“Poems of Chandalini” by Kalyani Thakur Charal

Pratiti Ghosh

Poems of Chandalini | Poetry Collection | Kalyani Thakur Charal | Zinia Mitra and Jaydeep Sarangi | ISBN:978-93-91736-96-5 | Birutjatio Sahitya Sammiloni, 2023 | pp 94 | ₹ 299/-

A cry for justice, a voice of Dalit womanhood and dignity in struggle 

 The Poems of Chandalini written by Kalyani Thakur Charal, is a landmark work in Dalit literature by giving voices to the struggles of women both in caste and gender discrimination from a dalit feminist perspective. She not only exudes systematic oppression but also redeems a sense of pride and strength in Dalit identity. She always uses plain and straightforward language to reveal the harsh realities avoiding unnecessary ornamentation. As a Dalit feminist poet, her work often challenges the hierarchies of society and portrays the experiences of marginalized communities.

In the Poems of Chandalini, she beautifully portrays an intense connection between nature and human existence. The imagery of river, the dusky evening and the solitary bird captures a sense of solitude, longing, timelessness and a deep connection with nature.

a solitary bird’s voices do not affect

Yet I have behind this river, this

Sky is my ageless intimate evening. (Page-13)

The solitary bird here represents isolation or unnoticed. It could also be a metaphor for marginalized voices in society who are often overlooked or spurned. In the poems of Chandalini, the poet shows how the strain of bitterness in his love transforms her simplicity into complexity.

I was never complex

You made me so. (Page-23)

But in the midst of chaos and despair her search for ‘a new country’ symbolizes a fresh start, a hope, and an escape to a liberated existence.

I’ll flood you with sms and calls

Between my sleepless nights and dreams

Standing like a pendulum (Page-33)

The pendulum imagery conveys the poet’s emotional indecision between love, longing, and torment. Her sleeplessness reflects the instability of relationships and shows her one-sided emotional labour. All those imageries like rivers, fields, pendulum, fractured home creates the personal struggles in universal experiences. The act of being ‘sent off alone’ suggests an alienated journey one that requires courage and self-dependence. The ‘boat’, though solitary becomes a vessel for the dreams of liberation.

About the social hypocrisy the poet’s tone is very much sarcastic and deeply critical.

Oh! God! Cowdung is holier than the touch of a Dalit (Page-43) 

The exclamation reveals the poet’s bitterness and sarcasm. The Poems of Chandalini portrays the oppression faced by Dalit communities across generations. In this collection Charal not only addresses the themes of cultural intolerance, opportunism and oppressive conditions faced by Dalit women but also there is an affirmative approach to take action to make a social change.

Wake up black men and women! (Page-65) 

She directly addresses the Dalit community that there is a necessity to break free from the passivity of a long history of subjugation and marginalization. There is an urgency in the tone and also an inspiring hope for change and renewal.

 Sarangi has affirmed that the poet herself wanted to be called a womanist like her fellow poet Bama. As a womanist poet, Charal’s Poems of Chandalini addresses the intersectionality of caste, gender, and identity empowering the dalit voices in Dalit literature. By using Chandalini, a term that is historically used to degrade, Kalyani Thakur Charal transforms it into a symbol of power and self-assertion. The Poems of Chandalini serve as a powerful lens to understand the caste-based atrocities for readers of all backward groups. In Dalit literary movement, her work contributes to preserve and celebrate Dalit culture, folklore and their traditions. The cultural affirmation empowers those groups to reclaim their history and heritage. For a wider audience, the Poems of Chandalini catalyzes social change by forcing privileged communities to confront caste-based injustice. Charal’s the Poems of Chandalini inspires the Dalit communities to embrace their identity rather than be ashamed of it.

 The Poems of Chandalini also raise crucial questions about literature itself: Who has the right to tell their stories? Who controls the literary canon? By breaking into a space long dominated by upper-caste voices, Charal forces readers to reconsider the biases that shape what is considered 'mainstream' literature. Her poetry challenges the deeply entrenched elitism of the literary world and demands that Dalit experiences should be seen, heard, and valued. In a world where caste-based discrimination continues Charal's poems stand as a powerful reminder that literature is not just about storytelling it is about reclaiming humanity.

***

Pratiti Ghosh

Reviewer’s Bio: Pratiti Ghosh is a State Aided College Teacher in the Department of English at Muzaffar Ahmed Mahavidyalaya, Murshidabad (Affiliated to University of Kalyani). She has been teaching since 2014. Her area of interest includes Indian Writing in English, language teaching methodologies and Dalit literature. Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. She has actively participated and presented papers in international and national conferences and workshops.

Email: pratitighsh@gmail.com

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Setu, April 2025

Author of the Month: Jaydeep Sarangi

Jaydeep Sarangi

1. Souvenirs

In our love’s souvenirs

left paths are worth more

than the paths we walk everyday

full with grass flowers smiling.

Where are those rivers gone

On the banks of which we sat together

Dreams beating at our heart

sparks of touches were signals?

from the Subarnarekha to the Ganges

each letter or a gift was a journey into the heart

of an ancient city and its clouded river water

that could be a love poem for you.

Only old bricks abound

some noisy crows

searching for a lost horoscope

dictating towards our meeting again

With what fibre is it woven now?

A lotus with eight petals spinning the wheel

with five elements, holy threads

making a silky thread somewhere.

2. House of Words

Sitting under my foliage of words, I count pearls

I gathered in a gesture of prayer, ask them to describe

this immense faith, this gash, this silence, this purity

with the infinite and never having enough moments to hold.

I summon all mighty emperors, knocking at the

heart's door tonight, old pain arrives again

outside my door like a ghost of my grandfather.

I am warned again and again not sit idle, not writing.

I extend hands inviting moments to travel

through my daily thoughts and feelings to connect

I’m not chosen for time’s beloved as you are,

Sparkling waterfalls you hold in both palms.

***

3.

My fate is where pure minds chant

on the ghats of an ancient river

no one else, only surrendering the self

narrow lanes of Varanasi, moving water.

I couldn’t stop for the road not taken.

Pyres in burning ghats stopped for me,

to be lost or to be a saviour of souls.

Meet me where the end begins

in the Himalayan silence

where your universe is me

and my universe is you, all in prayers.

Ruins of Akrotiri or Mohenjo-daro

the peacock dances in tunes.

Tears, tears against the dying light of the day

Empting all shared times, words and meetings

Life’s vessel is on voyage on a all-weather bed

to live upon these shifting shores, random moments.

***

4. Memory as My Writing

Formless like the waves

Rising on the sea shores

My memory surges

Sessions of thoughts at late nights

My memory is like an old stone lying

As I cross river beds under an alien sky

Time’s tongue is lolling out of hunger

From Palm leaves to stones. Writing.

Old images were inscribed

Pangs, prayers and funerals

On my brown skin

Even today, this afternoon.

Thorns to flowers. Daffodils to Hibiscus

Memory is my voices, reflections.

***

5. The River of Life

In a living voice from the past

messages are tall shadows.

Life moves on like people huddling

standing, sitting, chanting together,

walking and preparing for the prayer meets

beside an ancient river of holy faith.

Sages chant for peace, order

flowing in a vessel of searching light.

Home for all who have no

homes to go, no sky to live.

Only prayers exist for ages--

are a huge door, hope of the secret river flowing

carrying the heart of a nation

living and longing, faithfully

holding the world on its lotus self.

***

ABOUT THE POET:

Dubbed as ‘Bard on the Banks of Dulung’ Jaydeep Sarangi is an Indian poet, poetry activist with eleven poetry collections in English latest being the half-confession (2024). And scholar on dalit studies, postcolonial studies and Indian Writings with forty one books anchored in Kolkata/Jhargram. Widely anthologised and reviewed as a significant contemporary poet Sarangi is on the editorial boards for journals of repute, devoted to marginal studies and poetry criticism. With Rob Harle he has edited six anthologies of poems from Australia and India which are a wealthy literary link between the nations. With Amelia Walker, he has guest edited a special issue for TEXT, Australia. Sarangi has twenty books and several articles/essays/reviews on dalit studies which are a window to the world. His recent article, “The Sociological Self as Palimpsest Caste, Class, Religion, and Gender in the Select Writings of Bama” appeared through Routledge, UK. His recent co-authored books include, Mapping the Mind, Minding The Map: Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets, Sahitya Akademi, 2023 and A Life Uprooted: A Bengali Dalit Refugee Remembers, Sahitya Akademi, 2023. His book of essays, WITHIN HER HOME, AND OUTSIDE: ESSAYS ON INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY, Black Eagle Books, Dublin, USA (and BBSR) is in press. With many international and national awards in the bag, Sarangi is currently the President of Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC) and Vice President, EC, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata. Living with poets and poetry, Sarangi is the principal of New Alipore College, Kolkata. Two recent quotes about his poems, "(Jaydeep’s) poems continues Jaydeep's indignation with the plight of the downtrodden, and his love of flowing rivers and mystical realms. An enchanting read!" by Robert Maddox-Harle, Reviewer & Poet, Rainbow Region, NSW Australia.

“Jaydeep’s poems are rooted in the world of being and feeling, conjuring up colour and senses and sensibilities, asking how it is that we humans navigate the natural domain, survive the social domain.” By Jen Webb, a Professor, Creative Practice, University of Canberra, Australia and a distinguished poet

Link to a recent newspaper coverage (The Hindu):

The college principal who serves as a bridge between Bengal’s Dalit literature and the world - The Hindu

He may be reached at: jaydeepsarangi1@gmail.com Website: https://jaydeepsarangi.in/

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Setu, March 2025

A Temple of Delight along the Arabian Sea

How Women Become Poems in Malabar, Smitha Sehgal, Red River, New Delhi, ISBN 978-93-92494-48-2, Rs. 349/-

-Reviewed by Jaydeep Sarangi

 

How Women Become Poems in Malabar ferrets around women’s space, travels, engagements with within and the outside world and empowerment. Written with extreme intensity, poems in the trendsetting collection are not merely a footnote to equality, or a tick in the diversity box. Smitha Sehgal’s collection explores the feminine experiences in her social role relationships, transformative zeal and the unique setting of the coast of Malabar. The milieu and its rich tapestry emerge as a vivid character in Smitha’s poems. The dedication says, “I dedicate this book with a silent prayer to the ruins of century-old mango trees planted in my ancestors by the Arabian Sea.” It prepares the readers to experience a different collection of poems in the midst of cacophony of poems written these days.

Jaydeep Sarangi

In ‘What Poetry Means to Me’ the versatile poetess says,

“... to discover truth

to sleep in peace

to die in deep meditation.”

The poetess is not bounded by any political map; she travels and travels with poetry from Malabar to Guyana and Kabul to Port of Spain in a splendid vessel to pour gold. In the process, she gets the shop and the shutter:

“When I wake up, this is not what I am

In the brief history of our love,

I am not your coy Radha or devoted Meera,

I am but words.” (‘The Brief History of Love’)

Smitha Sehgal

The Arabian Sea is a vibrant character in Smitha’s poems. Precision is the vital dose of many of her powerful poems. More words create more business in poems which are a handicap in the rhythmic flow the poems. Smitha is aware of her artistry. She takes control of her cadence.

Some poems take us to a rainforest basin where incessant rain welcome dreams of pristine maps snapping inside the cloudlets of her poetic thoughts. In some poems, El Dorado myth opens to a ‘supine strip of road’ within. Poets have a different order of faith. Smitha says,

Music becomes a paradisal river

gathering our betrayals.” (‘El Dorado Inn’)

One of the salient features of these well structured poems is that even the emotionally intelligent ones raise deeper questions,

“call her by my name—

Arabian, Andaman, Mediterranean

she whispers in my conch shell ear (.)” (‘Song of Sea’)

Here doors of promises have no hinges. What else is poetry?

Poems in this collection come after some years of silence. The poet has talent and zeal for sustenance. Some poems link every worldly collapse to the faith in poetic wisdom as the poet puts them out in the tropical sun:

“come back to salt

come to read

come to gather pine cones(.)”

There is desire for currency of beauty everywhere in the collection, and the poetess explores her cultural roots and home photographically. Some poems in this collection of royally variegated poems reflect her preoccupation with sweetness of love, love’s languishment, loneliness and deep death of objects and subjects. The glass shines and we are never lost in the game called love. The poem ‘Rain Man’ describes how someone becomes ‘the flooding Yamuna’ when rain whispers nightlong. Into the mysteries all images are drawn, between light and dark. The tone of the poems is simple, but moving. Her material is varied and at times, sensuous. It is here that the poet's unique gift is revealed through a set of sparkling metaphors and images drawn from Indian sensibilities and value systems. Rain is a trope for many subtle things. The tropical sun smiles with plenty of sun/rain/monsoon metaphors in How Women Become Poems in Malabar. The production of the book by the Red River is out of the box, amazingly satisfying which vividly matches with Smitha’s subjective parameters in the collection. Smitha is above all, an ardent seeker. Poems of this polymeric oeuvre remind us how literature is a special mode of knowing of the world of Truths.

Dubbed as ‘Bard on the Banks of Dulung’ Jaydeep Sarangi is an Indian poet, poetry activist with eleven poetry collections in English latest being the half-confession (2024). and scholar on dalit studies, postcolonial studies and Indian Writings with forty one books anchored in Kolkata/ Jhargram. Widely anthologised and reviewed as a significant contemporary poet Sarangi is on the editorial boards for journals of repute, devoted to marginal studies and poetry criticism. With Rob Harle he has edited six anthologies of poems from Australia and India which are a wealthy literary link between the nations. With Amelia Walker, he has guest edited a special issue for TEXT, Australia. Sarangi has twenty books and several articles/essays/reviews on dalit studies which are an window to the world. His recent article, “The Sociological Self as Palimpsest Caste, Class, Religion, and Gender in the Select Writings of Bama” appeared through Routledge, UK. His recent books include, Mapping the Mind, Minding The Map:Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets, Sahitya Akademi, 2023 and A Life Uprooted: A Bengali Dalit Refugee Remembers, Sahitya Akademi, 2023. Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map (2023, Sahitya Akademi) is his latest book. Sarangi is currently the President of Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC) and Vice President, EC, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata. Living with poets and poetry, Sarangi is principal of New Alipore College, Kolkata-53, WB.

Link to a recent newspaper coverage (The Hindu):

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/west-bengal/the-college-principal-who-serves-as-a-bridge-between-bengals-dalit-literature-and-the-world/article68795882.ece

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Setu, February 2025

What He Lives With

the half-confession: soulful poems

Jaydeep Sarangi

Penprints, Kolkata

₹ 350/-, Pp 95

Reviewed by Shrabana Adhikari

Jaydeep Sarangi, a bi-lingual writer from Jhargram, has made immense contributions in post- modern Indian English Literature. He is inspired by John Keats, Stephen Mallarme, Kalidasa, Jayanta Mahapatra, Salvatore Quasimodo and Bibhu Padhi. His eleven collections of anthology of poetry make a significant standpoint in the corpora of poetry in English. His writing can be considered as a voyage towards the inner self as well as ancient civilization, history and nature. This use of fragmented images and the unconventional rhyme pattern create a unique sense of perception among the readers. The repetitive imagery of the river portrays a dynamic aspect of life, longing, love, memory and emotion. The poems also carry self reflection and ambiguity. These poems are also allusive in nature. What is important to note is that the poet leaves the metaphorical expressions open to interpretation for the readers.

Jaydeep Sarangi

The poet has given shape to his boundless imagination through metaphoric use of language. In the very first poem entitled ‘Speaking with My Unspoken Words’, the poet represents his, spiritual journey along with mythological reference-

I meet Arjuna, Karna and Krishna in my dreams,

Never find something like a window to hold.

Sarangi’s fascination for describing the ruins of the past is well known. His love affair poetry began very early in life. His relationships with doyens of contemporary poetry made him a special person. He has intermingled his own reflective mood with the reference to ancient archaeological sites like, Jericho and geographical underpinnings-

Shrabana Adhikari

I am safe, Anubis protecting my genes

Of dreams sleeping for ages near the walls in Jericho,

Under the stones, a diabetic life is all Nazca lines

drawn in different lights, at different times.

(‘Patterns on Stones’).

The unique use of language left a remarkable impression in the arena of Indian English poetry. The poems are loaded not only with various images and wit but also with significant ideas which provide enough food for thought to the readers from different cultural spaces. Sarangi is a seasoned poet and poetry reviewer who is a voracious reader of poetry. Many of the poems in this collection are confessional; intimately love offerings to an eastern muse who can be his partner of poetry for whom his ‘moon months’ wait. In love’s mind he can listen to the oracles of the rivers and he thinks someday his beloved will visit his hometown, Jhargram. This collection, for the first time, registers Sarangi’s excessive engagement with the theme of loss and absences. His unquiet heart laments near a small window from where he can remember his muse closely and personally. His poem ‘Don’t be Far Off’ is a plea to his muse that she shouldn’t be far off from the poet, come what may.

By pointing to Knocker- uppers, the poet not only recalls the era of Industrial revolution in England where some people were assigned to wake up other people as there was no alarm clock but also he refers to his own Provence Kolkata which carries Indian ethos and essence of Indian culture and ambience-

There are knocker-uppers to live with

There is time to get up, work

Time to leave out in slow pace

reminding time to have business

Time moves slowly, slow as traffic in a busy Kolkata street

Slow arrival of the dawn has the fairest colours

Where wearied minds rest from the rush,

daily rust, some ancient scars or to fight a war.

(‘Knocker-uppers’)

In the poem titular, ‘the half-confession’, the poet recollects his childhood memories as well as upholds the most notable historical event which has its reverberating effect till now-

I was born in a December cold

with marks on my walls of faith

Bengal became two parts

Fractured lives and separated siblings.

The poet also comes back to his present self in the same piece of poem and meditates on his desires and haunting of time-

Now at fifty-one, invisible signals remind me

of matters related to the heart-

of all the small wishes, frail faiths and links

days’s shifting light rides on affections and desires

I long for time’s wandering eye mocking at me from a distance.

Sarangi’s poem is charged with musicality, a sense of belonging and profound respect for ancestors’ contribution to his personality development-

I remember my grandfather calling me many times

To meet his grandfather by our ancestral pond

The last time he spoke of ice, snows in the mountains

I was sitting near him listening to stories to travel.

(‘Ancestor’s Grail’)

The poems are written with intense emotional approach and in direct tone through a language that is confident and intuitive. Some poems reflect the poet’s personal yearnings to meet his lost muse. Sarangi’s profound faith in the muse is adorable. The recurrent use of the imagery of the river ‘Dulung’ in most of his poems indicates the incessant flow of his emotions and feelings. The use of colloquial language distinguishes him as a poet in Indian English poetry where he reigns in his own unique poetic sphere-

I speak of my inkling mind, eyes connecting eyes.

Some say, I write for my father

Seen him growing old with Dulung water.

The poet alludes to great king Ashoka and Attila, the Hun and eminent poets like Pablo Neruda, Jibananda Das, Quasimodo etc. while portraying the memories of his childhood–

Searching under these old books of Mathematics

for the last place where the long

journey with my father’s hope is complete---

Ahoka, the great to Attila, the Hun

Distinct nights snarl deep as I leave myself for the world.

(‘My Father’s House’)

Sarangi is inspired by heightened experiences of love through poetic collaborations. His hearth within is a matter of the heart. The poet’s poetic impulse turns into universal appeal. His reference to the Bhagavat Gita, ancient places in India, Egypt and Greece, rivers (Ganga, Nile, Dulung), mythological characters highlight the essence of Indian Culture, as well as the global culture. Each poem has its own way of approaching the readers and each poem is insightful. The poems suggest that the poet’s imagination is boundless and he deals with poetic fervour with utmost passion and intellect. This poetry collection is a remarkable treat for the lovers of poetry and this poetic oeuvre spreads sublime multilayered interconnectedness beyond sensual perception. It’s a must read for the students of poetry!

***

BIO- Shrabana is pursuing her Ph.D as a Junior Research Fellow at Gujarat University, Navrangpura Ahmedabad. Her research area focuses on South Asian Diaspora. She is also interested in Dalit Literature, Plant Studies and Environmental Humanities. In her leisure time, she enjoys writing poetry in Bengali and English. She loves to sing Rabindrasangeet and her hobby is gardening.

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Setu, December 2024

An Ensemble of Uniformities: A Poetic Cartography of Contemporary Indian Voices

Review by Matralina Pati

A Book Review of Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map: Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets, Edited by Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi, Published from the Sahitya Akademi, India with ISBN: 978-93-5548-513-7; 2022, pp. 369.  Priced ₹ 400 INR

A pulsating rhapsody of culturo-linguistic harmonies wells out of Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map: Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets, designed by Basudhara Roy and Jaydeep Sarangi. Amidst its pages a wondrous kaleidoscope of spatio-temporal-thematic pluralities lingers. As readers navigate through its rich mosaic of voices and vistas, they are initiated into the literary odysseys of twenty eminent Indian poets. This anthology resonates with the polyphonic literary esse of the nation. The poets' engagement with notions of identity, resistance, and belonging have refracted through the intersecting slants of postcolonialism, eco-criticism, feminism and transnationalism. This anthology encompasses the evolving contours of the postmodern Indian poetics.

Matralina Pati

The collection unfolds a captivating introduction with multilayered discourses, eliciting from the editors’ commitment to epistemic promises of poetry. The traditional Indian ethos of inclusivity in diversity is echoed through the thematic-stylistic breath of the anthology.

Across generations and geographies poetic voices are embraced. A veritable melting pot is forged wherein luminaries of yore such as Jayanta Mahapatra converge with burgeoning voices such as Sudeep Sen and Arundhathi Subramaniam. Thus, the dynamic evolutions and continuities of Indian English poetry are crystallised.

          The thematic concerns of the poets are as varied as their backgrounds. Obscure narratives of antiquity, staples of mythology, socio-political issues, personal experiences, and existential musings coalesce into pluripotent narratives. For instance, Mahapatra's poetry, steeped in his native land in Odisha, contrasts with the diasporic sensibility of Bashabi Fraser. This juxtaposition creates a dynamic interplay of local and global perspectives. Usha Akella’s poetry engages with realities of violence and displacement wrought by the socio-political turmoil of contemporary framework. Thereby, poetry wields its subversive and reflective potentials.

The anthology does not shy away from exploring complex and contentious issues. Anita Nahal's poignant exploration of race and identity in poems like "How easy it is for a Black life to be taken" resonates with relevance and urgency. The architectural finesse of the anthology, with each bard adorned with a constellation of ten meticulously chosen poems, permits an exhaustive exploration of their thematic preoccupations and stylistic idiosyncrasies.

The editorial decision to allow poets to select their own poems for inclusion is a unique and commendable aspect of this anthology. This approach ensures that the poems are not only representative of the poets' best work but also reflective of their personal and artistic priorities. The inclusion thereof imbues the compilation with an aura of authenticity and reverence for poetic agency.

Innovation pulses through the book as the poets explore a plethora of forms—from prose poems to experimental structures and traditional verse. K. Satchidanandan's masterful blend of form and content in "Burnt Poems" and "Gandhi and Poetry," or Mamang Dai's lyrical ode "The Voice of the Mountain," echoes the anthology's commitment to pushing the boundaries of poetic expression.

Visually stunning, the anthology’s cover painting by Geeta Dass sets the aesthetic tone for the collection. The scrupulous typesetting and printing further enhance the reading experience. Beyond its aesthetic and thematic allure, the anthology serves as a bridge between tradition and modernity. Poets like Ranjit Hoskote emerge as temporal cartographers. They traverse the corridors of time to unveil the continuity of cultural narratives.

The intricate symbiosis between topography and poetic sensibility are poignantly elucidated. Whether it be Yuyutsu Sharma's evocative delineations of the Himalayan expanse or Jayanta Mahapatra's palpable coastal imagery, the geographical anchorage serves as both a backdrop and a thematic nucleus. Identity, in its myriad facets, finds resonance within the verses. The poets grapple with the complexities of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality.

Poets such as Keki N. Daruwalla, Adil Jussawalla and Tabish Khair have twirled their crafts to scrutinize societal concerns and historical chronicles, replete with a sense of immediacy and pertinence. The ruminant pens of Ashwath Kumar and Sanjukta Dasgupta seek to unveil the angst of the marginalised.

Intimate narratives are entwined with the evocative verses of Bibhu Padhi, K. Srilata and Smita Agarwal. Meditations on nature, encased in the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra, lend palliative cadence to the collection. Arundhathi Subramaniam and Lakshmi Kannan defy orthodox perceptions as they plumb the depths of female consciousness. Likewise, Yogesh Patel and Bashabi Fraser engage with nostalgia and the disquiet of liminality. Their lyrical explorations of memory, home, and identity have added layers to the anthology’s examinations of human conditions.

Linguistic hybridity weaves through the fabric of the compilation. Incorporation of vernacular elements into English verses endows the poems rich textures. It not only reflects the multilingual reality of India but enhances the expressive potential of the poems. Thereby, the poets authentically capture the nuances of their cultural realities.

The most compelling feature of the compendium, perhaps, is its ability to evoke emotional resonance. The poems are instilled with a depth of feeling that transcends the pages of the book. Readers are invited into the emotional spheres of the poets. Be it the melancholic reflections on loss and longing, the fervent expressions of love and desires or the contemplative musings on life and death _ they congeal into a ubiquitous tenor of humane affairs. The anthology succeeds in crystallising the essence of human conditions.

The accessibility of the anthology renders it a precious resource for both the erudite and the uninitiated. By bridging the chasm between scholarly discourse and popular appeal, it fosters a broader understanding and appreciation of Indian English poetry.

In truth, this anthology intricately maps the expansive poetic landscape of the Indian Subcontinent. Titled ‘Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map,’ it aptly embodies a dual exploration: delving into literary-philosophical visions with ‘Mapping the Mind’ and unwinding geographical diversity through ‘Minding the Map.’ Thus, Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map stands out as a testament to the transformative power of poetry. Its rich tapestry of voices and motifs invites readers on a profound journey of self-discovery and introspection. The book transcends the limits of a conventional anthology. The yearnings of the enlightened and the obscure alike are corralled in its pages. The book shines forth as a beacon of future poetic innovations and ambitions.

***

Bio: Matralina Pati, a Ph.D. scholar at Bankura University, specializes in marginal Bhasha literature in English translations. As a UGC-NET-JRF awardee, she holds an MA in English Literature, graduating First Class First in 2020. Her has presented her research articles and creative writings at various literary and academic forums. She is a budding bilingual poet and translator, based in Bankura, West Bengal, India.

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Setu, July 2024

Four poems by Jaydeep Sarangi

Jaydeep Sarangi

1.  Varanasi
 
In a living interface voice from the remote past
messages are tall shadows.
Life moves on like before people
standing, sitting, chanting
 
 walking and preparing for the prayer meets
beside an ancient river of faith.
 
Saffron clad sages chant for peace,
Higher order flowing in a vessel of light.
Home for all who have no
homes to go, no links to live.
 
Only prayers exist for ages--
are a window, hope of a river flowing
carrying the heart of a nation
living and longing, faithfully
holding the world hard …
***

2. Sleep-habit
 
Hold me to your spaces
not as s a tourist
to ancient stones and pebbles.
Memories of silence is a habit 
with the heart of a plundered acre of green.
Water underneath is a lover
waiting for a full moon. My desire
is a magic box you keep open at night.
 
I stand among these ruins
of my silent prayers and passages.
This sweet sleep is needed for dreams
where you hold me tight, through this door
I never experimented in relationships.
 
Tell me your good name. Make me
your own before I go to a sleep-habit.
***


3. Love No More

Love lost is nothing new in the world.
It has a natural fall; a delayed rise somewhere.
Day by day with patience rolling,
Busy at the spinning-wheel, Love breaks
Hearts, I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened, nothing will happen tomorrow.
Love no more is a piercing idiom to crack
Beyond a shining Sun in another hemisphere.
***


4. The Renaissance Man
(For Kapil Dev Nikhanj) 
 
That doesn’t always happen
I still sleep inside a miracle of my childish dreams
I feel the journey of sunshine, blistering strangeness.
Through him, the nation has a new birth.
The coffers are off. He is on field.
Conflicts end in desire of another meeting
Love is a movement within, panting for more, and more
No one can deny tomorrow’s sun rising
Who can stop the spring blooming hard and fair?
 
Indian Mothers have one large womb
care giving is rebuilding the face of mothers,
frontline warriors save mangroves, mothers.
Granite minded batsman saves his wicket
against late out swingers and lethal bouncers
Batting bulldozers must play well
The straight ones, Kalidasa to Shakespeare
all want home crowd cheering, green bonds.
 
I fight back my disbelief
calling it by familiar names
What a man! How can he
take such an on filed catch-winning
a match? Who can fool Alan Border
so many times, playing in his turf?
How can a mother give birth to a maestro?
Who can finish everything and any thing
at wonders, desires and hopes of the nation?
 
I keep describing his features before my daughter--
a flower is what we get, Nataraja pulls to the boundaries
smashing Marshall, Willis, Underwood and Headley.
A man my country needed, prayed for,
a renaissance man, a fearless artist with bat and ball.

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Setu, May 2024

'Write to Me: Essays on Indian Poetry in English' by Basudhara Roy

Write to Me: Essays on Indian Poetry in English

Basudhara Roy

ISBN- 978-1-64560-543-0

Black Eagle Books, Dublin/Bhubaneswar, 2024, Pp 228

Reviewed by Jaydeep Sarangi

Thirty-five well researched reviews of Write to Me: Essays on Indian Poetry in English take us to the work(s) of the poets reviewed, faithfully and along with this they do something amazing. Collectively, they justify the strength and richness  that lie at the heart of the current  corpus of Indian Poetry in English. Write to Me is powerful responses to some important volumes of verse, but taken together the reviews serve as a brilliant introduction to the rich diversity of today’s Indian Poetry in English written from different backgrounds. Noted Wollongong (New South Wales) based    critic Paul Sharrad asserts, “I would want Roy as my reviewer.” A curator of Hearth Within, an important online poetry platform, the reviewer is a committed artist who thinks poetry constitutes a record, a document, a witness, a thread of happenings and a timeless corpus. Her introduction to the book is a rare gift for the readers where she earnestly says, “Poetry in India and Indian Poetry in English is, currently, going through one of its healthiest and happiest phases.” Indian poetry in English is globally visible and intrepid for all spheres of social/ literary appropriation. Indigenous resources of multicultural India are the vital energy for the uniqueness of IPE. IPE has that strength that can never bore readers from different backgrounds. The reviewer explores all possible parameters of Indian knowledge banks taking texts from different perspectives and analyzing them critically and contextually.

The review anthology begins with Bhanu Kapil’s wonderful collection How to Wash a Heart. Bhanu Kapil is a British American poet of Indian heritage.  The review is an attempt to find out an interface among cultures and contexts. The speaker in this collection, it is highlighted, is a champion artist, who brings out the fabrics of traditions and modernity at multiple levels. The reviewer examines the question of identity of an immigrant poet through a set of tropes. The immigrant experience is more layered in this collection as the interaction of three personal racial histories of the three women. Like all diaspora critics the reviewer tries to figure out “What is a home?” Her arguments are sharp and intense. Not all poetry collections have an axe to grind, to hypnotize the readers.

A prominent Bengali poet Shyamal Kumar Pramanik’s The Untouchable & Other Poems is a translation from his Bengali poems. Pramanik speaks for the Dalits characterized by subversions, protest, defiance, resilience and emancipation. The fifty poems that comprise The Untouchable & Other Poems are seminal markers for social change. The sensitive reviewer probes deep into the poems and highlights the poet’s strong self-awareness to his social and personal dignity and commitment towards a casteless society. The readers are startled in these poems by a language that resists both aesthetically and functionally. The maestro is at her critical best when she quotes and examines, “Awake, awake O world’s primitive man.” Only a sensitive reviewer can do it with ease.

         One of the champion poets from the North East Robin Ngangom’s My Invented Land is a collection of poems which is a faithful exploration of desires and the heart’s multi-layered longings for peace, hope, justice, cultural/political understanding and human credence. The review shows how the seasoned poet crafts an entourage of life’s daily resilience to fight back from every upset. For him poetry is therapeutic. Self, land and poetry constitute a thematic confluence:

“It is never too late to come home.

But I must first find a homeland

where I can find myself(.)” (p. 218)

Allahabad based Smita Agarwal’s Speak, Woman! is a treat to read and long for more. In some of the poems the past leans out silently. At times, the poet’s thoughts go beyond the world of facts where things are non- negotiable with human wit and routine grammar of living. The reviewer captures most of these impressions poignantly and convincingly. Agarwal reminds:

“Recall, how Kunti had to

dispossess herself

of a son,

Sita, walk into fire,

despite all the wrists

adorned with sacred thread.” (p. 128)

Here is a gyre of poems in which life is portrayed firmly and vividly. Usha Akella’s I Will Not Bear You Sons is an urgent, demanding tone. The book is divided into two sections, I and We. The reviewer goes deep into a planetary history of women’s victimization, dispossession and suffering, and the transcultural and strategic disempowerment of women’s self hoods by the stereotypes. Basudhara claims the collections as, “an anthem of intersectional

feminist solidarity.” (p.134)

Noted poet-diplomat Abhay K’s Monsoon: A Poem of Love and Longing is a confluence of two dominant passions – his love for landscape and his quest for tracing kinships across cultures and traditions. The poet-reviewer cortically examines how a single poem of 150 quatrains, Monsoon describes the journey of the south-west Monsoon from the island of Madagascar across the Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent to the Himalayas. Kashiana Singh’s Woman by the Door  is about women at the door. The woman, throughout these amazing poems, remains the nerve centre of the collection and a vital node of consciousness through whom ideas, ideologies, images and intuitions flow, circulate and sediment into knowledge. The reviewer considers, “Kashiana’s woman, as the reader will note, is not one.” (p.163). Her woman represents, for the poet, an ontological  collage for the experience of plural identities; the poet lived in two different lands; India and US. A perfect soul-maker Sukrita Paul Kumar’s Vanishing Words fluidly transacts between poetry and painting, cross-borrowing ideas. Sukrita’s images are pictorial:

“Numbers don’t matter

Till they become razors

The edges rubbing into the heart

Sending shards of pain

And the tunnel to death widening

for the rising numbers to enter.” (p. 186)

 
All reviews and the individual collections demand our careful attention. Many poets are professors. Among many myriad reviews we may mention, Anita Nahal’s What’s Wrong With Us Kali Women? GJV Prasad’s This World of Mine: Selected Poems, Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca’s Light of The Sabbath: Poems about Memories and the Sacredness of Light, Sanjukta Dasgupta’s Unbound: New and Selected Poems (1996-2021), Vinita Agrawal’s The Natural Language of Grief, Sanket Mhatre’s A City Full of Sirens,  Malashri Lal’s Mandalas of Time. Each of these reviews is a call from within. These individual poetry collections are amazingly   remarkable for their obsession with Indian mythical knowledge systems, the authentic emotional inflections, the loaded metaphors/idioms, and the oscillations across a wide thematic range of living and longing, existence, estrangement, erosion, redemption, hopelessness, pain and forms of beauty and lust.

Let us speak of hands--Black Eagle Books has produced the book elegantly. The book is a face that bears the footprints of India and the world. No doubt that  Write to Me will leave us both satiated and wistful for a long time to come. Happy reading!
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Jaydeep Sarangi is an Indian poet with ten poetry collections in English latest being Memories of Words,  poetry activist and scholar on postcolonial studies and Indian Writings  with forty one books  anchored in Kolkata/Jhargram,.. With Rob Harle he has edited six anthologies of poems from Australia and India which are a wealthy literary link between the nations. With Amelia Walker, he has guest edited a special issue for TEXT, Adelaide (Australia). His recent books include, Mapping the Mind , Minding The Map:Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets , Sahitya Akademi, 2023 and A Life Uprooted: A Bengali Dalit Refugee Remembers, Sahitya Akademi, 2023.  Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map ( 2023, Sahitya Akademi) is his latest book.  Sarangi is currently the   President of Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC) and Vice  President, EC, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata. Living with poets and poetry, Sarangi is principal of New Alipore College, KolkataHe may be reached at: jaydeepsarangi1@gmail.com 

Website : https://jaydeepsarangi.in/

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Setu, May 2024

Poetry: Jaydeep Sarangi

Jaydeep Sarangi

1. Soul Spaces

Over my piercing eyes silence 

is called for, again and again

Talking to you is my act of silence 

dancing near the old river connect at Jhargram

I celebrate my daughter's feats everyday

taking a special biryani for home

As the summer rain sails over me

my desire makes me of its own

The silent waters of the Ganges

carrying the light of my silent eyes

Delayed is my mind’s full moon,

someone calls me to meet in deep dark 

Darkness has a voice, mysterious caller tones 

You call; my desire has an evening, our moods mate 

A long day signs off waiting for your 

mood to return and celebrate the best in the world

Unbound from cultural images, meetings

her free spirit with a trident and a sword

Bright blue, standing on Shiva she 

keeps time, the dark mother of the land

As she moves in deep water of life 

my heart is taken on loan, undefined. 

***

2. The Random Moments

(For Jayanta Mahapatra)

My poems stand in front of your floral gate

Interfaced with green hopes, crow noises 

before the wearying banks of the Mahanadi

I leave my rivulets, metaphors behind

passing through a rain of rites of the moment 

with a slow soundless night at Cuttack.

The Hirakund Dam is never dry of hope

the substance stirs my grandfather’s heart 

hanging over an ancient city of temples and kings.

As an obscure man I ask for more words

out of hunger or a summer smiting times 

looking out for some drops of holy rain water

My brown flesh is a missing person 

with bare face relationships 

lying down with wounds leaking blood

Tonight, I 'm beside the chariot and a lion sitting,

counting shadow spaces at Chandrabhaga beach

without talking to it, my random descent begins.

Life signs are white bones of the past.

If I suddenly lose all doors of paper

how can I talk to a God?

***

Bio: Jaydeep Sarangi is a widely anthologised poet with ten collections, latest being, letters in lower case (2022). He is the President, Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC) and Vice President, EC, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library,Kolkata. He has been dubbed as ‘the bard of Dulung’ for his poems on the rivulet Dulung and people who reside on its banks. Sarangi is Principal at New Alipore College, Kolkata. He edits Teesta, a journal devoted poetry and poetry criticism. With Rob Harle he has edited six anthologies of poems from Australia and India which are a great literary link between the nations. Website is : https://jaydeepsarangi.in/

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Setu, April 2023

Guest Editor’s Note: Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire

Jaydeep Sarangi

We contemplate our thoughts just beyond the boundary of breaking waves on the shore. An endless symmetry stands before us. The ocean with its crash and calm takes any and all forms in front of us. Yet though it morphs its shape, its nature always remains. Questioning remains an integral part of the technique of introspection, a search within. It has much to do with the fundamental principle called. “I am this / that.” The question appears in different contexts differently and come couched in different words. The route is never linear. But the essence is the quest for self knowledge and journeying through the rhythm of the mind.

Our mind is a mysterious empire with different shades and slopes. It establishes, connects, disconnects, builds, un builds, remakes at will as per its own logic. However, powerful though the mind is, it knows not entirely its geography and stands both awestruck and challenged by its own unfathomed depths. “Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?” asks Freud. It would be a difficult question to answer but as artists, we know that no thought is ever lost and consciously or unconsciously, it enters the creative process and animates it with its potency. This special issue on 'Icebergs in the Mind' invites submissions that illuminate this complex process of creation whereby dream, desire and memory all fuse together to produce writing that illuminates the less-explored margins of our understanding.

“Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire” is the broad theme for this issue of SETU. We were flooded with submissions. All submissions we read and re read. We are sorry, we couldn’t publish all submissions. Unpublished submissions are now free for submission elsewhere. They will rain all those places happily.

Nostalgia and memory constitute a significant part of constructive narrative of the mind. Nostalgia is going back through memory and recollection. Memory is the seat of consolidated subconscious desire to return to an earlier life stage. Desire is associated with a set of complex mental states. It is not definite in scope and trajectory. Surface behavior is a filtered version of raw designs and workings in the levels of the mind. Going deep into the mind is harvesting faith in the dark chamber of unknown links and delinks. At times, authors are engrossed with deep meditations on subjective truths.

Literature and mind go hand in hand. However, the focus in this issue has been to come forward with literature that mirrors the mind itself. How does the mind look at itself and the empires it embraces? How does language configure the moods and tempo of the mind? What are the points of contact and where does the terrain go entirely faraway and unmapped. Our habits often overlook an emotional space we owe. Familiar gestures lead to questions and exclamations. These are questions this issue of SETU asks and to some extent, answers. The doubts remain shredding our mind, graphic. Writers from different backgrounds and geographical locations have enriched this special issue with different placates, genres and techniques.

I thank all esteemed contributors for making this issue a home, all its own. The plate before us is full of interest, lively and exciting. My humble submission to the subcontinent monsoon God for raining heavily. Jhargram wears the spirit of fresh green! Rain wet birds are shouting, “Healing, Healing!”

 Let us embrace its spirit…. 

Jaydeep Sarangi

Setu Guest Editor, May 2021

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Flash Fiction:
Featured Authors

Poems Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca Emilie Collyer Basudhara Roy Jharna Choudhury Bashabi Fraser Azsacra Zarathustra Mandakini Pachauri Jayanthi Manoj G. Akila Sushmindarjeet Kaur Smita Agarwal Stefan Bohdan Mini Babu Zinia Mitra Srijani Dutta Sanghita Sanyal Sigma Sathish Sarah Rauch Tajmim Eti L S Rathore Bitika Paul Gayelene Carbis

Poems Radia Al Rashid Robert Maddox-Harle Nithya Mariam John Jaydeep Sarangi Stories Lakshmi Kannan Ashok Kumar Dash Sangeeta Banerjee Flash Narrative Gayatri Majumdar Articles Akankha Basu Roy and Radhika Biswas Neenu Kumar Memoire Soniya Amritlal Patel Book Review Rob Harle

Setu, May 2021