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issue no. |
173-174 |
July - December
2008 |
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Poetry & Publishing: Interview
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The explosive mix
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Menka Shivdasani
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Liberalization, privatization and globalization are among the factors that influence contemporary Marathi poetry, says Hemant Divate*.
At the best of times, poetry in any language is an art that struggles to find readers. In an era that is governed by the juggernaut of liberalization, privatization and globalization, however – an explosive mix that poet-publisher Hemant Divate refers to as 'LPG' – it must struggle particularly hard. The modern world has no place for the deeper facets of human nature, or the edgy individual; it celebrates the standard – and often the sub-standard – way of life.
Hemant Divate is a Marathi poet and publisher who has refused to accept this paradigm. He belongs – uneasily – to a city that squeezes your soul; as he says in a poem translated by Dilip Chitre: Hemant Dayanand Divate/ Belongs to no one any more/ He belongs to the e-universe/ And here too he gets waylaid…
In an essay on Poetry International Web, editor and translator Sachin Ketkar places him among the Marathi poets who belong to the metropolis – poets whose work exhibits "a sharp sense of transfiguring urban social reality", using a language that is hybrid and poetic materials that are new to Marathi poetry. "Many of these poets use and abuse terms from the language of information technology, of computers, the internet for poetic purposes," says Ketkar. "The poems express a painful sense of vulnerability and suffocation caused by the dependency on the rapidly evolving technology and the anger directed towards use of the new gadgets as vulgar status symbols."
Divate says: "The poetry I write is different from that of Modern or Post-Modern." Divate speaks of a rich heritage in Marathi poetry, which was initially influenced by the devotional poetry of saint poets like Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Eknath and later Pandit Kavi's Sanskrit-based Kavyas. This was followed by revolutionary patriotic poems during the freedom struggle.
"The past 800 years of Marathi poetry has seen its own parameters of creativity," Divate explains. "Every period had its own particular theme. Earlier, there was clichéd lyrical sentimentality. The post '90s period, however, has been marked by social factors like liberalization, privatization and globalization [LPG]. Our generation of poets came up with varied ideas and themes as our life was witnessing infinite transformations. The change is the backbone of today's poetry." Divate says he belongs to a generation that has witnessed drastic changes in every aspect of life. "For my generation it was like a very sudden attack, as we abruptly become part of a very different, well-equipped multi-faceted way of living," he explains.
Problems like global warming, pollution and a disturbed ecological balance can spur new poetry on the one hand, but also cause a panic reaction among sensitive observers, he adds.
Divate, who is president of a marketing firm, has built a reputation as one of the finest poets writing in Marathi today. Born in Ozar, in the district of Nasik, he spent his childhood in the small town, Shahapur, in Thane district in Maharashtra, where he received his early schooling. Moving on to a science degree with specialization in Physics from Somaiya College, Divate then went on to obtain a diploma in advertising management from K.C. College of Management, Mumbai.
Divate, who has worked with Marathi newspapers and is currently president of Update Advertising and Marketing, made his first foray into verse in 1984, during his college days. An avid reader, he says: "The first ten years of writing was just an assessment." It was only later, in 1993-94, he says, that true self-ex-pression began. "The changes in lifestyle have brought out the maturity and a fresh vision in my poetry," he observes.
Explaining how the process of writing works for him, he says: "A poem is an outcome of feelings. My life, its experiences, my reactions to various issues, episodes, situations that I have observed in my world and my surroundings are reflected in my poems. My work reflects my concerns, namely, the identity crisis we face as humans, our cultures, our landscapes, our villages, our cities .There is a kind of 'flatness' everywhere and everything in life seem to be unstoppable".
Divate's first collection of Marathi poems, Chautishiparyantchya Kavita (Prabhat Prakashan, Mumbai, 2001), is highly praised for breaking new ground in Marathi poetry. It has also been translated into English by the internationally renowned poet and translator Dilip Chitre under the eye-catching title, Virus Alert.
His other works include another collection of poetry Thambtach Yet Nahi (2006); and Les Murray Chya Kavita, a selection and translation in Marathi of the famous Australian poet Les Murray, published by Katha. His poems have been translated into other Indian languages viz. Bengali, Urdu, Hindi ,Gujarati and Malayalam, and he has won several prestigious awards including the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad's Yuva Sahitya Puraskar, Ashirwaad Puraskar, Maharashtra Foundation Award and Vishakha Puraskar for his contributions to Indian Literature. Hemant Divate is the only poet in the history of Marathi poetry whose poem is on the Iraq Government's cultural site.
Not content to rest on his own poetic laurels, Divate decided to offer a forum for other poets. For more than a decade, he has been publishing the critically acclaimed quarterly on Marathi poetry, Abhidhanantar. The publication was a response to a literary and journalistic world that paid more attention to entertaining and superficial poetry; Abhidhanantar not only started but also has grown in such a hostile atmosphere, and has emerged as an extremely vibrant core for a new generation of Marathi poets. It is this magazine that has successfully brought several major new talents into the limelight, thus enlivening the Marathi literary scene. The expressive covers and the high quality of writing in a culture struggling with the impact of globalization set this publication apart.
Recollecting the journey of this movement, Divate says, "The poetry magazine Abhidhanantar has been around on the Marathi literary scene for about 16 years. It's not just a publication house, it is a literary movement. It calls upon young poets to recognize and respond creatively to the forces of globalization, which are already transforming our life and culture. It pays generous attention to the linguistic, cultural, and literary changes taking place in the last 15 years and the crisis of identity they generate. Abhidhanantar has become a trendsetter in the Marathi literary world." During the initial years, the magazine did some excellent work in giving the earlier generation's work a new look; since 2002, the focus has shifted to contemporary poetry.
Divate points out that in the process of globalization, every language, including Marathi, has been impacted by the global sweep of English and various technological influences. "At the same time so much creative and out-of-the-ordinary work has been written in Marathi, and we felt the need to extend our boundaries," Divate explains. Divate recognized that one could not be immune to this change. "When the entire world has become a global village and English has become the prime language, we too started an English imprint of Abhidhanantar called Poetrywala, he says. Among his publications is an anthology of recent Marathi poetry.
"Languages are not competing with each other," Divate believes. "They are sharing a mutual interaction. Marathi's rich literature is always appreciated. With translations in many Indian and international languages the other readers are also getting the idea of the quality work done here."
Divate is optimistic of being able to reach out to new readers. Despite the onslaught of television and other entertainment media he feels that reading is a basic need, and that readers do appreciate new-age poetry because it is closer to their own lives. Truly, Abhidhanantar's work is reaching remote areas of the state and with the Internet it is reaching beyond the national boundaries," he says. "We feel the need to expand the movement. Internet is the best medium for this. Through our website (http://www.abhidhanantar.com/) anyone can browse the e-copies of our publications."
Divate has been especially active in this last year; among his major publications is Dilip Chitre's As Is, Where Is: Selected English Poems (1964-2007), which was launched at a very well-attended event at Ashish Balram Nagpal's gallery in Mumbai a few months ago. Among the people who attended were the legendary lyricist Gulzar and film-maker Govind Nihalani, and the visual artist, Jahangir Sabawala.
Now, he is also planning to establish a poetry house [Kaviteche Ghar], a research centre near Shahapur and a half-yearly edition of Poetrywala, a literary journal dedicated to serious literature and arts in English. Poetrywala hopes to provide the much-needed space for new creative and critical writing in Indian languages in the form of translations as well as original writings in English. "We hope it will be highly instrumental in building bridges between existing cultures, regions, languages and nations," Divate says.
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* This interview—with input from Nivedita—first appeared in Every Tuesday, the arts and culture weekly.
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Menka Shivdasani
is a founder member of the Poetry Circle, which began in Mumbai in 1986. Her collections of poetry include Stet, which appeared in 2001. She is also co-translator of Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry, published by the Sahitya Akademi in 1998. Her poems have appeared in several publications, in India and abroad, and have been translated into Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati. An anthology of women's writing in different languages edited by her will be published shortly. She is currently director of Source Strategic Communication Pvt Ltd., a content and communications company based in Mumbai. Her work as a journalist includes columns for various publications.
Hemant Divate
(b.1967) is a reputed Marathi poet. He’s the author of a path-breaking collection of poems, Chautishiparyantchya Kavita, translated into English by renowned poet and translator, Dilip Chitre, with the title rendered as Virus Alert. His second collection of poems, Thambtach Yet Nahi was published last year. His poems have also been translated into German, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and Malayalam. He has won several awards, including the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad’s Yuva Sahitya Puraskar (Kolkata). He has also a translated into Marathi a few selected poems by the well-known Australian poet, Les Murray, which have been published by Katha. Divate edits the widely-acclaimed Marathi quarterly, Abhidhanantar, dedicated to poetry, literature and art. Abhidhanantar is also a well-known publishing house, along with its English imprint, Poetrywala. Divate works as President (Marketing) with UPDATE Advertising & Marketing, a last mile group company.
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