For Better or Verse

Reading the lines from his poem,For My Niece Chilman,Randeep Wadhera gets misty-eyed and takes a few moments to regain composure,before he can speak,again. “She was a toddler and didn’t know that I could not move from the bed and get her that jar of candies,” says Wadhera,referring to his niece,while talking about his newly-published book of poems,Singing Through The Nightmare.

Physically challenged for the last 25 years and battling several ailments that make him bedridden,for Wadhera,poetry acts as his safety valve. And the words are his weapon that permit him to see life in perspective. “It’s therapy,you can say so much in few words,without worrying about the technique and create your own world. It gives you wings,” continues the 55-year-old. Writing,he says,is his bread and butter and a catharsis,that describes his emotions and documents his faith in life. In 2004,he penned a collection of short stories,Walls & Other Stories,which documented his anxieties in life .

From suffering the trauma of a wrong diagnosis,being dependent on his 80-year-old father,and not being able to live the dream of serving in the Armed Forces,it’s been a long-drawn battle for Wadhera. In the five chapters of his book — Nature,Relationships,Rhythms of Love,Angst and Just for Kids — Wadhera grapples with issues ranging from abstraction to existentialism. Through skillful use of haiku,rhymes,blank verse and cinquain,he creates moods that depict joy,pathos and introspection tinged with a longing for peace. “I am a perennial outsider. I don’t belong anywhere. I am two people,one who is writing and the other who is watching this process called life,” he says.

Wadhera has also written the first draft of his novel,a political satire. “It was fun and not so emotionally consuming as poetry. Poetry drains you out,” says Wadhera