Reviewing Latha Prem Sakhya’s ‘Memory Rain’ by Dr.Mary Annie A.V

Memory Rain
Latha Prem Sakhya
Calicut: Monsoon Editions,2008
Pp  79  Rs.150/

Latha Prem Sakhya was born in 1959 in Kanyakumari District , Tamil Nadu and began writing rather late . Her debut collection, ”Memory Rain” comprising of  64 poems written mainly in free verse,  was , as she puts it ‘penned for my personal delight and has captured some of the treasured moments of evanescent life’. The poems are all blanketed within a plethora of memories. As the poet journeys down memory lanes , the reader is forced to accompany her. She has succeeded in holding the readers attention throughout as she reminisces. Life, love, desire, womanhood, nature are all dealt with from various angles. The end result is worth looking into.

A deep sense of nostalgia pervades her poems right from the first one ‘Down  Memory Lane’ where she gives us an insight into

The old rambling house, with its spacious rooms;

The sweeping land; the gigantic tamarind trees-

Four great pillars-sentries like

Guarding terrain.

It was here she was nurtured for seventeen summers.

In ‘Paattie’ she nostalgically remembers her grand mother.

But children were your weakness-

I found solace in your company-

You listened to my childish woes

And filled me with confidence,

I thrived on your infinite fund of stories-

And rode on fancies’ wings.

Although Paattie has been reduced to a human vegetable,

Memories of those days –

Serve as an oasis for a tired mind

To roost, and to be rejuvenated.

Her sensitivity to human relationships is revealed in a lot of poems. One can

relate to all her views with perfect ease.

She deals with Mother and child in ‘Tiny World’, “My Child’, ‘Corina’ and ‘Dreamchild’. There is a sense of love and loss in these poems.  In the latter poems death  separate mother and child,  in ‘Tiny world’ the child grows up .

As you stand on your feet

Asserting your tiny world of independence.

In ‘Cameraderie’ the little exchanges between her daughter and her husband is watched by her wistfully.

I – a silent spectator

Enjoyed the comeraderie

Between father and daughter

Denied to me as a child.

Friendships are dealt with in ‘Prop’ ‘Shards’ and ‘Patching up’. Each poem brings out a different aspect of friendship.

Friendship, a prop of life

Who can live without it?                            (Prop)

Leaves behind a fragmented self.

….

The wounded self  rises

From the ashes of burnt friendship.     (Shards)

In ‘Patching up’ friendship  inflicts   ‘scars too thick to hide’,

A constant reminder of the bitter agony

I suffered in the name of friendship.

Grandchild- grand mother relationship is portrayed in ‘Paattie’.

Dark poems are abundant and tend to be repetitive. But lessons are learnt and she has overcome by sheer self will. ‘ Lamp’ ‘Uninvited Thought’ ‘Thoughts’  ‘Hurt’  ‘The Uncanny Singer’ “Dreams’ ‘Zombie’ ‘Temptations’ all capture her immense struggle not to exist, ‘longing to fly away’,

The thirst to drink,

From the sweet cup of oblivion –

was very tempting. (Temptation)

Growing up has taught her a lesson or two. Here also, her dumped memories (the darker ones)

Crawl one by one-

To stone my spirit –

With taunts and fears infinite

I had tried desperately to forget.

‘Floatsam’ is short and depressive.

But all is not dark for Latha. She spins words to cheer the reader with poems like ‘Reminiscence’ and ‘Hope’

So goes the bubble of hope,

Sustaining the game of life

Till, the last round is played.(Hope)

Reminiscence is slightly wistful, the images in this poem are   sharp and changing, from girlhood to adolescence and finally to the ‘autumn of life’ , but it is these

Wistful images, overpower me,

Revitalizing me, with fresh energy

To carry on, with the same girlish zest

Each new day gifted to me.

Faith in God and God’s infinite love for man are delicately portrayed in ‘Light’ and‘Infinite Love’.

A straw I caught ,

That gently wafted me.,

To belief and safety.

‘Wailing Banshee’ a joy to read, speaks of   Divine Love.

Love was Christ the Lamb

Sacrificed that the world may engender

Infinite red roses in all their glory ,

To fill the world with love.

Latha Prem is a poet of Nature.  Through an array of poems  beginning with ‘Evening Sky’ ‘Notes of Joy’  ‘Minnows’ ‘The Crown of Creation’ ‘Magic Spell’  ‘The Rill’ ‘Magic in the Air’ she   not only   sketches nature  and its creations but also philosophies:

Unlike man –worrying and fretting (Minnows)

And again

I looked at the Crown of creations

They alone appeared flurried and harried

By desires infinite (The Crown of Creation)

She sees the tree as :

A prototype of universal love and brotherhood-

a paradigm for warring humanity (Tree)

She mourns the ‘callousness of the humans’  in poems like ‘Anguish’ ‘Earth Mother’  and one is forced to wonder whether   ‘Wild Furies’   is indeed a death -dance,

To warn the insensitive mankind. (Earth Mother)

Aspects of a woman’s life form the key note of many poems. In a ‘Wild Terrain’ she calls a woman ‘A world unto herself- a wild terrain, unpredictable,a mystery ,unraveled by none- yet tantalizing to men.

’She questions herself in poems like ‘Eve’,   lays herself bare in the shortest poem of the collection ‘Woman’s Love’,

‘Loving,sharing,giving

Selflessly to all she loves.

brings out the drudgery of life in ‘A Mothers Day’ which is like all other days …

The day dawns with a long list-

….. and ends with

Finally the much awaited private minutes ( I would replace this with moments)

Beside the loved one ,sharing problems  and jokes.

But these too are marred by flaring disagreements,

Quickly smothered by fatigue and sleep-a blessing.

and in   ‘Drying Spring’

The instinctive womanish nature for survival.

‘You and I’ is sensitive and disturbing.

Nuances of love  are reflected in  poems  like Airy dreams  where true love unlike lust makes the  sweet heart  bloom like a flower, waltz like a flower  like  ‘Love or fantasy?’ where she is

confused …

What shall I name you?

An innate  fear of  being ‘shattered’  , building defensive fortresses as denial even as yet one loves, (Fortress),   or after being hurt

And secretes detachment- armour to protect

From the random arrows flung

On  the  battle ground of survival.(Hurt) ,

Loving foolishly enough to loose oneself as in ‘Lamp’ ,sketching the event as

Another unfortunate echo

‘In where is the  Gentle shower of love ?,’ her

parched psyche thirsts  for love

Of youthful love : of eternal spring;

When everything was cause for spontaneous joy.

But now life yawns like a chasm.

And leaves her with

Desire to regain the bliss of love.

‘Stolen pleasures’  and “Evanescent Passion’ ‘A winged being’ all revolve round the heart with its complex, uncontrollable passions that lead to pain sorrow and unhappiness, yet never tiring.

Latha’s poems are short for the greater part of the book. However that does not mean   that she finds herself unable to pen longer ones as the last poems ‘Reminiscence’ ‘Magic in the Air’  ‘Wild Furies’ And ‘Aria’   indicate.

‘Aria’ is well written and moving. Like a song waiting to be sung, a tale being told all over again. The images of friendship,

Our friendship transcended the earthly barriers,

As if we had been friends for eons.

the intervention of fate,

When the relentless Reaper brought to naught –

Your hard won spiritual and earthly honours,

Destroying forever your intense desire to live.

the reconciliation to the reality of the loss,  scores of memories   and finally the hope of meeting in eternity

All these images instill in me a fond hope-

The hope of meeting you soon- as though

I need only to put aside my daiky chores

And make a surprise as in yester years.

have been well   portrayed  to  leave a deep imprint on one’s mind.

Memory Rain has been aptly titled. The cover design is a collage by Latha who is also an artist in her own right. The slim volume begins with a drizzle of memories and ends in a downpour.  The poems have freshness about it that make one just step out into the rain of memories and get drenched in its downpour.