Jaydeep Sarangi

Silent Days, Jaydeep Sarangi, Cyberwit.net, Allahabad, Pp 68, Rs.200/-,ISBN 978-81-8253-396-7

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Reviewed by

--Mr SOURAV SANGIRI

RAILWAY QUARTER’S NUMBER TB/E 1 UNIT NO.: 01

TRAFFIC SETTLEMENT ,KHARAGPUR:721301,MEDINIPUR(W)

W BENGAL

E mail: sangiri.kgp@gmail.com

Silent Days  is  bilingual poet-academic Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of self-contained  poems in English along with a foreword by Lakshmi Kannan that deal with personal within, native links  and daily living totality.

Most of the poems included in this collection are short lyrics  like rain drops from  the  black monsoon cloud. The poems are marked by simple and lucid expressions and easy flow of free  thought. Spontaneity,economy of expression  and brevity are at the core of Sarangi’s poems. His poems are coloured with his thoughts on the

Race, milieu and the context in which poems are located.

In the first poem of this collection ‘Stop Here,Please!’ we find the socio-economic consciousness of the poet:

                   “Believe me,you are a slave in our semi-urban

                     Consort in a metro suburb.”

Jaydeep Sarangi’s poems  engages the readers with it’s touching simplicity and an easy  run of thought. Most of the poems included in this collection are short lyrics in free verse written in deceptively simple style which is highly conversational.

The poem ‘In a Home away from Home’ deals with the marginalised people who live far from the madding crowd.The poem is full of beautiful and thought provoking expressions:

                “People call you ‘aborigines’

               We call you the saviours of history.”

Jaydeep Sarangi’s poems are  replete with his experiences in his native land--a land of red soil in West Medinipur.The poem ‘The Red Soil Allure’ deals with the poet’s longing to be in the land of the ‘tribal children’:

     “I know I’m enrolled among the hunting-freak tribal children.”

In his earlier collection entitled ‘From Dulong to Beas’ he comes back again and again to the land of red soil:

        “Somewhere among the trees

         Some rare species of monkeys

       Jump from one tree to another

     Like a busy man’s schedule in a metro city.”(Kanakdurga Temple)

‘For Titas’ is about his daughter’s coming to a new world-full of noises:

      “With small steps

     You discover

   Newer lands”.

The poem deals with her likings and longings:

       “Nonte and Fonte are as if two characters of your neighbourhood.”

The untitled poem number 19 captures the texture of a dream:

           “My shadow follows me

          As I walk down my dreams.”

The feeling of being uprooted is strongly felt in the poem ‘Refugee’:

         “...Became a home-bound refugee in all stations

        Like a flying fish

       Between home and away.”

In the poem ‘Cricket Australia’ the context is shifted from the land of red soil to the land of cricket:

     “History of my land faithfully paints

      Rich mythology of cricket who play

     And who watch the game close.”

In ‘My Family Tree’ he again comes back to his native land:

      “My forefathers settled near the temple of Kanakdurga”

History speaks through the temple of Kanakdurga:

       “Where I sit and whisper in history forgotten.”

The deep rootedness in the red soil and the small rivulets  in Midnapur,Purulia and Bankura districts  occupy  the  seminal part of Sarangi’s poetic consciousness.

‘The Baul Call’ which is a translated version of his Bengali book of poems,.Lal Palsher Renu,takes us back to the countryside,far away from the numb urban setup.

While talking about his dreams, Jaydeep Sarangi in his poem ‘My Dream’ speaks,

             “It’s my dream

           My hungry heart can swallow

         The whole world

       Of poems and rhymes.”

Sarangi rightly refers to dreams; an avenue for  survival in modern busy numbness. This indomitable passion for  finer sensibilities of life leads him to portray the varied experiences of life’s daily acts  in this collection. It is like a flowing stream where ideas and images come  one after another. The title poem in this  collection represents Sarangi’s mature poetic skills and his vast familiarity with poetic tradition in different continents.The poem is a feast of images from personal to universal.There is a hint silent aging from the part of the poet. He has become diabetic and the title poem refers to his  ‘silent days’ where the poet is selective in life’s daily passage.

There are  guiding as well as sparkling comments by some leading writers in the back cover jacket of the book which give a new dimension to the book. Keki Daruwalla, one of the leading Indian writers in English and the recipient of the Sahitya Academy Award rightly comments, “His poems are a rewarding read, with the scent of herbs coming through the pages.”Bibhu Padhi,one of the major Indian English poets from eastern India  comments, “These short,numbered,self-contained lyrics show a more powerful Sarangi.”

This new collection, Silent Days  is a welcome addition to poetry in English by Indian writers and an worthy entry to the bookshelf.

About the Reviewer:

Mr SOURAV SANGIRI

RAILWAY QUARTER’S NUMBER TB/E 1 UNIT NO.: 01

TRAFFIC SETTLEMENT ,KHARAGPUR:721301,MEDINIPUR(W)

W BENGAL

E mail: sangiri.kgp@gmail.com