Manglesh Dabral’s poems distilled the sorrows without surrendering hope
Ashutosh Bhardwaj writes: Politics takes refuge in a leader; poetry is a celebration of people. Dabral’s political poetry is not about grand revolutions, but the muted sorrows of the common woman and man.
Updated: December 11, 2020 9:17:54 am
As the literary editor of Jansatta, Dabral pruned raw copies into finished pieces.
While literary fiction can still occasionally afford certitudes, poetry traverses a vulnerable lane. It rarely attempts to offer opinions, as certain apprehensions about its own gaze never take its leave.
Manglesh Dabral, who died on Wednesday, was a poet of delicate doubts and anxious assertions. He began his Sahitya Akademi award acceptance speech, Kavi Ka Akelapan (The Loneliness of a Poet), with a reference to Pablo Neruda. The Chilean poet had begun questioning his art upon learning that a man had committed suicide after reading some of his melancholic poems. This anecdote, perhaps, epitomised Dabral’s artistic life — how to write about sorrow without losing hope, how to be a poet without ceasing to be a human.