Shantiniketan and Other Poems

Places, relationships, nature, domestic experiences : these are the main sources of Manorama Biswal Mohapatra's poems. The print plight of Shanti Niketan Tagore's Dream-University saddens and infuriates the poet who admires its founding genious. Its dance has been stilled; devils and dragous have turned that sweet dream into a fierce nightmare. Its cry makes her listless, nostalgic about its glorious past that had initiated her into the art of poetry and music. This unrest soon grows into self-pity, she feels she is a woman in exile trying to climb up a broken ladder. The poet pays rich tribute to her mother who had first planted dreams in her : she never capsizes, never ceases to burn. There is a goddess in every mother, she says. Her decrepit village pains her as much as her house whose love and faith have given way to sadness and gloom. The poems, mostly, have an elegiac tone: yet there are moments too of hope and assurance of survival.Prof. K. SatchidanandanEminent Poet & Professor of Malayalam LanguageEx-Secretary Central Sahitya Academy