In this essay, Srinivas explores his relationship with summer. Though the relationship has been a long one, going back to his childhood, it has changed as he has grown older, and it has become strained, as he has accumulated experiences of summers close to and far away from home.
Srinivas’s poem paints silence, first in the seven colours of a rainbow; and then, in black, white and shades of grey. Each colour represents phenomena, which are often experienced in silence, due either to choice, or to compulsion, or to the very nature of certain experiences. Admittedly, the links between the various colours and what they represent are, in many cases, subjective.
Structured in the form of a monologue, a poem speaks to the poet who has ‘created’ it. The poem has a number of questions by asking which, it attempts to understand its relationship with the poet, his world, his other creations, and its own sense of self-worth. Verse by Srinivas S.
Srinivas’s poem suggests that the concept of ‘family’ is embodied in good stories, colourful tapestries, well-orchestrated musical pieces, lovingly prepared food and even, ironically, in one’s sense of identity, which is cobbled together from different sources. The essence of these ‘works’, in turn, is embodied in a human family.
By pitting contrasting elements in a pair against one another, and by showing how any escape from the one to the other retains something of the former, Srinivas’ poem highlights the idea that to escape from any given thing is to be inevitably tied to that thing.