Basu Maan was born in 1973 in Guwahati. He was forcefully schooled, without his liking for any such restrictions. He went on to have a two year stint for higher secondary education and then graduated with honours in Chemistry. He continued to study in his native place and did masters in Chemistry. Then he joined a College in Assam itself as a lecturer in Chemistry. A son as well as a grandson of teachers ultimately became a teacher himself.
In his childhood years, he had to stay home all by himself as both his parents were in government service. In those long hours, he used to initially gaze at the spines of the books stacked in the shelves and alcoves around the living room. Then he started to play with the books of his parents – dad’s Mathematics and mom’s English books. Though naturally he could not make much sense out of those thick books for many years but he ingrained a liking for Mathematics and English both. His parents wanted him to be a doctor and for that he had to trade-off Mathematics and trade-in Biology. Though he didn’t end up studying medicine yet his father’s subject was left far behind.
Since school days, he has been writing poems in English which gradually turned into his passion. He gradually became the favourite poet of many of his friends, more so because of his impeccable capacity to write poems instantly on demand. Many experiences and influences came into his life and went away, all these years, but not before leaving him a richer and better poet, each time.
His poems have always been symbolic and thoughtful in nature, and are regularly published in college and university magazines and the Assam Tribune, the most read daily in north-east India. This book of poems has seen light after a continuous struggle to improve as a poet since the late 80’s.
Excerpt:
Born in seventy three – last century,
in Guwahati, in a low middle class family.
Cradle to tricycle to bicycle to scooter,
grew this poet, now eager for a car.
Studied Chemical science, proved worth;
already passion for writing took its birth.
Though managed a job of teaching Chemistry
yet fire is blazing – of love for artistry.
The play of mixing words – blending feelings
made home within, far from worldly dealings.
It was a dreaming mother who initially inspired–
all the childhood and boyhood that, upon me, occurred.
Habitually, used to follow the whims of pen
while lying forlorn in the abandoned den,
but never could muster the gut that exposes
these unwittingly created cacti and roses.
Till one fine day, surprisingly, was praised,
unknowingly, by an ‘English raised’.
Realized only then, can manage to write,
out of this gloom in life, something bright.
Then in came a person of immense respect;
left in this life a perpetual impact.
Sweet flowery fragrance is all that’s residual;
the rose, now an ‘origami’. Isn’t life too cruel?
Experiences and influences in this journey
have made this blocked pen float free,
on sea of paper, like a sailing boat,
having a long, long way to go, afloat!
More information here.
