By Gopal Lahiri, an Indian Poet, fell in love with poetry during his school days and could understand that no other form is as nuanced as poetry.
The aroma of poems takes him even now directly to the poetry classes where his teachers used to explain the meaning of poetry. The seed of interest was sown then. Social media was not there.
Later he joined some poetry groups and started breathing poetry. The scents of poems evoked primal experience and aromas were the links that held him together with others.
Tagore has been the figure of inspiration for his poetry. Tagore is a towering figure in Indian literature, especially in Bengali writings. Poems, novels, essays, songs, paintings, and whatnot where Tagore isn’t there and one is stunned to get a feel. When Gopal Lahiri began to write poems, he looked to Tagore.
Poetry is like a mirror. It reflects the poet’s thought process, state of mind, and ideas.
But yes, he read Tagore and that is that and it is presumptuous to talk about the influence of Tagore. There were a few other poets who inspired him. He was wild about Byron in his early days. It doesn’t come in a moment. Later he took to Eliot, Pound, Dylan Thomas, Browning, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Philip Larkins, Dom Moraes, Nissim Ezekiel, and a few others.
When he looks back, he realizes that poetry is a place where many poets come and inspire him all at once. That’s always drawn to his existence. It still does.
Gopal Lahiri started writing in his childhood but seriously during his college days. In the late seventies and early eighties, he used to freelance a lot for a Calcutta-based English daily, covering art and cultural events and writing in a few other journals.
Even though he was a student of science and excelled in it, he also took a lot of interest in literature. Poetry was always his passion and that perhaps carried him all through his life.
Initially, he was more inclined to write prose especially short stories where you can get more of life, features, and essays, in school magazines and local journals. No one in his family discouraged him in any of his extracurricular efforts.
He studied at Presidency College, Kolkata. Like many others, there is no denying that he visited the iconic College Street coffee house more often than not, checking the latest trends in poetry and little magazines per say, sometimes even bunking classes. He was more shifted to writing poems both in his mother tongue Bengali as also in English especially when he entered college. Later on, he found himself more and more fascinated by poetry.
‘I fell in love with poetry’ he can easily recall the reading of Tagore poems in his childhood.
In his early days, fear was not an option and he was free to write. The answer was from his heart. He has always been a lover of nature and he has memories of writing poems on nature in a school magazine. As it happens, he is more enchanted by the surroundings with its smell, sound, fissures, and lineaments and their intricate relations with the people. It has been on for nearly forty years.
‘I don’t know when it started exactly but writing, especially poetry is something that is absolutely essential for me.’ He says.
Poems that he is creating are just part of him. He never fumes in the lines and he feels comfortable with this.
He knows that he has to write. He believes it is destiny. In his opinion, poetry can’t be hurried and the dominant sound is its quietness, its gentle collapse, its own unhurried music, and its unsung harmonies. All his poems do not overtly address any crisis, nor any inventive desperation but the underlying suffering is palpable.
He can faintly recollect that his first poem was written in Bengali and it was published in his school magazine. It was written on ‘Autumn’, a season he likes most.
Writing, especially poetry is something that is absolutely essential for him. He loves to watch and listen to the people in realms of beautiful earth- how the world is and how the world ought to be. Never really wants to grab the readers by their frontal lobes and immediately snag their attention.
He says, ‘we can say that poets live a bit in the air but I am lucky in that sense as my science education probably disciplined me to a certain extent.’
What he admires most is poetry but he must say it is not an extension of dreams and the most important thing is that it can make a difference. In his poems, the emptiness always ends with the hope that there will be time to fill it.
Sometimes his poems represent a multitude of thoughts that play into the words and letters. It is true that given the opportunity, words and letters can recreate texture and rhythm and he feels that’s poetry.
Talking about the function of poetry he says, ‘Poet’s heart is attuned to the changing patterns of the society and its surroundings, its landscapes and seasons, its sorrow and malice, its dream and hope.’
Even though Auden once wrote, ‘Poetry makes nothing happen’, there is no denying that poetry is one of the most powerful instruments for our survival. It is one mode of transport one takes on the long way through unknowing.
Poetry is like a mirror. It reflects the poet’s thought process, state of mind, and ideas. At the same time, it also helps identify the state of society. The opinions, beliefs, dogmas, and feelings shared through verse, each with a different interpretation, collectively, paint a larger canvas of the state of the society.
Yet, at the same time, poetry can be both abstract and thought-provoking. In his opinion, a poet should be truthful with oneself and express his or her views without fear. One of the poetry’s most appealing elements can be the mixture of observations and ideas. Here the poet reaches out to the world and poetry is his weapon.
Besides poetry, Gopal Lahiri is interested in writing short stories and doing translation works, book reviews (he love critiquing) and scientific articles, etc.
If he had to single out, his favorite book is ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy. Set against a large and finely textured nineteenth-century Russia, the novel’s main characters simulate a dynamic imbalance of the society, reflecting the stark contrast of city and country life and the conflicts of love and love lost. This powerful, vigorous, and elegant novel has become the definitive text for generations to come.
Gopal Lahiri defines Literature as the host where poetry resides and it is the body of all written works. ‘Poetry is an interplay of words and rhythm. It is like a habit; it comes out seamlessly.’ he believes, ‘Poetry is a way to bridge, to make bridges from one continent to another, one country to another, one person to another, one time to another.
One of the poetry’s most appealing elements can be the blend of observations and ideas. The poet digs deep into the bottom of the heart that seeks new and revealing perspectives on the appalling human condition, its emptiness, pain, anguish, and uncertainty. Poetry is one’s engagement with existence and extension of oneself at the end. It’s like a mirror and makes sense of the situation.
When asked what his writing habit is like he said, ‘It’s certainly not ten to five job.’
He prefers nighttime to write and yes on his desk almost on a regular basis if he stays at home. He travels a lot and the airport lounges, lobby, hotel rooms; even on a park bench are the places where he scribbles on a piece of paper or types it in his cell notes. It gives a feeling of lightness, a sense of living to which he belongs.
Having worked as a translator he always feels that translation is a difficult task because you have to align your thoughts with the original work. Yes, transcreation is a word that is now very popular but you know from your heart that you are a prisoner here and cannot spread your wings much.
The short story collection of Israel’s ‘Not Just Milk and Honey’ was translated from Hebrew to English by Haya Hoffman. He was staying in Delhi during the late nineties and the offer for translating to Bengali came from National Book Trust. Hebrew culture was totally alien to him but he took up the challenge. Previously, he had translated only a few Dalit poems from English to Bengali for the Dalit anthology published by Sahitya Akademi.
The biggest hurdle was to tell the compelling stories of Jewish history, identity, memory, and their Diaspora life in a simple language for the Bengali readers. Furthermore, it should be close to the original.
‘I had to talk to a few people who knew about the Jewish people and also to consult libraries many times.’ He remembers the time when it all happened.
It took him six months to complete this exhaustive work and the book was well-received in the end.
Besides that, he has translated some of the Dalit poems, Garcia Lorca’s haiku, and Ernesto Kahan’s poems, and the translation works are well received.
Gopal says that there are so many favorite English poets but he loves to read again and again William Shakespeare and his sonnets.
‘Currently, Vikram Seth is my favorite Indian poet among others.’ He says. Seth is an Indian poet and novelist. ‘Golden Gate’ and ‘A Suitable Boy are the two landmark modern classics. But Gopal loves Seth’s vibrant and lyrical poems more due to their musicality and the topics that they touched upon.
Lahiri says it is a fascinating experience to write books. He has fourteen poetry collections in English that includes four jointly edited collection of poems and eight poetry collections in his mother tongue Bengali.
His latest English poetry collection is ‘Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets’.
He loves writing in both languages, English and Bengali. Even though he was born in a Bengali family, the two languages Bengali and English are constantly spoken and used in his familial space.
The writing in these two languages was quite natural for him and it’s just a matter of time before he became a practicing poet both in Bengali and English. There is a basic difference in the syntax of the Bengali and English languages that lies in their word order.
The English language has a pattern of SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) while that of Bengali language has SOV (Subject, Object, Verb). The variations in tone, rhymes, rhythms, and cadences are also there.
In his early days in Kolkata, he used to write a lot in Bengali. He was uprooted from Kolkata almost thirty years back so he writes much less in Bengali, because of the lack of Bengali readers and also for the desire to write for his readers in English.
‘Yes, sometimes it becomes a hard task but I choose the particular language if I feel comfortable to express my feelings and do justice to the theme of the poem.’
He never writes in one language and translates into the other. Ideally, he dreams first, works on quiet reflections, and then thinks of the medium, but in real life, it doesn’t figure out that way! And honestly now he dreams more in English than in any other language. Is it due to his rootless settings? He really doesn’t know the answer.
But what if some poems aren’t meant to be dreamt at all? Recently he came back to his roots in Kolkata and started writing more in Bengali.
‘Read more and write better if one is going to succeed at it.’ He writes a message for the new poets, ‘Be evocative, thoughtful, lucid and fluent. I am reminded of Emily Dickinson’s poem: the soul should always/stand ajar/ready to welcome/the ecstatic experience.’
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About Gopal Lahiri
He is an India-based bilingual poet, editor, critic, and translator and published in Bengali and English language. He has authored 23 books to his credit. His poetry is also published across various anthologies and in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems are translated into 14 languages. He is the recipient of the Poet of the Year Award in Destiny Poets, UK, 2016, Setu Excellence Award, 2020, Pittsburgh, US and Indology Life-Time Achievement award, West Bengal, India. He is also an experienced book reviewer and is currently in the panel of reviewers of many journals.
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