**Panel Discussion and Book Launch
Panel Discussion was held at The India International Centre, Delhi Under the aegis of Poetry Society(India) on Rita Malhotra's latest publication of literary essays titled "romanticizing a cultural journey from east to west" on 18th May 2018 chaired by Dr H.K.Kaul.The Chief Guest for the occasion was Prof Dev Swarup,, Joint Secretary UGC and former VC of Rajasthan University. The distinguished panel comprised Dr Hema Raghavan, former Principal, Gargi College, University of Delhi Prof Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director Bimtech, Dr Nirmal Bhattacharya, Editorial Director Niyogi Books, and Prof Suranjan Das, VC of Jadavpur University.
**Hungarian award-winning scholar, poet and writer Dr. Gábor Lanczkor comments on the book "romanticizing a cultural journey from east to west" by Rita Malhotra
Still alive
(Rita Malhotra: Romanticizing a Cultural Journey from East to West. Essays on Poetics, Poets, Sentiments and Seasons, Shubhi Publications, Gurgaon, 2017.)
Rita Malhotra’s essays about poets and poems offered me a very personal view about the world and literature – a mobile perspective. The mobile perspective of a great journey. On one hand this journey is surely fictive (as it’s all about literature), but at certain points of the book the experiences turn out to be real: the author finds books and meets other authors (living or dead ones) at their home places, in different European and Asian cities.
I don’t think it’s necessary to read a book of essays from the first text to the next one and finish with the last one – a collection of essays is not a novel. As I am a Hungarian writer I started with Malhotra’s writing about Miklós Radnóti, who was one of the greatest poets of my country in the 20th century. Though he was baptized he got killed by the Nazis because of his Jewish origin. In her essay Malhotra highlights the tragedy of the poet through his poems – she analyses not only the last ones which were written in the shade of his forthcoming execution, but some earlier ones as well as if each and every managed piece of a great poet would contain the core of the oeuvre. I read Malhotra’s analysis as a proof that Radnóti did have his own fate. And this made me think and gave me hope; her perspective. Fatelessness. This is the title of the Hungarian Nobel laureate Holocaust-novel (the author is Imre Kertész who survived Auschwitz).
One can say that world literature – in the way as Johann Wolfgang Goethe thought about it – is in deep crisis. These days, as a contemporary bon mot says, world literature is what you find in the window of the big bookshops in the cultural capitols of the world. I don’t think it’s by chance that the very first word of Malhotra’s title (romanticizing) is recalling the era in which Goethe’s original term was born – the European romanticism. Poetry is a phenomenon that had major importance in the daily life of every great civilisation. Majestic poems in all Western languages were and still are elusive manifestations of the original Orphic tradition. In Malhotra’s writings Vasko Popa, Radnóti, Sophia de Mello Breyner Anderson and all the others seem to be part of this great tradition of poetry that is still alive and forms a hidden, alternative network of what was called once “world literature”.
**Book-Review by Prof Rumki Basu of "romanticizing a cultural journey from east to west" by Rita Malhotra
Rita Malhotra Romanticizing a Cultural Journey from East to West.
Essays on Poetics, Poets, Sentiments and Seasons Shubhi Publications, Gurgaon, pp. 120 pages.
Rita Malhotra’s recent book is a collection of essays, compiled from talks delivered at various national and international conferences, poetry readings and literary festivals in India and abroad. Rita’s prose writings are thoughtful, almost meditative monologues on a variety of themes to which she felt the need to respond from time to time. Those of us who are familiar with Rita’s poetry, have now realized that many of her essays are truly complementary to her many poetic concerns. Every essay has supporting poetic lines which embellish the prose writings even further. Rita’s humanistic and truly cosmopolitan subjects come close to some of her recurring concerns in poetry e.g. love, pain, separation, gender injustice and the spoilation of the environment.
Rita’s book has been divided into four sections, the first section deals with Poetics, a study of the nature, grammar and forms of poetry. Her examples touch on Indian English poetry, works of translation and her reflections on Serbian poetry. As a poet she gives more importance to content than barriers to true expression and creativity. Rita quotes freely from ancient Chinese, Japanese and Korean minimalist verse forms in support of her preference for a certain style of writing poetry which they represent.
Writing on women’s poetry across the world, she clearly identifies some common concerns drafted by women’s common experiences across societies. This section reveals Rita’s powerful advocacy for removal of gender apartheid to ensure gender justice. In the next article she gives a bird’s eye view of Indian English poetry from Toru Dutt of the 19th century to contemporary poets like A.K. Ramanujam, Rakshat Puri and Keshav Malik. The problems of translation come up next with Rita’s firsthand experience of translating French and East European poetry. The author’s wide travels and exposure to the writings of poets of different cultures bring us to the next section of her book where she writes about Tagore, Ted Hughes, Peter Thalit Jones and the Mongolian poet Hadaa Sendoo whose poetry she discusses with ample understanding and empathy.
The third section is her reflections on the afflictions of our contemporary times. Sri Aurobindo, D.H. Lawrence and Mira Bai figure in her discussion about lost values and the need for peace. The last section “The Rasas and the Seasons” is perhaps the section where some of Rita’s best essays can be located. As Sutradhar for some of the Navarasas introduced in the Poetry Reading series titled “Navarasas and other Seasonal Readings”, Rita’s essays were memorable and hugely appreciated when they were presented in the Public Readings. She began the series with Shringara Rasa in 2011 and five years later it was Rita who ended the series with Rasa Shantam in 2016.
Rita’s journey across Poetics has resulted in this vibrant bouquet of essays which expresses Rita’s musings on a variety of themes- poetry across cultures, women’s poetry, Navarasas and their emotive connect with the seasons, contemplations on social reality- all of these combine to make Rita’s book a delightful read. Her choice of subjects to write on are significant and insightful specially the section on East European poetry which most Indian readers are not familiar with. What is more interesting is her style in prose-writing, she makes the profoundest statements in a poetic, non-pedagogic style which every reader can understand and empathise with. One marvels at her miraculous moments of creativity-where she seems to be equally at ease with poetry and prose. Every poet re-drafts and reshapes her identity in tune with the changes in her external world and Rita does the same in her transition from her older forms of writing (mostly poetry) to her newer forms of expression, where she tries to be more experimentative in style within a larger canvas.
Rita has experimented in verse -from the Haiku, to long narrative free verse forms and the same experimentation is visible in her prose writings. Her essays are like mood poems-the style changes with the varying moods and interests of the writer. Her tribute to great poets like Tagore, Vasko Popa, Radnoti or Hadaa Sendoo are journeys of the mind and heart leaving you with a curiosity to explore the poetic domains of these poets from across the world. Rita is an able translator and she has given us her own views on translation of poetry which are insightful and important for every budding translator. She has translated French and East European poetry and is aware of all the difficulties of translation or ‘transcreation’ as she calls it.
Rita’s book is a quiet meditation of a guru who teaches the meaning of contemplation through engagement with the practice itself. She is a poet ready to teach anyone who wishes to become a poet all that she knows about the theory and practice of the art. This book makes us understand what poetry is all about – by teaching us a little about its grammar, its processes, its aesthetics and its forms by analyzing some different verse forms signifying the power of poetry in all ages of history. Poetry is the language of imagination and emotions and hence of passion. It is a perception that comes from the intellect and emotes a sense of beauty and harmony. A reading of Rita Malhotra’s book evokes all of the above. Let me end with an old poem of hers called “The half poem”
it looks for words
in temple chimes
in the silence of night
in moon washed waters
in tremors of love
in whirlpools of misery
words trickle in
lines come to life
In one of her powerful essays on the purpose of poetry, Rita makes an impassioned plea for peace and harmony through poetry. She firmly believes that poetry is which journey which is capable of transporting us to a land beyond violence and conflict to a zone of human freedom, beauty and harmony. I couldn’t agree more.
*RUMKI BASU
Professor of Political Science
Jamia Millia Islamia.
