Cities:
Two Perspectives’
by Gopal Lahiri & Sunil Sharma proves to be the finest example of this.
Poems in this volume show the city Mumbai from different perspectives and U
Atreya Sarma in the foreword says exactly this. He says here in this context:
“The perspectives are not the fleeting impressions of a casual tourist but of
two poets whose base has been Mumbai for a long time. Though the title mentions
it as ‘Cities,’ the poems are almost entirely about Mumbai only – barring one
with a few references to Delhi, Chennai and Paris; yet the characteristics of
Mumbai can be seen in almost every city in the country, with minor
distinctions. Thus, in spirit, the City of Mumbai is not a species but a
genus.”* Together these two poets give their readers thirty poems each and
through these poems they “capture the colour and contours, the sound and
silence, the face and pace, the grime and grace of the behemoth Mumbai, its
round-the-clock light as well as its dark patches... the varied moods of the
city, from dawn to dusk to midnight to dawn; from its sea to its interior land,
from the top of its skyscrapers to the bottom of its subterranean crannies,
from its metropolitan core to the suburban fringes.” (Sarma *)
The thirty poems of Gopal Lahiri
show the alternative reality of Mumbai lies beneath the concrete and commercial
nature of Mumbai. For him “City, the word itself evokes an image and space that
is different for everyone. A city draws people from every walk of life and
shines in all its pleasure and pain. As they say, every city be it New York,
London or Mumbai, never offers a dull moment.” (Preface, 9) The thirty poems of
Sunil Sharma also deal with the city life. This section is named as ‘Poems by Sunil Sharma’ and thirty poems
are “30 Scenes: Cities within a
City-Mumbai, Main and Extended.” Before going to discuss briefly this
section let us take a look at the confession of Sunil Sharma in another
collection namely “Ideas Images Texts.”
Sharma in the beginning of this volume confesses: “When observing the daily
grind—the highly-regulated existence and systems in the urban centers—ideas pop
up and then turn into images, a creative piece is born. The process of rapid
transformation—from concept to ideation to execution—is intriguing. Realties
encountered can be the source of a poetics rooted in the world experienced by
the sensitive observer. Poetry—such transformations—is about this life only.
With gods and kings gone, the everyday gets poetic for the eye and fresh
narratives get composed.” (A Short Confession, Ideas Images Texts 7)
Goutam Karmakar:
First of all thanks to both of you for providing us this beautiful collection
on city lifeand keeping the tradition alive of Bombay poets.
Gopal Lahiri (GL) & Sunil Sharma (SS): Welcome
Goutam.
GK: For both of you Mumbai seems to be the
first home. While Sunil Sharma is still living in Mumbai, GopalLahiri spent a
lot of time there. So does this living or spending time Mumbai urge both of you
to write poems on Mumbai?
GL: For sure. Living in a
city is very important instrument to the city-craft. You have to build a
relationship with the city and in that relationship, you have to be able to
identify the essence of the surroundings and the people. Mumbai has a character
of its own and one can easily dissolve into and get inspired.
SS: A place serves both as a
muse and context, Mumbai being no exception. Geographies and cultural
geographies are ecosystems worth a literary exploration. In one of our
brain-storming sessions on phone, it was decided to write on the cityscapes we
both share to a large extent and experience. Ideas often die young but this
project seemed to have worked out to mutual satisfaction and agreed plan.
Results are before a discerning audience---a creative collaboration on a mega
city that refuses to sleep; a powerhouse; a vibrant financial hub of the
nation, and, a world-famous film industry producing dreams in Eastman colour
for more than a billion narratives of reconciliations, if not mutinies, as seen
by the venerable Naipaul.
The soft underbelly of such a gigantic organism, the
Corporation, the conglomerate, fascinates me more than its glamour, now
declining due to lot of factors. Call it the other side of urban progress. The
groups are left out unseen by the System. Their isolation, powerlessness and
pain speak directly to my sensitive self. Empathy amplifies that sense of
outrage at a democratic system that does not integrate such groups but excludes
and erases from affirmative action and collective consciousness. The Forgotten
as a plurality become my province, occupation as a plebeian writer---the
insulted and the humiliated; the voiceless mass; the deprived section. The rage
gets transmuted into word-pictures, images and a poetics of resistance and
protest in a subtle manner--- a conscious departure from the stylistics of a
formalistic poetry, the current global rage. I posit my poetry and prose as a
counter to the ongoing language-obsessed and inward-looking poetry-writing
practices.
For me writing is not about linguistic experimentation
but a means of getting connected with poor folks. It is truly republican in
nature and splendour. Neruda and others guide me in this venture of recording
such narratives. Same way, I have responded to Delhi, NOIDA and Gurugaon by
focusing on such daily struggles of middle-and lower-classes in those ugly
sprawls sans a soul. For me a physical place acts as a stimulant and provides a
running frame and setting---call such efforts in prose or poetry as
place-pieces; they have got strong imagination, observations and matching
idiom, language and style as internal elements of these compositions; all of
them published in various countries.
GK: This volume shows the bonding between
Lahiri and Sharma. Even it is an equal partnership where both of you have
contributed thirty poems each. So can you tell us the reason behind this joint
collaboration?
GL:
It’s a seamless collaboration. But you are right as it doesn’t always come in
the moment. Sunil Sharma is a very renowned poet and I feel humbled to work
with him. He actually conceived the idea of the joint collaboration on
city-centric poems and we deliberated a lot on theme and content. Mumbai Nagari
is fascinating and always excites both of us and it has finally become a
logical conclusion that we must work on Mumbai and publish a book of poems. We
are also indebted to SudarshanKcherry and Authorspress for publishing this
elegant book.
SS:
Already
given my side of the story or that elusive Eureka moment. No need to rephrase
except the fact that Gopal and I enjoy good rapport and are comfortable, never
in competition. The relationship has worked well.
GK: In Mumbai the poetry never ends. This
city has given us poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Morales, Adil Jussawalla,
Gieve Patel, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, Ranjit Hoskote and many more. They
have written poems on Bombay (now Mumbai) also. So tell us how far do these
poets influence both of you to write poems on Mumbai?
GL:
Mumbai
(erstwhile Bombay) has been a muse for many a poet. My night stand is always
crowded with poetry books. Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, AdilJussawalla, Gieve
Patel, ArunKolkatkar, DilipChitre and RanjitHoskote are the poets whose work I
love. I never think of any influence but surly get inspired by their wonderful
poems. It seems like that. I still remember
these lines of Dom Moraes: ‘My native city rose from sea’ or ‘his sentences
fall, soundless, like the leaves/ swept up in parks, and burnt: like
poetry.’Who can forget the stunning lines written by DilipChitre: ‘A fouled Sun
rises from behind the textile mills/ As I crawl out of my nightmares and
hobble..?’ or ArunKolatkar’s ‘I lean back in the armchair/and Bombay sinks’?
SS:
Although
broadly familiar with their works and styles, I would confess I am on my
own---like every artist. You do not imitate others; you write your own version
of realities around. Same settings generate varied individual responses. Each
of the writers carries a different Mumbai or Delhi or Kolkata or any other
location.It all boils down to a singular perspective and inherent ideology. So
no long-term influences except the enduring ones exerted by the likes of Dos
Passos, Baudelaire, Pound, Eliot, Kafka, Gorky, Picasso and Monet.
Gk: Both of you here composepoemson Mumbai
and it's lifestyle. But a close reading reveals that Lahiri and Sharma project
this city in their own ways. So can you both explain the ways by which your
poems can be differentiated from one another?
GL:
I
don’t judge but I feel Sunil Sharma captures the urban landscape with its
images and richness beautifully in his poems on Mumbai. He translates the city
into a creative world beyond the borders where we exist. In search of a city
within a city, I am more enchanted by the surroundings with its smell, sound,
fissures and lineaments and their intricate relations with the people. Our
readers can better dissect our poems.
SS: Each comes with a
different sensibility. Even siblings come with varied shades of temperament;
perceptions can change and be relative within same family with shared
values.Our modes of cognition are calibrated differently. That variety brings
freshness and vitality. Similar objects are viewed from subjective positions
that cannot be homogenized and should never be.This variety ushers in vitality
in arts.
GK: Both of you here show sympathy for the
downtrodden. But of you satirize the elite class for being less sensitive. I
guess both of you use to dream of a better societal structure in Mumbai. So can
you kindly tell the messages that you both want to provide to your readers by
this volume?
GL:
Honestly, I never intend to pack empowering messages in my poems. Poems that
I’m creating are just part of me. Here ‘City’ is the central metaphor. I do
believe that our cities are not hell and people are not always ignoring their
hearts. It’s not just the grim depiction of despair but celebrations of nature
and life as well. And it is in a way.
SS:
For
me, no messages via literary texts. It is not propaganda. Art must suggest, not
pontificate. It should do consciousness-raising. The reader is autonomous and welcome
to form opinions and messages. In some poems, the recording voice might sound
bit sermonizing or editorializing---perhaps bits of conscious polemics or
dialogic aesthetics---in some parts but mostly, reader will find images being
reported and scenes described in these poetic landscapes. You can call them as
contrarian pieces that interrogate official versions of progress, development
and democracy. They can be read as political as well. The idea is to provide a
counter-point. Status quo needs to be questioned.
GK:
Thanks for this brief but fruitful discussion on this book. We are waiting for
more collaborative works from both of you.
GL&SS: Thanks GK. It’s a pleasure talking to you.
Sure, we might plan something again.
 |
| Goutam Karmakar |
Works Cited
Lahiri, Gopal & Sunil Sharma. Cities: Two Perspectives.
New Delhi: Authorspress, 2018. Print.
Sharma, Sunil. Ideas Images Texts. New Delhi: Authorspress,
2016. Print.
About GoutamKarmakar
GoutamKarmakar
is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Barabazar Bikram Tudu
Memorial College, Sidhu-Kanhu-Birsha University, Purulia, West Bengal, India.
About Gopal Lahiri
 |
| Gopal Lahiri |
About Sunil Sharma
Sunil Sharma lives in Mumbai,
India. He is a widely-published Indian critic, poet, editor, translator,
essayist, literary interviewer, and fiction writer. He has already published
three collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction, one novel and
co-edited five books so far. He is the recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets'
inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. Recently his poems were published in
the UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree-2015.
He can be reached at
http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/,http://about.me/drsunilsharma
Twitter: @drsunilsharma, LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/drsharmasunil/.
His recent publications can be seen via this link http://drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/p/recent.html. 
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