Tabish Khair – Borderless

Book Review by Navleen Multani

Title: Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map

Editors: Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi

Publisher: Sahitya Akademi

Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map edited by Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi anthologises twenty contemporary poets. This book unveils a large canvas of poems penned by poets hailing from diverse locations and cultures, evoking thoughts on existential dilemmas of the contemporary world. The 391 pages of the anthology comprise poems by multiple poets: Adil Jussawalla, Arundhati Subramaniam, Ashwani Kumar, Bashabi Fraser, Bibhu Padhi, Jayant Mahapatra, K. Satchidanandan, K.Srilata, Keki N.Daruwalla, Lakshmi Kannan, Mamang Dai, Nabina Das, Robin S. Ngangom, Sanjukta Dasgupta, Tabish Khair, Usha Akella, Yogesh Patel and more

Every poem entails evocative images, visual and syntactic cues that put forth poetics of everyday life. Traversing maps and minds, this engaging collection of two hundred poems unravels different places and persons. The anthology is a poetic narrative and holistic exploration of locating oneself through language. As the book brings together experiences and knowledge of space, it pushes readers to rethink how landscape shape identity.

Memories encompassing reflections on landscapes, ancient history, myth, family, home, towns, cities, countries, music, seasons, elements of nature, disasters, wants, love and wounds of Homo Sapiens, women, mother as well as immigrants abounds the creation of every poet. Memories of special days, seasons, cities and cultures culminate in the compositions of Mamang Dai. Nabina Das’ creations talk about death and else. Sanjukta Dasgupta juxtaposes past and present to celebrate free spirit of Kali, Alakshmi and Millenial Sita.

This compilation, published by Sahitya Akademi, is an itinerary for dreamers and travellers alike. Ten poems by each poet weave a tapestry of emotions, experiences, moments and memories that define persons, places, practices and cultures. Every word, image and syntactical turn in these poems moves readers to discover poet’s emotional state. Events and myriad experiences, memorable and unpleasant, form an intricate reflection on life. The poems are also revelations about the contemporary world. The mosaic of memories present a ceaseless stream of significant moments that mould the minds and the maps. The compositions heighten consciousness, enrich the understanding of readers and deepen their humanity. The poems make the readers encounter hardships, moments of despair, compassion, empathy and resilience to extract invaluable insights. Reflections on difficult and dark times infuse renewed strength to deal with adversity.

Every poet uses different linguistic register to delve into solitude, decay, death and a new force that nurtures mind as well as takes to greater understanding about existence. “When Landscape Becomes Woman” by Arundhati Subramaniam reveals “That a chink in a wall is all you need to tumble into a parallel universe”. Whether it is Bashabi Fraser’s “Mothers All” claiming, “They are the bravest soldiers-marching on”, or Adil Jussawalla’s “Refuge” telling “Mother tells her rosary from six to seven, her one hour refuge,” each poet, irrespective of gender, envisions an independent and autonomous identity. “What’s wrong with us Kali women?”, “Maryada[1] and modern Draupadi”, “Woman in a Landscape” by Adil Jussawalla, “History”, “Draupadi”, “Partition Ghazal”, “The Tribal Goddess” and “Patna to Nalanda-1979” by Keki N.Daruwalla transport readers from past to present and illuminate multi-facets of life. “Somewhere like a shadow in the night like a black mineral in the earth, /Somewhere in a mirror where you can see your dreams a poem awaits deftly angled light,” writes Keki Daruwalla. Ashwani Kumar’s poems dwell on Alzheimer’s, lies emerging from deception, town vanished in the reservoir of waters and the strange ways of the world.

The deftly crafted poems blend imagery, thoughts and experiences. Many of the poems are centred on home, landscape and seasons. Titles of a few poems like “Mitti[2]’, “Bhakti[3]”, “Haldi[4]”, “Mahaprajapati[5]”, “O Boisakh[6]” and “Lopamudra[7]” have not been provided with a translation. Supplementing these titles are poems like “Earthrise”, “Missives of Music”, “The Same Moon from Edinburgh to Calcutta: A Refracted Lens”, “Sunrise at Puri-on-Sea”, “The River” and “Earth Day”.

The poems ranging from prose to typographic and linguistic variations, Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map speaks to larger issues of urban Indian identity, acceptance, adaptation and cultural estrangement. These map the poetics of womanhood, the body, institution, family and love. By doing so, the anthology erases traditional boundaries to develop a new poetic form. The poems are ensembles of words that unite to present verbal, vocal and visual sphere of communication.

This three-dimensional language becomes carrier of aesthetic message of the poet. The reduction of language to a word or fragments in many of the poems is similar to the reduction of landscape to map elements selectively and generally. This gives a distinct charm to the anthology. The poems explode with bird-names, names of cities and countries making these compositions a dialectical map. Very aptly the poems, as Howard McCord contends, can be comprehended as “a map on which articulation of consciousness can be charted, and the serial flow we associate with prose can be gathered into clusters and islands of words which reveal the individual’s voice and vision, even his philosophical stance, more accurately than a line broken by a general rule imposed.” Poems in Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map are maps that offer ways to know simplified, generalised and selective views on the world and human existence.

[1] Dignity

[2] Mud

[3] Devotion

[4] Turmeric

[5] The woman who raised Buddha

[6] The second month in the Bengali calendar which coincides with April-May

[7] A philosopher who lived in the Rigvedic age

Dr Navleen Multani is Associate Professor, Head, School of Languages, and Director, Public Relations at Jagat Guru Nanak Dev Punjab State Open University, Patiala (India). She is Area Editor with Oxford Online Bibliographies: Literary and Critical Theory.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Is Time Future Contained in Time Past?

A Book Review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: A Handful of Sesame

Author: Shrinivas Vaidya

Translator: Maithreyi Karnoor

Publisher: Gibbon Moon Books

Originally written and published in Kannada as Halla Bantu Halla by Shrinivas Vaidya, this book won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 2004 and Central Sahitya Akademi Award in 2008. The author of many critically acclaimed literary collections, Vaidya is also the recipient of Karnataka Rajyotsava Award.

The English translation A Handful of Sesame by Maithreyi Karnoor was shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. Karnoor is the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship for creative writing and translation. She has also won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati prize for translation.

Written with the backdrop of India’s struggle for independence, spanning a time period of almost a hundred years from the mutiny of 1857 to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, this book chronicles the life of a Hindu Brahmin family over a century in a town called Navalgund in Karnataka. It is the narrative of a family, whose seed originated in Kanpur in Northern India but which took roots in the small Southern Indian town of Navalgund during a period of political upheaval and then made it a home for generations to come. This story, as Tabish Khair notes in the foreword, thus also becomes a story of internal migration, recording the adoption and assimilation of cultural and religious practices in everyday living. More than that, it offers us a window into the socio-cultural mores of a family affected and shaped by changing times.

Vasudevaachar is the son of Kamalanabh-panth of Kanpur who marries the daughter of a Brahmin from Navalgund and stays back during the chaotic times brought about after the suppression of 1857 mutiny. Like his father, he practiced medicine and takes on the responsibility of the entire household after Kamalanabh’s demise. The narrative deals with a detailed account of the struggles of running of the household with regular events like birth, death, marriages and so on in the big joint family with Vasudevaachar at the centre even as various occurrences like natural calamities, fight for freedom, world war and political turmoil keep altering the contours of their daily life.

Vaidya essentially creates a Brahmin household, suffusing the narrative with a rich language, idioms and slangs and vivid description of rituals, food and daily practices which are rendered in a delightful manner to the non-native reader through a fine translation by Maithreyi Karnoor. It palpitates with both rhyme and rhythm, of language and everydayness, concocting a gripping tale that captivates imagination.

The major characters that inhabit the world of A Handful of Sesame are diverse and non uni-dimensional. They evolve with the progressing narrative, forging the complex web of relationships within a large family that change as the time moves. Vaidya’s skilful portrayal brings forth the nuances in their interactions and connections which tie them as a family.

Vasanna or Vasudevaachar, the head of the family, a religious and orthodox Brahmin is shown to be burdened by perpetual looming financial burdens of the family. Tulsakka, his wife, is a quiet yet determined woman. Ambakka, sister of Vasanna, is a shaven widow who lives with them. Impatient and irritable, she however assumes bigger role in caring for the newborns of the family. Venkanna, younger brother of Vasanna and a widower too, instead of marrying again keeps a relationship with a Muslim woman. A firm and resolute man, he shares the financial burden of his brother. Rukkuma, an orphan adopted by Panth family and belonging to a lower caste, lives as a house-help while Narayana, another orphan adopted by the family and son of a distant relative lives with them too.

As the world around them keeps changing, family dynamics change too. When English schools open up in Dharwad, the young sons of the family are sent for an education there. With opening of newer avenues for livelihood, the next generation keeps moving onto newer and bigger places, adopting new ways of life but remaining connected with their roots.

Struggle for freedom, which remains a constant in the background, is employed to portray the rising collective consciousness across the nation which influenced the lives of ordinary people. We are offered glimpses into how the events like Salt Satyagraha or Congress meetings had an effect on the routine life of people of a small town like Navalgund. The author also offers a peek into the larger social construct surrounding the Panth family, which though fragmented by caste and religion, lived in harmony with each other. An orthodox Brahmin like Vasanna goes to a dargah to offer sugar to ward off evil eye. In the present context, this might appear contradictory to the very definition of an orthodox, but it simply means that a rigidness in following one’s own rituals did not translate to a dislike of others’ and the minds were more open to accepting the customs believed to bring a greater good.

Such times did exist. How wonderful it would be able to have access to more such works written in regional languages — works which open up bridges to the past of distant lands, connecting to our present, making the present improbable possible and bridging the divide; works which bring to us the account of lived lives of a people separated only by language. Perhaps this is why it becomes important that these works be made available to varied readers through translation.

For an English reader, Maithreyi Karnoor’s perceptive translation presents a view of the ‘most underrepresented region in Kannada literature’, thereby offering us not only the linguistic nuances neglected by mainstream Kannada but also a compassionate insight into the regional life which is critical for a better understanding of the period.

Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.

Click here to access the first Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles