Au Revoir: 50 Shades of Love
and Tears by Apurba Bhuyan
Reviewed by
Dr. Sapna Dogra
Assistant Professor
Department of
English
Atal Bihari
Vajpayee Government Degree College Sunni
Shimla, Himachal
Pradesh University
Himachal
Pradesh, India
Au Revoir: 50 Shades of Love and Tears|
Poetry | Apurba Bhuyan |
Nexus Stories Publication, 2023, pp. 55, INR 150
ISBN 978-81-19-17811-7
Apurba Bhuyan’s Au Revoir: 50
Shades of Love and Tears is a thrumming and evocative poetry collection
about loss and despair.It is a collection of 50 elegies depicting various
shades of grief and sorrow. The book’s emphasis is startlingly inward in many
ways, outlining channels and illuminating previously obscured areas while
demonstrating how grief manifests mentally. Read together, Bhuyan’s verses have
a shattering heart-breaking quality.
The book is dedicated to the author’s ‘loving son’ who ‘left suddenly
and untimely’.How does one process grief and the irrevocable loss of a child?
The poems in the collection are a veiled attempt at answering such a profound
question. The blurb informs the readers:
Au Revoir - A collection of
elegies in the form of free verse, ode, couplet, quatrain, and epigram composed
by the promising poet and writer Apurba Bhuyan with profound grief, fond
remembrance, sense of acceptance and liberation of pain on the backdrop of
premature demise of his son during the time of Covid-19 pandemic in April,
2021. An energetic guy, a nature lover and promising shuttler with elegant
skill in drawing and painting was rendering his service of front warrior as an
intern doctor during Covid-19 pandemic, left for heavenly abode in a tragic
accident. No lamentation can fill the void, but the expressions are unique and
indeed stimulus to the readers.
The news of the death of the poet’s child came like a “sea wave” (5)
splashing at the shore and changing the contours of his life. Even nature seems
to join him in his mourning:
It is
raining incessantly all the night
gusts of
cool winds are entering
flapping
the casements
the wind
chimes are spreading sad melody
you are
not here
in this
night of rain and thunder
you are
not here (6)
With endless grief in “long frosty night” (7),the poet feels the
numbness of being left alone. It seems that a part of his self was burnt to
ashes:
I could
not see you in the burning pyre
as the
fire broke out in my heart
in the
dazed moon under the faded sun (8)
He questions: why the haste to leave the world so soon? The poet’s sunny
life was suddenly left dark as the sun of their life sets forever with no hope
of dawn.
What was
the aspiration of the soul
what to
accomplish so hastily
making
the sunny sky instantly gloomy (15)
The deceased left “without an adieu” (17) and the father can only hope
to meet him in the various aspects of nature. He feels his presence in the
“lost dreams” (19) of
“gust of
wind in the moonlight” (19)
“numbed
nights” (19)
The poet refers to humans as guests in this word. Life is but a short
stay.
Before
leaving this inn
what
have you offered (23)
Time spent with the lost child was spring, short-lived, leaving parents
in a “prolonged winter tide” (25),
At the
end of monsoon, you came
left
during the blossoming Spring
abandoning
a prolonged winter tide (25)
Finally, there’s a sense of acceptance of the “divine wish” (30) that is
final and acceptance of the consequent human frailty to comprehend the divine
will,
Everyone
must proceed
Through
the tunnel of life and death with no edge
What we
see or judge is erroneous (31)
The poet often broods over the void and the emptiness left that can
never be filled again.
Your
bed, reading space
and the
room is lying vacant
a dream
is hanging on the half-drawn canvas
scratching
the emptiness (41)
The collection becomes a poetic journey of a
father’s love for his son and the consequent grief that he had to endure due to
his son’s untimely death. While he grieves for his death, he also reminiscences
his bond with God and his faith in divine will. The idea of mortality recurs
frequently. The book tackles several issues, including the inevitability of
death, attendant grief, and the passing of time. How does one cope with the
death of a near and dear one? By having faith in the supreme power, the book
seems to answer. With death comes burdensome grief. But he doesn’t wallow in
grief instead he meditates on temporality. It’s an arresting effort to make
sense of life and death.