Book Review – milk and honey, Rupi Kaur

‘the very thought of you
has my legs spread apart
like an easel with a canvas
begging for art’

When a female friend of mine shared this poem with me, I winced. Receiving stuff of sensual nature is by itself something that I am not quite comfortable with, but here is this poem, sent to me by a female friend. What both aggravated and doused my uncomfortable feeling was my getting to know that the author of this poem was a woman herself. Reading through the lines again I understood that her words exude not just eroticism but a sense of deep esotericism as well. Her words emanate from the longing, a deep pain, searing loneliness and flowing love – all things that I myself can relate with and connect soulfully too.
 

Immediately I ordered for the book online. From the moment I received the book in my hand and opened it, to the moment I closed it this morning, it was one hell of a ride through the dark corners of my heart. Dealing with lust, longing, love, pain of betrayal, self-love, letting go, hurt, healing, feminism and acceptance, this is a book that every introvert, every aching heart and every one that still believes in that quaint concept called ‘love’ must read.
 

Her words are the magical runes that any heart capable of love would respond to. They touch the raw nerves of our inner-selves, bringing to light all those unhealed wounds of the heart that we have learnt to live with, stir up all those dark passions that we keep buried deep beneath the hypocritical facades of politeness and public perceptions about ourselves. With her, you don’t get to feel the servile yearnings of a Kamala Das or the aggression of a Taslima Nasrin shelling out satires about the grapes gone sour. Here is a woman who feels love and writes about it, as deeply and as passionately as a Pablo Neruda or as a Kahlil Gibran also can. She loves, she yearns, she crumbles, she weeps about the loss, but she also picks up her pieces and puts them back together, but this time only more firmly.
 

Here is a real feminist that doesn’t talk about her body and her desires with a feigned sense of supremacy or acrimonious misandry. There is no vulgarity when she writes about her lust. You feel no revulsion when she talks about the inner functions of female body. She doesn’t preach promiscuity in the name of freedom. She takes pride in what she is. She doesn’t accede to the preset conventions of feminine beauty. She doesn’t pay obeisance to patriarchy. Here is a poetess we can all fall in love with, not just for her words, but for all that she is – her fears, her pains, her strengths, her weaknesses, her courage, for her being the person that she is. Each poem here is a colorful thread, seeing which you will be able to perceive a beautiful tapestry - that is her adorable personality!
 

This is a book that will leave you craving for more – like a perfect session of passionate love-making!