Dr. P.K.Padhy's Songs of Love is a beautiful collection of love poems dealing with different aspects of human love, intense romance and profound philosophy of life. Awarded by international bodies such as Poet bay (USA) and the Writers Guild of India,Pravat Kumar Padhy, professionally a Petroleum Geologist, is a significant poetic signature with his presence in the contemporary scene of haiku writings. As a poet he is highly published both nationally and internationally. Thanks to the style of his writings, he has been accorded international recognition. All the poems contained in this book are emotionally engaging, fascinating and exhilarating and they brilliantly capture human emotions in all its shades.

Beatrice van de Vis, Editor, The Four Seasons of the Haiku, from UK has rightly commented- “P K Padhy’s Songs of Love is an epic celebration of love and life, leading the reader on a lyrical and memorable journey through the cycles of life.” Dr Padhy himself reveals-

We walk down
The garden of life
Reminiscing
The poetic sublime.
Wind whispers
All the songs
Of our poetic flight.
Our journey
Is an extension
Of the boundless voyage.

However, in the present anthology he appeases our heart, touches the emotional strings that make a melody of romance and songs of tender love filling life with joy and happiness. Simplicity of expression and its presentation is another feather added to it. The poet derives pleasure in the celebration of life, even though faced with myriads of challenges. In the very first poem 'Songs of Love- A Celebration", he himself introduces it

Wings of aspiration
Muse the music of shyness
Collecting vibrations of
Meandering rhymes.
Our amazed maiden meet
Manuscripts sonnets of
Different verse
Back in our mind.

The poet is emotionally so matured, romantically pure and metaphysically insightful that he paints love with rainbow of his feelings ennobled by trajectory of experiences and truthful realization He describes love in newer light and drapes his thoughts of love with the emotional refinement. The melodious rhythm of life lies in fantastic flow of love-

Our love is a ceaseless
Melodious celebration,
Our love is the lamp
And we are its brightness,
Our love is a song
And we are its rhythm.

Sensuousness is an important aspect of Padhy's poetry. Exploration of sensuous realm of life through the purgatory process of love or love making is quite palpable in his poems of love. He lets us peep into the secret chamber where love culminates into an inexplicable unification of soul on the ecstatic bed of life. He reveals-

I sink myself
Below your neckline
And inner self silently.
You surrender
At sea-bed near the shore
Under the roaring tides.
Passionately we search
Each other closing our eyes.

Intensity of passion along the journey of love is very important to carry on a romantic life. The poet takes great care to intensify the feelings of heart to such extent that bodies entwined lose their sense of physical existence and souls locked inside witness the vast ocean of pleasure and floods of lights of eternity. In consummation of love, he recovers himself by realizing the sacred purpose of the creation, and for that matter procreation-

In your cosmic love
I search the
Cause of the creation
And wish
I could discover
Adam and Eve.

Romantic imagination is yet another characteristics of Padhy's poetry. Like Romantics, he takes flight into the vast realm of fancy and fantasies and captures the experience of soaring aloft with his beloved. In this journey, he befriends clouds, hill tops , birds etc.

I take you
To different peaks,
Like birds
You wish to fly
Over the hills
And beyond
The bounds of the sky.
We sketch differently
To measure the love
And it is still deep enough
When you glance
From the top.

His thoughts on love, romance, longing and yearning shift from physical plains to metaphysical zenith. 'I' and 'you' become ' We' through the sincere journey. The gradual evolution of self and soul provides a spiritual and metaphysical dimension to his poetry. Inner progression transgresses the materialistic aspect of passion and herein lies the universal appeal of his poems. Let us see here –

The warmth rejoice
Of the sacred celebration
Carries
The nostalgic memories
And reaches out to the sun
Of a new bright light.
In the open
Ecstasy quaintness sky,
On the cosmic path,
We continue to walk
With the evolutionary smile.

Realizing the perennial significance of love and melody in life the poet croons out melody of soul in the valley of life. All those in love, in the loving embrace of lovers get a beautiful feel of it as their life is filled with joy and pleasure, soothing comforts and peace. The poet romantically captures those moments as sweet memories and also get us feel and realize the unflinching power and healing impact of love-

Memories are preserved
In the tiny pebbles
Of the meandering flows.
Songs of love scintillate
On the colourful edge
Of the living span.
The caring warmth
Of our creation
Nurture us to rest
In the evening hours.

Togetherness in life, facilitated by love helps the people to tide over all the troubles of life. Love sprouts hope and with this weapon they succeed in beautifying their life. That’s why the poet himself reveals-

Life is a wave
Of joy and sorrow.
Harmonically it swings
In the high and low.
I collect the grains of hope
By the side
Of the completeness
And wish
The waves of our creation
Would breathe the zest of life
For the longest time.

Love is eternal and beyond the clutch of Time. Despite passing ages, the feeling of love is always there and this is what finds an apparent treatment in the following lines impregnated with metaphoric excellence and the poetic skills.

Time transgresses
Over wealthy age.
Lamp of love
Still continues to burn
Behind the eagerness
Of perennial urge.

In a nutshell, Dr. P.K.Padhy's Songs of Love sprinkles some spontaneous, sensuous, sonorous and sweet showers of love and romance on the loving and affable readers of love poetry. The poet has taken special care to portray Love in its varied hues, with acme of intensity and passion, with rainbow of feelings and emotions, in view of its perennial significance in life. The language and diction is quite remarkable for its simplicity and clarity of expression. Apt usage of metaphors and other poetic devices lends extra beauty to this extra-ordinary, lyrical and wonderful casket of love poems.

Happy reading!

Writers Workshop, Calcutta 2012
Poet- P. K. Padhy
ISBN 978-93-5045-029-1

(An abridged version of this review was published in Asian Signature, Third Volume, 2016)