“Mummy, please don’t kill me in the bud.” Poignant and yet triumphant. Antithesis? Not in Pramila’s Khadun latest collection of poems: Rajnee. Those are the two qualities inherent to her book launched last Thursday and sponsored by the President’s Fund for Creative Writing in English.

Growing up is not about forgetting the moving sensations of early life. The mother in the author cherishes a wealth of childlike wonder. Even as a parent, she can be the dutiful daughter, who is never happier than when she is singing her own mother’s praise.

In between the lines, we can almost hear Pramila Khadun’s warm heart beating - a rhythm, feeding on her pivotal position in the chain of love. She is always conscious of her place between her mother and the ever-lurking shadow of Rajnee, which is, by the way, the name of Pramila Khadun’s eldest daughter. Did not the author name her first collection after her youngest-born: Priyumvada in 1998?

Catching us in a web of instantly recognisable emotions, the author unfolds a luxury of softness. She hits home with simple well-chosen words. Innocence stands side by side with hardship themes such as battered or poverty-stricken women. It is the same with sadness, despair and suicide.

In Rajnee, the pathos is paired with the author’s ongoing quest for spiritual elevation. A package underlined by Shakuntala Hawoldar, who signed the preface in her capacity as president of the Mauritian Writers’ Association.

The teacher of Food and Nutrition at Modern College, Flacq, gives us food for thought. Her flowing verses make “spring” easily palatable, even if its only poetic embellishment lent to a fatherly Kiss at Le Continent. The shortness of the poems – never longer than two pages – helps towards smooth transitions. Brevity is commendable as long as it goes deeper than superficiality. Throughout Rajnee, the reader is breathlessly - or is it ruthlessly? trailed around from Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi to Treasure Island.

A hectic journey that begins with a series of quotes from President Richard Nixon and poets John Milton and Rabindranath Tagore. Plastered side by side, they could strike terror into the reader’s mind. But this is not the point. Pramila Khadun is only striving to share with us the million ways in which life has touched her.