DOGGY MEMOIR – The Book of Joshua, by Tanya Mendonsa

This book is like having the best of good times with old friends, except that in this case, many of those friends are four-legged. A joyous romp through Paris and the south of France, meeting a host of characters with the footloose author leads to India, where she finally finds her dream-dog, an irresistible cocker spaniel named Joshua. With many other animals, coasting from crisis to partying with identical zest, they travel from the colonial city of Bangalore to the sun-splashed beaches of Goa to arrive in the Blue Mountains of the Nilgiris. If you’ve ever laughed with Gerald Durrell or cried over Black Beauty, or simply love animals, this book is for you – a dog and a mistress you’ll never forget. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Joshua-Tanya-Mendonsa/dp/9350291371 Originally from Kolkata, she to Paris at the age of 21, to paint, major in French literature at the Sorbonne. After nineteen years, she returned to India, to live in the river-laced village of Moira in Goa, where she painted and completed her first anthology of poems.

Not only poet, but also painter, Tanya Mendonsa seems to keep a low profile, preferring the solitude of the countryside over the bustle of cities. The poet Keats said, “Poetic technique is a sham: poetry must come as naturally as leaves to a tree, or not at all.” Both, poetry and painting, have come to her naturally, at an early age (she had her first solo exhibition in Calcutta when she was 19). As she like to remember, she worked at both of them over the years, but the initial impulse for both is the same. In her poems she draws deeply from a poetic tradition of the wonders of the natural world. When the poet walks down memory lane, she does not always stick to the straight and narrow. The lay of the land seems familiar, but look closely, and the cracks are there. These poems are inspired by individuals who have been part of the poet’s life, some of them fleetingly. Mendonsa’s directness and simplicity is, by turns, intimate, terrifying, uplifting and, ultimately, liberating. These poems open our eyes to a world seen anew with a lyricism that never ceases to astonish and delight.