Saaz Aggarwal on "Moving On"

By and large, Facebook has been pretty good to me and I
have met some really amazing people on this social networking
site. One of them has been the amazingly versatile, highly
prolific (she's a writer, editor and poet too) refreshingly
witty Saaz Aggarwal.

Our interactions were about this and that (and of course Hyderabadi
Biryani) and when Saaz came to know that I have a book of poems
out, she went ahead and bought it, (from Evening Hour) promised
to read it and even said she may review it for her blog.

That verdict is out and available in full
here.

I am like, YAY and Wooooo Hoooo Hoooo to see that she says...

"Anand’s poems made me smile – some for their wit, some for their
depth. The themes were mostly elemental and filled with
passion … the monsoons … rivers, lakes, hills, trees and
cloudbursts the poet had allowed to enter his consciousness and
emerge, transformed, as evocative words on paper … a word sketch
of a day-wage labourer … the knowledge that one would have to learn
history from a book rather than from a grandmother who had lived
it … and many that dealt with a broken heart."

Thank you Saaz Ji. Thank you!

Priti Aisola on "Moving On"

A child-like wonder at, and gratitude for, the little beauties of nature is very evident in Anand’s poems. In his poems there is deep concern for the physical environment – how its landscapes are being transformed and water bodies are being devoured to make place for concrete structures and tarred roads. For example, the poem “Vizag’s Hills” describes how hills once teeming with life have been deforested and cut into, to provide ‘dead wood’ and ‘dead stone’ for houses. Similarly, in the poem "Banyan Square" he speaks of the ‘massive’ Banyan tree, whose world has been uprooted to make place for progress’ concrete structures and pukka shops. True the Banyan survives in memory ‘for the square’s known after it still.’ This memory will have to suffice.

What comes through acutely is a strong awareness of a past that cannot be reclaimed. It could be communal or personal past, or it may refer to the natural environment that has seen some dramatic changes. In "Three Soap Trees", he quietly mourns the fact that no ‘epitaphs’ are written on the death of trees, fields, open spaces, on the disappearance of childhood’s and youth’s familiar spaces.

Anand’s poetry is replete with images to do with journeys, water and fire. There is plenty of colour – black and white and deep and bright colours and pastels. And each is rich with multi-layered meanings. So many of his reflections, his lyric poetic moments, his philosophic musings center around water in its different forms – puddles, ponds, pools, streams, lakes, rivulet, rivers, rainfall, the monsoon…. In "Monsoons, 2004", he chronicles heartbreak against the backdrop of the monsoon and explores its changed meaning in his life.

Each image that he evokes has the authenticity of experience and the lucidity of something seen by the inner eye.

His passion for cycling and motorcycling comes through in his poems. Cycling becomes a metaphor for negotiating ‘the traffic of his (my) thoughts’, for escaping sleepless thoughts, for calming a certain restiveness that moves ‘from unslept night to sleepless day’. There is pain as on ‘reality’s’ road ‘dreams die (dying) in sight of open eyes’, and there is the courage to go on in spite of that.

A delving into the process of writing, into the well-springs of creativity, and anguish over ‘insipid writing’ also finds a significant place in his work. Silence has a disquieting connotation in his work.

Underlying his poetry is ‘the enigmatic search’ for some elusive resting-place as he journeys through different spaces – those within the self and those without. Spaces in ruins and spaces that have been swallowed by the irreversible march of urbanization preoccupy him.

-- Priti Aisola, author of See Paris for Me

Thanks a lot for your very detailed and sensitive notes, Priti, it's been an immense privilege to know and interact with you!

Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty on "Moving On"

"Anand Vishwanadha’s poems speak to us in many voices.Words and expressions come cascading in startling sequences leading to dramatic endings.The poems ‘Vizag’s Hills’ and ‘Media-shy’ are good examples: picture perfect cameos that haunt our memory.

Landscapes and lakes are often rendered animate and come alive as intimate associates.The poem ‘Maa Chilka’,for instance,reveals the intimate bond between man and Nature in filial terms.

Anand’s poems are distinguished by a set of vivid images that create a mood forever lasting. Rhythm and substance get inextricably fused evoking meanings considered long lost."

Dr Sachidananda Mohanty
Professor & Head
Department of English
University of Hyderabad

Many,many thanks Sachi Bhai.

Ambika Ananth on "Moving On"

"The intensity, force, depth and lucidity of Anand Vishwanadha's poems defy the fact that "Moving On" is a debut collection. His poetry shows a contemporary sophistication in expression and imagery (truly characteristic of his poetic sensibility), yet sometimes symbolizes frailty , vulnerability and uncertainty – the absolute human side.

Adopting the techniques of allusiveness and multi-layered irony, he chronicles the the poignancy of love and mundane twists and turns of life, to convey his pertinent questions on and about life.

His poems -

convey empirical truths in words of elemental simplicity,

have philosophical mysteries ventilated from within,

are compellingly different, refusing to get tied down by conformist principles.

Some poems have a sense of movement , yet with a sort of rootedness and depth of thought – they justify the title – Moving On."

- Ambika Ananth, Chief Editor, Muse India

Thanks Ambika Ji!