A book of memorable poems about rain-in image, metaphor, symbols-that speak
truths about the natural world, and the world of the human heart and mind. Exquisite
poems, brilliantly translated into English from the original Odiya.
'Bishnu Mohapatra, in these viscerally beautiful poems, unearths the spiritual
in us that rain will nourish and destroy. Socrates and Ambedkar, anarchy and
accident, silence and mystery, love and safety, nothingness and infinity, fever
and death, all are made to fall within the metaphorical power of rain. Only
a poet can take an idea to these places and these depths.'-Akeel Bilgrami,
Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA
'No Indian poet can afford to ignore the many shapes that rain takes, its
many messages and its irresistible metaphoric potential. Bishnu Mohapatra
encounters rain in different locations and captures its elemental force in its
diverse costumes and incarnations: as singer, dancer, mendicant, the inviting
woman, the common man....At times rain takes on even political hues. Each
piece in the book is a rediscovery....The poem here is a happening, like the
rain itself, unpredictable, polyphonic, and polysemic.'-K. Satchidanandan,
poet, critic and president of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi
