Dear Reader, 

I present to you A Box of Chocolates. Every one of these delectables has been carefully handcrafted. Some are plain, some are very sweet, a few are very bitter, some have an ooey-gooey center inside, some are nutty, and some have the kick of adult-ish liqueurs in them. A Box of Chocolates is my journal in a longish prose poem. Each individual poem is a chapter within the monolith. Anything that caught my attention that day would end up as a journal entry in garbled language, some call it poetry, so I could get it off my chest and go on with my life. This is by no means entirely autobiographical. I took stories from family folklore, the neighborhood news rag, the national dailies, conversations overheard in parking lots, alumni get-together updates, letters from home, mythologies, movies, fiction, history lessons for my kids, songs on the radio, dreams, musings, meditations … and made them go to work as “journal entries” . Together, they describe an archetypal journey. The first section is about my current obsession with HUMAN CAPITAL. May I brag? This poem was quoted by someone very important in a very important setting. The next section is about the integration of ANIMA and ANIMUS. Reflections on childhood, children, and parenting are in WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG. WE WENT TO THE ANIMAL FAIR is a collection of metaphorical poems about critters. EKPHRASIS is self-explanatory. THE EVOLUTION OF EVE is a zero to shero story. MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO DORKISTAN is a feminine point of view on the evolution of Adam. Perhaps I should’ve named it THE EVOLUTION OF ADAM but I don’t feel qualified to accurately describe that archetypal journey so I stuck with friendly ribbing. The EPILOGUE circles back to HUMAN CAPITAL.

In the text, which also works like a treasure hunt, are many allusions to other texts, movies, and songs that conjure up a world much larger than my humble words could ever hope to, left to their own devices. It’s mostly in English, with a sprinkling of Hindi, because the theater of my mind is eighty-nine percent Hollywood and eleven and four-fifths of a percent Bollywood now. I’m a bit of a ‘chaser of light’ so the interplay of ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ figure prominently in my writing. The interpretation of the larger story depends hugely on the individual. Each character or situation does double duty at least. The text holds meaning for the music buff, movie fan, cultural historian, geographer, language arts teacher, parent, and child, in different ways. It is simply a message of hope and, hopefully, it reads like one.

Best, 
Sonali