A Treasure of Poems

I remember whenever I read Mary Oliver’s poems, I felt this poet herself is the icon of nature, who used to observe, to walk, to converse with the greens, who felt happy with them, who felt sad for their loss. In one of her poems, she literally personified a giant banyan Tree when she writes:

‘ It was the hundred- legged
tree, walking again.

The cattle egret
moved out into the sunlight,
like so many pieces of white ribbon.
The watersnakes slipped down the
banks
like green hooks and floated away.

Banyan groaned.
A knee down in the east corner buckled,
a gray shin rose and the root,
wet and hairy,
sank back in, little closer’

While reading Satbir Chadha’s latest collection of poems, ” I Want to Go to Haldwani and Other Poems”, published by Delhi-based poet- friendly Publishing House, Authorspress, I was literally thinking whose poems I was reading.

Unexpectedly, both the poet’s love, empathy and connection with Nature, which is another form of Woman, bound to think about their profound connection which they poured out in the form of poems.

It’s not that I’m  reading her poems for the first time, but this collection drew me to read one after another poem which again showcases her agony, empathy and philosophical entity when her longing for her pristine, calm and green hilly town Haldwani which turned into a hustle bustle location.

The cracks and potholes of the roads, the high skyscrapers, the absence of greens and today’s  barren Haldwani pierced her to pour out her agony and emotion for the sleepy ,green landscape.

Here’s some lines I couldn’t stop sharing:

‘ It’s sad the hills weep every year
Pools of tears and blood
These stalwarts of millennia
Have been pricked and axed
Torn and bled
Short and burn
And now they can’t hold up any more
Their skin peels and trickles
Then falls off in a lash
A Splash
Destruction
Follows
I weep for my dear hills
I want to go to Haldwani ‘

Now, in these lines, one may easily connect how her heart bleeds for her hometown, pristine Haldwani which was once a green valley, now turned a horrible urban frame and lost its beauty.
In another poem, the poet’s firm yet thought-provoking mind in defiance of social maligns dragged the readers when she writes:

‘ There is more power in love,  in kindness and humility
Than the arms of mighty warriors and kings’

Again, she is inflexible to put the eternal truth when she writes:

‘ The patriarchy of centuries, small minds of men, their obsessions ambitions their history of oppression
That’ll be their own sorry cage,   they’ll be trapped in the cliché
While women will forward rage

Hope is the woman
Only woman is hope’

I’m so sorry for those men who still are in their cages and in this scrupulous ongoing situation in Bengal, I Salute this world-acclaimed Poet from Delhi who didn’t spare those men who hold ‘ small minds’ of ‘ the patriarchy of centuries’ while took women as ‘ taken for granted ‘ without even having any true concept of women power.

  I’ve read the same grievance and rage against this foul patriarchal mind in Margaret Atwood’s poem where she dared to write:

” 9 pm

The bonnets come to stare
the dark skirts too,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they’re lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes and nostrils .I can see their fear. You were my friend, you too.
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non.wife, to save your life.
Help me down? You don’t dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds of a feather
burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.’

Here lies both the poet’s common features that they didn’t leave to spare ‘Patriarchy/Some Men’ who still believe they can anyway cause pain to women, physically or psychologically.
They both write in such a simple way that they are comfortably read by the readers.

In a SEDOKA, the Poet writes:

‘Did you say farewell
Fare well you too you my lover
Find a better Love’

How much confirmed and confident she is that She knows well let the Man find better Love which he can’t. Here lies the poet’s amazing power and experience about life and society which she earned through years of her wisdom.

One will miss to read an eye-opening book if s/he misses to read ‘ I Want to Go Haldwani and Other Poems ‘ by Satbir Chadha. Again, when she writes I Want to Go to Haldwani Version-2 ‘, I fell for this poet’s true love and nostalgic emotions for Haldwani, where her childhood memories still fly in the winds of the hills.

When she writes:

‘Beside the road ran a rainwater canal
that brought down the overflow
Of rivulets and streams and springs
in the hills
It naturally obeyed its boundaries,
never has it crossed them I know
A gurgling chirpy happy water canal
called the ‘ nahar’
Such peace and cool it spreads that
one spends hours in its company. ”

Reading these lines, a reader easily can connect with the poet’s longing and love for her beloved hill town, Haldwani, amid where she used to spend her childhood days; it’s nonetheless to mention that the poet wants back her old  Haldwani which is turned into a congested city.

This collection is not a kind of simple poems, rather a treasure where Satbir Chadha’s excellence in Sedoka, Trilogy, Mirrorku, Haiku and more unveiled. To be honest, she is one masterclass Poet, Novelist whose sphere of poetic ecstasy spread almost different countries and beyond and within.

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