About the book
The Vast Empty by Turiya is not just a collection of poems but life in concise. The Vast Empty much like, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, highlights a different perspective about life.
In the first poem Obsession: the last verse reads as “You and I we travel deep in my dreams into a life we could have had with each other. But when I woke up, I wonder, would you still fill my mind the same way if you were by my side?”
This verse is so relatable. We all have lost out on a love and have gone through a heartbreak and there have been numerous times when we have wondered if life could have been something else had things not turned out the way they did. One may even wonder that in a parallel universe someone else is living all their ifs and maybes.
A verse in the poem Words reads “words launched themselves as lyrical poetry and flew into a waiting heart. That heart, was it yours?”
This verse makes one believe that words expressed or unexpressed somehow reach the person they are meant for. Whether or not you post a letter you have written, or not send an mail and let it remain in the drafts, the content would somehow always make way to the one it is meant for.\
The poem Wanderer has a verse “you were forever free and on your own, yet you are running always without getting to any place…” which makes one introspect if they chasing after something that lies right within us. We wander only to find what we were looking for was with us.
The poem The Place, though says that the mind is the place where you are free, you can be what you want but it also makes you wonder isn’t the mind something that absorbs all that is said around, for example if someone tells you ‘you are ugly or you are stupid’ your mind will begin to believe that and so will you.
The poem Jigsaw reflects upon the fact that can someone be destined to live a life with an important piece of the puzzle missing yet make it beautiful. It manifests broken is beautiful.
The poem I am here makes one believe that some people continue to live within us or through us even if we have parted ways with them a long time ago. They continue to live through our smile, the twinkle in our eyes or just our gaze; the way we look at things.
The poem This Moment reinforces one’s faith in the phrase “Carpe Diem” meaning seize the day. It emphasizes on the fact that one must live in the moment. Enjoy being in the present without being upset about the past or worried for the future.
The poem Thoughts reminds us that we may be caged but our thoughts are free to roam around, they neither need any permissions nor a visa. In your thoughts you are free to wander.
The poem Saudade perfectly describes what longing for love feels like. A melancholic feeling of longing for a lost love, in an obsessive embrace, the urge to reach out and grasp a silhouette, the pain of knowing that you can’t go on with a partner who is physically missing.
The Vast Empty is just not a book but life, its not just a collection of poems but poems within the poems. Its much beyond the 100 poems.
About the author
Mamta Chander, writing under the pen name Turiya, is a Gurugram-based senior management professional and a passionate author. She attributes the name Turiya to the state of enlightenment and is deeply influenced by philosophy and mysticism reflecting on her work.
Read by Monica Mujumdar Dixit
Monica Majumdar Dixit is a lawyer by profession and an author by profession. She is an avid reader and also blogs book reviews. Her book review blog is named Chrysanthemums, Lilies and Cacti, for she believes that just like these flowers each book is beautiful in its own way and has a different fragrance
