Gopal reviews Thoughts in Solitude, an anthology of poems, by Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar, exclusively for Different Truths.

Author- Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar

Price- Rs 295/-                    

ISBN 978-93-90155-02-6

Poetry can reach across borders, cultures, and even time itself. It is not just the language of our hearts but sometimes whispers from our souls provide succour. But it is the language, understated and inventive, that lies beneath our feelings and delivers the results. There can be no better example than Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar, the poet and his resonant works. His assurance and bearing makes him seem to stand outside time and space. The solace he offers in his latest collection of poems titled, Thoughts in Solitude, is elevating, relevant and wistful. 

There is a natural rhythm and a sense of discovery in his quest for life and beyond. He expresses so directly as one human being to another and finds his way to write sub-conscious poems so adroitly. His inventive lyricism highlights the intersectional nature of poetry with love, cadence, and footprints of life. 

Bhaskar’s early poems breathe an atmosphere of knowing reality very much of his time and strike a rich vein of form by fusing the natural and tangible realms of life. Rarely, he looks inside with archetypal flair and aptitude. Those poems only get us so far to a certain distance, before souls need to be stirred to make things better, ignite the inner voice. 

John O’Donohue once remarked “Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning.” The beginning will culminate to a more matured form in due course of time. His current works offer the cerebral musings with a gentle poeticism and his current voice is, unhurried and unstrained. With the heaviest subjects, he knows how to hold them in place.

The opening poem of Bhaskar’s sombre and calming third poetry collection sets the mood and radiates in conviction and purpose:

A life only dies in him
And he regains a newer life-
Immortalized
In the lines of what he writes,
A poet never dies
But his reader always cries. (A Poet Never Dies)

Speaking with resonance and force, the poet spreads his vision by attending to the minute details and offers new domain that goes beyond the existing one. The book is alluring to the end and an important work. For the love of poetry, the poet is speaking up of poetry which culminates in the struggle and despair and the sweat and tears that flows within.

You have a vast world-
Your real world
Inside you
Thriving everywhere
Around your living heart…(Real World)

K. Satchidnandan, the eminent poet has mentioned, “Bhaskar’s poems (as showcased in the present collection) are a beginner’s quest for the meaning of life, love and death though he never loses his concern for the social.”

‘Truth and Lies’ poem reflects the patchwork of sunlight and shade. In a collection of exceptional observations, Bhaskar misses nothing, and the lack of fuss the poem demonstrates with ease and purpose.

if spoken honestly,
the truth always creates troubles
but for the time being;
when spoken truly,
lies seem to set the things right
but for the time being. (Truth and Lies)

For all its effervescence, the poetry forms the quality of the light within which we establish our hopes and dreams toward survival and change within. In a world of chaos, these poems help us reconnect over common ground, through the shared experiences brought about in these unreal times.

Be it grief and sorrow, luxury and glamour-
All are one coloured in bliss
In the cosmic cauldron of humanity and peace. (Holi for the Marginalized)

In several poems set in an emotional whirlpool, the mood uplifts, offering a chance to bask in true happiness. And even though the last poem, a contrived rhyming portrayal of hapless humanity, it cannot extinguish a heart-warming collection.

‘Hurt heart-sky
With pleading tears
Praying for some balms
On the wounded mind
Of hapless humanity-
A growing hound
Makes me still
In the burial ground!’ (Burial Ground)

The poet has mellowed down considerably in this collection compared to his earlier one in Two Indias and Other Poems where poems are much more intense, loud, and robust.

As so often in his works, he has drawn to light in order to change the fabric of humankind’s daily life. He offers here on the other hand, a thoughtful consideration of possibilities which culminates in a pleasing metaphysical ramble through the nexus of self, emotion, memory, and experience in daily life.

In the following poem, the poet is talking about what it means for a poem to say all it needs to say on its own, verse that makes you find somewhat in yourself that might have been just out of range.

All see outward: none inward,
Mere facts float galore
As dying waves;
Only looking inward leads to Love
That leads to the reality
From the finite to infinite…(From the Finite to the Infinite)

Bhaskar has chosen a new path and what follows is unpredicted and subtle in that what promises to be nostalgic, and longing becomes instead the dizzying poetry of consciousness. His words record drifts smoothly from track to track, contemplating the quest for life and the relationships with visceral, beautiful naturalism.

To evolve from big
To bigger to match up
With ever unfolding wings
Till the Self is lost
In the infinite firmament. (Resplendent Silhouette)

He controls his urge to decipher the indecipherable yet he never stop trying to read solitude in order to find a form. He advocates, In my emptiness I am full/ Filled up with myself/But lost for eons/In a dark pit/ Of mysterious time. The poet is true to his words, not expanding his imagination to escape or to indulge in melancholy.

Body is a divine clay-
A temple of soul
Engraved as cosmic presence
Navigating through
The physical maze of life,
With a tale
Of continuity of existence (Divine Clay)

Here is a poet who nurtures a vision that’s born of, ‘introspection, self-discovery and self-realisation in the mundane events of life’ and goes on to add ‘the present book is an outcome of my spiritual thoughts and abstract reflections’.

With its smooth delicacy, the deft voice gliding through inspiring words and imagery, this is a quietly enriching and powerful book.

The cover page has a calming influence. This is the sort of book to one has to read now: A Treasure in Solitude and is a worth buy.

Photos sourced by the reviewer

Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri is an India-based bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer, and translator with 23 books published, including four jointly edited books. His poetry is also published across various anthologies as well as in eminent journals of India and abroad. He has been invited to various poetry festivals including the World Congress of Poets. He is published in 14 countries and his poems are translated into 15 languages.

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