The Sunday Haul (on 4-6-17)

Last Sunday at Abids I found a wonderful gem. I found a beautiful copy of ‘Signatures: One Hundred Indian Poets’ an anthology some of the best poetry by some of the best poets in all Indian languages that is edited by K. Satchidanandan. I was thrilled to spot this NBT book on the pavement while browsing for good titles to pick up. Some days the gems simply turn up before you and it was one such day when this book came into view. I picked it up the moment I saw it absolutely certain that it would contain some wonderful stuff. Nowhere can you find so many poems written by so many poets in so many languages. I got it for just fifty rupees whereas the original price of this NBT publication is seventy rupees.

I am sure anyone can get copies of this title though it was published in 2000. I felt so happy finding it that I did not bother to look carefully for other treasures that I might have found had I been attentive. I do not mind it having found just what I needed.

There are hundreds of poems by hundred poets in twenty languages in this book. Some of the poets includes those I am familiar with Dilip Chitre, Arun Kolatkar, Nissim Ezekiel, Sitakant Mahapatra, Jayanta Mahapatra, Keki Daruwallah, Sri Sri, A.K. Ramnujan, Kamala Das, Keki N. Daruwallah, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Balakrishnan Chullikad. But missing are Gieve Patel, Adil Jussawalla and others. However, there are so many poets in other languages I do not know and who I am eager to read.

This is a real treasure that I found.