Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Namdeo Dhasal introspects pain, nirvana

At a poetry reading evening, the Dalit poet well-known for bringing out the voice of the 'scum of the Earth' will take the audience through his journey of poetry from over three decades

I’ve made myself tired and unhappy here on this seashore of pain;
Sculpting with a chisel an image of many-faceted wounds.

Indeed, with an uncensored vocabulary which imparts a beautiful stain in his notebook, Namdeo Dhasal has shaken society's conventional notion of poetry. Like in these lines from his poem titled 'Autobiography' which appeared in his 1995 book Ya Sattet Jeev Ramat Nahi (The Soul Doesn't Find Peace In This Regime), Dhasal has prodded the classes and castes persistently to acknowledge the oppression against Dalits and the underdog. Common sense conveys that such evocative words cannot flow from the pen of one who has not been a witness and, often, victim, to the caste-based politics and ostracism himself.

Dhasal will himself let audiences travel with him into a time and space of his work, at a poetry reading session to be held on September 29, at Jnanapravaha, where he will read poetry from his earliest collection Golpitha of 1972, to Nirvana-agodarachi Pida (The Pain Before Nirvana) of 2010. English translations of his poetry would be done by Shanta Gokhale.

Full report here Mumbai Mirror 

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