Desire to Save Mankind - Mansha Ashraf

---

Abnish Singh Chauhan, Trans. B. S. Gautam Anurag’s Burns Within (Translation of Hindi Poems into English). Delhi: Sanjeev Prakashan, Nov 2015. Pages 73. Price : Rs. 200/- (Hardcover). ISBN 978-81-88-462-77-3. Web Address: http://burnswithin.blogspot.in/

---

Reviewed by Mansha Ashraf

The translation of thirty Hindi poems of B. S. Gautam Anurag into English by Dr. Abnish Singh Chauhan under the title “Burns Within” deserves praise and appreciation.

The poet expresses his view that we humans have lost our faith. We are getting indulged in acquiring fame, wealth and worldly pleasures through evil deeds. We are trying to destroy nature which is in its pure form in order to satisfy our needs. 

The poet signifies that man is a restless creature always making efforts to satisfy his never-ending demands. He always craves to have his own little house, little plot and unresting curiosity. The poet wants to break down this superficial world through his poetry. His desire is to save mankind from the sufferings and toils of life. He wants every individual to do humanity without expecting the return favors. Caring about others at the time of need is the thing that matters and brings joy in their lives. According to him one should seek for inner peace within oneself by listening to his true soul. 

Anurag’s poetic lines have opened the hearts of many by its powerful and appealing words. He has shown the struggle one goes through all his life to be better than before. He points out the struggle against the vices of this world that do not come by choice but through various situations. He refers to workers who are made to labor all their lives until there is nothing left. He refers to life that man can only imagine but not lived. 

He also reflects in his poetry that only God can save people from doom and destruction and one should come closer to him through prayers. Death is the final destiny of every man, but it is only the expiry of physical flesh, not the soul of an individual. My heartiest congratulations to Dr Abnish Chauhan for the effective and fruitful translation of Hindi poems.

N.B.: The review was published in Kashmir Convener, an English newspaper of Kashmir on Tuesday 02 March 2016.

---

The Reviewer:

Mansha Ashraf
Research Scholar
Department of English
SRM University Delhi-NCR
Sonepat, Haryana, India

---

Roaming about in a Garden - Mosam Sinha

---

Abnish Singh Chauhan, Trans. B. S. Gautam Anurag’s Burns Within (Translation of Hindi Poems into English). Delhi: Sanjeev Prakashan, Nov 2015. Pages 73. Price : Rs. 200/- (Hardcover). ISBN 978-81-88-462-77-3. Web Address: http://burnswithin.blogspot.in/

---

Reviewed by Mosam Sinha

B.S Gautam Anurag’s ‘Burns Within’ makes a lot of burning spots on my heart. My heart cries and the echoes are heard again and again appealing me to extend my hands to help the needy as the poet makes this call to each reader of this volume.

Translated volume of his poems in English is due to the magnificent efforts of a great literary giant Dr. Abnish Singh Chauhan. The excellent thing about the translation of B. S Gautama Anurag’s Hindi poems into English is that the soul and heart of each poem remains the same. Diction used by Prof. Abnish Singh Chauhan is really commendable, apt and contextual and also shows his mastery on English Language.

While reading the poems included in the anthology ’Burns Within’ made me feel like roaming about in a garden where there are multi-coloured beautiful flowers, a good feast to the eyes and the nose. The very first poem of the anthology ‘Set Free’ speaks of humanitarian approach. The poet calls God to come and reverse the evil system into a world where there are fountains of love and affection. The poet seems to say that the biggest religion is humanity in the poem ‘Bloody Chaos’. Darkness prevails on the earth and chaos is everywhere. Patriotic fervor of the poet is reflected in the poem ‘How May We Call’. The poet not only loves the humans but also loves the birds and animals and nature too. The poet says, “Heard, every moment/lament of wild dogs, jackals and cats……………Blood is flowing in the rivers, instead of water….”

The pangs and pains the Nature feel is exhibited in the poem ‘Come To See.’ The poet cries, “The benevolent of world!/To hear elegy of Each tree here/ you come.” The cries of the birds also shiver the poet as he says, “To hear cries of birds/ fighting with death/ you come.” The poet gives a call to the people to come and see this pathetic picture of life. Tagore’s surrender to God is akin to the poet’s. In the poem ‘Dance of My Indigence’, the poet says, “O my God! / My indigence in your love/ wants to dance, sing alone.” ‘Your Compassion’ is God’s compassion. God’s compassion is needed in the world today to “transform now into sharp luster and dewy spring” from “the dried, unsmooth autumn.” The poet pines for the golden currency of compassion from God as he says in his poem ‘Make Me Rich’, “Scattering/ golden currency of your compassion/ in my life/ please make me rich/ like a vine laden with flowers.”

Selfishness has crept in the world. Flowers seem to have no fragrance. The world is waiting for the coming death. The poet is cosmopolitan here like Tagore shows it in his poems. (The Coming Death).Tagore’s spiritualism is found in poet’s sense of believing in the power of God. The poet sings in the poem ‘On Getting This Invisible’, “He is in our senses, not only in the senses,/He inhabits the dimension beyond the sense.” The poet opines that human existence is in God’s existence. He says, “I am the part and parcel of Your existence.” (Only You Are). The poet’s creation ‘Tears of Pain’ has the power to make anyone feel the pains the underdogs feel in their lives. The pathetic saga of peasant is evident. The poet seems to be nostalgic as he talks of mother’s contribution in bringing up the son. The poet paints a picture of a group of people who curse their luck for not being rich and blame God for their desperation and helplessness.

T.S Eliot speaks about hollowness of man while the poet refers about hollowness of life as he says in his poem ‘Everything Is Pointless’, “Ours sobs,/ scared of iron claws,/ are clashing with mountains/ but everything is pointless.” The poet exhorts to be united. In a bitter satirical tone the poet makes fun of those who believe in caste system. Nature is in unison while “human family is divided/ in classes, in castes, in languages.”The poet’s ardent love for being poet till the last breath is highlighted in the poem ‘Bonds’. The poet becomes Wordsworthian in the poem ‘The Call’ as he beautifully depicts the plight of nature when he puts up, “The call of pain/ stricken green Doob /is unheard today/ Laugher of Chameli,/ milky childhood of Mahua/ and puberty of odorous rose/ are brutally murdered.” Anurag is perhaps one of the few poets in the firmament of poetry who has so beautifully depicted the pain of Doob and of Mahua. Life’s hollowness again finds its place in the poem ‘The Whole World.’ Like a social reformer the poet counts the social and personal vices like greed, immorality, dissatisfaction, corruption, malpractice, lovelesssness, hatred, wrath, allurement, hunger, crime and poverty and also speaks of lack of faith in patience, trust and truth in his poem ‘The Whole World’.

The character of Ghasiram in the poem ‘Ghasiram Is Upset’ is symbolic of all those farmers who are upset on having their fields and houses mortgaged for the survival of their families. The comparison of the rich and the poor can be seen in the lines “On the day Sawan Purnima,/ the money lender’s house is bursting with joy,/ and Ghasi’s house is/ filled with sorrow/ in the chock full rain of Sawan.” The poet’s agony on the ailing life of villagers again finds a place in the poem ‘The Firewood’. The poet says, “Their life is worn out due to scarcities./ Their wet clothes are also/ causing pain to them.”

The life of the capitalists and that of the poor is presented in sheer contrast in the poem ‘The Biting Cold’ where the poet says, “Due to the scarcity of food,/ the poor farmer is sustaining his life/ by water only/ whereas the capitalists are flourishing.” ‘Intellectuals’ is about degradation of values of life. Intellectuals have become blackmailing intellectuals. The same theme is built in ‘Whom To Tell’. The poet is pained to note the loss of Ram’s reign, honesty being put on test and bombs being made to spread terrorism. Definition of modern man is given in his poem ‘Today’s Man’. Modern man is surrounded with doubts and skeptics. As an environmentalist the poet is worried to notice the boom of industrialization that emit poison making life hell for animals, birds, vegetations and even for human beings.(Inch By Inch). As an ardent lover of mankind the poet wishes to shed everyone’s tears off. He says in the poem ‘Let Me Fight’, “Give me tears of one and all to drink.”

---

The Reviewer:

Dr. Mosam Sinha
Associate Professor
Department of English
Teerthanker Mahaveer University
Moradabad, U.P., India

---

A Great Fire Burns Within Me - Marie Shine

---

Abnish Singh Chauhan, Trans. B. S. Gautam Anurag’s Burns Within (Translation of Hindi Poems into English). Delhi: Sanjeev Prakashan, Nov 2015. Pages 73. Price : Rs. 200/- (Hardcover). ISBN 978-81-88-462-77-3. Web Address: http://burnswithin.blogspot.in/

---

Reviewed by Marie Shine

Burns Within, the translation of Brajbhushan Singh Gautam Anurag’s thirty Hindi poems into English by talented, capable author Dr Abnish Singh Chauhan, begins with the preface in which the translator clearly tells about the poetic journey of B.S.G. Anurag and his contribution to the world of Hindi literature with some specific facts, which go to make up this outstanding writer. Together with the explicit preface and the suitable flap, a very productive, impressive and insightful translation of his poems into English along with the original text in Hindi whets the readers’ literary appetite, making them hungry to taste the literary food of the poet.

The poet Anurag, whose poetry is very potent and has the ability to reduce the readers to tears with a stroke of his skilled pen, uses a wide poetic canvas to paint through his words the real and complex images of modern life, largely growing into various shades of pain, as a result of love and happiness being replaced by hatred and fear, compassion by coldness, non-violence by violence, harmony by discord, truth by untruth, honesty by dishonesty, sharing by winning or grabbing, justice by injustice, spirituality by materialism, etc. Pain, which is so intense, is also felt within the womb of Mother Nature: “Dried are the fountains of love and affection/ Deep pain,/ fluttering like she-cobra/ in the womb of the earth.” Though this pain makes him sad, he is not hopeless. He continues his struggle, knowing it well that life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain: “O my God!/ My indigence in your love/ wants to dance— sing alone/… Please play on your flute/ and spread aroma of your songs/ and watch the dance of my indigence.” Hence, he, having true love, deep faith and full dedication to the Supreme Being, makes a very modest and gentle request to Him for his favour for the fragrant growth of human and non-human entities of the universe: “Remove /the smoke of explosives and tunnels/ lay between the sun and the man/ Developing the internals in us,/ create some synchronized grand soul/ Transform / every particle of explosive dust/ into odorous flowers to bloom.”

The title for this exquisite book of poetry, which is published in both the forms— print and electronic, is also striking and appealing and is perhaps derived from the quote of the artist supreme, Vincent van Gogh: 'A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.' Unlike these words, the book is a place where readers will warm their minds, their hearts and their spirits, and the words will curl and wrap themselves around them like the wisp of smoke in the quote. Besides, the readers will not only recall the words long after they had stopped reading them, but also, making them their companion, cause them to give more thoughts to what they have read and understood from it.

On the whole, Anurag’s poetry, which springs from his personal experiences, raises significant issues of modern society and confidently gives us the outlines about what needs to be done to transform the world we live in back into a place of love, joy and beauty. Hence, the book has the capacity to grace each and every library, whether at home or in a public building if translation of poetic works, particularly Hindi-to-English, is considered a fruitful pursuit and given significant place in the libraries of English language and literature. 

---

The Reviewer:

Marie Shine (1950) is a poet of Listowel, the literary capital of Ireland. She started her journey as a poet in 1965 with her first poem ‘Galway -v- Kerry’ published in a national newspaper The Evening Herald. After that she wrote a number of poems appeared in various magazines and newspapers across the globe, but her first collection of poetry My Potpourri of Poetry could come out very late in 2011. She resides at 32, Ballygologue Park, Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland- V31 EC84 and can be contacted at mariejshine@gmail.com

---