Idle Tears

By R.S. Mani

Born in Chennai, India on November 24, 1937, R.S.Mani migrated to Canada in 1974. He took early retirement in 1993 to pursue visual arts full time. His interests include music, photography, painting and sports.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pustaka Digital Media
• Release date: May 26, 2017
• ISBN: 6580520602299

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Idle Tears

Author:

R.S.Mani

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Idle Tears

Poems on Love, Longings

And Loneliness

R.S.Mani

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Dedication

To my wife, Prema:

My Love and Muse

Author’s Preface by

R.S. Mani

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Our teenage years are the ones when the inner and outer worlds turn magical - when reality and imagination intermingle. Powerful emotions and Love can drive us crazy.

I left home at nineteen to attend college and moved to a region of India where the language and culture were different from my own. It was in college that I was fortunate enough to get acquainted with a few good friends who were blessed with literary minds and poetic hearts. They helped me discover the world of poetry by introducing me to the exquisite poetry recitals of Hindi Kavi Sammelans and Urdu Mushairas.

I then decided to write poetry.

Shortly after, I came across Rabindranath Tagore's book The Gardener. learned that Tagore wrote this work when he was only twenty years old. His lyrical love poems transported me to another world and never again have I enjoyed another book as I had enjoyed The Gardener. I desired to write verses of love.

I majored in English Literature and had the pleasure to read the works of Romantic Poets such as William Wordsworth and Keats. Of all the Romantic Poets, I was drawn most to the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley. His line Our sweetest songs are those that tell us of saddest thoughts, were engraved in my heart.

I realized that I should write melancholic love poems.

My decision gave way to expression, and the result was a collection of English verses which I transcribed in a notebook. Inspired by Tennyson's lines Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, I titled my work Idle Tears.

These poems were originally published privately to share with family and close friends