Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Afterwards by Dr Maria Miraglia, Author, Poet and Translator, Literary Director of P. Neruda, Member of the European Academy of Science and Arts- Salzburg
Reading this collection of poems is amazing. The author’s writing expertise fully emerges in it. Dalip Khetarpal is a poet, a man whom I had the pleasure and the fortune to meet and with whom, although from distant parts of the world, we walked in fraternal company, an essential part of our lives with mutual respect and devotion.
I know this author’s poetic production, having translated some of his works into Dante’s language and published them in Italy. This allowed me to explore some of the most hidden meanders of his soul and to appreciate the person more and more.
His new collection of poems moved me and made me jump, especially in some of its pages where the prose verse becomes lyrical, where the word no longer has only a denotative but also a connotative value. I immediately noticed some changes in the style. Still, the verses of When Love and Poetry Intertwine convinced me that the stylistic framework of the prose verse had been distorted to become lyric verse. And it is love that creates this miracle!
Yet, when love unexpectedly
strange, sweet melodies emanate strums
upon my heartstrings,
strange, sweet melodies emanate, bestowing upon me spiritual fortitude
that banishes discord,
transforming me into a poet,
words and prose fade away,
for I am now a vessel of verse-
such is the transformation power
the overwhelming essence of love!
The tangibility of this change is also revealed in Pangs and Love, where love appears narrated by a young heart that outlines all the possible emotions of this feeling, with all the light and dark tones that it can denote.
But it is in Prose to Verse that my initial intuition is confirmed:
Once mundane prose defined my voice,
poetry seemed a distant choice.
Yet love’s tender touch, a symphony,
awakened melodies within me.
Leafing through new pages of Dr Khetarpal’s anthology, I also find the author I have known for some time, who intrigues the reader by exploring thoughts that have always been at the centre of the human mind—thoughts that have been consumed in hypotheses and doubts and that have left enigmas that not even future generations will be able to reveal because the mystery will remain.
Within the labyrinth of faith’s embrace
Where doubts and wonder interlace,
the enigma of existence finds its place
from
Convolutions of God 26
A careful reading and reflection on the mentioned poem could easily take the reader back to the legend of Saint Augustine and the child on the seashore.
Dalip tells life with extreme originality. Scrolling through his verses is like retracing the sensorial experiences of moments in our lives.
His poems reveal the man of culture who directs his desire for knowledge wherever curiosity drives him, allowing him to tackle different themes but always with great competence and that sense of responsibility of someone who knows that he is about to transmit and pass on drops of beauty to entire generations of readers. There is vigour in every word that makes up his verses. There is the person who faces life with passion and the author who often divests himself of his ego. When this does not happen, the reader can always recognize himself in the subject matter, thus managing Khetarpal to make his verses universal.
In the end, what emerges is the expression of a gentle soul who has lived observing the world that he feels is small. For this reason, he pushes his gaze further and retreats into silence to listen to his soul, grasping its motions to better understand men. He identifies their limits and strong points and concludes that love can be the only glue between them. It may be what allows acceptance without any ifs or buts.
But no need to wait for any Messiah
If we only learn to live with compassion and harmony
If we only share our abundant love and peace
All Messiahs are redundant
I greatly admire this author, whom I hope to continue to offer, as he does, his excellent contribution to world culture.
Dr Maria Miraglia, Author, Poet and Translator, Literary Director of P. Neruda, Member of the European Academy of Science and Arts- Salzburg
