When Sparks Become Soul By Amith Vijayan

 

Reading When Sparks Become Soul felt like sitting down with someone who has lived through both storms and sunlight, and is unafraid to show you the scars as well as the healing. This isn’t just poetry—it is life unfolding in verses, carrying with it love, grief, resilience, and the kind of quiet strength we often overlook in our own stories.

From the very beginning, the book makes you pause and reflect. The poems don’t shout; they whisper truths in a way that feels deeply personal, almost as if the author has written them for you. One line that stayed with me was about love not being loud but working “quietly, in the way someone carries your bag and never asks.” How often do we forget that real strength is found in such unspoken acts?

I was especially moved by the sections about family—his father becoming his first friend, his mother’s sacrifices woven silently into everyday life, and the tenderness with which he writes about his brother. These pieces remind us that love doesn’t always need grand gestures; sometimes it lives in the smallest, most ordinary moments. The parts about loss and carrying grief in silence are heartbreaking, yet they shine with hope. It made me ask myself: how do we hold on when everything we leaned on is gone? And the answer, perhaps, lies in the very pages of this book—by holding on to love, by choosing light even when the room feels dark.

The later chapters, where love and new beginnings enter, bring a sense of completion. The poems about meeting his partner, marriage, and preparing to be a father show us how life, despite its storms, always finds ways to bloom again. I loved how naturally the story moves from being a son and brother to becoming a husband and father—it’s like watching sparks slowly gather into a quiet, steady flame.

What makes this collection unforgettable is its sincerity. These aren’t polished words crafted just to impress; they are lived truths. And because of that, while reading, I often found pieces of myself hidden between the lines. It felt less like I was reading someone else’s story and more like I was remembering my own.

This book is not just about the author’s journey—it’s about all of us who have loved, lost, and found strength again. It’s a reminder that softness is not weakness, and that even the quietest sparks can become a soul.