FOR a small poetry-reading session it turned out to be quite a big draw in terms of audience appreciation. Actress, artist and now poet Deepti Naval, who was in town recently for an exhibition of her photographs on Ladakh, had the small gathering at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature totally enraptured by her yet-to-be-published poems in English. In terms of rendition the actress in her, reigned supreme. But it was poetry itself that surprised many. ‘This vulnerability offends me/ I sit amidst the debris of another relationship’. Thus went the first set of poems which were mostly melancholic outpourings, exposing the inner pain of ‘shattered dreams and splashed colours’. The second set, were poems written about the impact of Deepti’s visit to the mental hospital. The poems highlighted the pain and anguish of the women confined within the four-walls of the asylum. As fiction-writer Ajeet Caur remarked, there is no end to Deepti’s talents, or surprises.

KUHU SINGH