A Smooth Flow

Ek hi ehsaas hai,kya ishq,kya ibaadat,” poet Amandeep Chatha gets the conversation flowing with one of her verses. A civil servant,Chatha says words take shape out of her instincts,emotions,reflections and feelings. The thoughts take form of verses and emerge as poetry that Chatha doesn’t edit or transform.

Holding her new anthology of Urdu poetry,Zarf-e-Nazar,close to her heart,this is the poet’s third book in two years after Ahsaas aur Bandagi and Inaayat. While the first two were in Urdu,this one comes with an English translation,as the author aims to reach out to a wider audience. Chatha says it’s the beauty of the language that prompted her to learn and write in it. “I’m still learning and depend a lot on my father and teacher for grammatical errors. I first write in the Roman script,mostly on my phone at night,and it’s an ongoing process,’’ says Chatha. The poetry appears to be a dialogue that the poet has with the superior being and her bond with God is expressed through emotional couplets.