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Working right into a 1,000-odd pages, this anthology is each an audacious enterprise and an incredible labour of affection. It “spans 37 Indian cities, that includes 375 poems by 264 poets, translated by 90 translators throughout 20 languages” as Moin factors out in his introduction to the tome.
Fortunately, he lets us in on what transpired behind the scenes. He writes, “The function of an anthologist calls for carrying many hats: the aesthete whereas studying poetry, the hawker pitching the manuscript to publishers, the detective monitoring down copyright, the therapist and negotiator with estates, and eventually, the curator, assembling all of it right into a coherent version.”
The e-book is structured by metropolis: Mumbai-Bombay, Pune-Poona, Ahmedabad-Amdavad, Kochi-Cochin, Bengaluru-Bangalore, Delhi-Dilli, Kanpur-Cawnpore, Kataka-Cuttack, Kolkata-Calcutta, and so forth. By means of this poetic mapping of India, Moin provides us an opportunity to marvel at how huge and various this land is.
An imposing unfold
Whereas approaching a piece that’s so encyclopaedic in scope, it appears higher to pattern and savour than gobble in order that one is ready to do justice to the flavours, textures and aromas on provide. Amir Khusrau, Narayan Surve and Amrita Pritam share area with Agha Shahid Ali, Imtiaz Dharker and Linthoi Ningthoujam right here. Surdas, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and Sarojini Naidu co-habit with Jibananda Das, Tishani Doshi and Kynpham Sing Nonkynrih. The editor has managed to sew collectively an imposing quilt from items of poetry representing completely different generations, ideological affiliations, and geographies.
It’s tempting to think about what a mehfil (gathering) with every of those poets in attendance would look, sound and really feel like. Would they encourage one another with an “irshaad” right here, a “waah-waah” there? Or would they pull out their smartphones to seize brief movies of their friends reciting their favorite traces, after which share these as Instagram tales? This can be a slightly optimistic view maybe on condition that poet and English professor Eunice de Souza — in her poem ‘Assembly Poets’ — as soon as cautioned us that it’s best to satisfy them of their poems.
Since a lot of the poems on this e-book are pretty brief, they reward shut studying. A.Ok. Ramanujan’s ‘Poona Practice Window’ juxtaposes the scatological and the elegant. The speaker within the poem is a traveller whose gaze falls upon a person defecating on the railway tracks. This sight conjures up the speaker to ponder over the symmetry of human buttocks whereas sipping railway tea. The poet takes an odd incidence and transforms it into an sudden supply of amusement.
Asiya Zahoor’s ‘What Dal Lake Needs to Inform Me’ is introduced as a dialog between a human being and a waterbody. The speaker within the poem, plagued with existential angst, and the burden of tradition and historical past, is instructed: You aren’t… a ship, weed, a leaf, a path within the sky,/ an embroidered almond, or a concubine./ You’re a pawn on a chessboard —/ Be taught the artwork of being irrelevant.
A dwelling, respiration entity
Robin S. Ngangom’s ‘Gangtok, February 1998’ evokes the stillness of a monastery that has been the seat of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism for hundreds of years, and witnessed quests for liberation in addition to battles for energy. The speaker notes: Within the aquamarine afternoon/ Rumtek turns sluggish prayer wheels/ which cuts throughout the axis of earth/ to generate compassion for a cold-blooded world. Rumtek is the place actor Kabir Bedi’s mom Freda Bedi aka Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo obtained non secular instruction from the sixteenth Karmapa, and laid the inspiration for the transmission of Buddhism to the West.
This e-book reminds us that cities defy standardisation despite the fact that the identical malls, espresso outlets, pizza chains and multiplexes seem like popping up all over the place. There may be extra to them than the concrete jungles they’re believed to be. They’re made and unmade by the individuals who dwell in them, daring to dwell one other day regardless of the playing cards that life has dealt them. Moin’s e-book is not only a literary compendium; it’s an archive of how city India thrives and breathes.
The reviewer is a journalist, educator and literary critic.
The Penguin Guide of Poems on the Indian Metropolis
Ed. Bilal Moin
Hamish Hamilton
₹1,999
Revealed – October 16, 2025 06:05 am IST
