Sanjukta Dasgupta in Conversation with H Kalpana Rao

Sanjukta Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head of the Department of English and currently the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Calcutta, is a critic, translator, and poet. She has published in journals in India and abroad. Her awards and grants include the British Council Charles Wallace Scholar grant, Fulbright Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Associate Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, etc. She participated in the first Writers’ and Literary Translators’ International Congress (WALTIC) in Stockholm and also served as Chairperson for the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), organized by the Commonwealth Foundation, UK. Professor Dasgupta is the Managing Editor of FAMILIES: A Journal of Representations and Assistant Editor of the Journal of Women’s Studies, Calcutta University.

Kalpana Rao (KR): Hi Sanjukta, tell us about your first collection of poetry. Looking back, how would you like to view these?
Sanjukta Dasgupta (SD): My first collection of poems titled SNAPSHOTS was published in 1997. Writers Workshop Calcutta was the Publisher. The Managing Editor of Writers Workshop then was the acclaimed poet and Professor, P Lal. Needless to add, I was over the moon when I received the acceptance letter and a contract. Among all the discussions and advice I still remember clearly Prof P Lal’s one-liner which I have tried to follow since then- “Don’t stop writing’.
In fact, I had been writing since my middle school days. Poems and short stories. Almost always in English. In those days of the late 60s and 70s, publication by a school or college student was a matter of great mirth and ridicule. So it was only in the '90s that I became somewhat confident and felt that I truly wanted to share my thoughts and perceptions, I felt I needed to publish rather than follow in Emily Dickinson’s footsteps.

KR: Being a Professor of English, did that background shape your poetry?
SD: Absolutely. A teacher is a student first. When one teaches, two learn. As I was tutored in Western literature and taught Western literature for more than 30 years, I feel that the motivation and inspiration derived from my varied readings factored in decisively as I commenced my creative writing efforts in the English language, starting off with poetry

KR: What was the reason for writing in English and not Bengali?
SD: I studied in an English medium kindergarten school. Thereafter, I studied in a Roman Catholic missionary school till I joined college. In school, it was compulsory to speak in English. Most of my friends in class were Punjabis, Biharis, Tamilians and Malayalees. Our chosen language of communication was inevitably English. Our Hindi was appalling and the other vernacular languages were like Greek to us. My linguistic skills were honed in the English language. Bengali was my home language but my parents were avid readers of both Bengali and English literature. So I read Bengali literature with great curiosity and enthusiasm. I can speak, read and write Bengali very well. But my use of the formal Bengali literary language is rather weak. Not of the standard which demands a heavy use of Sanskritized words and phrases. As a translator, I need the dictionary to crack these words which are quite regularly used in Bengali literature, whether in prose or poetry. Creative writing in English came to me like leaves to a tree. Bengali required much effort. Being congenitally indolent, I could not persevere in writing Bengali which was of a distinctive quality, as my vocabulary was chock a bloc with colloquial words and phrases. As I was aware of this distinct qualitative difference, I did not persevere in using Bengali as my preferred language of creative expression.

KR: Most of your poems are women-centric. Is this because of your awareness of feminism or just being a woman?
SD: I wish most of them were. But it seems my readers hunt out the gender specific poems of mine, and refer to them more often. I am delighted about that. I think by now I have published over 500 poems, if not more. Probably it’s my feminist poems that are worth remembering but I think I have many others that are eminently readable too. Memorable? That's the readers' response.

KR: Would you like to state that there is a kind of Indian feminism and do you think that women writers in India adopt the same?
SD: Feminism essentially demands attention to gender equality and gender justice. Women writers are undoubtedly more vocal in contemporary times, but a majority still opt for the middle path. They are not keen to rock the boat, but they are simultaneously sensitized to understand that women’s rights and human rights are synonymous.

KR: Through your poetry what message would you like to provide?
SD: I humbly consider my literary writing as literary activism. Many of my poems aim at gender sensitization, gender justice and gender equality. I have tried to use myth in order to deconstruct its overt agenda of consolidating patriarchy. I strongly believe that in the 21st century, women should become active agents of social change, by striving to aspire towards personal, social, intellectual and creative freedom. It’s more than high time, don’t you think?

KR: How can we better the recognition for the women poets in India?
SD: The poems of women poets need to be as much a part of the academic curriculum as the poems by male poets. The presence of women poets as footnotes in the syllabi is a disservice to the talented women poets who are actively writing and publishing in these contemporary times. We are still latched on to Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Kamala Das and Eunice D’Souza, though there are very skilled poets who have been writing since the 90s, more than three decades now.

KR: How would you like to trace the lineage of women poets? What are the concerns of present-day women poets? OR, do you see a marked change in Indian women’s poetry from the 1960s to the present?
SD: Indian English women’s poetry post-Kamala Das has been rather deviant, evasive and ambivalent in targeting the motivational slogan of recognizing that the personal is the political. However, there have been very well-written women-centric poems, but not as many vocal feminist poems. In vernacular women’s poetry, particularly in Bengali, women poets have been more forthright and uninhibited. The marked change as you phrase it began perceptibly in the 21st century. Young women, not only those who studied English literature in colleges and universities but from many other disciplines have emerged as powerful poets. These women poets are mostly entrepreneurs, government job holders, performing artists and social workers. Significantly, teachers of English literature form a remarkably large group, who are seriously engaged in creative writing, primarily as poets.

KR: Do you feel you are a well-recognized poet today and what would you like to state for upcoming writers?
SD: As I stated earlier, my first book of poems Snapshots was published in 1997. In a few months, my 9th book of poems Ekalavya Speaks will be published. If there was complete reader indifference, I would not have the motivation to get my poems published. I am very grateful to my readers for their appreciation and responses as well as to my reviewers and also to the various academic critics who cite my poetry when relevant in their critically informed essays and articles. Writing poems is a compulsive urge, I perhaps would continue writing, because the urge to create in words, is beyond my conscious control. For new generations of poets, I can only repeat that one needs to keep on writing poetry, without being overly anxious for awards and invitations. Also, one needs to be very honest about one’s language skills. If a poet feels she has superior skills in expressing herself in a vernacular language, the poet should respect that skill, rather than opt for writing in a language in which one has less skill and fluency.

KR: What would you like happening in India regarding creating awareness of poetry?
SD: Reading and writing are deeply interlinked. A well-read poet will have a greater command over the language for writing creatively. As poetry is metaphoric writing, depending on rhetorical tools, symbols and images as well as prosodic structures, a poet needs to discipline her rich creative urges in order to create poetic content that maintains a fine balance between the subjective and the experiential.

KR: Do you think that creative writing workshops help in writing poetry?
SD: Creative writing workshops can immensely benefit those who need guidance in terms of reading and writing exercises. However distinguished writers in the past and in contemporary times are not known to have done apprenticeship courses in Creative writing workshops, but as stated, these workshops can trigger the birth of excellent creative writing.

KR: How do you react to this statement of Tagore, “Poets play an important role in keeping alight the lamp of the human mind as its part in the illumination of the world”?
SD: Rabindranath Tagore regarded poets as path-finders and was an avid reader. His responses about poetry resemble poets such as PB Shelley who had stated that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Poets as path-finders and trailblazers illuminating the encircling gloom is a much-honoured notion that is adhered to even now. I completely believe that poets can be cultural crusaders who can empower and heal the troubled world and its sense of unrest.

KR: Would you like to say that your poetry ruminates on the interconnectivity between woman and nature?
SD: The enduring earth and the enduring role of women as nurturers and preservers has now emerged as a much-cited stereotype. This perhaps relates to women’s biological role as women bring in new life. However, my poetry does not consciously use this metaphor often. Though my poem, ‘Chipko’ which narrates how rural women protected trees from being felled, was very well received as was ‘Dilemma’. My poem ‘Cyclone 2020’, however, addresses the mindless vagaries of nature.

KR: The initial poem in your collection Dilemma seems to be about how the subjective woman self is caught in an urban milieu. Your comments, please?
SD: ‘Dilemma’ is the title poem in my second volume of poetry. In this poem, I wanted to delve into a woman’s desire to re-root herself as a tree in the natural landscape, hidden by trees and bushes. The poem focuses on the pull and push that the urban ecosystem creates causing a sense of indeterminacy about self and identity and the philosophic not-self.

KR: In one of the interviews, you mentioned that your collections can be read “as signature poems that represent me as a poet.” Can you explain this with the shaping of your identity?
SD: Did I say that? That sounds pretty self-assured if not pompous. Well, as I said, my poems constitute my literary activism, hence I address issues of gender, marginalization, pain, hunger, deprivation and disillusionment. In that sense, I can well say that many of my poems though not all, are purposive and pertinent, and are easy to historicize and contextualize. My poems try to give a voice to the voiceless, silent, oppressed and exploited, nameless citizens of the world.

KR: Would you with your inward look into Indian figures, legends, and women’s lives say that you have set the tone for a new phase of Indian writing that self-consciously promotes Indianness?
SD: I would be happy if I have been able to project Indianness in my poems. However, this has happened without any particular agenda. The poems were naturally born on the page without any preconditioning. As I am Indian and I dare say a rooted cosmopolitan, I feel I need to share my Indian origins and culture with the world. 

KR: Do you experiment with different forms of poetry such as lyric, sonnet and so on? If so, is there any favourite poem you like writing poetry in?
SD: No, I have not experimented with form poetry as such. I guess my emphasis has always been on the substance rather than style. If an internal rhythm qualifies some of my poems I will be pleased, and many of my poems do bear this nuanced internal rhythm. However, I do not want to enchain my words within the rigours of structure. I will probably do that when I feel the substance I engage in is becoming tedious and lacking freshness in approach.

KR: The poems in More Light and Lakshmi Unbound seem to be centred on gods who are shaped to be in some way ideals of ordinary lives. Would you like to say that these poems are woven together by the string of humaneness? Would that be too idealistic especially for a poet to take? Comment, please.
SD: In our Hindu social environment deities play a significant role in our daily lives. In my poems, I have tried to interpret the presence of deities and divine icons without harping on the traditional stereotypical responses. The gods in my poems are not represented in a descriptive manner with a full-scale surrender to an omnipotent power governing the universe. I have tried to represent divinity in my poems perhaps in a more personal and idiosyncratic way.

KR: As you are so concerned with questions about nature, do you have poems about animals, OR, do you promote animal rights?
SD: I haven’t written any poems on animals except for a few about disappearing birds. But now that you have alerted me, perhaps I just might, starting with my pet dogs, a bird, a white rat, four guinea pigs, aquarium fish, hens and chicks, jackals, mongoose and monkeys. These were all playmates in some way while I was in school.

KR: I am sure you are an avid reader. What is/are the book/books that you are reading?
SD: I wish I could read more books of my choice. I am inundated with books for review but even then right now I am reading Salman Rushdie’s Languages of Truth.

KR: Tell us a little about your forthcoming poems.
SD: My Forthcoming book of poems is titled Ekalavya Speaks. It is my 9th book of poems. It should be out by January 2024.

KR: Anything else you would like to add?
SD: Thank you for these very perceptive questions. I truly enjoyed responding to them.
 

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DEPARTURE

--Sanjukta Dasgupta

(From https://www.setumag.com/2023/01/three-poems-sanjukta-dasgupta.html)

 

Now the departure lounge
Is so overcrowded
The exit gate stands firm
None can re-arrive and enter

Every day
Every night
Every morning
Every evening
Someone departs
A loved one
An unknown one
Many old
Some young
Departure at this gate
The only constant.

Looking ahead
The void rises
Directionless
Rudderless
The weary boat
Plunges deep
Into the arms
Of the waiting sea
Never to turn
Or return