‘In Memoriam’: The Poet’s Guide to Grief and a Must-Read for All Those Who’ve Loved and Lost
Krupaharini M
Loss, suffering, and death tallies entered the everyday vocabulary of COVID news and dinner table conversations. In this desensitized world, Mafazah Sharafuddin’s ‘In Memoriam’, with a poem by the same name as its headliner, comes as an enclave that wombs each of us to share the burden of these dark times. The poet is an enthusiastic final-year student of Journalism, Psychology, and English.
With a staggering span of forty poems, this anthology published by The Alcove Publishers has a genealogy that sets it apart from the plethora of books being published every minute. What makes this anthology one-of-its-kind is that Mafazah’s experimental artwork, and not just poetry, is scattered across its pages. This artwork has traveled a long way to the pages of the anthology, from the ink of her pen onto the cursor of her computer.
Candied words and ornamental language would not grasp the authenticity of emotions explored by this poet. The poetry and art in this anthology is grotesque, in-your-face, shocking, and helplessly black-and-white, just as the pandemic has been. Her works have the air of critically acclaimed composition, making ‘In Memoriam’ an archive of groundbreaking originality.
This visual entry into her world-building is a sought-after experience after the success of her first anthology, ‘Labyrinth of Emotions’, which she got published at the age of sixteen.
The poet shed any illusions of normalcy at the threshold to compile this book. To explore the erratic waves of emotions and paper cuts of the pandemic, the poet and artiste embrace the abnormal and break patterns of language and art. After all, would rule-obeying, syntactical art or poetry do justice to the perils of the pandemic generation? So, as the poet eloquently puts it, “The world falls apart, and all I can do is tell its story”. This anthology, then, is as much our stories, as it is hers.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
