Gossips of our Surrogate Story: A Review of Rajorshi Patranabis’s Poetry
In this review by Sutanuka Ghosh Roy, Gossips of our Surrogate Story is celebrated as a profound collection of prose poems exploring themes of love, spirituality, and mythology.
Rajorshi Patranabis dons many hats, a food technologist by profession; he is a poet, translator, and editor based in Kolkata. Gossips of our Surrogate Story are his latest collection of prose poems where the poet endeavours to be with Goddess Isis “as her lover, muse and Osiris”. In ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the god of the underworld, death, resurrection, and the recurrent nature of the Nile floods, whereas Isis, his wife, is a Goddess of magic, motherhood, and healing. In Egyptian belief, their relationship, about love, betrayal, death, and resurrection, forms a foundational myth. In Gossips of our Surrogate Story, the poet embraces the philosophy of Wica and reconnoitres the themes of nature and the cyclical seasons. The central theme of Gossips of our Surrogate Story is the elevation of Osiris/ aka the poet’s love to a sacred, almost saintly status. The collection explores the idea that the passionate, all-consuming love between the poet and his beloved Isis is so profound and powerful that it warrants a kind of religious reverence even after their death. Patranabis uses religious language and imagery to defend and celebrate this love, signifying it is a unique and powerful force that transcends ordinary human experience.
The title Gossips of our Surrogate Story is interesting and intriguing. “Rajorshi voices the consuming passion of Osiris for Isis, and the sky gossips about their romance”, endorses Mani Rao in the blurb of the book. Gossips of our Surrogate Story is a story within a story. In the preface, the poet introduces us to Wiccan philosophy, Osiris and Isis and “then, there is a long story about how, when Nut and Set killed Osisris, Goddess Isis resurrected him with the blessings of Ra, the sun God, on the condition that he would rule the dark world”. Patranabis fuses ‘the flavours of a wizard’s pains and a Wiccan’s pathos’. He invokes his muse and makes a fervent appeal: “The Goddess needs to smile too, to exude strength, to fall in love, to remember Osiris” (10). The poet reminds his readers that Behula is not his Isis. This use of intertextuality adds a unique perspective. Behula and Lakhindar are characters in Manasamangal Kavya, a genre of Bengali narrative poetry that centres on the snake goddess Manasa.
In The Canonization, Donne begins his defence with the words “For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love.” The poet then proceeds to substantiate the piety of his love affair, concluding with the hope that his devout relationship will become exemplary for others. The contemporary poet Patronabis writes, “Light years of time had failed to define—love”. “Her crescent eyes defy her real self. She is still the claustrophobic abbreviation of my enhanced resurrection. She stays with me and I stay with her” (15). This shows his contemporaneity. These poems are fine examples of love poems, which can be read as a continuous narrative of Osiris’ deathless, lone love for his absent beloved Isis; at the same time, these poems can be read as individual short poems. The arrangement of the poems, which follows a particular order, carries a charming sense of surrealism with passion interspersed with powerful language.
In the collection, Patranabis uses colours as powerful tools to create vivid imagery, evoke emotions, and convey deeper meanings. Further, he uses colours to represent Oisis and Isis, sets the mood, and symbolizes abstract concepts, adding layers of complexity and richness to his work. “As the evening sky dwindles to a morose transition, I scoop the colours of your defeated flavours, one by one, bruising my fingers in yellow, red, orange and blue”(16). The poet creates a riot of colours which wraps the readers and affects their feelings and thoughts more than they think. The use of colour in these prose poems touches different emotions and evokes them. The colours the poet uses directly influence the readers’ reaction to the immediate environment. “She bleeds secretly. With every brush of green, her bruises show up. Her blood is white, frothy and cold” (21). “My love is a rainbow, painted in translucence” (93). How does one explain this conjunction? The technique and use of colours as a tool highlight the artistry and craftsmanship of the poet. The colours put the readers in touch with themselves.
A prolific poet, Patranabis juxtaposes the most unlikely things, creating bizarre effects—“My last breath promises never to die, as my fateful exuberance rains, drenching your solemn silence. January walks aimlessly. Fading strains await another birth” (80). His imagination soared way above documentation. The seasons knead into one another, the colours fuse into rainbow dreams for Isis lips mumbling a prayer: Tua Anset—You’re the Isis I know. The readers weave stories in their minds. Gossips of our Surrogate Story is a collector’s item.
Book Details:
- Title: Gossips of Our Surrogate Story
- Author: Rajorshi Patranabis
- Publisher: Hawakal Publishers
- Release Date: 2 January 2025
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 140 pages
- ISBN: 978-81-19858-80-4 (HB) & 978-81-19858-85-9 (PB)
- Price: Rs 500
- Where to buy: www.amazon.in/Gossips-Our-Surrogate-Story-Prose
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