The first thing that strikes you after reading Iadalang Pyngrope's collection of poems “Mosaic” is that beneath the surface simplicity there are stories to narrate. This impulse gets stronger as the poems move on alternating between a prosody and a poetry marked sometimes with ordinary words, but there always seems an urge to reconcile opposites. That the first section is titled “ Now” and the second “Then” is not merely a dialectic between past and present. It is not also only a nostalgic upsurge, that emotion is powerfully present in both the sections. So, what is the rationale one may ask, for such a dichotomy? Both the sections grapple with metaphors, Biblical truths, mundane happenings of life, a visit to Thomas Jones' grave in Calcutta etc.
What is more important is that there is a circuitous narrative in built in all the poems, which relate life to thought emotion and feeling. Some of these could be mundane things, but they go to constitute the trivia that is life. In one of her poems she speaks about her routine life as a housewife, but it is tinged with pathos.
“I write a requiem in my head” she exclaims in “My City” That kind of internalization marks her poems with a surprise. But there is no tendency to shock. In “Ode To Malala” she says:
“Malala, they called you the bravest girl in the world
Who could have imagined
That a ride on a school bus on Swat
Could take you to Birmingham
Leaving you to count your blessings
In a strange country, far away from home.”
There is no sensational recapitulation here as one might expect for the bravado of this little Pakistani girl, but the poet simply muses, and if one may say so reminisces. In the same tone the poems pick up from where they leave- those little shreds of life- work, home, a visit, Biblical anecdotes, the humdrum of day to day living, experiences with her children etc. There is also a poem on Shillong - past and present. The latter part of the book is entitled songs. This is interesting since the affinity between song, music and poetry is certainly a critique we could look at contemplatively.
Summing up, her poems evince a deeply felt mosaic of life in its experiential totality.
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Title : Mosaic
Author: Iadalang Pynrope
Publishers: Partridge
Pages : 102
Price : Not mentioned
