Read up, the second part of Amit Radha Krishna Nigam's Interview. He is the author of the poetry collection, 'Musings of Desire'. In this, he tells us, which books are coming from him next, also advises newer authors on how tough it is to be published today, also gives out his favourite authors/poets and what he is reading nowadays,
Folks...
What book is coming from you, next? When do you see it released?
I
am working on completing three books by the end of
autumn, this year. ‘A short story collection’, a Hindi poetry collection and a
novel.
Who was it that told you that you could become the poet, you are
today?
‘Poet’, no one. ‘Writer’, many.
But
now my mother believes as any truth that I will.
Any advice to writers/poets that would like to be published today?
How tough is it to be published in India?
A
lot of experimentation with imagery, vocabulary and metaphor in poetry is still
needed to be done and we have a lot of potential to explore poetic diction to
its fullest. Further, a lot of poetic forms still need to be written upon,
rather than just free verse.
Good satirical work is largely limited to Hindi and we hardly
see long narrative poems now. So, a lot of opportunity in poetry and writers,
who are beginning their work, can make a huge difference.
I
would also advise them to write not just to become famous and, worse, for money.
You may not achieve it soon or in your lifetime (ask Shelly) and it’s not
important even, trust me (but don’t take me seriously if writing is your only
job).
Instead,
once you are done writing for yourself, and if you
are really serious about literature, write for the next generation, even if you
are writing lyrical poetry. Think of your
work as planting a tree that will be beneficial to people in many ways after
you as well.
 |
| Amit Radha Krishna Nigam |
Publishing
in India is still very tough with the traditional option and publishers
continue to be sceptic of new works without any endorsement or prior
background. And if it’s poetry, the battle to find
one seems unending. But these days self-publishing and Indie options are very
much helpful to new writers and I feel good about it. And many a time, books
coming out from ‘not-so-known’ publishing houses do excellently than those
published otherwise.
As
much as we are rich in literature, I feel that
lately our canvas is increasingly becoming deficient and shallow of good poetry
(and so does multi-lingual translations).
Thanks
to the Sahitya Akademi and other such institutions, which have put in place
some mechanisms by the way of awards that poetry is surviving but as I said
above, a lot needs to be done. We are among the
best average readers in the world (averaging over 10 hrs a week) but in terms
of books achieving international literary recognition, we are still behind.
I
have my reasons to believe that contemporary
literary standard in both prose and poetry, coming out from new authors,
especially in Indian-English, is not testing enough.
Riding
the wave of populism has taken a priority and doing so, I am afraid that we are appropriating genres, especially romance and
mythology, to an extent that literary dynamism is being compromised (by many
mushrooming writers) for a short-term success in fiction. This is not good and
we have to think about it.
 |
| Rabindranath Tagore |
Who are your favourite poets and authors and why?
Favourite
poets include Rabindranath Tagore, Gulzar, Kamla Das, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, William Blake, Mirabai, Kahlil Gibran, Sara Teasdale, Vijay Sheshadri, Billy Collins, Pablo Neruda and
William Shakespeare.
Some
of my favourite authors include Khushwant Singh, APJ Abdul Kalam, Charles Dickens, George Orwell,
Anton Chekhov, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Albert Einstein.
 |
| Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan |
Which books are you currently reading?
‘Trying
to say Goodbye’ by Adil Jussawalla, ‘Collected Poetry’ of AK Ramanujan and 'An Idealistic View of Life' by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
What else do you like to do on a daily basis?
Reading, writing and internet occupies pretty
much all the rest of my time after office.
You can Read the Review, right here, Read the First Part of the Interview and Buy the Book, here as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment