akin to being drenched in refreshing rain of memories.

-HemaNairR