Anindita Sengupta

I’ve moved and almost settled in. In other words, my Internet connection is done but not all the pictures are up and the eager gardener who bounced up to the door to ask for the job, never showed up after that. Oh well.

The good news is that my reading at the Sahitya Akademi Translators’ Meet here in Bangalore went off well — this was a three day thingie that threw poets, short story writers, novelists and translators together. There were readings and discussions and it was fascinating to hear poetry in such a multitude of languages including Sindhi, Assamese, Nepalese and Santhali. I was sort of the lone English representative at one poetry reading session, which was very intimidating because I was surrounded by people who knew more languages than me. But I finally met Tamil poet Salma, which was wonderful. We were both part of the same session and it was nice to hear her read. I can’t understand Tamil but I like its strong rhythmic sounds when someone speaks it well. Salma’s poetry draws power from its brutal honesty, its ability to look tough subjects in the face. One of her poems was called ‘Menopause’, for example, and it talked about the body, unwanted hair and all, with great frankness. Unfortunately, the person who read the English translations of her poems read them in this halting, badly enunciated way so the impact was a bit lost. I wish they would engage good readers / performers for such things instead of handing the mike to the first available person.

The other person I remember is Sindhi poet Vasudev Mohi, who read one Sindhi poem and then a couple of Hindi poems. He did not read any English translations and therefore had the advantage of retaining all the music of the original words. He also read very well, in a clear and emotive manner. Going by audience reaction, this really made a difference. Even the post-lunch snoozers at the back woke up and did the ‘wah-wah’ routine. Which goes to show how important sound and performance are in poetry. Nepali poet Jiwan Namdung was also interesting. I was faintly disappointed with some of the other poetry read — it didn’t sound much like poetry to me, too prosaic or declamatory, not musical enough certainly but also not very impressive in terms of trope or imagery. I don’t know whether this was a problem of bad poetry, poor translation, or both.

I also liked Kannada poet and writer Vaidehi’s speech for a session called ‘my writing, my world’ which was chaired by Shashi Deshpande. (They brought four women writers together and asked each of them to speak about their influences.) Vaidehi talked about a number of things to do with her childhood and what struck me most is what she said about the house in which she grew up — it had room after room in the interiors, away from the sun, all fitted with cribs. These were for the women of the house who were expected to spend most of their lives in this “baby-making factory” (Prasanna’s translation).

Anyway, I don’t have much time for proper settling in because I leave tomorrow for Poetry Africa, an annual poetry festival in Durban. I’ll be wandering Joburg and Soweto and (hopefully) watching lions in Kruger National Park before I hit Durban for a week of readings and poetry meets. Excitement. Most of the other poets are from Africa but Sunil Gangopadhyaya from India will also be there. I’m especially interested to see how they perform their poetry differently from us, given the emphasis on spoken word, slams etc that they tend to have there.

Speaking of poetry slams, Bangalore is having its first one hosted by a group called Bombay Elektrik Projekt  at Bacchus F&B on Sunday, 27 Sep. That’s today. You can register for the event and perform. It starts at 7.30 pm. The Facebook event page is here. I’ll be in the audience.

And listen to Don Paterson read poems from his latest collection Rain.

Blogging will resume some time in October after I’m back. Until then, be good?  Or don’t. It’s more fun that way.