KP Shashidharan’s poems are his only company at home. He tells Karan Bhardwaj that writing gives him a healthy break from balance sheets
Oh, are you my ValentineIJ
If not, why I hear the symphony of silence,
Orchestrating in my heart,
And playing those music strings,
In high and low pitches;
Squeaking and rumbling my emotions!
Oh, are you my ValentineIJ
If not, why do these emotions liquefy in tearsIJ
Why am I humming rhyme-less lyricsIJ
Why do I feel a vacuum in my beingIJ
Even with my iPhone5, iPad,
iPod, Facebook and Twitter…
Why am I feeling so lonelyIJ
You and I must be part of the same symphony,
And you must be truly my Valentine
The above verses narrate the feelings of a young, tech-savvy guy madly in love. But the writer of the above lines is neither young nor a lover. He is a 51-year-old senior bureaucrat, precisely the Director General with office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India. KP Shashidharan, a well-known name in prose and poetry, surprises through his creative imagination. He lives alone; his wife and son are staying abroad. “Now poems have become my partner. I sleep with them, dine with them,” Shashidharan told us after the launch ceremony of his new book Painting Symphony (Sterling Publishers). It has 54 poems, dealing with diverse issues from his personal life to social and political turbulences. Arrival of the little King of the Sweet Home talks about birth of his son and how it changed his life.
…I turned out to be ‘The Hierophant’,
Reading the inner psyche:
“I agree, we’ll call our seed of love”
ICON–An icon of attraction
Aakarsh–in Sanskrit…
Said the author, “I have dedicated this book to my son. He is an engineer abroad. My wife is also away for treatment. So, my loneliness inspires me to note down each moment. I am attracted to poems since childhood.”
The poet’s father Narayanan Nair was also a writer. He would write in native language Malyalam and recite it to young Shashidharan. “My father has been my inspiration. I also wrote extensively in my mother tongue. Though I have been writing articles and columns for leading newspapers and magazines, I wrote poems in English first three years back,” he said. His first compilation Whispering Mind sold over 5000 copies instantly in 2010. That inspired him to come up with second book. “I wanted to write something that could be read from beginning to end. My poems have interesting diversity as well as some similarities. If you are travelling, you can easily bank on this book for company. Many poets don’t think of universal themes. Very few poems can be read coherently from beginning to end, which is why I came up with this book,” he added.
“In real life I deal with dry subjects — balance sheets and accounts. Poetry de-stresses, relaxes me. It helps me to run away from stereotype bureaucratic life,” he shared.
Shashidharan is surprised that young generation is not interested in beautiful mode of expression. “Present generation is confined to social networking websites. Our generation used to read literary works. Maybe, there is a need to engage youth. Poem is necessity. Even on Facebook, I see a lot of people expressing their emotions through verses,” he commented. However, he is optimistic on future of poetry. “Poems will exist for ages. Harvard’s business review in 2012 suggests that poetry should be read by best business minds. For creative minds, it helps in getting solutions. BBC has also done a video on intersection of poetry on business title ‘Can legal and financial language ever be poeticIJ’ All these things are motivating people to get back to verses,” he concluded.