Nishi Pulugurtha
Penprints, Kolkata, 2022, Rs. 250/-
Academic and translator, Amita Ray dons many hats. While translation is what is close to her heart, she is equally at ease when writing short stories and poems. Her debut collection of poems, Until Birds Sing, a collection of sixty-two poems is testimony to it. Actively associated with the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Ray’s poems speak of the everyday, of life in its myriad forms. The poems reveal the journey of life in its various nuances and moods, the struggles and the moments that hold on. Characterized by a sense of lived experiences, of reactions that resonate and of metaphors that linger on, the poems weave expressions and emotions in a variety of ways. A poem like “A Sunday Morning” that begins with the sense of all that a Sunday holds for one some moments to rest and relax, suddenly moves beyond the expected to bring in the harsh realities of life, the lurking dangers, the terrible news – The newspaper shuffles each sip turns an insipid tang eyes gliding through murky headlines “Epic Curse” uses myth to speak of the state of women, of the story Ahalya who had to face the ire of her husband and waited to be redeemed. Ahalya is described as “a non-entity”, living in “ignominy”. Ray uses Ahalya to speak of women, of their state in a patriarchal world – No saviour to liberate her None pauses to her call for justice Pulverized in eternal wait Ahalyas scorch in an epic curse. In “Goalondo Ghat” places and memories coalesce. The Bhatiali tune that wafts in works through the veins and speaks of what had been and what is now, raking up “translucent memories” of rivers, homes, of people, songs and food. The poems brings in the idea of migration and the diaspora – “In me I nurture a dispersed seed”. While having been away, of being located in a different geographic space, yet the roots trace back. The poem beautifully brings in the sense of smell and the feelings it arouses, all intwined in memory – “The breath of wet soil”, the petrichor. Ray speaks of the how race and caste still remain in our psyche. Using familiar literary references in “The Global Stage” she speaks of the realities of modern life. The title of the poem harks to the idea of the world as a stage and to Shakespeare. The poems refers to Lear, Othello and Macbeth to speak of life. Lear is “an infirm figure/destined in many homes”, Othello is still ostracised “racist/casteist venom spews” and Macbeths of the day are seen “in laboratory of ambition”. The poem ends by bringing in a reference to the Covid 19 pandemic – Did the soothsayer of Caesar warn the ides of March 2020 would befall a- an enactment of tragedy on global stage? “Vibes” speaks of happiness and sunshine, of the colours around that bring joy. Nature in the poem is vibrant bringing in a happy tone in the poem. Words like “wisp”, “sporting”, “Tripping”, “glides”, create the sense of the poem beautifully. Several of the poems in the volume use images and metaphors from nature. In “I Am Born” the images from nature create a sense of the harshness, with the darker aspects of nature predominant – the “flash storm”, “cloud of dust”. The poem voices the agony of a woman – Barbs of ridicule, a sting At each attempt to break freee Cluster of claustrophobic confines. Several poems in the volume speak of the position and condition of women in a world that crushes. Ray’s anger and concern at this is clearly evident in many poems. The pandemic, the lockdown and what it did to lives finds expression in several poem as well. There are poems that speak of Durga Puja, the autumnal festival where the goddess is worshipped, of the bidding goodbye to the daughter who comes home to earth. “Adieu” speaks of the sadness at the end of the festivities. The local figures in the poem speak of “An intuitive bonding” with the goddess. Written in a simple, lucid style, with images and metaphors that connect and resonate, the poems in this slim volume of poems bring in several voices that speak loud and clear. Reading them one is made aware of the vast variety that contemporary Indian poetry in English is all about.
Nishi Pulugurtha
Nishi Pulugurtha is an academic, author and poet based in Kolkata. Her publications include a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open; an edited volume of essays on travel, Across and Beyond; two volume of poems, The Real and the Unreal and Other Poems, Raindrops on the Periwinkle; a co-edited volume of poems Voices and Vision: The First IPPL Anthology and a collection of short stories The Window Sill.