POCKETS FULL OF POETRY I Indian Poetry Festival organised by Sahitya Akademi I

The human world is styled in words. While nature provides the style, it is the poets who provide the words. A vibrant cosmos of words emerged in Delhi last week at the Indian Poetry Festival "The World within the Word". Shaping of words was the first act of poetry, said vice-president of Sahitya Akademi, Vishwanath Tiwari, who opened the festival. Poets, he said, are creatures who thrive on words, "Poets like Tukaram eat, wear and live on words." Having said this he paused, "This is the day of poetry, so we will keep prose at bay," and briskly drawing out his papers, he presented two of his
poems in Hindi: Jagah (Place) and Aatma (Soul).
Nearly 25 poets from different languages and different parts of the country followed and a master symphony of ideas and emotions emerged. Poets presented at least one poem their native language and the rest in translation.
Eminent Hindi poet Kedarnath Singh drew attention to the poetry of international expats in India. He said it was a genre which had not received enough attention. Citing the example of Tibetan poetry, he read out lines from a piece by a young Tibetan on exile in India: I am a Tibetan-Indian/ I live in India/ I dream of dying in Tibet. With the constant struggle for identity at its core, the poet, a young man, narrates in simple words how he must carry his certificates to prove his identity and how easily he is mistaken for someone from India’s east or north. On the power and life of words, he presented a poem
Shabd (Word). "Words don’t die in cold / it’s the lack of courage/ that kills them." Kedarnath said that considerable growth is taking place in poetry but on the fringes. New voices that challenge and break the centre are emerging. "These voices must be heard if one has to understand the reality of the 21st century India," he added.
In the vein of Romantic poets, well-known Dogri poet Padma Sachdeva emphasised that only that which emerges from the heart qualifies as poetry. Her verses carried an acute awareness of nature and projected its forces as alive and communicative. In one of her poems titled, Air, she says the villagers had "packed’ some of it for her as they had bid her farewell. She carries the village air around with her and uses it whenever she missed home. The pristine village air with its unique aroma of incense in the morning, crops in the afternoon and wet soil in the evening is a part of the heritage that she has received and wishes to pass on to her daughter. In another poem, she is the sky that says: I am not the king without an heir/ My lap is filled with children/ I am India’s sky.
Another poet who brought the inanimate to life through her verses was Varsha Das. Two of her poems were titled Mitti and Daraaj. While in Mitti (Soil) she spoke of a dead soil made fertile by a person’s dreams, in Daraaj (Drawer) she gives a beating heart to a piece of furniture. In Daraaj she is an old woman who keeps misplacing her things. To solve this problem her daughter gets a cupboard with several drawers. The drawers are labelled alphabetically so that: the job is just to set/ specs in S/ watch in W/ and pen in P. But things get complicated as the watch lands up in another drawer that has a throbbing, loving heart.
Tamil poet Salma came up with poems on women issues and sensibilities. In a moving piece she drew upon the life of Somalian women who suffered the terrible tradition of sewing up of the vagina to prevent their "pollution". The subject of each recital was unique and as a result the poems ranged from the Berlin Wall to Irome Sharmila, from a key to a wall, and a stammer to a secret. While one poet
like Subodh Sarkar (Bengali) came up with politically charged free verses another one like Nisar Rahi (Urdu) broke the pattern with witty and insightful couplets. Each poet took you to a different journey into a different world lighting the way with his words. The event, organised by Sahitya Akademi, was thin on audience. However, those present were serious fans, shedding an occasional tear or breaking into a frequent "wah wah".
Looking at the audience Padma Sachdev recounted her young days when iconic poet Ramdhari Singh "Dinkar" would moan that perhaps the era poetry had ended. But he was wrong, she said, we still write poetry and there are people who can’t have enough of it.

A SIMPLE TALE OF BASEBALL, TOLD IN STYLE I Calico Joe by John Grisham I

The basics of baseball are simple but the game is complicated. There is a pitcher, a  hitter and in this case there is an 11-year-old boy too in a crowd of 55,000 at the stands.  But this is no ordinary match. It is the last match that the two will play and the last that  the third will watch. It is also the match that will haunt the 11-year-old Paul Tracey years  later when he is a happily married man.

John Grisham, known for his best-selling legal thrillers has another passion: baseball.  The first book in which he infused the verve of the game was A Painted House. Calico  Joe is the latest work of fiction from Grisham in which you can "watch" the game.  Grisham knows his curveballs from fastballs but doesn’t expect you to know the same. He doesn’t assume that you will know or should know or will find out about the game.  Infact, he provides an engaging introduction to baseball. This is an introduction unlike any other and must not be skipped. He puts you on the home plate, gives you the bat  and makes you face the pitch. You find yourself hitting home runs, throwing a drag bunt and cutting a ground ball. By the end of these pages you are singing baseball. From this happy start, Grisham takes you to the middle of a family tragedy: A father on the death bead with pancreatic cancer. The father here is Warren Tracey, who once played for the Mets. The news of Warren’s impending death causes no stir in the lives of those around him. His daughter and first wife want nothing to do with him but his son Paul has a score to settle. While it seems to us that he has set out to meet his dying father, he has a different plan up his sleeve. He is in Calico Rock, Arakansas, where he must go with an alias. The town hates his father Warren Tracey who had "beaned" Joe Castle. As a result of the throw, Joe is maimed for life as are all hopes in Calico Rock. Paul decides he must coax, compel and even blackmail his dying father to come to Calico Rock and say sorry.

Warren Tracey is a hardened man with a failed career in baseball; a philanderer, given to drinking and violent behaviour. Meeting his son is another of the life’s formalities that he is forced to go through. But the moment Paul reveals his real purpose, he throws off all garbs of civility and digs his heels in. Going to Calico Rock is a big no. The book is named after its third and most important character, Joe Castle. In his early twenties, Joe is the best thing that has happened to baseball in a long time. He is a hitter and an extraordinary one. On his first day of a league match, he thrashes half-a-dozen records. With him the Chicago Cubs look formidable, almost invincible. But one unfortunate game watched by Paul and pitched by Warren changes it all. Joe is also my only serious problem with the book. He gets to say the least and as a result hardly looks real. While the story actually revolves around him, it hardly attempts to looks inside him.

Grisham is not the most insightful of the writers but he knows how to tell a story. He has a simple tale but tells it in style. Baseball is the heart and soul of the narrative. One can feel the rush of a packed stadium, the focus of the pitcher, crush of the ball against the skull. He doesn’t delve into the recesses of human mind but makes his story authentic and gives all actions an arguable reason. Given Grisham’s brisk style, Calico Joe makes an interesting read. It puts the thrill of a game on the larger canvas of life. The argument that baseball is a game for children spoiled by adults holds true for this book. Followers of the game will of course find a lot meat and the faithless will be dreaming home runs before the last page is reached.