Gulzar's 'Suspected Poems': More powerful than political commentary

JAIPUR: '

Suspected Poems

' is what Gulzar's latest collection of poetry (accompanied with English translation on facing page) is called. At the

Jaipur Literature Festival

on Friday, former diplomat and politician

Pavan K Varma

, translator of the poems, said earlier collections were more simply called 'Selected Poems' and 'Neglected Poems'. This time, Gulzar explained, his translator was constantly imputing hidden meaning to his lines. So it occurred to him that the best title would be 'Suspected Poems'. These 'suspects' are comments on our times, more powerful than much of the

political commentary

at JLF on Friday.

One poem was about a young man with a nilgai tattoo on his shoulder. This poem concludes in just five lines, with the startling revelation that the youth's choice of tattoo was not just whim -- in case of a communal clash, someone might see the bovine carved into the shoulder and spare him!

Another brief poem spoke of an ant -- creeping up and down the sharp edge of a knife which had sliced through a mausambi, savouring the smell and juice -- but the Dalit man watching knows only too well that the powerless must bleed from such licking and savour the flavour afterwards.

One poem was about a man at a passport office. Asked for a birthmark that could serve as his mark of identification, he pauses. Peeling off his shirt, the Sardarji reveals a burn mark from 1984. "That won't go," he says.

These little vignettes served as a powerful narrative of our times. Gulzar was effusive in his praise for the translator, also the force behind the book. "Gulzar would have one or two of these little poems scattered around, published in little pieces, and I urged him to bring them together in a book," Varma said.

Gulzar said, "It was reading the poems in English that made me think they were quite good. I do take a swipe at politicians but it is not as if this is an attack. The poems bark, they do not bite."