Poems Come Home

Sukrita’s poetry lives and breathes the world of everyday turmoil: the homeless shivering in the rain; the guard at the Viceregal Lodge recounting his strange fascination for the cold, blue eyes of his former masters; the transience of memory; the fear of looking too closely, lest one’s suspicions be confirmed; the loneliness of old age in a cold country … Gulzar’s translations – the ‘original’ that lurked somewhere in the English poems, perhaps – bring to life a parallel world of quiet elegance and intensely felt emotions. In the poet’s own words, it is in these translations that ‘these poems come home’.