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WiSe 12/13: Contemporary Indian Poetry

Gautam Chakrabarti

Comments

"But what talk of soul and skin in this day and age, such ephemeral things that cross-weaves blood and breath into clotted zones of true escape." (Sen, Sudeep, "Flying Home", Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems, Delhi: Harper Collins, 1997.) Post-Independence Indian poetry, both in English and the other Indian languages, is one of the most significant registers of the developing consciousness of a national society that is in a state of continual self-reconfiguration and churning; the poets of "modern" India, being the legatees of the world's oldest continuous knowledge-tradition, have handled their conflicts with its own inner demons and the fascinating possibilities of mimetic re-inscription. As Kunwar Narain had said, in his 1987-lecture at the University of Stockholm, "[p]oetry is language-bound and language is life-bound both as an experience of the living present and as the memories of a past it cannot shake off." Indian poets have participated enthusiastically in this re-affirmation of the life-nourishing nature of traditional creative motifs and trajectories, while handling creative-cultural influences from all over the world. Whether it is the world-travelling cosmopolitan and urbane voice of a Narain or Sen or a more tradition-inscribed yet radical sensibility, as in the works of Ramdhari Singh "Dinkar", or a glocalised "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling", as in those of Rajani Parulekar, the Indian poetic voice of the second half of the twentieth century manages, overall, to depict the heart of the Indian matter. In this course, we will be studying, primarily, four-- three men and a woman-- Indian poets, who, between themselves, have re-affirmed a most significant Indic differentiation between thought and belief, through the mellifluous vehicle of poetry. In order to comprehend the core concerns of poetry in today's globalised world of disembodied and dislocated voices, especially in the context of a multi-dimensional way-of-life such as the Indian, one must study its deep involvement with contemporary socio-cultural and politico-economic realities. As an interesting example, we can look at Muktibodh's (1917-1964) poem "Lak?? k? R?va?" ("The Wooden Ravana"); in it, the inequities of rampant capitalist aggrandisement are identified with those caused by the mythical villain R?va?a in the time-defying Indian epic R?m?ya?a. We will look at similar exchanges and trade-offs between tradition and modernity in the works of the selected poets, who will be read and discussed in class; there will be an attempt to invite one or two of these poets to read from their works during the duration of the course. In the process, key concepts of Culture Studies will be discussed and debated, locating the course within the domain of interdisciplinarity. Key Texts: (Primary) Singh "Dinkar", Ramdhari, [Rasmirathi, 1954] Sun-Charioteer, tr. R. D. Dunda, D. Nelson and P. Staneslow (Minnesota: Nagari P, 1981); Narain, Kumar, No Other World: Selected Poems, tr. Apurva Narain (Delhi: Rupa, 2008); Parulekar, Rajani, "A Pair of Snakes", tr. Vinay Dharwadker (Bombay: 1985); Sen, Sudeep, Aria: Translations (London: Mulphran, 2010). Students are advised not to worry if these texts are not readily-available: the Lecturer will provide selections from them as and when needed; it is preferable that they read about, at least, one of the above-mentioned poets before the commencement of the course in October. We will proceed with the texts in chronological order. close