The teenage years are probably the most beautiful years of one’s life. One is getting wiser by the day, yet that child-like imagination hasn’t got lost. Fired by that imagination and youthful energy, creative juices flow unfettered, finding utterance in music, sport, embroidery, in prose…and poetry.
Labyrinth is the perfect example of such teenage creativity, by middle-school student, Dania Khan. Ruskin Bond writes in the foreword to the book, “Such is the young poetess’s construct of words that it leaves you both chained and liberated, all at once.” And one couldn’t agree more.
Sample this: ‘Her hands covered her brown eyes,
Hiding the tint of disappointment in them’.
And at another place, Khan writes, ‘The blanket lay unfolded,
Disclosing its tears, hidden in its folds’.
These 48 creations – some just a paragraph big – help the reader get a glimpse into the workings of a young creative mind caught in the despondency of lockdown induced by a pandemic. And yet, there is hope, always lurking round the corner, ready to jump on you and clap its hands in glee – just like a child.
In the introduction to the collection, Khan gives a glimpse into her being, saying, “I want to be this being who can captivate, string people into my red string of fate, destiny and words. I want to become a person who can make people fall in love with the character even if they know it doesn’t exist…I want to be an author who writes so much that generations to come read my books.”
{{/usCountry}}In the introduction to the collection, Khan gives a glimpse into her being, saying, “I want to be this being who can captivate, string people into my red string of fate, destiny and words. I want to become a person who can make people fall in love with the character even if they know it doesn’t exist…I want to be an author who writes so much that generations to come read my books.”
{{/usCountry}}And if you think this middle-school child is too mature for her age, she contradicts you in the acknowledgement of the book, saying, “I hope that you find a bit of yourself in these poems and take a bit of me along with you.”
One hopes that young Dania Khan journeys through life, moving from one book to another, keeping her fantasies of space and the facts of astrophysics meeting happily in the minds of her growing tribe of readers.
The book also available as an e-book.
Title: Labyrinth
Author: Dania Khan
Publisher: Rupa
Pages: 94
Price: ₹295