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Journalism of Courage
To want to be not an Indian or English poet, but simply a 8216;poet8217; like the others, to be undivided from them by class and geography, those other languages within language, as I believed them fundamentally undivided from each other.
Perhaps these lines from 8216;Memorabilia8217; are the key to Amit Chaudhuri8217;s poems. Here is an articulation of his aspirations, to be part of 8220;the great equality conferred by the bookshelf8221;, measured only by the worth of his writing, not by his rank, position and place in the card catalogue of writers. Here, too, is the gulf between image and representation, the clunky lines and awkward rhythm unable to do justice to a poet8217;s desires.
A painting on the wall of a room in India becomes the starting point of a journey into England: 8220;Growing up and taking the trouble to see the real thing/ hasn8217;t diminished the village, its heart as full/ of sleeping resonance as the unstruck church bell.8221; His mother and her music teacher create 8220;something liquid and grieving8221;, 8220;through the clear archway of notes8221;, a 8220;mortal moment8221; shadowed by an impending but as yet unsuspected death. The sting of Old Spice; frost on a Mercedes-Benz; the mud-like stain on toilet paper, too dark to blend in with the 8220;pale shit8221; of the English boys; the place in all conflicts but especially in Gaza, 8220;between the kitchen and the garden and the wall and the barbed wire8221;. Revelation can come from anywhere, in Chaudhuri8217;s muted but vivid world.
For all that, St Cyril Road suffers from inwardness; Chaudhuri8217;s world is deeply internal, implacably personal, despite the stray poems here on war and Kashmir and violence. It is unfair to compare two poets as different as the late Kolatkar and Chaudhuri, but Kolatkar8217;s cycle of Kala Ghoda poems has all the vitality, the force that this collection lacks. St Cyril Road is important for readers in search of the quiet moment, or readers who want to trace Chaudhuri8217;s development as a writer in love with language. And it is an important book for Chaudhuri to have published; it takes some courage, after years of being identified as a prose writer, to stake claim to the poetry that was his first love. But this is too slight a collection, its impact too mild, to establish Chaudhuri as a major poet. He has staked his claim; perhaps a second collection, less haphazard, more intense, will consolidate it.
