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Chandigarh Chapbook: Poetry-2010 — Selected Poems ELEVEN poets of the city contribute to this slim volume to give you a sneak-peek into the versescape of Chandigarh. These include well-known names on the symposium circuit like Nirupama Dutt, Kailash Ahluwalia and some lesser-known ones exploring their emotions in verse. The curtain rises on Nirupama Dutt’s Wicked Woman who jolts you out of your everyday complacence. She is as wicked (or politically incorrect) as the next woman and makes one think why tangents (and explosive ones at that!) are the only available road for expression for women. The words implode with desires whose mere mention, leave alone fulfilment, spell social ostracism and exclusion from whoever constitutes family at the moment.
Vijaya Singh’s poems have a quiet grace about them, which comes through facing adversities in one’s life with dignity. The harmony in their expressions, themes, ideas and interestingly, even in the phrases, is reminiscent of a master craftsman using the same leitmotif for different creations. For example, "brisk rivers and their quiet circulation" in Nothing to Do; "calm rhythmic breath/Joins the silent, dark circulation" in Nowhere to Go and "silently circulating through the body of the earth" in Endless Quest. Her three poems enmesh like thick emerald creepers in a bonsai rainforest which has thrived in the backyard for years—undisturbed and unperturbed by the violence of a gardeners’ tools. Like a bird for which its song is a form of expression as well as a solace, the poets’ verse is more so, for its quintessential tranquility amid a life of turbulence. Balpreet Kaur’s The Bout engages one like a Rubik’s puzzle. ‘Word’ict is an interesting amalgamation of thoughts while In Wait shows promise in its use of clever personifications. Bismark Singh’s To Digest Before Digress meanders before reaching nowhere in particular. Harneet Kaur Sandhu’s Old Timer’s Complaint is an eloquent comparison of the old times with the new. Manju Jaidka’s twin
poems Two Views of the Lake are the only ones which dwell on a
landmark of the city. Some degree of lack of evenness in the quality
of the poems chosen, as well as editing skills is discernable . Since
it is an initiative to showcase local talent, poems on subjects closer
to the hearts of city residents would have been appreciated much more
than those on Emily Dickinson. The endeavour by the Akademi is
valuable in so far as it provides a voice to the city residents. We
look forward to a more widely advertised call for contributions in the
coming year so as to bring to light the creativity of the city.!
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The
poet looks for love in her other poems too, that elusive emotion which
should have been hers by right but has always been just a little
beyond reach. It is evident from her poems that the gray world of the
creative individual, her torment and loneliness find little hope of
succour from friends she meets on the way and who are about as lost as
herself.