Sometimes, I don’t want a calm and composed heart For that is too predictable. Sometimes, All I want is turbulence.
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A book is (3.5 ★’s)
Sometimes, I don’t want a calm and composed heart For that is too predictable. Sometimes, All I want is turbulence.
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A book is much akin to an author’s child—their heart and soul and very essence poured into a blank page, taking months to grow from a dot to stand on its own two feet. So I imagine putting a book out into the world is a terrifying process; letting it go to face critics and adorers alike, considerate people and inconsiderate ones, those who would treat it with care and those who would discard it without a second thought.
That is why, each time an author (specially an emerging one) approaches me with an offer to read and review their book, I am filled with awe at their bravery. Having read Asmita Rajiv’s debut of poetry, prose, and short essays born as a memoir of her unsaid thoughts, having witnessed her open mind, perceptive gaze, and courageous heart, I can say that the aforementioned awe was, indeed, well deserved.
To pull up my worth, even more higher I have to be taller, than the tallest tree And so I hunt for a vine to latch on Or a ladder of souls, a little greyer than me
I know now my need for the crowd Some for reassuring, I am okay in this birth Others I need for my ego to build upon Oh, all this drama, just for claiming my worth.
Asmita is an Indian international award-winning artist and poet (and her art is breathtaking, just look at that cover) with degrees in Physics and MBA—I know your eyebrows are rising and yes, it’s not every day you meet someone who quit their corporate career for the unknown adventures, and also yes, that passionate dreamer soul shines through every line of Unsaid, every quietly loud thought she has caught and woven, and every exceptional piece of art adorning these pages.
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Truth be told—as a Persian girl raised with works of Rumi, Sepehri, Hafez, Yooshij, and Moshiri—I’m not a fan of modern poetry because it’s too simple. But Unsaid surprised me with the honest rawness and observant wisdom of its words, standing apart from what I call “Tumblr cheaps.” So if you are a seeker of inspirational writing and memorable modern poetry and prose on a vast range of topics that urges you to think and question and, by all means, disagree with it, instead treating it as a spark for many ponderations, then pick this up and support a new POC author at the same time!
It requires a consistent and deliberate effort to open up our mental palette and dilute the blacks and stain the whites. It requires patience and courage to look at life in its myriad other hues. In that sense, we all need to be artists.
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What Does Unsaid Have to Say?
My thoughts were so loud that I was afraid everyone could hear them. So I told them to whisper. But now, even I can’t hear them.
In this rushing life filled with noise, drowning individuals, drowning out thoughts, in this judgemental world where opinions are attacked and their owners terrorised, it gets harder and harder to just pause for one moment, to think, and to speak, and easier to just sweep all the questions and emotions under the metaphorical rug of our inner selves. But then there are those who do the hard thing—who pause, who think, and proceed to speak up, because they realise that ignored thoughts gain power over you in their desperation, while acknowledged ones add to your comprehension of yourself, of people, of life.
Unsaid is Asmita’s recollection of how she paused, what she thought, and her moment to speak.
Feminism is to go after our truly cherished dreams without falling prey to any ideologies of feminism, sexism, racism, classism, or any other -isms. It is standing up for oneself against the bullies of society, be it a man or another woman.
Reading this book is opening an aged trunk in a forgotten corner of a lost attic, picking up pieces of anything and everything. Unsaid speaks of a wide range of topics, from social conundrums to self discovery to love.
Of self conceived truths, comforting interpretation, and forgotten reality. Of considerate honesty with yourself and those around you. Of abandoning the practice of how, “to escape rejection, pain, and shame, we begin to dress ourselves in the gown of our dreams. We keep embellishing our garment by stitching satins of myths, sewing sequins of lies, and embroidering silks of pretence.” Of embracing our past and our errors, our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses, and yet not basing our identities on those shaky roots and instead on our strengths. Unsaid says of self worth and how, by learning self reliance, one builds themselves to withstand hardships when all one can do is look within. And it says of longing and bonds, broken or steady.
Love can never be a game of ownership.
The most precious part of this collection, however, and the part I needed more of, was Asmita’s reflection on growing up as something, someone, stereotyped and other, and accepting and protecting that difference. But in the end, I loved these beautifully written thoughts that encourage you to want and want more, and perhaps think of your definition of happiness and whether it needs redefining.
And then it dawns upon us, with clarity That there’s no evil outside, with wings It is just us, the human puppets We are the ones, pulling each other’s strings.
You see, I am a strictly head over heart kind of person; my head is my logic, my logic is my control, my control is what keeps me sane—in the literal sense of the word. Whereas Unsaid is all about heart over head. Naturally, we should be at odds, and we are, yet Asmita Rajiv phrases her points, the value of desires in her eyes, the importance of dreams dismissed as baseless fantasies, in a way that I found myself in agreement with her much of the time—yes I, who spends every moment over thinking all and nothing and has an opinion on everything.
Why is that? Because you can follow your dreams with your head just as you can do so with your heart—being a realist does not mean one is hopeless. So while I say Love Is Blind, I do not deny that this book’s take is also true, and while I have knowingly chosen to have a Safe Exit always, Asmita describes that choice and opposes it perfectly. I relished reading of how Contentment and Striving For Excellence are not, in fact, mutually exclusive, or how we should be our own One and Only, and witness someone else sharing my unspoken thoughts. The Safety Net’s take on faith, Diving Deep, Steps in the Journey, and Web of Our Beliefs were all pieces I will hold close to both head and heart.
We need to feel complete just on our own, just by ourselves, to offer companionship to others. Else, we will end up being a needy soul clinging onto others, expecting them to complete us. And that is a fantasy doomed to shatter, for how can one empty soul complete another.
But I will have to voice one thing I strongly disagree with: We did not come into this world complete. As someone struggling with multiple mental health issues and whose closest friends all have experienced life’s unfairness, I know first hand that much of who you are and the life you will live is decided before you take your first breath. I am not saying that I or anyone with a genetic illness is incomplete, I am opposing the notion that all the holes carved in us are ones we can close and change by choice—because we can’t. Life just deals you a cruel hand, and who you are is not the choices you make to shape your life but how you react to the choices made for you. And those holes, those scars, are what make you unique and beautiful and you do not need to close them, erase them; because sometimes you can’t.
So dream, yes, and follow those dreams however much they resemble the wild fantasies invading a soul’s restless nights. Follow them with an open mind and an aware heart and not a restricted mind and a blind heart. Follow them and know that life will, inevitably, knock you down; but that does not mean you have to stay down. If the world is strong, so are you. And as the stars align and the cosmos schemes to push you back, do not let it drown you in defeat and push back—because to live is to fight, everyday, against the fault in our stars.
Let’s snowball our efforts and create an avalanche. But before we begin, we must first decide what we want to ride on top of the avalanche and what are we prepared to bury underneath it. Because there will be casualties. Everything comes at a price.
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How Could Unsaid Have Said It Better?
Getting lost in the world of words I let my heart to freely roam Often then, through a different path In so losing, I find my home.
Praise and discussion aside, no book is without its faults. And as Unsaid’s structureless design has its benefits (you can read any part of it at any time) and brilliance (thoughts do rather fly in odd patterns) it makes for disjointed read, incapable of building momentum. Whereas, when you look back on your thoughts through the years, you do see them developing and building momentum, following a path of gained insight and found peace. If that sense of gradual journey had been captured in the book, this collection could have been elevated to a higher level of poetry.
Alas, it is what is, and what it is was lovely and thought-provoking and absolutely worth it.