Gulzar's new book of poems: From 'Kalburgi to Ayodhya'

Gulzar's new book of poems: From 'Kalburgi to Ayodhya' Poet-lyricist Gulzar has now come out with a book of poems and the topics range from the political climate in the country and intolerance to the plight of the common man, and from atrocities against Dalits to Indo-Pak relations. The 52 poems in "Suspected Poems" are written by Gulzar in his inimitable style and reflect and comment, sometimes

elliptically through a visual image and sometimes with breathtaking immediacy and directness, on the political reality in the country today.

The poems, originally written in Hindi, have been translated into English by Pavan K Varma.

In the poem "There's Nothing New in New Delhi", Gulzar says, "There is nothing really new in New Delhi/ Except that every five years a new government comes in/ And converts old issues to new schemes./ Opening scabbards anew /They unsheathe again all the rusted laws/ That can cut neither grass, nor necks!"

"Gulzar Sahib writes poetry of an order that has few parallels today. His poems are, therefore, hardly 'suspect'! So when he told me that the next volume of his poems would be called 'Suspected Poems', I was both amused and intrigued," says Varma, who has translated three other volumes of Gulzar's poems.

"But, this is the first time I have worked on a collection that is 'suspected'! As always, there is a method to Gulzar's occasionally elliptical genius. To my mind, these poems are all part of a specific genre. That genre relates both to larger public issues and to politics.

"It is not as though Gulzar has not poetically commented on developments in this area in the past. But, for the first time perhaps, all the poems in a volume by him are organically animated by this theme. It would be devaluing Gulzar's poetic sophistication to believe that he might pen a polemical or partisan lyric on issues of national concern," he says.

The poem on Kalburgi reads: "He did not die... The person who died and lies on the threshold Is someone else..."

Another one on news titles "The Same News" goes: "Every day the same newspaper column/ Gulps of the same brackish news/ Every day the same mouthful of promises/ Sentences dissected/ Each word chewed again and again."