Gita Iyengar is a name one immediately associates with books for children. An well known educationist involved with Scholastic India and served as principal, Johnson Grammar School, there was also a little-known facet to her, something only her close circle knew about. ‘I Muse’, to be launched posthumously in memory of Gita Iyengar, will give readers a glimpse to the closet poet that Gita Iyengar was.
“She wrote these poems over the years. One of the poems I discovered was written in 1978,” says her sister Kamala Rajagopalan, who along with Gita Iyengar’s son Prashanth, friends Meena Murdeshwar and Cheryl, was instrumental in collecting the poems after Gita Iyengar passed away in November 2013. “I am told there should be 108 poems. We couldn’t trace all of them. Gita had expressed that she would like her collection of poems published,” says Kamala. The hand-written poems were collected, compiled and sent to Nivasini Publishers.
The poems, says Nivedita, one of the co-editors of the book, “have an interesting word pattern. The poet has touched upon different issues, as varied as Lord Krishna and environmental and social concerns.”
Kamala Rajagopalan calls this style of poetry more impressionistic than descriptive, reflecting Gita Iyengar’s moods at the moment of writing. “She had published an odd poem here and an odd one there, but didn’t consolidate them into a book. She was busy as a school principal and wanted to publish her poetry after she retired,” says Kamala.
‘I Muse’ will be launched at Our Sacred Space, Secunderabad, on November 1; 4 p.m. and Mumbai-based author poet Rochelle Potkar will read out a few poems.
