After learning English on the job, a Mumbai-based Ukrainian singer and voice trainer is out with a book on lyrical poetry in Russian, Ukrainian, and English
On a rainy day in August 2007, Laura Savinska arrived in Mumbai under a singing contract with The Shalimar Hotel at Kemps Corner. For the singer, poet and voice trainer whose verses — many of which had been turned into songs — had made it to the Ukrainian radio and national television, it was like turning over a new leaf. And from having lost her luggage in transit to the noise of traffic that kept her up at night for months, things didn't come easy. Somewhere in the struggle to make it in an alien city, her ties with the pen got severed.
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But once a writer, always a writer. When her transient stay in Mumbai became a permanent one and she picked up English during the training of her current profession as a life coach, she resumed writing — this time in English. "I was surrounded by people who spoke the language, and there came a point when I started thinking in English. Besides, from the time I wrote in Russian and Ukrainian to this shift in language, my outlook to life had changed, too," recalls Savinska, as she shares her journey, which is intricately linked with Thousand Thoughts, her book of lyrical poetry in Russian, Ukrainian and English, which releases at the Russian Culture for Science and Culture in Mumbai today.
The poems have been juxtaposed with photographs of Savinska's travels with her husband and daughter
Her ruminations on life in a nutshell, the poems range from personal themes like the search for true love to more philosophical subjects like man's love for materialistic pleasures, letting ego get in one's way, and "bibliophiles" who don't go beyond the cover or page one.
This poem in Russian has the mountains of Ladakh in the background
Savinska tells us that at first, she was tempted to translate her existing poems in Russian. "But with a more mature understanding of life, I felt I should start afresh. So, even if the opening lines in some poems seem similar, the thought flow takes a different turn in each one," she adds.
When we ask her about the book's interesting layout, with each poem juxtaposed with scenic photographs, Savinska says, "Each time I think of writing down my thoughts, I first see an image in my mind. The pictures you see in the book are from our personal travels as a family across Europe, Canada, Indonesia and northern parts of India. But ultimately, I hope to accompany all my poems with music." Life, then, would truly come full circle for the artiste who arrived in a strange city on a singing contract.
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