Kedarnath Singh, Banaras and the Jnanpith Award

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Hindi and Indian English Poetry, expressing the lyricism and pathos, aspirations and yearnings of the modern Indian intellect. Rooted deep into the Indian soil, his poems reflect not only the moods of a poet but of a complex age. Born in Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh) at maternal grandfather's residence on 26 June 1926; 6 a.m. Primary education in Jhansi, Morar (Gwalior) and Sabalgarh (Morena); Matric (1941) from High School, Morar (Gwalior); Inter (1943) from Madhav College, Ujjain; B.A. (1945) from Victoria College, -at present, Maharani Laxmi Bai

The decades of the 1950s-1960s were a period of students’ struggle throughout the world. Students became conscious of their rights and position; in fact, a new wave of awareness arose among them. A city like Banaras, which records a continuous history of educational status since ancient times, certainly had to play an important role in such movements. In this spirit the city of Varanasi too sparked with several lights of students’ struggle during the 1960s. The second essay is a regional travelogue of a small but unique neighbourhood of the southern part of Banaras, Assi, based on a recent novel, Assi of Kashi by novelist Kashinath Singh. This area is known for the wonderful mixture of yoga (spiritual life) and bhoga (worldly pleasure). To narrate his explicit experiences, the author has taken the shelter of vulgarity at different levels, however it may be acceptable. Based on the locality of Assi this novel is an attempt to portray the ugly but lived scenes and the cultural spots of this part of Banaras. Many of the narrations are similar to Bhardentu’s, full of satire and with a robust exposition. Both of these narrations enable us to understand the ‘maintenance and continuity of tradition’ and ‘acceptance of modernity and cultural transformation’, which always exists in between conflict and adjustments at various stages, in different times and at various levels, like a place-ballet.

2019

Abstract: The Ganges, the most sacred river, occupies an important place in Indian psyche, consciousness, thoughts, ideology, beliefs and cultural practices. The Ganga finds a mention in the Rig Veda, believably emanates from the toe of Lord Vishnu, one of the Hindu Trinity, and is brought on to the earth from the heaven by the prayer of Saint Bhagiratha to purify the ashes of sixty thousand sons of King Sagara to save them from the angry glances of Sage Kapila and is personified as a goddess. On the earth she was the daughter of Himavat and Minavati, became the wife of king Shantanu and gave birth to Bhishma in the Mahabharata. In Indian psyche and philosophy the Ganga carries intense recuperative mode of cultural, religious and ritualistic consciousness. It serves as a cultural alterity, provides pluralistic vision, therapeutic benefits and cultural essentialism to the needs of Indian civilization. The discourse of the Ganga in Indian literature, history, anthropology, political economy, mass sentiment, national unity, cultural multiplicity, ideological conditioning, philosophy, imagination of spiritual sovereignty and autonomy is full of beauty and aesthetic pleasure. The Ganga is the river of life and source of spiritual contentment for every Hindu. It is not merely a water body but the holiest of the holy things on the earth. While ancient sages and poets presented Ganga with its purgatorial effect, the modern day Indian English poets describe it not only to internationalise its geo-specificity but also to internalise the spiritual essence of this river in their thoughts, impressions and beliefs. The present paper aims at focusing the river in the imagination, obsession and recession of Indian thoughts, consciousness and idea of nationhood in the poetry of Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Susheel Kumar Sharma. It analyses Daruwalla’s assumption of collective Indian psyche that needs to immerse in the water of the Ganga for wrecking the doubts, Mehortra’s intellectual and ethical confusions which need a conscious assemblage and confluence in its spiritual significance and external reality, and Sharma’s faithful strands on the river. The paper compares the poets’ understanding of the philosophy of the Ganges and its internalising by them. Keywords: Civilisation, Culture, Degeneration, Ganges, Imagery, Material values

It's a compilation of letters from some poets, professors, and editors through whose eyes one could view my own work, especially poetry, besides understanding their own responses in different contexts.

Here are letters from some of my poet,writer, editor, and academic friends that appear interesting and worth sharing for memories —personal, professional, academic, and poetic—part interesting, part casual. It’s memory of not I, who wrote, but others who wrote me: together they could make up a ‘memoir’, providing the life experiences that might be of some value in contrast to what we experience now, or what was otherwise drab and dull in my own life. I sensed in them a nostalgic hangover, and a possible document of the past and the new in the making, useful to literary historians, researchers, scholars, and fellow poets and critics interested in my poetry and other writings of my correspondents. They talk freely and frankly, and appear one despite differences, just as I seek to come to terms with myself, discovering a pattern in the quilt of existence, threading different minds, contexts, and experiences.

Here only a section from the book has been reproduced for the use of researchers/ teachers/ students for their reference.