Tags of Talismans that Mark Memory
Smita Agarwal
THIS WORLD OF MINE: SELECTED POEMS by GJV Prasad Hawakal Publishers, New Delhi, Calcutta, 2021, 94 pp., 350.00
August 2022, volume 46, No 8

Professor GJV Prasad’s abundant creativity offers us a smorgasbord of options from which to choose—poetry, fiction, criticism, academic writing and translation. Currently, it is his translation into English of Ambai’s Tamil stories, taking ‘a seed from one soil’ and planting it into another, that is bringing in the praise he so richly deserves. His long-standing passion for writing poetry in English, I’m sure, has aided in honing his skills as a translator. This World of Mine, GJV’s latest book of selected poems, reveals that though there may be a gap of a quarter of a century between his first book, In Delhi without a Visa (1996) and Selected Poems (2021), this poet’s ear continues to be finely tuned to apprehend the subtle and the sharp.

This World of Mine consists of fifty poems. The tongue in cheek opening poem, ‘Desperately Seeking India’ explores the question of identity in the tradition of Jussawalla’s ‘Missing Person’, Kamala Das’s ‘Introduction’ and Kolatkar’s subversive ‘My name is Arun Kolatkar’. And from here on the poet’s robust posturing of a seemingly fragmented self purposefully interrogates this self, family, nation, culture, society, religious conflict, mythology, place of work, campus life and most importantly, contemporary whataboutery using, according to Bruce King, ‘the conventions of light verse for serious themes’.

And so, in ‘Her Story’ we are treated to a glimpse of Operation Majnu where licking ice cream in peace at India Gate brings upon the youth the visitation of a cop who barks:

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