POETIC FAIRY ANANYA CHATTERJEE : A COMPUTER WIZ WOMAN AND AN ANGEL OF WORDS

(Meet the Oracle professional who writes bilingual poems to keep herself sane in an otherwise insane world)

Well, I met this ever smiling, somewhat eccentric Ananya at a poetic meet and instantly could see a part of myself in her eyes, in her enthusiasm and her smile. What I later realised is she dons many a crown, juggling between kids, a high profile IT job and of course her poems that flow mellifluously off and on in both Bengali and English. I wait for them to pop up on that Facebook screen every night. She also happens to be an active member of Poetry Paradigm, the group of elitist poets who made poetry popular in Kolkata.

Being a working mother myself, I was pretty surprised as to how she manages all. Well, it was because poetry comes to her naturally. Writing is a sort of release for her.
She has been working as a software professional for the past 12 years at Oracle India Pvt Ltd. She had to start off remote working after her son was born. Luckily, her company gave her an option of working from home. But that too wasn’t easy. “I admit I have had my crazy moments when I wanted to shut out the entire world, tear my hair apart and just disappear.”
 Ananya remembers when her son was a few months old, he would wake up in the afternoons, howling to his heart's content while she had a deadline to complete and the code just would not compile. She would take him on her lap and work. But her son, and later her daughter, gradually got used to their mommy working in her small corner and let her do so. And with an amazing husband, who is a wonderful hands on father, when he is around, thankfully Ananya never had to worry about anything in the house.
After marriage and child birth Ananya had briefly stopped writing. But somewhere inside, there was this gnawing sense of incompleteness that would not let her rest. One night, her mother asked her why she did not write anymore. She said, “Your creativity is the only thing that will stay, it is the only part of you that is yours in the truest sense of the world.” And Ananya opened her heart and soul, till the burst of emotion flooded into her, words started to follow and a verse was formed.
To Ananya, writing poetry is an amazing feeling. It starts off with an idea making circles in her head. She actually savors them, keeps stirring and cooking them , till they sound perfect. “In fact, after I write a poem down, there is almost always an emptiness which I can faintly relate with the pangs of postpartum depression. Not only my own experiences, very often a simple sight triggers an imagination that is quite involuntary. Which is why, most of my poems have a fair share of fantastic elements.”

Poetry Paradigm was a dream come true for Ananya and was born out of her friendship with Joie Bose, a stellar poet and a superb human-being. The team went from strength to strength when Ashoke Viswanathan,  Saira Shah Halim and Arthur Cardoze became a part of their vision. Ruchhita Kazaria and Devdan Chowdhury joined later. “Our movement got a big upheaval with the support of a large number of University students who joined us because of their love of poetry, and here finally, was a group that gave them the platform they needed to voice their passion. They now proudly call themselves the Youth Brigade of Poetry Paradigm.”

Despite her supportive family, Ani, as she is popularly called in poetic circles, has faced bitterness too. Poetry and bitterness! Quite surprising, but well that happens too. She met with deceit , and hypocrisy and she blames her own naivety to a large extent for that. “When such incidents pulled me down, I always got a lot of support from my family.   But, everything seems worth the pain when a message from a complete stranger pops up at the dead of the night. A message that tells me how my poem told his or her story and made him or her feel a little less lonely. Though I write for myself, when these creations act as a source of  inspiration for fellow human-beings, it indeed is a special feeling.”

Ananya’s first solo collection of poetry titled The Poet & His Valentine was published in 2014 . This was followed by a joint anthology Another Soliloquy where she teamed up with the very talented Shruti Goswami . Her last book The Blind Man's Rainbow got published in winter, last year. She has translated Bengali verses of veteran thespian and poet Soumitra Chatterjee, which appeared in a coffee table book of his paintings, titled Forms Within. “Translating his poems was a matter of pride for me.
I have had the honor of being published in various international e-zines and anthologies. Seeing my poem in the august company of splendid poetry from poets all around the world is a humbling experience.”

While writing bilingual poems, Ananya never consciously tries her hand in any particular language. She gives in to her impulses. “English and Bengali are two very different languages, and I have tried never to think in one and express in another. The nuances of a language, its beauty, richness and distinctiveness can be best appreciated, if and only if one thinks in the same language one finally puts into words.”

To round off this fairy’s poetic journey in her own words:

I WILL SLEEP NOW

‘I will sleep now...
Take my womanhood
Off this flesh and
Hang it on a corner peg
For these hours of slumber
I will lie
Neither poised as a woman,
Nor alert as a mother..
But curled up like
An unborn fetus
I will snore, sexless
And forget everything
Even my gender
Till the morrow brings
More news of
Writhing, shrieking women
A severed umbilical cord
somewhere.
Elsewhere,
a severed hymen.’