Sakshi Nanda is an exceptional writer and a fellow Indiblogger. Bookmark her blog ‘Between Write and Wrong’ if you are fond of honest, balanced, eloquent writing.
I felt honored when she agreed to review my début book of poetry. She is a brilliant reviewer and every time I read her post it makes me fall in love with my own book. In fact I read it again to feel what she felt, to see it from her perspective. Each meticulously done critical review is a step in the direction of learning and improvement and if the book is received well it fills you with a tremendous sense of achievement.
The Adventures of the travelling book
The book had an interesting adventure before finally reaching its destination. 😀 The travelling book’s journey began from my home and then during its one month adventure it ‘went places’, stayed inside my animator son’s bag (a test of endurance) as he had promised to hand deliver it. For days/ weeks the book watched the game development in his animation studio, came back to me looking rather ‘stoned‘ ( its breath smelling of .. ahem..various things ). It certainly did not look happy to sit on my book shelf again and needed another adventure so when Kid 2 offered to take it, the book happily took off with him to his home where it stayed in a sort of déjà vu ( scars of certain memories began to throb inside it). Finally one day after almost a month of chaos I got a message from Sakshi, ” And the book is finally with me. This will be read and reviewed before any other now. So happy!!“
Much to my relief and pleasure it finally found home with her rightful owner and thus ended the adventures of the travelling book.:D

Photo credit Sakshi.
Here are some excerpts from the book review :
“What are the poems about? About the dark underbelly of city life and the dreariness of the country’s. Poem after poem, Tikuli explores bitter truths of social existence. She shuttles between controlled rage and uncontrollable empathy to draw vivid but disturbing pictures of conflict and chaos – both within beings and around them too. The poetry is not pleasant, and neither is it kind. It was not born to delight but to shock you out of your comfort zone. Her recurrent imagery is of black crows, crushed flowers, shadows, solitude and silence. Tikuli writes about refugees and loneliness, martyrdom, mad women, farmer suicides and honour killing. She removes the veil off wifedom and even shows us the mind behind prostitution. There are labourer women and those being abused in plush settings. Old age and widowhood. Emotional infidelity, divorce and even rape. Yes, like I said, these poems are not kind. They are too real to care to be polite. Much like some of Jayanta Mahapatra’s poetry. Like his ‘Hunger’, for instance, which I read so many years back but which refuses to leave me for the stark reality it threw at me, and which this poetry reminded me of.”
“The poetry in ‘Collection of Chaos’ must be read. For those who enjoy structural unconventionality in poetry coupled with bold issues usually made invisible, this book offers a most mature poetry. For those who like it lyrical and light, the verses on nature will leave a permanent impression on your minds. And for some others who like to take it slow, to read a poem a day, know that each poem of this book is like a world in itself – offering you thoughts to think and maybe ideas to pen even. I got mine! “
(excerpts shared with permission of the author)
To read the full review please visit –
Book Review – Collection Of Chaos By Tikuli
Thank you Sakshi for reading, understanding and bringing it out for others to take notice. It is a gift of joy for me.
Readers can buy my book from all online booksellers including:
Flipkart
Amazon
Book Depository
You can rate / post your reviews on your blogs , on the above mentioned sites or Goodreads.
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