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BOOK LAUNCH

The Book Launch ceremony of ‘Shabnam’ the Hindi translated version of Shri Sujit Mukherjee’s English poems Dewdrops took place on the evening of 10 Aug., 2019 at the New Friends Club in Noida by Dr BSM Murty. It was a gala evening of poetry and music attended by poetry lovers and admirers of the poet. After the book launch ceremony, Dr BSM Murty, a former professor of English, made a short speech expounding on the art of translation and poetry-writing. It was followed by musical performances and recitations of Hindi poems by some young poets, and finally some English and Hindi poems by Sujit Mukherjee and Dr BSM Murty. Given below is a short extract from Dr BSM Murty’s speech.

Sujit Mukherjee’s Hindi poems ‘Shabnam’

By Dr BSM Murty

The Hindi translation of Sujit Mukherji’s book ‘Dewdrops’ with the title ‘Shabanam’ is a beautiful collection of his translated English poems translated by Shri Ishan Singh, another equally talented poet. The English version was published last year as ‘Dewdrops’. There could be no better title than ‘Dewdrops’ for these flower-fresh poems. When I received the beautifully published copies of the English poems, they thrilled me beyond measure and I spontaneously composed my own small poem
.
Little poems –  
Like dewdrops
Hanging fragile 
On blossoms and petals
Often on twigs and thorns - 
Have come to me

Little poems like flowers
Glowing with memories
Of the lovely times
When my garden, too,
Bloomed with dew-decked roses -
Red, yellow, pink and purple

With twinkling dewdrops
On their stunning faces
Iridiscent prism-like
Reflecting the glory
Of the world and its Maker

Indeed, there can be
No better gift than poems
Transluscent and evanescent.

One poet has defined poetry as a ‘speaking picture’. Another says: ‘Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting’. Words in a poem only foreground the meaning. They delineate - in invisible lines and colours, images and metaphors - the soul of the poem. Photography, a close cousin of painting, is also a creative tool of discovering art in the ordinary. Where poetry suggests, and painting invents, photography discovers. They employ similar techniques, though with different materials – words, pigments and light, to create art which communicates significant meaning.

Poetry is the art of making the invisible -  visible.  It is an art of turning an idea -  into an image. An image - as metaphor slowly transforming itself into a symbol. An idea - transforming through a symbol into a higher truth. The reality of life transforming through symbolism into a higher reality. Poetry is at once as physical as a fresh soft flower petal - and the dewdrop sleeping momentarily on it. At the same time, it is as transcendental and evanescent as the spiritual truth it communicates. It is an amazing mix-  of the mundane and the supernal, the visible and the invisible, the empirical and the visionary. As T.S. Eliot puts it superbly, ‘poetry makes you feel a thought -  as immediately as the odour of a rose’. It reincarnates experience -  as ‘felt thought’. And for this reincarnation, the poet often uses, what Eliot calls, an ‘objective correlative’. Or words or images, or a situation through which the poet evokes an emotion in the reader hat is like an echo of the poet’s own emotion. But all this is only to say that poetry is an art of subtle communication - like painting or music.

I am sure you will see this when your hear this evening some of them recited by the poet. All these poems  bear out these poetic characteristics in either form – English or Hindi. Sujit first tried to capture the thoughts in English – because poems will always come in their own language. But his poems  were so truly poetic  that even in their Hindi translation the subtlety of their communication is largely retained. In fact, in true poetry, whatever be the language - meaning or communication  lies beyond the words on the printed or written page. Language serves merely as a ladder to ascend to the re-lived experience. You may change the ladder, and still you can reach the realized experience. Translation doesn’t kill poetry. On the contrary, it gives the poem a new life.In fact, a good translation is a reverent tribute to the poet as well as the poem itself.

Sujit has earned laurels for his poetry in English - multiplied manifold by translations in many languages, national as well as international. His fame as a poet is now truly international.
Poetry makes you attain emotional, spiritual peace and a strange tranquillity. Remember these lines by Keats, one of the greatest poets ever. Lines - showing how poetry transports you to a higher world. Listen to Keats:

   I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 
         Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
          But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 
                 Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
           The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 
     
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; ……
       Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 
               And mid-May's eldest child, 
         The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 
       The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Here is the highest kind of poetry. Leaves and flowers and the ‘dewy wine’ are all there, too With all the glory of imagery and musical lyricism. And yet poetry is not an escape from the sorrow or the grey realities of life, though Keats talks of them, too in this immortal Ode.  Poetry relieves inner turbulence by soothing it -  with music and craft. It is a balm, a kind of solace to a sad heart. And always, it elevates the soul -  to higher levels of being.

So now, let’s celebrate the poet and his poems on this wonderful evening dedicated entirely - to poetry and only poetry.





Text & Photos (C) Dr BSM Murty

About Me

I taught as Professor of English & American Literature & Linguistics in Universities (Bhagalpur:1959-88), Magadh:1988-'99) & ( As Visiting Professor at Taiz U. Rep. of Yemen:1998-2002), and after retirement living at Lucknow, writing books and journalism. I write two other blogs for my creative writing and translations - vibhutimurty.blogspot.com & vagishwari.blogspot.com.

Contact : +91-7985017549 / 7752922938 (WhatsApp) / 9026267042 / 9451890020

Email: bsmmurty@gmail.com

Please also visit my two other blogs -                                          (1) vibhutimurty.blogspot.com 
for my Hindi articles and matter on Shivapoojan Sahay & others & 

 (2) vagishwari.blogspot.com
for more Hindi articles related to Shivapoojan Sahay & others
& my translations of Bhagawad Geeta & retellings of Ramcharit Manas & Durga Saptshati (by clicking on 2017 & Older posts)

About Me

I taught English Literature & language as Professor at Universities (Bhagalpur:1959-88,Magadh:1988-99,Taiz U.,Yemen:1999-2002; now retired,living at Lucknow, writing books.Mob. 7752922938 , 9451890020.Add: Dr BSM Murty, H-302, celebrity Gardens, Sushant Golf City, Ansal API, Lucknow:226030


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