Verse of wisdom

Harleen Kaur

After the success of his first book, Pearls from The Ocean of Heart Ashish Sharma is back with his second poetry book— Diamonds from The Mine of Mind/ Kuch Heere Mann Ki Khan Se. The book was launched on Saturday. It has 20 poems, written in Hindi along with their translations in English, to overcome the language barrier. Ashish’s wife, Yogita, helped him in the translation part.

The poet has expressed his thoughts about social evils and issues, environment, relationships, happiness and hope, in verses. Sensitive topics like terrorism, women empowerment, Partition and drug addiction also find mention in his book. The book also has a motivational poem for women, taking an inspiration from the Nirbhaya incident. An engineer and an MBA, Ashish is currently working as the general manager in a multinational company in Medan, Indonesia. He started writing poetry in his college days, taking an inspiration from ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh and rendering of his father’s (Harivansh Rai Bachchan) poems by Amitabh Bachchan.

The poem titled Ik ma ke the do pyare bete/A mother had two sons is based on Partition. Then there is Aaj ek ma ko mil ke lauta hu/I met a mother today which deals with drug addiction. Another one titled Nirbheek ‘Nirbhaya’ nirbhay ban/Brave ‘Nirbahaya’ Be courageous, is a motivational poem for women. Samay ki ret/The sand of time is based on life. Another poem Chlo aaj ik pedh lgayen/Let’s plant a tree deals with environmental issues. Diamonds from The Mine of Mind is priced at Rs 250.