about

Poetry Review

     poetry junction

excerpts from review

CITY TIMES
By Vihang A Naik
Poems in English. 1st Edition : 1993.
ISBN 81 - 7189 - 566 - 2 ( HB )
ISBN 81 - 7189 - 567 - 0 ( FB )
WRITERS' WORKSHOP ,
KOLKATA, INDIA.
Pages:72. PB.Rs.40. HB.Rs.80

Poetry Today
Quarterly of Poets Foundation
Kolkata , India

Poetry Today : Poem is an art, but the idea of each and every art symbolizing a poem is a fallacy. The history of literature records innumerable attempts of experiments which have ended is something anew or nothingness. Yet the process is still in vogue. Symbolic poems have in their turn produced many a wave, Poetry creates but is never satisfied in following age-old track. Old order changes yielding place to new form and diction. But the questions still remains whether abrupt deviation in the name of experiments can stand a test.

The book of verses under discussion evokes all these thoughts as Vihang Naik has selected a style of his own, different from the running practice. His diction is no doubt attractive. The economy of using words, selection of right word in right place, distribution of words as per flow of thought, continuity or breaking us of a line in the interest of rhyme, all of which have been helpful to the poet in translating success fully his stream of consciousness. The Poems are divided in 6 segments e.g. ‘Love Song of a Journey man’, ‘Mirrored man’, ‘The Path of wisdom’, Self portrait’, At the shore’, City times’. The segment titled ‘Self portrait’ starts with a poem the diagrammatic sketch of which is quoted below.

     poetry translation bibliography

I

wake up

to see

my

Self

discovered beyond thought

After a gap of 6 blank pages reader finds only 3 words at the tail-end of the page e.g. ‘discovered beyond thought’, might awake ambiguity regarding the aim behind. I must admit that despite experiments the poet is very much transparent in his realization as in the poem, ‘you / become a touch / letters of words / a perfumed card / in / a changed city’ [love song of journey man V] Elsewhere, ‘Chameleon is nothing great ‘he changes colors, chairs,' words, moves sooner than /you think to merge with the surrounding’ / [Mirrored man III] The words used by Vihang Naik sometimes become sharpened knife piercing the object aimed. ‘You know, city is a market / busy, in deeds, words / with give and take / consider not to over / translate yourself / in / wisdom and speech.’ [The path of wisdom v] This abstentious sense and restraint is surely praise worthy.

In all his poems Vihang Naik encounters his time, environment, mankind  from a point-blank range and never hesitates to expose the reality tearing off the mask of deception of modern times. As a poet he is very much analytical in exploring the complicity in human behavior and relations. In a symbolic way he analyses ‘pleasure' as / upon the bed /of sand / the serpent / banking the garment /out /displaying the skin /of beauty / instinct poses / forget the venom / of fangs / lost in the circle / of pleasure / until the wind / shook the design / on the sand’. (At the shore IV)

Sometimes his poem becomes a picture – gallery, the sights, sounds and feelings are mingled in a collage, e.g.. ‘to view a city / hanged / composed of unreals / the grey fog distorts / noises of broken rhythm / railway tracks rattle/ the wheel /strikes on road / look for signal lights / in crowded smoke / an old man coughs / the illness / of his age / a cosmetic girl awaits / the flower of a beauty parlor / you can not tame the beast/or the heart / of a man’ [City Times VI ] Congratulation to the poet and Writers Workshop for publishing this book with high degree of design, printing all entirely hand-set to please even the sour critic most, if any.

- Moti Mukhopadhyaya

Mukhopadhyaya, Moti. Rev. of City Times And Other Poems , by Vihang Naik . Ed. Pradip kumar Chaudhuri .  Kolkata, India : Poetry Today : The Literary Quarterly of Poets Foundation ( jour issue ) ,  Vol.3., No.4., October - December 1999 . p.51 – 52.

 ©  vihang  a.  naik

site search