The most unique part in this book is his explanation about God, and how he sees God in everyone he meets.

Heartiest congratulations Daniel that some of your poems in this collection are already published in some famous journals.  We wish that there will be many more.

Readers, you will find his poems very interesting and to the point which talk about life, ageing, compassion, friendship, and the last good byes.  The most unique part in this book is his explanation about God, and how he sees God in everyone he meets.

“The day will be upon us soon when I will need to raise up my face to see into your eyes, when I will need to be reassured by your shoulders, someday I will need to call out to you to come close and make of your hands a cradle for my head”.  I found this very touching as you wrote in To My Young Son.  Basically, he was trying to bring a perfect balance between his ageing and his son growing, and an expectation every Father has from his son.

One more line that caught my attention on balance is “I fulfill that need for distance and misspent time, semi circles in exchange for straight lines: as in Traveling.

Some of My Friends seem to be wearing out, their pink becoming gray, their tightness loosened, some will be told today”.  How life changes its course from youth to old age is so very well penned.

Daniel, your words “At Darfur the children, weak from emptiness accord the flies the tears from their eyes, neither dares ask mercy of the dust or the Kings of the world” are so full of Compassion.

“He knows everyone by name, He listens to prayers, He is the landlord, the taxman and the concierge, He is surely one of us” as he described God.  I very well was able to relate to these lines of yours.  As I write this, I feel so grateful to my Sister who has taught me to see God in every human being and every living thing.  This teaching of hers changed my entire perspective on life.

In Christmas Eve at the Waldorf Astoria, he relates the man carrying his baggage and escorting him to his room as Jesus.  I loved the lines, “Jesus brought our bags up to Room 805 at a little after three, He stayed only long enough to show us the mini bar and how to manage the thermostat.  He let us know that room service would bring whatever we desired around the clock.  There was only time to press a folded five into His palm, to thank him for bearing the weight for us who are travelers, and he smiled in a way which reassured me that somehow, everything would be alright”.  

Intelligent Design, “But I have faith that it would be wholly mistakable to endorse any God who had make a bone that was breakable”.

You have given complete justice to your poetry as you wrote “I have never invited these poems, yet they keep on arriving one by one, shaking the rain from their shoulders as they emerge from the dark beyond my door, I suppose I am grateful that they did not rob my house or steal my children from their very beds.  Writing a poem is more like waking at ten on Sunday to prepare an omelet for someone you really love, or teaching a small child to lace up a shoe”.  Being a Writer myself, I really enjoy staying late in the night to write during those peace hours and waking up late on Sunday.  Truly amazing and honest words these are. 

In your Translating Now for Samuel Menashe, you have so skilfully translated the entire poetry in English.

Your comparison of a woman to a river is just awesome.  I am also spell bound at your words as you wrote on planets in your Perhaps It Was Not Mars.

“The man who died just before the pandemic did not know that no one would be there to see him satin laid in his dark blue suit, he did not know that no one would be there to gently lower him, or to toss flowery fronds into the hole in the Earth where he would ever sleep”.  You have so very well expressed the current trajectory of the pandemic.

Human History, “It’s a sad life in a sad world where few know the truth and no one will say it, squandering the precious defying death, we destroy all we touch singing our songs as we go” is something that needs deep thinking.

The Man from an Unknown Place, “Along the waterfront in Old Bombay, beside the Gateway of India, stood a man, dressed in a black kurta pajama, who asked where I was from.  I said Boston, and He said he had never heard of it.  I said, How about New York? He just said, “No”.  Being an Indian, I liked your mention of India in your writing and the inability of the man to answer your question.  So aptly put in words!

For My Farmer’s Daughter, “But, we have found a place and it is ours, where we must be grateful for even January, and for the line of black beneath our nails, and the ache in our knees which reminds us we are alive, and that the gardens we have made beckon to be watered, yet again”.

This Journey, “But today, I will not make another entry into the log of my own many miles but say, rather that I have arrived at that very place I once saw in a dream.  It is as I had imagined and there was someone waiting”, and in your Some Instructions, “That given the chance, I would have stayed a bit longer” speak volumes about your life that you have no regrets and no complaints about it.

Simple topics to pen, easy on words and an awesome flow is his USP.  Daniel, I wish you all the very best for future and pray that your book achieves all the milestones that you have dreamt of and gain all the name, fame and recognition.

Regards,

Shubhaangi Kundalkar

Author – Justaju-In Search of Life