MUSINGS
Authored by Nivedita Mallick
Published by Virgin Leaf Books
No. of Pages: 44
Price: Rs. 95

Reviewed By Priscilla Waters

‘MUSINGS' - the perfect word to describe the book written by upcoming author Nivedita Mallick, wife of Addl Commissioner, Neerav Mallick. Contrary to the eye-soothing cover, the book weaves through the emotional phases a woman goes through in her life. Often lost and unasked for, the author has brought to pen and paper, those emotions that a woman hides in her bosom unknown to the world. Every poem composed touches the heart with a sense of being through the exact same emotions at some point in life that makes us contemplate on how life keeps moving and we leave a part of us behind to grasp and adapt to new situations.

In true essence the author has creatively given formation to the callings of her soul. The poems do not dwell on the outer appearance of the world and the colours that supposedly make life beautiful. The poems bring us to face the fears that we have often buried within and the grey hues that we often avoid to acknowledge and immerse ourselves into a world where we struggle to find our real selves.

The poems that speak of desire, expectations, love and loneliness from childhood until death will strike the heart of every woman who reads the book, as a story of their own. Be it the loneliness of a single working woman struggling to find time for herself expressed in I WORK, the coldness of urban life and the struggle to live penned in THE OUTSIDE, the grief of losing one's mother expressed in MOTHER, desiring a man who can never be yours in DESIRE, the unending wait of a mother for her son to call her at the old age home where he abandoned her in SON or the struggle of a woman against age in PANIC the book expresses discontent and distress that surrounds life.

In a nutshell the book will be like your secrets revealed by someone else's pen or your agony aunt who will soothe you and acknowledge your fears and pain.