A book Review

Creative Writing Critique (Satis Shroff): WINGS OF TIME
Review: Sharma, Suyog Wings of Time, Publisher Basundhara Sharma, St. Mary’s Hill (India) First Edition 2007,
56 pages, $ 10 (ISBN: None)

Wings of Time is a work of power in the sense that the young poet was aware in his musings that life had cheated on him and the tumors were growing in silence within him and there was no escape. In this critical stage of no return his musings wander to his pure love, hope, frustration, then acceptance of his fate, his love for eternity, the beauty of Nature and is the son of a Brahmin, a high-born who wears the sacred thread.

In his difficult mental state, torn between living, loving, letting-loose, resigning and being one with the cosmos, his musings wander to freedom, suffering, darkness and light.

The poems are works of originality and depict the voice of a young soul seeking the meaning of his existence in a language that is matter-of-fact.

There is no subtleness in his language. His articulation is clear and you notice at times that he is influenced by his generation's rap or twitter style, though in the preface you read ‘we have in Suyog Sharma one such genius of a poet who has left his mortal coil at the blooming age of 25 years.’ Even poet-philosophers like Wordsworth 80, P B Shelley 30, Lord Byron 36 and John Keats 26, have died. The human body may wither and die but the poetic words live on, making the poets immortal.

The work cannot be identified with a specific ethnicity or a country. It has universal appeal and is a work of individuality.

The poetry under review is neither epic nor lyrical. The parents, who are the publishers, mention that the poems were written when the poet was between 18 to 25 years old. Another stack of 10 poems haven't been published as yet. The 27 poems in this review are the musings of a young man in transition from juvenile curiosity to manhood.

The poetical devices used are non-rhyming four-line verses that range from 4 to 13 stanzas. His imagery is wonderful when he describes life and death, loneliness and love.

The central concern of the poems are his innermost feelings that have moved him, such as self-pity, nostalgia, love and the awakenings of a young man, his frustrations with a touch of romanticism. What predominates is evoked in the second poem with the title The Beginning of Cancer, and in between we have reflections on the hope of a dawn, loss of friendship, desire of a return and as the metastasis progresses, the poem ‘Dead Man Living,’ culminating in ‘Death.’
‘Death is near, standing very close
Life is a fear rolling very slow,
Welcome Mr. Death please come soon.’

It must be mentioned that towards the end he saw light, a ray of love that manifested itself in grace and divinity, for in his last poem the poet finds happiness by turning a new page called freedom, as a divine light. He also leaves behind an ancient vedantic message from the Land of the Hindus:

Life gives us death
And death gives us life.

The late Suyog Sharma visited an English school in the foothills of the Himalayas, Goethals Memorial School, where pupils are expected to speak and think in English and are introduced to English manners and etiquette and, of course, English literature. But as can be expected of a young man who’s growing, the stiff-upper lip and acquired British mores change to that of what’s ‘in’ in thLife global world, where rap, hip-hop, technomusic prevail with raves and love parades which can be watched on TV. I like the way the poet lets his sms-language and its abbreviations flow into the verses: U for you, coz for because and plz for please.

The comment by his parents in verse are touching:

‘Many a time we’ve cried in a silent tear.
Trying to find you, in things you dear.
Stumbled upon something rare,
Palms manuscript, written with care.’


Wings of time is dedicated to the Goethalites from a Goethalite

Copies of Wing of Time by Suyog Sharma can be ordered under:bhawanisharma1@yahoo.com

Satis Shroff is a batch-mate of mine form 1965.
He is a writer and poet based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He writes regularly for The American Chronicle (www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/1207), and is a contributing writer on www.blogs.boloji.com/satisshroff. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Science in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester (UK). He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize. He is a lecturer in Freiburg (Germany) and lecturer in Basle (Switzerland).