Book Reviews

NOT BECAUSE I LIVE TODAY by Dr Manas Bakshi, published by Script, 61 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kolkata – 700 009, pages 84, price Rs 80.

Dr Bakshi is among the prominent emerging voices on the English poetry scene in India today. He has already six volumes of poems to his credit, I Live Today is again, in the true Bakshian mould.

What marks out Bakshi is his idiom of expression. He is skilled in mixing metaphors to come up with a heady cocktail of emotion. Poem after poem in this collection holds out a fresh cup of the heady drink.

Bakshi is anguished and angered by what happens around him in our day. But, when he comes to speak about them, most of the time, instead of being directly specific, he uses suggestive symbols. For instance, in the very first poem 2000 A. D. it is plain what the poet has in mind, when he says: “The grief of the morning crow/ on the roof edge/ becomes the cat’s smile/ at the dinner table.”

Further down, in the same poem, we are told -
Nostalgia-moist memory
Becomes a primordial bird
On the wings of a song
Dwelling on the same saga of Ram and Rahim
Around a field
Teeming with sub-human corn.

It is obvious what the reference here is to, but how effectively it has been put across without a direct mention of it!

In Bakshi the painter and poet join hands to produce an amalgam of images and emotions. In Abstract, with a few broad strokes, the poet flashes the stark picture of the fate of lonesome girl in a lonesome village. In the same genre we have The Other World. Like a Poem encapsules a whole life in ‘vignettes of/ Life and longings/ that man and woman interweave/  with all their earthly belongings’. Song of Time ushers us ‘into a new millenium/ embroiled in politicisation of crime/ legalisation of prostitution/ and computerisation of emotions’.

The trilogy on the Indian Panorama is a set of powerful poems. In the first poem Democracy at the Cross-roads the poet feels concerned over the evaporisation of the hopes and dreams of the common man in the hour of freedom:

In the second series, Gold-plated Independence the Poet looks at the disparities between the haves and have-nots.

The third in the trilogy, Liberalisation and After, looks at the post-liberalisation scenario in the country. In this we have sarcasm, suppressed anger and social indictment, all in one, the poet’s visuals doing service for him.

When it rains at Midnightis another fine poem representative of Bakshi’s art. When images coalesce with emotion, as here, we have a poem of incredible beauty and power. In this collection, we meet a human being who is troubled on the contemplation of the contemporary scene – with its chicanery, double-faced self-­deception, declining values, a rapacious social order and his own helpless state of dichotamous existence.

His message is revealed: “Poetry alone fluttering its wings can safeguard nature, humanism and faith.”

Srinivas Rangaswami

“Culture Capsules: ANCIENT WISDOM - MODERN INSIGHTS” by Prof. I. V. Chalapati Rao, published by Sri Yabaluri Raghavaiah Memorial Trust, Hyderabad - Pages 163, Price Rs. 60.

The author has aptly subtitled his book “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Insights” as “Cultural Capsules’. Just as pharmaceutical capsules encase small but strong doses of medicine, the author’s short essays on various subjects in the book embody powerful doses of social and spiritual values like selflessness, love through service, kindness and disciplines etc. According to Abraham Maslow, the famous American psychologist, man is a hierarchy of needs with biological needs at the bottom and spiritual needs at the top. And just as lack of biological need - satisfaction results in illnesses and disease, the deprival of spiritual needs and values leads to the diminishing of humanness in the individual and to such pathological conditions as dishonesty, hatred and greed. The author’s short essays, many of them not exceeding two pages, eminently serve the purpose of injecting humanistic values in the minds of those who read them, enhancing their human potential and growth, and enabling them to attain higher possibilities of human nature.

The book contains 54 essays on various subjects like selflessness, courtesy, love and its myriad forms, discipline, cheerful manners, striving for the well being of all, values taught by the scriptures and epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, and messages of saints and sages of all religions. Each essay delivers the ancient wisdom of all lands, in a most delightful, effective and accessible form and in an arresting manner. The following short piece is just a sample of the author’s impressive way of delivering the homily in the smallest space.

………‘Wealth is not measured by how much you have but how much you give.’ ‘Fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the roses.’ ‘Sprinkle perfume on others, a few drops will fall on you’, we find plenty of such illuminating sentences in the book.

The present day youth are vexed with the “pseudo-religion’ and “pseudo-secularism” devoid of any values or principles practised by men in public and private life today. If we accept, as a major educational goal of the next few decades, the awakening and fulfillment of ethical, moral and humanistic values in our youth, it is imperative that we make the study and practice of a “Science of Values” as part of the curriculum in schools and colleges. The author’s two books of “culture capsules”, the present one and the earlier one entitled “Art of living’ are eminently fit to be prescribed as course material in such a curriculum, which would emphasise humanistic values as the very foundation of true religion and true secularism. It is the practice in daily life of such a rational set of values as adumbrated in the author’s essays that can actively change society toward spiritual peace and social harmony. The book deserves the widest circulation; it is not only worth reading but is worth keeping by our side for constant re-reading and following in daily life.
N. Sriramamurty

ANUVADA DARSHINI by Dr. V.V.B. RAMA RAO published with financial assistance from the Ministry of H.R.D., Govt. of Mysore. Printed by Vipla Computer Services, Nallakunta, Hyderabad. Pages 196 Price Rs.53/-­

Dr. V.V.B. Rama Rao, writer and critic has been in the field of translation for many years now. His ANUVADA DARSHINI is a mini treatise with model translations by him. The book is in two parts, the first dealing with the what, the why, and the how of the activity and the second with his translations of poems, old and new, long and short, classical and modern in metrical and prose-verse composition. Dr. Rao theorises briefly and follows up with the translated versions of select poems providing the originals also.

Poetry is emotive thought expression and it does not lend itself easily for translation. But as the need is felt, poetry also is being translated freely these days. Apart from being well-versed in the original and target languages, the translator should possess poetic sensibility as well as sensitivity without which the delicate nuances of thought and feeling ingrained in the original cannot be successfully brought out in the translation. It has to be noted that no two languages behave with a one-to-one relationship in their lexical and syntactical aspects and this is true of Telugu and English. Dr. Rao succeeds to a very large extent in this exercise, generally speaking. He rightly states that “no translation can be final”.

The translator frankly suggests alterations here and there for his translations because the activity is such that it demands improvement and innovation.

The translator provides notes, brief explanations and also a short glossary at the end to help the reader with his work. The book gives more than a peep into this genre of the literary exercise and encourages enthusiastic translators to whom the book is dedicated. Dr. Rao deserves kudos for his bold attempt. The cover page is pleasingly reflective and the print easy to the eye.

D. Ranga Rao

IN PRAISE OF PALGRAVE’S GOLDEN TREASURY by Dr. C. Jacob, published by the author. Printed at Nataraj Printing Press, Narasapur. Pages 38 Price Rs. 25/-.

Critics write on poets in prose, but those who write their appreciation on poets in poetry are rare. Here is a Jacob come to judgment using the poetic muse as his vehicle of expression penning his musings in metre and rhyme and we do praise the poet-critic for the honour he deserves.

Dr. Jacob, whose mother tongue is Telugu, composed more than a hundred poems in English making it a “satakam” in the true Telugu poetic tradition. Perhaps a scholar well­-versed in Telugu and English languages and literature cannot avoid this harmonious blend.

The poet-critic passes appreciative judgement on nearly seventy English poets from Shakespeare down to Moore, admiring their thoughts and works which he had been reading and re-reading with great passion and love from the treasure trove of Palgrave. The poetic mind of Dr. Jacob wanders through the “rose garden of England” where the names of the poets “sound and smell sweet” to the poet. He weaves a “rose garland” of a hundred poetic blooms in honour of the poets he adores.

Palgrave and the poet-critic “are lovers inseperable’ in Palgrave’s garden of poetic blossoms. So too are the author and the poets in Dr. Jacob’s poetic nursery. This is what Dr. Jacob writes on Shakespeare:

Such words of wisdom spring from your deep insight,
As nature’s infinite book you read day and night.”

He pays homage to blind Milton who immortalized himself “By bearing your Lord’s mild yoke through a long night’. As for Wordsworth “how much your words are worth is known by your name” and wishes that Wordsworth “were living at this hour.” On Shelley he writes:

‘O sceptic, O atheist, O fearless Shelley
I see you fall on the thorns of life bleeding”
He defends Blake for having been dropped by Palgrave.
But why, dear Palgrave, you blinked at Blake
And his ‘Tiger, Tiger, burning bright’
Or his ‘Defiled Chapel’ for its moral sake,
May be a slip and with your leave, him, I now cite.”

In the epilogue the poet says he would have found a place for himself among Palgrave’s poets had he been born in Palgrave’s time. For loving the fellow poets Dr. Jacob will find his name on the top of those whom Palgrave’s poets love.

Here is the reviewer’s praise for the poet in question:

O learned Justice Jacob, thou ardent lover of bards!
How well have you woven thy comely poetic cords!!

D. Ranga Rao

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Harold Pinter Wins Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize for Literature for 2005 is awarded to Harold Pinter, the leading 20th century British playwright. He wrote over 30 plays attacking tyranny and hypocrisy and championing the oppressed. His criticism of the American foreign policy is well-known. It is appropriate that in its citation the Nobel committee says: Pinter’s work “uncovers the precipice under every day prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms”.

Academics Can Become Millionaires

Prof. Graham Richards of Oxford University dismissed the idea that serious academic work and business could not go together-or that it involved too many ethical compromises. “My young colleagues can see that I have made a lot (of money) and yet I do normal work and have’nt sold my soul”, he said.
- THE HINDU

It is a sign that University culture is changing.