Nude

All of us know Vishal Bhardwaj as a film-maker whose films have consistently pushed the envelope and as a composer who has churned out some of the biggest chart-toppers in recent years. Here’s presenting him in a new avatar: a poet. Over the course of these twenty-five ghazals and an equal number of nazms, Vishal comes across as a poet with a distinctive voice and a style all his own. Whether it is a romantic ode pulsating with an intense passion or yearning, or a bitter, ironic comment on the state of the nation, a gentle sense of wonder, an undeniable rhythm and a subtle intrigue pull one into the poems in Nude, both in the original Hindustani alongside their English translation by Sukrita Paul Kumar. Unusual imagery, an evocative style and an idiom that is contemporary, yet reminiscent of the old-world charm of the Hindi and Urdu poetic traditions, each poem is wrapped in mystique. The Internet and Mirza Ghalib on the roads of Mumbai happily coexist in these poems, offering an insight into how contradictions can be reconciled simply and ingeniously.