By
Dr.Mariam Kuruvilla Joseph
Former Principal and Head,
Dept of English,
Perumbavoor
Nature at my Doorstep by Latha Prem Sakhya is a beautifully conceived text consisting of poems, reflections and paintings, wherein the poet meanders down memory lane on the wings of imagination, all the while urging the readers to listen to and experience the magic in the pleadings of her “ Words squeezed out of ecstasy and
agony-”
The poet in general is a very sensitive being. She/he serves as the alter-ego, the conscience keeper of the world. It is difficult for others to understand this troubled sensibility of the poet which is often misjudged for touchiness and timidity. The same is the case with Latha Prem. That is why the poet is barged with questions such as:
Why are you so crazy?
Matters negligible to others
Trouble and torment you
What makes you so sensitive, lassie,
To others’ as well as your problems?
Here we see how the artist becomes a seer willfully bearing the burdens of others, and like the proverbial sacrificial lamb taking upon herself the ‘unkind actions’ and ‘rude words’ which ‘slash and prick’ her inner being, only to make her ‘to hasten / To find solace in the inner den.’ And poetry becomes both an effective emotional outlet as well as a clarion call to fellow humans to stop awhile and not just sympathize but to empathize with the lonely, the weak and the suffering. In the poems silence and pauses, vocation and contemplation intermingle not as a retreat from the world but as an intense, passionate and creative engagement with it.
The writings and paintings reveal the poet/artist to be a person who finds more fulfillment and joy in writing/painting for herself than in writing/painting for others.
We often come across the writer as a person whose poetic sensibility is traumatized by the agonizing loneliness of the suffering people around her and often undergoes a lot of vicarious suffering hoping and praying that some kind of relief and redemption be restored to these battered souls. She can’t help wondering why the innumerable adolescents who committed suicide couldn’t find some hand to support them and pull them out of the turbulent waters.
Was there no positive
Spark, a speck, a flicker,
To keep you going, my child?
The same empathy is shown towards the stray, puppies, the owl by night; the snake robbed of his fangs and teeth; and the lonely sufferer in Black Knight. Despite the agony and the pain ensconced in many of the poems, there is also a marvelous peace cascading all through the pages of the collection. The diction is an unpretentious bouquet of highly suggestive words which encourage private, intimate and secret conversation between the readers and the writer.
Where shall we go? and Shaddock are powerful requiems to the destruction of earth and its flora and fauna by uncaring and over exploititative human beings to satisfy their material instincts and longings. The poems and the other writings advocate the freedom of speech, and bring out the idea that the right to live is the birth right of every people as well as every other created being as we see in poems like To Irom Shormila and To Live Freely, The Trapped Bird, Wild Woman and many others. So we can say that freedom becomes a leitmotif in the writings of Latha Prem.
The poet is a fellow being who shares her space on earth with the flora and fauna and the marginalized people. They are all under the benevolent care of a loving God. The book unfolds an unconventional ‘love story’ pure and complicated among the writer, the rest of creation and God. It deals with private realities, through the magic of imagination, memory and the special-ness of good friendships. The verses along with the memoirs and the paintings will never cease to make us kind and happy and they fill us with delight while at the same time they provoke us to deep speculation and contemplation. They are refreshingly original, beautiful and tender.
The work bears a Keatsian sensuousness as in:
When the golden sunbeams
Snake through the morning mist,
When the tender breeze kisses the flowers,
Awakening them to bloom and dance
It is interesting to note how the various senses are at play when the reader tries to grasp the rich imagery, similes and metaphors used. Euphemistic twists to feared aspects of life make them less ostensible, and almost to the point of being favoured alternatives. The much feared’Death’ once conceived as ‘a grim relentless being’ becomes a much welcome “Black Knight” – a gallant, chivalrous, kind and merciful deliverer and hero who steers the ailing, tired and lonely soul towards eternity where freedom and comfort shall be its portion.
The poems and the reflections are seemingly simple, yet very dense and layered. Latha’s writings as do her paintings connect the reader to an immediacy in their simple elegance, richness of colour, texture and imagery. The diversity of her canvas are all reflections on life experiences and they also address ecological concerns, environmental problems, child abuse, loss of human life, loss of love between people. The small and the everyday commonplace experiences are celebrated. But the whole work bears testimony to the protective mantle of God who is the constant companion of the tired and weary souls through thick and thin. This simple belief in the benevolence of a mighty omnipresence is suggestive of the robust optimism of Browning.
The book shows how poetry becomes a process of recovery and constant realignment to the poet who looks on her writings/paintings as a continuous dialogue with her own inner self—a discovery of oneself.
The book is a good example to show how the varied vital energies get to play when the boundaries of literary and artistic genres are pushed to give birth to a wholesome, multifaceted work. It is postmodern in form but quite romantic in content and sentiment.
The book surely makes some good, wholesome, uplifting reading.
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