New Delhi, Jun 20 (PTI): As humanity suffered in the wake of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and people lived in quarantine, a foreign affairs expert in Delhi turned his gaze towards redemption amid surrounding despair, capturing glimpses of hope and rejuvenation in verses penned in desolation.

His musings have culminated into a book of poetry titled, 'Quatrains in Quarantine: Dwelling Poetically on the Earth'.

Authored by foreign affairs expert Manish Chand in "the height of the pandemic", the verses transform the pandemic-era suffering and despair into luminous poems, celebrating the transfiguring power of imagination and poetry, according to a statement issued here on Saturday.

Six years after the coronavirus pandemic struck the world, poets, scholars, diplomats, and intellectuals gathered Friday evening for remembrance, reflection and rejuvenation to mark the launch of the book of poems that seeks to "redeem memories of those dark days".

The event took place at the Brazilian Ambassador's official residence in Delhi, according to the statement.

Ambassador Kenneth Nobrega said, these verses were composed during a time of great challenge and suffering for all humanity. "The alchemy of his (author's) talent transformed his experiences throughout this difficult time into verse." At the event, speakers read out poems and reflected on love, loss, death and rebirth.

Chand’s poems try to make sense of the daily carnage of death and loss when "mornings begin with mourning, no end to this grieving," the statement reads, in a poetic tone.

Deeply philosophical, spiritual, and witty by turns, the musings pose some perennial questions -- why we suffer, why we love and what we live for. "The poems in this collection also explore the nature of language, writing as an act of resistance and what it means to dwell poetically on the earth, fully alive in this place called time," said the statement issued via the author.

Recalling the germination of these poems, the author said: "Most of these poems were written at that time, when not a day passed without hearing of someone, one loved or admired, dying without any notice, simply vanishing into the unknown." Alluding to his experience of the Covid days, Pavan K Varma, former member of Rajya Sabha, recalled how people were stricken by "dread on the edge of perennial fear, with no real hope of redemption".

"The light at the end of the tunnel, especially in the first phases of COVID, seemed absent," he said, as quoted in the statement. "The sheer fragility of your life, in the face of what you were confronting, made your ego, for once -- for once in your life -- redundant. Or at least laughable.

Reading poems from the book, Lakshmi Puri, a former diplomat, and author of the novel, “Swallowing the Sun”, illuminated the meaning of 'quarantine', as reflected in the book’s title.

“There is this element of not seeing quarantine as confinement. It is also about travelling inwards and an inner awakening,” she said. “The pandemic is the immediate setting, but the poems are about much more than that; about the human condition. The book is about hope. The book is vital. It has warmth. And it is very much about optimism. Optimism, resilience, and perspective.” PTI KND MNK ARB ARB

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