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In love with poetry
Is poetry quite the endangered genre of literature. And love poetry, at that? Benita Sen muses.
It wasn't Valentine's Day. Not by a long shot. Then, what was I doing, stomping along to Oxford Bookstore on an evening the rain gods threatened a deluge that just could leave the streets around the store flooded?
It was curiosity, that old vice that is said to have done in the cat with the proverbial nine lives, that drove us to the launch of a book of love poetry by Ronnie Patel.
Poetry, I have felt for years, is quite the endangered genre of literature. And love poetry, at that? The final incentive came when one learnt that the author of Lovelight has, after eventful decades as actor, company executive, film-maker and entrepreneur, declared himself a retired man and then, gone on recently to turn publisher with Bookworth & Patroy.
And of course, the curiosity to see the man who lived on a desert island for over two years while he wrote his first volume of poems, Island Poems, during the penning of which, I am sure, he indulged in one of his favourite pastimes, scuba diving.
That he turned out to be one of the gentlemen on my side of the podium on previous similar book launches, is another matter altogether. As Maina Bhagat, the events manager at Oxford had briefed one, the occasion was suitably charming since it was also the anniversary of Ronnie and his diplomat wife Ina.
A few of his verses are inspired by happy love, but more often than not, it is the pain of parting, the agony of unrequited love that pushes his pen.
Mumbaikar Ronnie Patel, influenced by vast travels through many lands, refers to himself as an "exemplary generalist" and has put together poems that link decades with the most inspiring emotion of them all, love. While the love poems span the gamut of moods of a lover from indecision to ecstasy, Patel's best, I thought, was in his philosophical poems.
And yet, it took him decades to show them to a prospective publisher, since he was a little uneasy about facing a reject slip. Once through with that, though, he decided to test the waters for himself and floated his own publishing house.
Returning to the evening, thank heavens, this wasn't one of the usual sharp, smart book launches that are eminently enjoyable in their own right. As Patel read poem after poem with the conviction of one who believes in love and in poetry, there was a perceptible letting go of amused cynicism among some of the audience. There was faith, even in the unrequited love poems that Ronnie professes are his forte, a reinforcement that age-old sentiments can never be wiped out by time and technology.
Curiosity changed, by the end of the charming evening, to wonder. And to hope. Hope for a world where, though detractors shout from the rooftops that love and romance have little place and less future, age-old sentiments shall give us hope to carry on.