Silent Voices: Poems by Rohit Shetty

Author: Rohit Shetty

Publication House: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd

Pages : 60

Price : INR 50 / $4

Poetry is a flow of emotions that otherwise remain dormant in the heart behind a veil that doesn’t let you speak. Rohit Shetty began his literary journey at the age of 12 when he wrote his first poem. He used to be an introvert, as mentioned in the Acknowledgements of this book that made it difficult for him to convey his emotions. And when he learned to write poems, he embraced this art as his closest friend to jot down the emotions he felt. His loneliness and introversion became a boon for him and his poems.

“Each poem I wrote relates to a real-life incident that had happened to me,” says Rohit.

“Silent Voices” is his first book of poems that contains a total of fifty beautiful poems. The poems talk of love, loneliness, grief, optimism and other varied emotions.

“A Caged Spirit”, his longest poem in the book, talks of a tale of a princess trapped and how a knight in shining armour comes to rescue her. For someone who wants to be rescued from their miseries of life, this poem would indeed throw some rays of hopes.

However, my personal favourites in this book are “Or is it too Late?”, “For Every First ‘Hello’, There’s a Last ‘Goodbye’”, “Tear in my Eye”, “Enigma” and “Never I Have Fallen”.

A poetry book like “Silent Voices” can indeed give you company in a lonely winter evening over a cup of warm coffee (Well, that’s how I read it, to embrace each emotion penned down).

Favourite verses:

“Wind of sorrow turbulent grips the sky tight

Poor sky is no match to the delirious might

It screams thunder and cries out rain

Then no wind or sky, only trickling tears of pain

….

I ask your identity, you say, “My name is Loneliness” : an extract from “Enigma”

“Promise me that you’ll keep our memories alive

For someone new might soon arrive” : an extract from “For Every First ‘Hello’, There’s a Last ‘Goodbye’”

“’Coz if dreams must be shattered

And my heart must be broken

Then, ‘tis all better be done

‘Ere the Morrow sees the Sun” : an extract from “Tear in my Eye”

If I have to pick one and only one poem to read again and again from this book, I’d choose “Tear in my Eye” owing to its beautifully sad ending that says :

“And if I may fail to live without you,

Then I’d be content to die,

With an image of your smiling face,

On the teardrop in my eye.”

“Enigma”, nevertheless, is, in my opinion, the best poem in this anthology.

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