Gopal Lahiri Selected Poems

 Published by CLASSIX (an imprint of Hawakal)

ISBN: 978-81-988424-0-4(hardback)

         : 978-81-988424-6-6 (paperback)

Price: 650 INR

Language: English, pp. 128.

Gopal Lahiri is an eminent bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer, prolific speaker, and a translator of more than 31 books. A recipient of the 1st Jayant Mahapatra National Award for Literature in 2024, Gopal Lahiri has made a significant contribution to Indian English literature, and his poetry collections have rendered him worldwide recognition and awards.

Selected Poems of Gopal Lahiri, selected by Sanjeev Sethi, is a celebration of Gopal Lahiri’s finest creations. It is not an easy task to sum up the literary achievements of an award-winning poet, but Sanjeev Sethi has successfully endeavoured to bring out the enormous learning embedded in Lahiri’s poetry. A close reading of this collection reflects a harmonious blend of words, images, imagination, and perception of the outside world as well as of the human mind. In addition to a short Preface, the book contains The Selector’s Escritoire and a collection of 90 poems, including some of his best haiku.

The collection begins with the poem “Crossing the Shoreline”, a celebrated poem and a part of Lahiri’s previous collection. This poem is a unique blend of fiction and memories. With the imagery of sleep, the poem endeavours to draw a bridge between the physical world and the human mind. His poems are surreal and meditative and pay tribute to nature and emotions. Lahiri’s source of inspiration for his poetry often lies in the natural world. In the poem “Sparrow”, images of the sparrow, the evening sky repeating a smile, and ivy strangling a fence are beautifully used by Lahiri. The poem “Red Hibiscus” celebrates the unfolding of hibiscus leaves through the analogy of sunlight. It says:“My Red Hibiscus shines in the tropical sunlight, / but she wants to sleep in shades” (lines 8–9).

The use of pathetic fallacy gives life and a new impetus to the beauty of the hibiscus flower. Through the descriptive words of the poem entitled “Celebration”, the poet brings nature to life and immortalises the unison of natural creation. Gopal Lahiri has an inclination towards the themes of solitude and loneliness, which are expressed through the recurrent imagery of night in most of his verses. In the poem “Night Flame”, Lahiri expresses:“Somewhere in the night sky drops a few stars, so much in chaos”.

He continues this expression in the poem “The Wall of Silence” as:“The silver moon besieged melts slowly in despair, songs continue to be sung in silence”.

The poem “New World in the Waiting” opens up with a powerful line:“Each night is mundane and lonely night birds spread their wings.”

The same imagery of night is used to express his desire to love in the poem “I Still Love”. This poem is a beautiful rendition of undying love and keeping up a promise. It brings out the optimistic feel of love as it says:“Let the glass windows open up lighting up the stars and galaxies and wipe out the anguish and misery”.

Sanjeev Sethi has artistically and incisively selected the best verses from Gopal Lahiri’s oeuvre. City chronicles and travel diaries are a major source of inspiration for some of his poems. Lahiri commemorates the beauty of his native land, Kolkata, in the poem “City of Joy”. Another city that he celebrates through his artistic creation is Delhi, in the poem “Lodhi Garden”. Cities are built brick by brick, and Lahiri attempts to seize his experiences word by word, rendering a voice to these places. “Rain in the Wild” is a poem that blends memories and paints the colours of rainfall in the small village of Jhanor in Gujarat. Lahiri successfully captures the beauty of these places.

Lahiri also shows his versatility and creativity as he renders works in Japanese verse forms such as haiku (a three-line poem of five or seven syllables) to capture images from nature or childhood memories. One of his haiku presents:“Childhood hanging from the skytender night”.

Sanjeev Sethi has done an exceptional job, and within 128 pages he opens up the fascinating world of Gopal Lahiri’s perception and imagination. The book provides lucid intervals and a brief tour of Gopal Lahiri’s world of creative verses. It fills the canvas of a poetic landscape and resonates with its

readers. The book is a valuable contribution to the realm of Indian English literature and is eminently readable and enjoyable. Sanjeev Sethi has compiled a well-researched and exceptional selection of poems that can be tagged as Gopal Lahiri’s prized possession, and reading them offers readers an emotional and relatable experience.

---

About the Reviewer:

Dr. Megha Negi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Lucknow Christian Degree College. She has supervised dissertations in English Literature for postgraduate students. She completed her PhD from the University of Lucknow, and her area of research focuses on widowhood and the place of women in society. As a literary enthusiast, her papers have been published in renowned books. Her paper on Disability Studies has been published by Springer Publications, and a research paper on widowhood appears in an anthology published by Aligarh Muslim University. She contributed a paper on the relevance of Gandhi in the present time, published by the University of Lucknow. Recently, she attended an international workshop on Social Role Valorization organized by Keystone Institute India. She has a passion for literature and remains equally immersed in family, fashion, and food.

I am contradictions

I am contradictions

I am aging.

I am childlike.

I am evolving.

I stay the same.

I love people.

I love stuff.

I am generous.

I am stingy.

I am humble.

I am boastful.

I am open minded.

I am certain my way is best.

I am patient.

I am restless.

I protest my government’s immoral, inept, and inhumane practices.

I reap privilege from the same government I protest.

I take refuge in my faith tradition that says I need to love my enemies.

I cherry pick religious tenets and revile my enemies.

I am a loving husband and father.

I neglect my foundational relationships.

I am contradictions.

Some, like aging and childlike, peacefully co-exist. Embraced.

I wrestle with the ones that violently collide, like humility and boastfulness. I name them and I wrestle.

I am contradictions.

Milton Tyree works in the design, development and provision of supports and services centered

on people with disabilities having access to valued aspects of everyday life. A particular area of

interest has been the ongoing struggle around people with disabilities having good

employment. Most of Milton’s work has been within his home state of Kentucky in the US with

additional teaching opportunities in other places including India.

Petra

Once upon a pre-digital time, I was a keen photographer. But now—nothing stays the same, does

it?—now, I hardly take photos at all. I have a smartphone with a state-of-the-art camera, but in my hands, the phone is—let's not mince words—the phone is less than smart. Tools are only as good as the workers who wield them and—let's face it—I am a nincompoop when it comes to anything digital. Consequently, I shy away from taking photos with my phone. And so, when Petra took my picture last week, she put me to shame.

Petra put me to shame when she took my picture last week. My nincompoopery when it comes to photography is at its very worst when I try to take selfies. And last week, reluctant though I am to have dealings with anything digital, least of all self-snappery, a moment arose when I felt I had to attempt a selfie. My bus pass application needed a photo and, well—despite major misgivings—I accepted the challenge. Please, I know, I know. There's no need to say that I can't possibly be old enough to be eligible for a bus pass. I raise my hand to acknowledge that I am. Only just, but it is what it is. Documents assert that I am a senior. So, I attempted the selfie. Several times. The first time my image came out blurred. The second time my image came out scowling at me. The third time I decapitated myself. I thought long and hard, for approximately five seconds, and decided to phone to ask for Petra's help.

I phoned to ask for Petra's help. I don't know Petra well, but I am friends with her parents. I called her father. Petra, he said, was out walking in the neighbourhood, but she would surely be pleased to assist me when she got back. I was not surprised she was out walking. Petra is an inveterate walker. I have often seen her out walking and nodded to her. I have seldom exchanged words with her, though. Few people have. Petra doesn't say much. In fact, she hardly speaks at all. But everyone in the village knows her, because she paces the streets endlessly, only stopping to take photos of daffodils and starlings, squirrels and silver birches, butterflies and hedges. Gordon, the postman, believes her name suggests the hardness of rock, but since last week I associate it with the stone-silent beauty of the ancient city of Petra. They say the city is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. And so is Petra—in my opinion. Since last week. Last week I decided she is a wonder, even if the conventional wisdom says otherwise. The conventional wisdom says she has special needs; she is on the spectrum. Unlike me.

Unlike me. Chalk and cheese. I am not like Petra. I talk. You may find this hard to believe, but some people go so far as to say I talk too much! I even repeat myself, so they say. God forbid! And some of those same people say I have a high IQ. Not as high as Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, but not too far behind those geniuses. So, I am definitely not like Petra. And yet.

And yet, when it comes to photography, Petra, who takes inspirational pictures, sizes them with ease and, when necessary, prints them to perfection, is truly brilliant. As a photographer, Petra is in a class of her own. I had heard this through the grapevine. I discovered it for myself when she came to see me last week. She brought a portfolio of her work to show me. Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Karsh of Ottawa, step aside, please. You are no match for Petra. Petra has transformed a single orange-green maple leaf into a kaleidoscopic vision of infinity. Petra has immortalised the breathless beauty of a Japanese bullet train in a translucent moment of frozen kinesis. Petra has outmanoeuvred time in her portrait of a nonagenarian's wrinkled face that has unveiled the dormant, but still present, softness of its infant beginnings. Petra's photos paint the world anew. Eroding the borderlines between fast and slow, old and young, fat and thin, her camera liberates immanent beauty that has been invisible to others. Petra trashes commonplace notions of difference in epiphanic caches of variegated colours. Her photos upend the very notion of normality. Sadly, though, Petra was born to blush unseen. Her virtuosity has been unchronicled until now. No one has written about her genius. Until me, in the present sketch.

Until me, in the present sketch. In another incarnation, I might have been the Homer to her Odysseus, the Valmiki to her Rama. As it is, I can do no more than offer this humble account of the wonder I experienced when Providence smiled on me by responding to my plea for help and sending Petra to my door. She arrived about an hour after I spoke to her father. The doorbell rang, and there, in all her silent splendour, was Petra. She was holding her portfolio and a tin that solicited donations for a cancer charity. She thrust the tin towards me, tapping the side and nodding her head up and down vigorously. I wondered if perhaps she hadn't received my message and we were at cross-purposes. We weren't. I mentioned my struggle with the photograph. She smiled, a knowing smile. She spoke. A single word. "Easy." She pointed at herself. She pointed inside my house to invite herself in. She came in. She sat me against the backdrop of a white sheet. She removed my glasses. She took the photo. I offered her a tea or coffee. "Water," she said. "I like water." I explained that the photo would need to be sized to fit the online bus pass application form. I showed her the designated space on the form. She said, "I do it."

She did it. She spent a few seconds adjusting the photo's size, pointed at my phone and asked, "Number?" She forwarded the photo to me. When I struggled to upload it onto the application form, she laughed, pointed at herself, and said, "Me." A couple of deft touches and the application was complete, with the photo. The site confirmed it was "successful." My pass would be with me within two weeks. It was then that Petra opened up her portfolio and wordlessly treated me to a private viewing of her work. I commended her. And that, from one point of view, was that. Petra drank her water and, in a very matter-of-fact way, brandished the cancer charity tin in front of me again. She pointed at me. She pointed at the tin. She spoke a further word: "Coins." Swayed by the alacrity with which she had solved my problem, I proffered a £10 note. She laughed and rotated her head in a broad circle four or five times before uttering yet more words. "Too much." But she didn't refuse the note. On the contrary, after a two-second pause, she snatched it, folded it twice and stuffed it through the narrow slit in the top of her tin. Then she got up and moved towards the front door, impervious to my thanking her, and not thanking me for the donation. She tapped her left hand firmly with the middle three fingers of her right. She nodded and muttered, "Job done." Then she was gone.

She was gone and I was left staring at my image in the photo. An image required for a practical purpose, but now become so much more. I looked at myself in the mirror; I looked at myself in the photo. I saw two different people. In the mirror, I saw a man entering the bus pass generation. I was nondescript, grey, balding, slit-eyed. In the photo, I had shed decades. My turkey neck was hidden. The angle at which Petra had caught my head had partly obscured my receding hairline. The smile on my face was my kindest, most unselfish smile. My eyes were bright and wide open. My crooked teeth were hidden from view. Petra's art had unlocked a superior version of me. It may be that this new identity was created solely by her technical skill, but I believe my transformation can be attributed to the aura that Petra exuded as she snapped me. The photo is surely a true portrait of me as I existed, under her influence, in the fleeting moment when her camera caught me. I came to a quick decision. When my bus pass arrives, I shan't use it. I will keep it to myself and aspire to live up to it, to be the version of myself that Petra created. After all, the photo will cast doubt on whether I am eligible for a bus pass.

About the Author:

John Thieme is Professor Emeritus at London South Bank University. He has held professorial positions at the University of Hull and the University of East Anglia and has also taught at the Universities of Guyana and North London. His critical books include Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon (2001), Anthropocene Realism: Fiction in the Age of Climate Change (2023), and studies of V. S. Naipaul (1987), Derek Walcott (1999), and R. K. Narayan (2007). His creative writing includes Paco's Atlas and Other Poems (2018), Digitalis and Other Poems (2023), and the novels The Book of Francis Barber (2018) and Cabinets of Curiosities (2023). He edited The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (1996) and was the general editor of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature for two decades. He has just completed a third novel, provisionally entitled Age: The Final Comedy.