Ashu Verma Chaubey is an electronics engineer and an English honors graduate by qualification, fulfilling the duties of a full-time housewife and a mother of triplets. Though she used to write poems and personal notes since her early teenage years, it took a backseat as her life took turns. Her passion for writing reignited again in 2020 and that is when Ashu took to writing on various online platforms and anthologies. It was in November last year when she came across a challenge to write 21 poems in 21 days thrown by the book leaf publications.
It was then that Ashu decided to bring out the various said, unsaid, and perhaps unheard emotions of women through these poems to convey to the world the feelings that a woman experiences right from her childhood through her life, which was then published by them as a book in February this year.
Link to the book:-
https://www.amazon.in/Shades-woman-Beyond-her-Lihaaf/dp/9357698086/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39
Let’s dive into the author’s insights:-
1) Hi Ashu. Please tell us why did you choose this subject for your book? And what did you have in mind while framing these verses?
Answer: This is one subject, which connects the heartstrings of almost all females. In comparison with the other sex, our wishes being sacrificed to keep our family’s pride, our emotions taking a backseat as we drown in our duties as a housewife, mother, daughter or daughter-in-law gives rise to a plethora of thoughts and emotions which mostly we all want to but fail to express, sometimes just like this and sometimes for the fear of being judged or termed selfish and sometimes because we feel that even if we try, our emotions may just go unnoticed so what’s the point in opening up.
So as a woman, I feel that our sentiments mostly get buried deep inside us as we keep sinking into the realm of our duties.
Having covered a journey that started from the feelings of a young teenager to a college-going girl, to a working woman, and then being a married housewife, DIL, and mother I’ve been through all these emotions too, and wanted the world to hear what a woman feels and desires at different stages of her life and acknowledge her views, hence every verse that I’ve framed for this book is straight from the depth of my heart.
2) So, do you mean to say that these are those unfulfilled wishes in women that you want to highlight Ashu?
Answer: The question is not about whether their wishes and desires have been granted or whether they have lived a contented life or not.
My point is that sometimes we are forced to and sometimes we intentionally do but normally we hide our emotions somewhere deep within but that creates a suffocative feeling in us. We want to shout aloud but either we don’t or we can’t. Moreover, it’s about choices as well. Sometimes we need to make certain either-or decisions in life after which, though we feel content still we yearn for the part we had to sacrifice.
We either feel sorry about that role that we couldn’t play or desire to give attention to that part too. For e.g., though a mother happily devotes herself to her children without remorse she still yearns for some personal me-time, or for that matter, a successful professional woman may feel sorry for not being able to do enough for her baby. Isn’t it?
And such contrasting situations exist in every woman’s life. So, it’s just those feelings that I wanted to convey through my words.
3) What inspired you to frame these poems, Ashu?
Answer: See, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve also been through various phases that every woman goes through. I too have been through such contrasting situations in life and have some of those deep feelings embedded deep inside me, so it was very much in my comfort zone to describe these feelings. And as you proceed with each poem you are sure to connect with each and every one of them because every woman has faced all these situations in life as there isn’t an escape for us. We, women, have been designed to be multitaskers and evaluators, but due to this virtue, we sometimes suffer too. So, this universal connection inspired me to write on this subject.
4) Which do you feel Ashu, was the most interesting aspect to write on as you were penning this book?
Answer: This is a very tricky question because a mother can never show any favoritism to her kids, so can’t I, as all these poems are my creations. On the other hand, every woman’s life takes the same turn during her journey from a young girl to a mature woman. The experiences might be different but the feelings and desires remain almost the same, so with every turn that life takes are our emotions attached to it, hence it’s very difficult to decide which emotion overshadows the others because every turn and every decision in a woman’s life carries equal importance hence I would like to leave this to the readers to decide with which emotion they could connect the most and get back to me with their views. And I’m sure everyone has something in my book to connect to.
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