Poetry: At the Heart of the Nation Poetry: At the Heart of the Nation The Bi-Annual Journal of IPPL Volume I Number I June 2018 “Contemporary Indian Poetry in English” Chief Editor Sharmila Ray Associate Editor Sutapa Chaudhuri Editorial Board Bashabi Fraser Malashri Lal Sanjukta Dasgupta Amalesh Dasgupta Pankaj Saha Jaydeep Sarangi Sanghita Sanyal Madhumita Majumdar Journal design by Sutapa Chaudhuri ©Authors Published by Intercultural Poetry & Performance Library, Kolkata 2 Contents Foreword 4 MALASHRI LAL Editorial 6 SHARMILA RAY Poems in English 8 KEKI N. DARUWALLA 9 K. SATCHIDANANDAN 10 BIBHU PADHI 11 BASHABI FRASER 13 SANJUKTA DASGUPTA 14 SHARMILA RAY 15 MANDAKINI BHATTACHERYA 15 AMIT SHANKAR SAHA 16 NAINA DEY 17 SANGHITA SANYAL 17 SAPTAPARNA ROY 18 NISHI PULUGURTHA 19 KETAKI DATTA 19 SONALI SARKAR Poems in Translation 20 SANKHA GHOSH 21 AMRITA PRITAM 21 JAYANT PATHAK 22 RABINDRANATH TAGORE 23 SUBODH SARKAR 25 PANKAJ SAHA 25 MIRZA GHALIB Life Writing 26 BAMA Young Talents 27 SUNWRITA DASTIDAR 27 SHARMISTHA DEY 28 MARISHA SINGH 28 ADRIKA ROY 28 SOMASHREE ROY Book Reviews The Game called Hearts: A Review of Sea Dreams 29 JAYDEEP SARANGI The History of Migrant Birds: A Review of Home Thoughts 31 SUTAPA CHAUDHURI Our Contributors 3 Foreword Poetry : The Healing Touch MALASHRI LAL The millennium dawned with a UN pledge on poverty eradication, environmental protection, human rights and care of the vulnerable. Less than two decades from then, it is clear that dislocations, exile, migrations and displacements have brought new forms of violence to civil society in many parts of the world. As waves of people move through perilous borders—Cypress, Myanmar, Syria, Eritrea, Tibet, to name a few—does poetry have a role in preserving the softer sentiments of humankind, such as emotions of love and nurture, community cohesion, home and belonging, scent of the soil, or even legitimate mourning? I want to briefly suggest that poetry is the intrinsic healing power available to us in these troubled times, and poets can and do uphold certain humanistic values. Let me quote Audre Lorde, “. poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”(Poetry Is Not a Luxury, 1985). In the context of India and its ancient tradition of poetry as a comprehensive art form (Natyashastra), that is, furthermore, multilingual and intrinsically linked to dance, music and performance, what are the distinctive features of Indian poetry in English and English translation? How can a new journal contribute to a paradigm of poetry as a healer of fragmented selves? One may remember Rabindranath Tagore’s anguished call, “When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” That, to my mind legitimises the ‘uses’ of poetry in contemporary contexts. Through the sufferings laid upon human beings by acts of violence not of their own making, the transcendent question about the ‘cause’ has to be answered by the self too. Only poetry reflects these inner dialogues, the cracked mirror of troubled consciousness, the silent cry of those who have travelled beyond tears. The language of poetry lies in its authenticity, not in a linguistic category or a region. Hence, poetry in English in India can convey the same poignancy as any regional language, its value residing in principles of integrity and genuineness. Turning to the inaugural issue of the IPPL journal, the focus on ‘Poetry: At the Heart of the Nation,’ draws attention to humanistic concerns. In Keki Daruwalla’s poem, the ‘allegory of dreams’ is to be decoded through acts of memory, in K Satchidanandan’s words, thorns and flowers are indistinguishable as a language of experience, in Bashabi Fraser’s imagery, fireflies are figures of hope urging us ‘to join their dance of true freedom/From fear.’ In other words, the fragmented societies that we inhabit and where we tread with muffled steps, is an arena of uncertainty in which word, image, text become our solace. Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of freedom was one of inclusion: ‘A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.’ Seventy years after Independence, our poets are asking what signposts we have passed and where we are heading. The answers in poetry will stay in the realm of speculation and therefore within creative truth telling. This indeterminacy in civilizational destiny passes beyond language, beyond English. As Sankha Ghosh writes in 4 Bengali, translated as ‘The Sound of Wings’—we all demonstrate loss, panic, and a desperate bid to ‘hold hands’ in a groping darkness of silent exits. Homelessness, both real and psychic, mark the landscapes in the poetry of Sanjukta Dasgupta and Subodh Sarkar, and others in this collection. Spaces are filled by people with minds crowded by a melange of inchoate images and half articulated questions. The haunting possibility is that we are all ‘nowhere’ men and women unless we cling to some humanistic ideals. What are they? Do they exist in the identity politics of today? Poetry asks these foundational questions—variously—but soulfully. The Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library offers contemporary space for exploring social reality in India through creative tools. Its unique interlinking of three components reunites the facets artificially separated by colonial education in India. That education divided English from its vernacular ‘others’, a most unfortunate condition until the reconfiguration of Indian Writing in English started in the 1980s. Despite this divided legacy, poetry in English commanded a bright little space in all the controversy surrounding creativity in the language. Perhaps the allusive language of Indo-English poetry, the sophisticated form, and its elitist readership preserved the poetry and also propelled its growth in protected enclaves of poetry lovers in cosmopolitan space. But poetry in English now belongs to the voice of the people and translation has brought many languages in conjunction, fortunately. To return to my opening argument in favour of poetry’s healing capability, it’s a form that needs to reach out evermore to communities, to reinstate its glory of being voice and presence, message and emblem. Towards that goal, poetry’s allied arts must join force. IPPL’s multipronged approach to engaging poetry with culture and performance, society and nation is both laudable and timely. 5 Editorial Poetry Matters SHARMILA RAY Poetry creates an atmosphere of words and words only, biting, caustic, lulling, loving. The words get blurred, but it leaves me contemplating, a bit like in what Tocqueville calls touching the ‘hidden nerve’. I get transported to a universe which is expansive, spontaneous, artless and also self-indulgent. So it is not surprising that I wish to tackle one of the most less talked about but intensely engaged and argued topic that is poetry. I am not going into the dusty, distancing powers of theory but rather airing my thoughts aloud as the chalky, crumbly sentences join hands transforming into crimson geranium and the thin wispy floating cirrus clouds or the silent, gnawing agony of unbroken silence. Reading poetry gives me the opportunity to reaffirm myself in the power of words. It is a journey punctuated with dialogue, debate, monologue, interrogation, contemplation (an unending list) seeking an answer to a question, sometimes fulfilling, sometimes not, but never a full stop. It is also an indulgent nostalgia, picking up some long-forgotten wanderings, a page here, a reminiscence there. Proust said, it is only in remembrance that things come into being. It is a terrain where tangible and intangible cross swords, where choices are aired and divisions take birth. That is why it counts. The self as a decision maker makes itself apparent. It is for this reason it is adored, admired, slandered and hundred other tags get attached. And this is not an easy job because you are baring yourself, naked, you are taking the plunge to open the self a little more so that a space of different representation is born. You are holding a flame- torch to create forms in an otherwise primitive darkness. You have burnt your bridges. Language is a tool only. Poets in spite of their diversity in language, in everydayness, have something common that is touching, humane, translating the ordinary into creative uncommon. Perhaps, poetry is the nostalgia for the exclusive, in a world where duplicates multiply only to vanish, sucked by the maelstrom of change. I feel a profound sense of fellowship with the poets, with most of their ideas, their dreams and visions. Poetry is life-giving absurdity. It is this terrible force of absurdity, of illogic – once you have responded to its lure – that I suspect makes us love the witching hour when the night becomes a slab of stillness, when invisible islands become more green than any monsoon leaf and the water bluer than all the lapis lazulis of the world put together. Somewhere a song rises, it is the melody of a poem, a hymn, rising from our depths to celebrate what is simple and natural. We realize, that poetry lies everywhere. Poetry is the home we carry within us, a much denied but irrefutable home. All of a sudden we understand our melancholies, our pain and friendship. We open to other’s suffering with what Levinas called infinite, absurd compassion. It is absurd for it is not based on any ratiocinative calculation of blame and responsibility. It is infinite for it absorbs the ‘I’ into oblivion, at least for that moment.