No Other World: Selected PoemsKunwar Narain
Translated by Apurva Narain
Rupa, Rs 350
Kunwar Narain’s verse conveys what prose may not

Kunwar narain is one of the finest Hindi poets of his generation, a meditative poet of unsurpassed brilliance. His poetry is an astonishing combination of deep thought and controlled lyricism. It is profound, but lightly carried; never for a moment forgetting that a poem is not a self-indulgent exercise, but a compact between the reader and the poet to ascend to a point of self-consciousness where ordinary prose cannot. There is a fundamental honesty in his oeuvre. Despite its depth of engagement with different facets of existence, it is poetry, that unusually for its age, is meant to be read aloud; its aural quality as much a part of its force as its meaning.

Poems like “Chakravyuh” or “Lucknow” have this double effect: a profound unfolding of meaning made more forceful by the peculiar rhythms and metre in which they are expressed. The range is also impressive: at times deeply, but never inaccessibly, philosophical; at times engaged in a minute observation of nature; at times a subdued political protest; at times an ironic engagement with history; at times an engagement with one’s own inner demons.

Kunwar Narain is quietly unsettling, his revolt all the more effective because he gradually builds up to it. What Shrilal Shukla once said about his stories is equally true of his poems: they end by jolting you in an unprecedented way, leaving you “wordless”. But it is this wordlessness that has a far more profound effect on you than the torrent of words that others hurl at you. But it is also poetry of quiet affirmation, a penetrating scepticism, whose purpose is not to destroy, but generate clarity.

... contd.