I have been rather neglectful of my blog (which is unforgivable) for the last couple of months. However, as they say it is never too late to start again. 🙂 I apologize profusely to my readers and fellow bloggers for being extremely tardy in my dedication towards this blog and assure them that henceforth such misdemeanors shall not be repeated. I also need to catch up on my reading of other fellow bloggers who are much more regular and dedicated to their craft than I am such as Dale Tucker, Travellin’ Bob, and last but not the least, Evanescent Revelations.
This time I make a mid-year resolution of writing at least once a week and keeping both my mind and my craft alive through this blog 🙂
I sincerely implore Vivaldi to do something about spam. It is becoming quite beastly with each passing day. Nowadays I dread visiting the dashboard of my blog due to this feeling of an impending doom of being terrorized by yet another avalanche of spam comments. During the initial days of this blog, the comments used to be small and easy to mark in a bulk. However, nowadays they tend to run throughout the entire length of my browser making it extremely tedious to mark them in bulk and block them indefinitely.
Kindly do something about this and save us hapless bloggers from the scourge of the never ending spam.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
I have been rather irregular online primarily due to tremendous work pressure, a heat wave that swept across the plains of India and deadlines to meet. I apologize profusely to my readers for playing such truancy with my blog and writing. Hereafter I wish to rectify the same by being extremely regular with my daily scribbles and odd ruminations.
I was meaning to write about Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë for a very long time. However, work and other unnecessary and inconsequential matters tended to overshadow my earnest wish to do so. Although I have already read novels written by her more well known sisters such as Emily and Charlotte, Anne Brontë stands apart from the rest due to the simplicity of her emotions. Agnes Grey is filled with the importance of being good and the need for living a life more earthly and fulfilling than getting entrapped by the outwardly gaudy life of contemporary Victorian England. Agnes Grey, the protagonist is more happy within the secluded surroundings of the simple pastoral life that her family tends to celebrate than within the four walls of the Victorian bourgeois life where she has to earn her living as a governess. Indeed her adventures or misadventures (in most cases) during her tenure with two different families as a governess is what the main plot of the novel is about.
Having said that, the reader simply cannot ignore Edward Weston the hero of the novel whom the novelist presents in more a cordial light than Heathcliffe of “Wuthering Heights” or Mr. Rochester of “Jane Eyre”. Weston is the solid clergyman who happens to be around Agnes whenever she needs him and provides her with his shoulder whenever she encounters some misfortune. Edward Weston is in fact one of the most reliable male characters ever created in fiction. The only other person who may rival him in matters of reliance is Sydney Carton from “A Tale of Two Cities”.
The beauty of the novel however lies in its language and the values of simplicity and homeliness that the authoress wishes to make her readers acquainted with. Pastoral and church life is elevated as being far above the ostentation of modern city life. Further, the novelist also articulates elaborately upon the dark underbelly of Victorian alliances comprised through marriages based on money and wealth. In comparison to the marriage alliances forged by her wards, Agnes succeeds in the end in marrying the man she loves simply for domestic harmony and nothing else to overshadow the union.
I would recommend Agnes Grey to all primarily for its immaculate language, old world emotions and a general feeling of peace that the novel tends to shower upon its readers. The novel is short and succinct, and yet it carries within its folds a wonderful feeling of tranquility and bonhomie that one can associate with a world long gone and long obliterated from the present world known to the modern man or reader. A world unknown and lost within the sands of time. A world that had existed long before old pastoral England became industrialized. A world of simple village folks untouched by the complexities of modernism.
Decided to finally step into Mastodin or Fediverse as it is commonly called. I wonder if it will be of any help in connecting with fellow writers and poets. However, having said that, my website/blog will always be the primary mode of communication.
I have often encountered “abandoned” blogs on the internet, which have often haunted my thoughts. Blogs which had been quite active once upon a time, but were abandoned by their writer/writers either due to waning interest, or for want of a better blog/website, or due to the novelty offered by the social media and their ever growing audience, or perhaps something more dark and dreary that I choose no to mention over here. Like blogs, abandoned homes, toys, books, articles of personal use, all these seem to rouse my curiosity. More than modern homes, I tend to stare at abandoned dilapidated houses or factories that are quite common in my hometown. This has been a childhood fascination that I could never relinquish once I reached adulthood. There is definitely something about the broken and derelict houses with their black howling windows that makes me ponder for a moment upon their once cheerful histories.
The same goes with the blogs too. What happened to the writer? Why didn’t he/she continue? Did the advent of the social media lure him/her away from writing or was it something else? Did a personal tragedy completely cut off the flow of words? The last one is something I can identify with on a personal level. After my Father passed away it took me years to start writing again. I am not yet completely healed, but I try to plod on as it had been his last wish to see me established as a writer of some repute. Thus, whenever I see abandoned pieces of literature the thought generally occupies my mind with regard to their writer and his/her fate.
Just like the houses, the words tend to howl back at me from within their hollow dark forms. Perhaps they wish for completion. Perhaps they do not. Perhaps being abandoned is what they have accepted as their ultimate destiny. Perhaps it is all my mind playing tricks upon me. Perhaps everything is but an illusion. Perhaps I am an illusion too. Who knows !
This is to inform my gentle readers that both my books are now available worldwide across multiple sites. The following is a brief description of my books :
Megh Mallhar: The Song of the Rains(Publisher: Serene Woods, New Delhi, India, 2010)
Category: Poetry
Drops of luminous rain, slivers of vivacious emotions, dreams quivering through skies festooned with memories, warm earth pulsating with the sound of divine anklets, and the wistful notes of a flute wafting through unknown forests dark with blue shadows…Megh Mallhar is about these disjointed visions. Megh Mallhar is the amalgamation of intimate experiences. It is the first song of the youthful rains, and the final aubade of a monsoon departing with silent footsteps. Megh Mallhar is a voyage through the myriad straits of solitude, loneliness, betrayal and silence, finally culminating into a quest for a love that demolishes the notions of time and space.
Megh Mallhar: The Song of the Rains is now available on multiple sites such as Apple Books, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, Baker&Taylor, SCRIBD, Angus & Robertson, Rakuten Kobo, Gardners etc. Kindly click on the universal link given below in order to buy a copy:
Meghashyam: An Anthology of Poems (Publisher: Serene Woods, New Delhi, India, 2011)
Category: Poetry
Dreams, seen over the years, through the diaphanous veils of nebulous nights. Dreams, nurtured and cherished with unbridled affection, enmeshed within visions of tender innocence. The forest, the river, the gazebo, the palace and the temple speak in hushed tones of a love that is beyond temporal denominations. A love that straddles the ephemeral epithets of time and space, and conquers a lone wandering minstrel entrapped within its silken folds.
Meghashyam is the dark prince of luminous smiles, molten eyes, tranquil peacock feathers and enigmatic flute notes. Meghashyam is a forgotten ballad of untrammelled passion excavated from within the innermost recesses of eras smothered in infidelity. Meghashyam is one woman’s quest for a love that is the flickering flame of eternity in a mortal world enrobed in the darkness of impermanence.
Meghashyam: An Anthology of Poems is now available on multiple sites such as Apple Books, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords, Baker&Taylor, SCRIBD, Angus & Robertson, Rakuten Kobo, Gardners etc. Kindly click on the universal link given below in order to buy a copy:
The Complete Collected Poems by Lopamudra Bandyopadhyay
This edition comprises of both her earlier volumes on poetry, Meghmallhar and Meghashyam. This collection was published in the year 2023 for all lovers of poetry and the finer things of life.
In order to buy a copy click on the link given below:
