Book Review # 160 Etchings Of The First Quarter of 2020: Sabarna Roy

 Blurb:

To readers of Sabarna Roy’s Random Subterranean Mosiac: 2012 – 2018, his latest slim and elegant volume titled Etchings of the First Quarter of 2020: Letters, Ideas, Conversations and Poems comes as another delightful read. In this two-part volume, packaged with a selection of his poems, Roy explores the concepts of duality and constancy in discussions with his daughter. Presented as conversations over coffee and desserts, the talks extend to diverse topics with Lolita at one end and marine conservation at the other. In his poems, Roy and his alter-ego, Sandy, soothe and shock you in turns until you burst out of the last page, breathless and asking for more.

Sabarna Roy’s characters are all around us. He has dabbled in poetry, prose, plays and non-fiction with equal elan and delved into the emptiness and futility of life reminding us of the masters in the trade.
Two quotations from Sabarna Roy’s works will prove the above stated point:
“A question leapt into his mind: Is it possible to achieve true happiness by living a solitary life or is it important to lead a community life where one instinctively believes that one’s own desires are insignificant compared to the desires of others and one works towards fulfillment of their desires as if they are one’s own?

My Take:

The book starts with a neatly crafted letter from a step father to his step daughter discussing his work and making plans to meet at a coffee shop. Another is a letter discussing the seminar he attended where they spoke about Lolitha  and what is his take away and views on the same. The third one is more of his views on random topics like Anna Kaernina, economic views , Schizophrenia, Karl Marx contribution to the political economy ,and marine conversations .

The next set is of poems he has written under the Winter Poems 2020 where he has written a poem a day on random topics like winters of 2020, ashes, scent of the city,stars planets galaxy,Jallianwala Bagh to name a few.Its more like poetry in prose.

The selection of topics here are random which takes time to grow. The language is simple. 

I would rate this 4/5 .