Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Book Review: The Legend of Amrapali

Author: Anurag Anand

Format:Paperback

Language: English

Pages: 214

Price: 200

Publishers: Srishti Publishers

ISBN Number: 9380349473







About the Book:


“So what are you reading now?” a voice enquired from behind. I mumbled for the ‘n’th time- and got showered with more. Now three different voices shooting questions at me. “What Amrapali- you mean the dancer?”- “No, she was the courtesan, right?” “What Amrapali- you are reading about Vyjayanthimala Bali , are you?” read it somewhere that people had forgotten about Amrapali- now my relatives prove it, that we have n’t.  With a kid peeping over the cover- and spelling the Title out letter by letter, with a male voice in the room rolling the words in his tongue, “The girl who are born in mango grove” and with my memories dragging me back to my childhood days, with the pages of Amar Chitra Katha’s edition  of “Buddha” Amrapali bowing in front of Sakya Muni and offering him food- the protagonist became a familiar figure, much before I had started reading. 

Monday, January 30, 2012

Book Review: The Ancient Book


Author: Parikshit Rane

Format:Paperback

Language: English

Pages:
 81

Price: Rs. 95

Publishers: Leadstart Publishing Pvt. Ltd.

ISBN Number: 978-93-81115-03-9




About the Book: 


Did you ever think of old fairy tales actually growing old and somewhat a stale- the same old story of a Red Riding Hood, and the Hare losing out to a Tortoise- new age mothers finding it difficult to conceive better bedtime stories- more baffled are they at the story weaving capacities of their conceived baby geniuses! You can’t blame them- they see more and type more than we do- or should that be called type “faster’. 

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Book Review:Dissension

Author: Gopa Nayak

Format: Paperback

Language: English

Pages:
 107

Price:
 Rs. 200

Publishers: Cyberwit.net

ISBN Number: 978-81-8253-220-5






About the Book:


As I write this review, I am painfully trying to forget the horrid misuse of freedom to create new musical composition for masterpieces written down by Rabindranath Tagore. The song that just got botched by the electric guitar, the drum set was- “Jodi tor data sune keu na ashe”. The reason I wrote this was perhaps I felt as if a dead old man was assuring me , that no matter how hard they try- the existing creation are too powerful to be marred by the mindless.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Book Review: Dreams of Distance


Author: Bhabani Shankar Nayak

Format: Paperback

Language: English

Pages:
 129

Price:
 Rs. 200

Publishers: Cyberwit.net

ISBN Number: 978-8182532489






About the book:


I remember how a teacher had once, out of exasperation, blurted out, “Alas how strange it is that anyone who gets to drink a portion of literature from the residuals left behind but recent predecessors, tries to scribble a poem! O god! Why do we forget that Nobel laureates are not born so often?” I was young back then, thus did not dare to reply. Though, now, perhaps I am able to chant in whispers-
“These are not just words
In wild thoughts
A poet writes to express
In different ways
To share the secrets
With his loved ones…”
The above lines are quoted from the poem called “Dream of a Poet”. You will find it in Bhabani Shankar Nayak’s “Dreams of distance”.
The most alluring destination in Orissa, for me, was the Sun temple at Konark. Honestly, was quite thrilled to find the poem titled by the same. Creativity reaches an upper notch, when you find how different can expression run through the channels of human thought and how a particular place hold on to the reins of wilderness and refresh every creative outburst and cast it with the trait of distinctive individuality. Quoting from it-
“Fragments of her thought
Draws love sick art
In whispering stones
Eyes stop and heart dotes...”
I also remember, while wandering amidst the temple remises- I had a strange urge to seek back into the area on a full moon night- and perhaps listen to sounds from the past...Nayak’s “Lonely Moon” echoed my nascent feelings.
“There is a soul
Looking for pearl
Behind the moon
It is loneliness that shines
To defeat the darkness.”
However you try to bind your thoughts in cages, it will surely find the peeking gaps in between and set itself free from your malicious clutches, by and by. The lines from “Waiting Time” spoke to me the above mentioned motto of a survivor’s instinctive urges.
“In the face of strong wind
Open fields are always lonely
Celebrating the spirit of sky
Freedom of flying thrills
In an age ghettoisation of thoughts”
The words rebel page after page, they fall for each other- rule the desires and escape through the transits of our daily humdrum- to a different Utopia- envisioned by the poet, from time to time. Like dewdrops they soothe the aching backs of grass blades, like a child willing to ask endless questions, they form verses meant for Eternity to ponder upon. Nayak in his collection- achieves this connection- rhyming even the ideas existing poles apart.

About the author:



Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak is a political economist by profession and poet by imaginary accident. He is the author of the Anubhuti (experience); collection of poems in Oriya. His anthology of poems; Nomad and the Road was published by the Writers Workshop, Kolkata. He writes on different areas of political economy of development and capitalism.


Further Information:


Friday, January 13, 2012

Book Review: Cobwebs in Space


Author: Bushra Naqi

Format: Paperback

Language: English

Pages:
 82

Price:
 Rs. 200

Publishers: Cyberwit.net

ISBN Number: 978-81-8253-222-9






 About the book:


For a change, it is a welcoming surprise to read poems of someone living right across our borders. Honestly sensibilities of our Indian peninsula can never touch the lands of differences. And even if they do, they are like those ancient invading tribes- who would depart in a short while.
Bushra Naqi’s “cobwebs in space” speak at length about symbolic connotations in relation to generic thoughts of freedom. Even after I close the book, the words of the poem “Freedom” echo within me.
“I exist for I am free. I survive for I am free.”
The most poignant ending in the entire collection is :-
“The womb of mother nature liberated me at birth.”
When a woman writes she can seldom overcome the urge to pen down poems for her own creed. The following lines are from the poem “Woman”-
“her clipped wings
Trap energy
Artfully sneaking
Into wanton crevices...
Her diluted naiveté
Endures captivity”.
 Creativity has witnessed trends of all kinds. It has borne the traces of dotting poetry and has travelled down the centuries as “words from several mouths”- till prose became the form of expression. For a few years, it came to my knowledge that several experimental writers are trying to merge poetry and prose and thus giving birth to the third transitional group – “poetic prose”.
Naqi’s attempts of poetic prose earn instant applause my personal favourite would be “Oceans of Silence”-
“The words not yet uttered into speech/move between us, trembling like a leaf, /touching our shores like sound passing/through an empty cave.../Love needs no voice to express itself.”
Naqi touches all the realms – which we have to live along with. Some of them are like poisonous thorns and others are like soothing balms over our ganglia-like wounds. Her words grow into a strong provocative voice and even touch the higher chords of protest. Poems like “In The Name of Honour” and “Explosions” are most representative poems of the collection. They evoke the realisation of the pain and plight her country has to bear is the name of “civility”.
If we look at the following lines of the poem, “Explosions”, we can gauge the true intensity of the turmoil as captured by the poet:
“As the fire engulfs them from within and without/they know that whosoever lights a fire, /will see it burn, / like a poison in a body spreading /killing it slowly and unknowingly.”
The collection is rightfully called “cobwebs in space”, not only due to  the poem by the same name getting its place within the pages of the book, perhaps , also due to the same sense of chained up complications spread across the expenses of free space. Yet the attempt of breaking away is forever present. The lines of the poem “when darkness falls...” is more close proving the underlying theory of the above discussion.
“the test of a human spirit
In its endurance cohabits
Moored in a vessel of hope
To stir again its human consciousnesses...”
If you happen to pick this prestigious Patrus Bokhari Prize winner’s “Cobwebs in Space”- don’t forget to flip through the pages and read the poem “Lahore”, - a city got versed. To me, Naqi is less a poet more an accomplished bard.


About the author:





I hail from the city of Lahore, which has been described by many as the “city of poets, love, longing, sin and splendor.” Having been born four years after the birth of my country, I have witnessed this historic city undergo myriad changes as my country has juggled between pseudo-democracy and dictatorship. It is from this constant state of metamorphosis that I seek my inspiration. My critics describe me as an unconventional poet and a non-conformist who prefers to break down myths rather than adhere to traditions. Living in a traditionally conservative society, I have become a reactionary, challenging a stagnant and static way of life.


Further Information:

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Book Review: Poetry Manifesto

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Author: Vihang A Naik

Format: Paperback

Language: English

Pages:
 119

Price:
 Rs.135. US$ : 3.75

Publishers: INDIALOG PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD.,NEW DELHI , INDIA.

ISBN Number: 81 - 8443 - 033 - 7; 9788184430332





About the Book:


Poetry becomes a form of art and gains the consent of abstract bewilderment once you are able to call up on your inner senses, pull up your environmental awareness and finally squeeze out just the adequate amount of aromatic essence out of it to the awe of the general audience. Poetry Manifesto (new & selected poems) by Vihang A. Naik is filled with such tendencies.
I made a couple of young men and women read his collection out of whim and I am eager to share one such overwhelming feedback. Apart from using the common terminologies associated with the age group, the young man said, “This speaks more than it seems, this is so like us, talking in monosyllables at parts, as if speaking of machines, as if we are the living machines. Are we going to be “this” mechanised; when I grow older, to say about a decade later?”
My favourite section in the book is “A poet”. Like Polaroid instant snapshots the poet Vihang A. Naik is able to capture moments as seen in poems like “In Rains”-
“A girl folds her
Newspaper into a boat
And makes it flow
Over flooded waters.
A poem sails
above road level
with yesterday’s flood report.”
The ever lingering thought about “what made some of us select verse as our personal medium of literary expression?” is well dealt with in the poem “Making of a Poet”. Few lines like the following seems to have the intensity to engage in a debating affair- that would perhaps go on- like a man sitting in conversation with Dead- just to buy some more time for himself.
“did you instruct your hand to move
or make a poem?
Then you may even wonder how poetry
Makes a poet?”
I felt like being lost in an old snow clad town with wax idols of men and women scattered around. As if I was the only moving object with the only beating heart within and a colourful dress that determined my appearance- running about hunting for more colours. Here perhaps colours come in unison with the imageries associated with a butterfly. Here again the name is just as common- “A poet”
“in metropolis
A poet
Hunting
A butterfly
Ends up
With a pen
A blotted
Image
A poem”
If I am not speaking about “self portrait” then I am seriously undermining the developing idea of getting an image personified into the lines/words. The poem talks about the recognition of the “I” that finally “wake up” and makes the dominant effort “to see” the inner power hidden in “my-Self”. The discovery is kept hidden in between the lines so much so that you end up ignoring the blank in between the two pages. The last line marks the foot of the second page and ends without any punctuation- “discovered beyond thought”.
Poetry Manifesto (new & selected poems) by Vihang A. Naik is experimental arousing several untapped dimensions in the readers’ mind, giving them the perfect excuse to invade those lands that lay beyond the regular mesh of monotony.

About the author:

Vihang Ashokkumar Naik (born 1969), is an Indian poet writing in English and translates poetry from Gujarati into English.
Vihang A Naik was born in Surat, South Gujarat on September 2, 1969. He did his BA in English and Philosophy in the year 1993 and did an MA in English Literature and Indian Literature in translation in the year 1995, all from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He received his primary education during 1983 from Navrachana School , Vadodara. Gujarat. India.
He is India’s contemporary poet writing in English. His poems have appeared in such literary journals as The Indian P.E.N, Indian Literature : A Sahitya Akademi Bi-Monthly Journal, Kavya Bharati, POESIS: A Journal of Poetry Circle, Mumbai, The Journal of The Poetry Society (India), The Journal of Indian Writing In English, The Journal of Literature and Aesthetics, The Poetry Chain among other significant journals.
Four collections of his poetry have been published: Poetry Manifesto: New & Selected Poems (2010), Making A Poem (2004), City Times and Other Poems (1993). His Gujarati collection of poems include Jeevangeet (Gujarati Poems) published by Navbharat Sahitya Mandir (Ahmedabad) in 2001, dedicated to the cause of victims of Gujarat Earthquake of January 26, 2001. He also translates poetry written in the Gujarati language into English, including his own Gujarati language poems.
After teaching at Smt. M.C. Desai Arts and Commerce College , Prantij during 1996-97 while commuting from Ahmedabad , he is now an Associate Professor of English at Shree Ambaji Arts College ( Ambaji ) affiliated to Hemchandrachariya North Gujarat University , Patan., since 1797.
Further information: