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Did You Ever Love Me? Book Review: Can Rithvik singh turn heartbreak into a homecoming?

Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...

The Gift of Pure Love

You would say, it’s so simple. It is so routine and so routine. But for her it is a special story, a story of magic. That changed her life. Malati was born into a simple middle class family. There was just ever enough for her and her three siblings to eat and wear. This irked her to no end. Why
couldn't they have fancy clothes and the latest cell phones?

She always pestered her mother with these questions. Every time Malati would see her closest friend Swati in new clothes always being driven in chauffeur driven cars her heart would burn with envy. All her friends in the colony and even in school seemed to have more money than her.

Now she wanted a new mobile. She was using an old handset passed on by her father to her mother to her elder brother. She hated it for it was used and old. She had asked for a brand new mobile phone. Her mother always dismissed her request with a shrug. It was if to her this was just a passing phase. She did not understand how important it was for her.

When her father came home at that night, she created a fuss to make him realize how important these things to her were. He listened to her with patience with an impassive face and told her he would surely take her out next Sunday. Malati beamed at what she considered to be her victory for she will be sure granted what she pleased. Oh, now how well she would make all the other girls jealous in her group.
 On Sunday however, things did not turn out as Malati would have hoped it to be. 

 Her father took her to Bal Niketan, a day boarding school for poor kids. She was reluctant to enter the dilapidated building at first, but then something the on face of these children captured her heart. The slow measured smiles on their faces as they sat under a large tree studying, playing and creating mischief. She noticed their feet all bare and cloths torn and worn. Yet they all looked so happy and content. “I could have got you a new mobile; it would have been a special gift for you. But I brought you here to show you there are so many with so little in their lives and yet they give out so much joy.” Her father told her. It was a special thing for her, she learned that life was not always about receiving but giving. You have to learn to have the joy in your heart to enjoy every little moment in life.
She had so much as compared to these kids.  She might seem to be poor in the company of her friends, but here she seemed like a princess. They looked so awed by her as she mingled with them, played with them and even helped a little girl with her math exercises.  "Papa, we should come here more often, " she said as they were about to leave. He put his arm around her, happy that her daughter had found meaning of happiness at last.

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