A distinct poetic sensibility and rhythm, emotion
and images all coalesce here to achieve something
quite beautiful. Life walks on the edge of a
knife, tips over into the unspeakable, rises
at sight of a flower, sinks again, rises again,
walks on. Black Wind extends the scene
a little but the world outside is not very different
from the madhouse in The Silent Scream.
These poems constitute
a direct and honest female voice speaking of
suffering, madness and pain. They deal with
broken relationships, abortions, lost chances,
city riots, love, suicidal thoughts, friends
from the film world now lost, and very occasionally,
the possibility of beauty and joy. The Silent
Scream, comprising twenty-four poems, is
the outcome of a stay as an observer in the
mental Ward of a hospital, and evokes powerfully
the dread, freedom and horror of life within.
We are made to see the life of those we call
mad, something of what drove them mad, the cruel
treatment they endure, the sense of being stifled,
the experience of gang rape, re-enactments of
lived horrors, and occasionally, a delirious
freedom from masks.
These poems together offer a sustained
view of the other side of lifes tapestry,
sound a new note in Indian English poetry, one
that startles the reader into attention.