NEW DELHI, — At an event at the Akshara Theatre in New Delhi Jan. 8, Shaleen Rakesh released the book at a quiet function with family and close friends. “Today is specially chosen as the day to release the book since it’s my father’s birthday,” said Shaleen Rakesh, the son of celebrated Hindi writer, Mohan Rakesh.
The book is a collection of gay poetry which traces the journey of the poet’s life over the last 20 years. It speaks about issues facing the Indian gay community including love, loss, desire and relationships. Rajat Vashisht of the World View Collective, which has published the book said, “Shaleen’s poetry is full of silent irony and humour, very characteristic of this genre worldwide.”
The love that illuminates Shaleen’s poetry takes different forms since he is confronted by deep homophobia as a gay man growing up, and he must find a way back to the living through language. Some of his poems are like songs of grief. Despite all odds, Shaleen finds love again and again in his life, and conveys a sense of steadiness and affirmation at the heart of the marvellous.
“For Shaleen, poetry is possibility looking for a human voice: it is a lover, a man, a lonely bird. The poet’s voice cannot be stifled for it sustains the community as well as the writer. Shaleen’s poetry is the bearer of both instinct and intelligence, fuelled by sensitivity and a need to live,” added Vashisht during the launch.
The Lion and the Antler tells us a personal story of Shaleen’s love for life and for a life graced by love, of the rebirth of love in a culture of intense and suffocating homophobia. Once Shaleen has outlined grief and solitude, he is determined to begin again with new and pure eyes, after each confrontation with the depth of the abyss.
In the end, this first collection of poems is about love, grief, hope and above all, about life, living, in the face of darkness and silence.
