Book Review
Silent Conversations

A Cocktail of Maturity and Naivety

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‘A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness’, so said Robert Frost. That seems an apt description for ‘Silent Conversations’, a collection of verse by journalist-poet Jupinderjit Singh. From an investigative journalist on the crime beat and the author of books like ‘Justice for Jassi’ and ‘Discovery of Bhagat Singh’s Pistol and his Ahimsa’ one would expect hard hitting verse about the underbelly of society. But the sensitivity and high emotional quotient of the collection comes as a pleasant surprise. The poet regales the reader with poetry of romantic love, of adoration and passion, of unrequited love, of moon shine, of dewdrops and rose blooms.  In fact, there is only one poem in this collection of 40 poems that scratches the underbelly of crime, albeit gently. ‘I Bleed’ makes a delicate reference to Nirbhaya’s brutal rape and Jassi’s honour killing but this tragedy is dressed up in literary similes and metaphors that makes the verse touching and yet offers a cathartic exit to the reader. 

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Then, an ugly hand hovered over

plucked me apart with one stroke

I could not even cry or mourn

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Talking about his collection, Singh says, “My poems are romantic poems but not limited to the expression of love or rejection and heartbreak. It's about the tension between the sexes, the expectations, the conversations, the tempest, the volcanoes within us before and after meeting our lover. Not just the eternal kiss but the oceans of feelings leading to that....and of course, the post consummation mood.” The articulation of the raw passion and melodrama of a lovelorn protagonist may not be everybody’s cup of tea but there is no gainsaying the fact that the poetry is certainly a ‘spontaneous overflow of emotions.’

There are other deeper truths the poet touches upon gently in his poetry. The ephemeral nature of life and the inevitability of death in the ‘Bleeding climbers’ makes one introspect and muse.

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Cruel hands pulled away from the pot

Tendrils bled

And the shrub was lost

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Despite the pain and yearning of unrequited love, the pervasive theme of the collection, there is a quality of positive hope that raises its slightly battered head from time to time. In his poem ‘Caged’ the poet says:

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Unaware that

one has to break free

to live.

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Purists may have a quarrel with the simple almost conversational tone of the language, but we do not. The simplicity of structure and content is what may appeal to the uninitiated reader. In the Prelude to the collection, Dr Navdeep Sharma describes the poetry as a ‘mix of maturity, naivety, and childlike precocious innocence.’ A good read for those who have a palate for a heady cocktail of maturity and naivety.