Poetry goes hand in hand with music, Daruwalla at Kavita lecture

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, August 7, 2016: Poet and writer Padmashri Keki N Daruwalla on Aug 6, Saturday co-related poetry and music, for having the ability of dealing with inner senses and intellect.

He delivered the fifth James and Shobha Mendonca Endowment Lecture on ’Poetry As a Quest’ organised by Kavita Trust, in association with Gallery Orchid, Daruwalla, a former IPS officer, whose tryst with literature took wings after his retirement, said: "Poetry can not be compared, can be likened to music for its melody and rhythm. So also, it can be compared with other disciplines like politics, philosophy and history."

 

 

 

He said poetry, as a quest, has remained the same with English literature as a renaissance started with rhymes and self-expression. Similar was the form of Bhakti poetry (in India) where the quest was divine. However, there should be a balance between unbridled fancy, whims, imagination and also outer reality.

Asserting that the duty of a poet is indirectly to the people and directly to the language, Daruwalla said: "It can also be a mix of entertainment and pleasure giving a definite feeling to the readers."

He said poets can be choosy --- they can pen on dream, reality or even write committed poetry. It was only in 20th century committed poetry came into play. People rose against tyranny and poets wrote about French revolution among other social issues, he added. Raising a poser, whether a poet in India can write a decent poem on intolerance or a poet in Pakistan on blasphemy, Daruwalla said ’no’. He mentioned that  women poets express with a type of ’politic’.

He recalled the ’War Poetry’ organised by him at New Delhi to express the pains and anguish of those 60,000 Indian soldiers who were killed in first world war.

The last four years have seen Kavita Trust playing host to renowned poets like Gulzar, Ashok Vajpayee, Jerry Pinto and Arundhathi Subramaniam.

Back ground recap: Keki N. Daruwalla; Born 1937, is a major Indian poet and short story writer in English language. He has written over 12 books and published his first novel For Pepper and Christ in 2009. He is  a former IPS, Indian Police Service officer, he retired as Additional Director in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1984 for his poetry collection, The Keeper of the Dead, by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters. He was awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, in 2014