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Outpourings of an unlikely poet

She is a businesswoman and a home-maker, but chooses to introduce herself as a writer, married to a doctor, with two books of poetry behind her and a novel in the making.

“Grabbing time to read and write from an otherwise hectic day is how I create my own space of sanity and peace,” says Chandini Santosh, whose second collection of poems, ‘Voyage Series and Other Poems,’ was released at a functi on organised by the Kannur University English Department Old Students’ Association on the Thalassery campus at Palayad on Saturday.

Her first collection of poems, ‘Time Series and Other Poems,’ was launched on the campus two years ago. An old student of the department, Ms. Santosh has almost completed her maiden novel ‘Mantra of Belonging’ which she terms largely autobiographical.

Ms. Santosh began writing poems as a hobby. Evocative images drawn from things mundane and exotic, and refreshingly honest emotions are the hallmark of her poems in the first and second collections, the first presenting visions of time in its various dimensions and the second more a journey into the self.

Till recently, her literary talents were known to a close circle of friends and her former teachers at the department. Recently, one of her poems, ‘Virus,’ was short-listed by a Bangalore-based publisher in its poetry competition held in collaboration with the British Council. The poem is included in the anthology of the short-listed poems ‘The Silken Web.’

Ms. Santosh’s poems in her second collection unveil her major thematic concerns, including life, love and memories as seen from a feminine perspective. ‘Virus’ concludes with what appears to be a statement that summons up the poetic candour of Sylvia Plath and Kamala Das: ‘I have been vaccinated/Early in life/Against all manner/And genre of love.’

The book was released by short story writer M.D. Radhika. P. Sreeja, president of the Dharmadom panchayat, received the first copy of the collection.

Mohamed Nazeer

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