High on haiku

Like seasoned author, journalist, screenplay writer — and a self-confessed Japanophile — Dinesh Raheja points out, the beauty of haiku lies in the fact that it’s minimalistic, yet, mystical. Even though a debutant in the poetry format, the writer displays the adroitness of a master in his maiden published collection, 101 Haiku. “Poetry is silence,” says lyricist Varun Grover (Moh Moh Ke Dhaage) in his afterword; right enough, Dinesh’s haiku are subdued and deep, yet humourous and floaty when they want to be.     

The collection is not one you can forget in a hurry. There’s romance of the blushing red sun’s rendezvous with the moon as witnessed by the stars, melancholy of the short-lived promise as the lonely island waits for the rushing waves’ embrace, existentialism, ego, hope, nostalgia, contentment (aah, no pot of gold... at the end of the rainbow... I have the rainbow), and so on all mellifluously flowing on the pages. It’s also the modern haiku — goldfish opens a Facebook account because it loves the spotlight — that are striking. You cannot not miss the irreverent pun in the leopard retiring to the same tree every night; it cannot change its ‘spots’, after all! However, the following is the most outstanding one: my life hangs from a slender thread... the spider feels silent empathy

Publisher: Om Books International
Price: Rs150