Art is the breath of a civilisation — the quiet pulse that carries memory, meaning, and the music of the human spirit.
Through Songs from the Land of Dreams: Love, Happiness and Pain, Dr. Piyali Mitra brings together poetry and painting as twin vessels of culture, inviting readers to step into a world where emotion becomes colour and thought becomes melody. Each poem is rooted in the heritage of storytelling, spiritual reflection, and lyrical imagination. Each painting is a landscape of memory — capturing the textures of love, the shimmer of happiness, and the soft ache of pain.
In her paintings, blues evoke the depth of longing, rose-gold whispers of tenderness, and vibrant strokes echo the rhythms of joy.
Shadows and light converse gently, revealing landscapes of the mind: forests of contemplation, oceans of yearning, horizons touched by hope.
Her brush becomes an instrument of philosophy, translating feeling into texture — a meditation in pigment, a prayer in hue.
Paintings, like poems, hold worlds.
They honour the traditions of Indian aesthetics — the quiet mysticism of nature, the luminous grace of feminine strength, the symbolism of colour in cultural memory.
At the same time, they breathe with contemporary emotion: the vulnerability of modern life, the fluidity of identity, the courage of becoming.
Together, poetry and painting create a tapestry where tradition meets innovation, where ancient wisdom flows seamlessly into modern sensibility.
By weaving philosophy with art, and culture with creativity, this book becomes more than a collection —
—
it is a tribute to the timeless beauty of human experience, a celebration of who we are and what we dream to become.
Dr. Piyali Mitra
Poet, Painter, and Bioethicist
Deputy Editor
Asian Bioethics Review
Director/ Secretary
International Centre for Applied Ethics and Public Affairs.
