How a poet is described through seven colours of a rainbow!
Rupa Chakravarti is a celebrated educator, singer, poet and international traveler
A monsoon evening, a light breeze, mild drizzle and some random pondering, that is how the poetic evening unfurled at the Z’s Preccint, a century-old South Kolkata building, turned into an art gallery and curio shop. Poet Ipsita Ganguli’s book Of Love, Longing and Random Pondering, was the centre of attraction and so was the personality of the poet, who describes herself as a student of life. Rupa Chakravarti dissects the colours of a rainbow and merges it with Ipsita’s poetic brilliance.
“Violet is the colour of royalty. Lineage is but happenstance, a genetic default. Upon that I shall not dwell as that is common knowledge. What I choose to focus on is lpsita's ability to walk with the mortals and never lose the common touch. Her ability to acquire, nurture and cherish connections from all walks of life is reflected in the varied range of her poetry. She addresses‘Poetry with the Universal Query’ ---Poetry, can we go to a quiet corner, please... I am getting tired of the clutter in our lives.The ability to eliminate a noble past and seek solace in solitude is the first query I leave you to ponder over.
Indigo is factual, stark, one dimensional, a colour forever cast on stone. Facts that cannot be changed, Iikeher resume. Graduating with Political Science and then doing a Masters in International Relations, lpsita worked in a corporate environment until she rose to be Director, Sales & Marketing of JW Marriott, Kolkata. Despite swirling in a world of the glitterati and paparazzi, lpsita declaims, “l write because I must.” The statement is reminiscent of the famous statement of Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” ls a poet so by birth or is a poet the culmination of his or her academic or professional background?
Blue is the colour of the intellect. Here the query itself is self-explanatory-to seek, to search, to find, a journey of destination unknown. The quintessential query-being: ‘Do we seek divinity in the Divine or do we find divinity within one another?
Green comes up as a colour in her poem, ‘The Dance of Shiva,’ culminating in a reverberating crescendo through Shiva’s eternal Tandava, finding resonance both in the microcosm and the macrocosm. Do we search too hard, like the Black Girl in Search of God, to connect with the celestial or does divine intervention allow us to be a part of the celestial just by being, a part and parcel of our lives like seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness.
The rainbow has yellow, orange and red too. The colours of flames, the artist's delight. The flint lights, blue in sparks, igniting into yellow and orange flames… And yet within this very creation lies its destruction, into embers glowing red fading into shades of grey, charcoal and black.
Finally, putting all conflict to rest, I make a personal response. The poetess represents, to me, the colour Black, the colour that absorbs all colours. The multi-faceted factors of her love, longing and random pondering while addressing all colours of the rainbow, culminates in a soothing synthesis of sensitive responses and deep understanding that man is a ‘many-splendoured thing.’
