Banaras and the Other, a collection of poems, the first of a trilogy on religious cities in India, by Ashwani Kumar, senior fellow of ICSSR at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, was launched in the national capital this week.
Described by noted poet and critic K Satchidanandan at the event as a work with echoes of Nissim Ezekiel and Keki Daruwalla, but with a distinct tone, “reminding one more of the radical third-world poets writing in their native tongues and interrogating hegemony of every kind by subversive use of dominant epics, legends and mythologies of their oppressed lands”, the collection was lauded by many others as well, including artist Jatin Das.
Prominent contemporary poet Manglesh Dabral’s translation of some excerpts into Hindi were the highlight of the event.
Appreciating the dark humour of the verses that are reflective of today’s society, words like ‘naughty’, ‘chaotic as a construction site’ and ‘breaking of a mirror to see from many perspetives’ were used to describe the collection.