New Delhi: The most common thing to find nowadays is change. The irony is that the degree of change is different for some and different for others. We live in a world which but-naturally has a generational gap and divide. Generations are separated and need we say even distant from one another. The sole cause of this is the degree of change. We have a generation that has gone through online graduations or one that has never even attended school offline. We have a generation that tells tales of wars in their time and one that reads about these tales in history books.
In Search of a Title, is a book written by Aashna Lidder, a 16-year-old attempting to bridge this generational gap; with wit, experience, emotion and intuition. It is a book of poems written by her over multiple years, thus taking the reader on an on-going, ever changing journey. The journey almost seems to be your own because of the mélange of poems on feelings we all resonate with. There are 11 sections, each different from the other.
On the one hand you read a poem on gender equality, the ongoing rape cases, boys’ locker room or even toxic masculinity and on the other you read a poem on young teenage friendship, family and the foreseeable future from a sixteen-year-olds vision. Aashna, being an Army officer’s daughter also has a section she coins “Fauj” where one sees a collection of poems on Kashmir, Galwan martyrs or a simple Independence Day poem that makes you surge with pride. They make you wonder and marvel at how the children of the Army officers staying away from their fathers in so-called peaceful and secure looking cantonments harbour a fear-factor in the young minds where they mature much before their time as they see their mothers struggling with multiple roles.
There are poems which may sound frivolous, but they could run deeper with their meaning. Poems written on adulting, Covid times, friends and families, even entertainment and films. Each of these somewhere, have had an impact on the young poetess and with powerful, impactful word play, she can weave her magic to let you in her world and identify with the thread there.
A section on travel, trails and travails which are typical of a fauji kid inspires and lightens up the setting wherein you are on the kaleidoscopic ride of life with her and she allows you a sneak peek of the enrichment process which all these changes have had on her thought process. A binding chain of thought keeps the connect with minds of the readers who can make connections with their own experiences.
Each change, whether from her own generation or another has been penned down and coined. That is what makes this read a journey to embark upon. Each tribulation, trial, emotion has been written about and the emotions are indifferent, that is what makes the reader closer to the book.