This Number Does Not Exist

by Mangalesh Dabral

Overview

An attentive critique on contemporary reality—modernity, capitalism, industrialization—this first United States publication of Mangalesh Dabral, presented in bilingual English and Hindi, speaks for the dislocated, disillusioned people of our time. Juxtaposing the rugged Himalayan backdrop of Dabral's youth with his later migration in search of earning a livelihood, this collection explores the tense relationship between country and city. Speaking in the language of deep irony, these compassionate poems also depict the reality of diaspora among ordinary people and the middle class, underlining the big disillusionment of post-Independence India.

"Song of the Dislocated"

With a heavy heart we left tore away from the ancestral home

mud slips behind us now stones fall in a hail

look back a bit brother how the doors shut themselves

behind each one of them a room utterly forlorn

Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in the Tehri Garhwal district of the Himalayas. The author of nine books of poetry, essays, and other genres, his work has been translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Polish, and Bulgarian. He has spent his adult life as a literary editor for various newspapers published in Delhi and other north Indian cities, and has been featured at numerous international events and festivals, including the International Poetry Festival. The recipient of many literary awards, he has also translated into Hindi the works of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Rozewicz, and Zbigniew Herbert. Dabral lives in Ghaziabad, India.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942683124
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	06/14/2016
Edition description:	Bilingual
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in a village of the Tehri Garhwal district (the Himalayan region). He spent all of his adult life as a literary editor for various newspapers published in Delhi and other north Indian cities. His books include five collections of poems, Pahar Par Laltein (Lantern on the Mountain, 1981), Ghar Ka Rasta (The Way Home, 1981), Hum Jo Dekhate Hain (That Which We See, 1995), Aawaaz Bhi Ek Jagah Hai (Voice Too Is a Place, 2000) and Naye Yug Mein Shatru (New-Age Enemies, 2013), and two collections of literary essays and sociocultural commentary, Lekhak Ki Roti (Writer's Bread, 1998) and Kavi Ka Akelapan (Solitude of a Poet, 2008), and a book of conversations, Upkathan (Substatement, 2014). He also published a travel account, Ek Baar Iowa (Once in Iowa, 1996), based on his experiences in Iowa, USA, where he resided for three months as a fellow of the International Writing Program in 1991. His poems have been widely translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Polish and Bulgarian. They have been included in various periodicals, such as Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, The Poetry Review and The Little Magazine, and the anthologies Periplus (ed. Daniel Weissbort and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra), Survival (ed. Daniel Weissbort and Girdhar Rathi), Gestures (an anthology of poems from SAARC countries) and Signatures (ed. K. Satchidanandan). Aawaaz Bhi Ek Jagah Hai was translated into Italian by Prof. Mariola Offredi under the title Anche la Voce e un Luogo. Dabral was featured in many events and festivals, including the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and others in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and various cities in Germany. He translated into Hindi the poems of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Zbigniew Herbert, to name a few. He also worked as a consultant to the National Book Trust, India, and received a number of awards, including Shamsher Sammaan (1995), Pahal Sammaan (1998) and the Sahitya Akademi Award (2000). Dabral passed away in 2020.

Table of Contents

Author's Note 11

[$$$] 14

Good for a Lifetime 15

[$$$] 16

The Quiet House 17

[$$$] 18

The Death of Leaves 19

[$$$] 20

Words 21

[$$$] 22

Woman in Love 23

[$$$] 24

Outside 25

[$$$] 26

Grandfather's Photograph 27

[$$$] 28

Letter to Children 29

[$$$] 30

Poem of Dreams 31

[$$$] 32

Poem of Paper 33

[$$$] 34

The Sounds 35

[$$$] 36

In Passing 37

[$$$] 40

City 41

[$$$] 42

The Other Hand 43

[$$$] 44

Daily Grind 45

[$$$] 48

We 49

[$$$] 50

Delhi: 2 51

[$$$] 52

Lantern on Mountain 53

[$$$] 56

Exhaustion 57

[$$$] 58

A Child 59

[$$$] 60

Final Incident 61

[$$$] 64

Return 65

[$$$] 66

The Seven-Day Journey 67

[$$$] 68

A Poem on Childhood 69

[$$$] 70

This Is Where the River Was 71

[$$$] 72

Inside You 73

[$$$] 74

Absence 75

[$$$] 76

Love 77

[$$$] 78

The Room 79

[$$$] 80

Skin 81

[$$$] 82

These Times 83

[$$$] 84

Delhi: 1 85

[$$$] 86

The Places That Are Left 87

[$$$] 88

I Wish 89

[$$$] 90

Kiss 91

[$$$] 92

New Orleans Jazz 93

[$$$] 96

The Accompanist 97

[$$$] 98

A Picture of Father 99

[$$$] 100

A Picture of Mother 101

[$$$] 102

A Picture of Myself 103

[$$$] 104

Gunanand Pathik 105

[$$$] 108

Tale of Two Poets 109

[$$$] 110

The Way Home 111

[$$$] 112

Before Going to Sleep 113

[$$$] 114

Touch 115

[$$$] 116

This Number Does Not Exist 117

[$$$] 118

The Missing 119

[$$$] 120

Song of the Dislocated 121

[$$$] 122

This Winter 123

[$$$] 124

Old Photographs 125

[$$$] 126

My Way 127

[$$$] 128

Torchlight 129

[$$$] 130

A Dream 131

[$$$] 132

An Act 133

[$$$] 134

My Face 135

[$$$] 136

Civilization 137

[$$$] 138

A Picture 139

[$$$] 140

Asking for Favors 141

[$$$] 142

The City, Again 143

[$$$] 146

Enemy in the New Era 147

[$$$] 150

The New Bank 151

[$$$] 152

One of Gujarat's Dead Speaks 153

[$$$] 156

Reality These Days 157

Acknowledgments 161

About the Author 162

About the Translators 165

Editorial Reviews

"The significance of the anthology lies in displaying, between its elegant covers, the striking range of Dabral’s poetic quiver. He is a poet of personal loss and memory as much as of collective grief and rage and of the historical present. He can be restrained and subdued, and also spew volcanic fire. He can dwell long on the most ordinary but also penetrate the vast unseen, whatever the scale. He can speak to the past and to the present on their terms, and to each from the vantage point of the other. . . . This poet can suddenly throw you, astonished, into another space, into another part of the world, into abysses where the only life-thread may be your imagination."

—Biblio: A Review of Books

"Dabral’s work is infused with the sense, as Robert Duncan put it, that 'the drama of our time is the coming of all men into one fate.' But the work is equally inhabited by the hurdles. This tension is also the core of Dabral’s artfulness—his polemics lean to the side, obliquely, burdened by something more gravely consequential than his singular desire. Consolations are few."

—Ron Slate, On the Seawall

"[Dabral] fulfills the role of a poet as an observer who allows us to see the world through a new set of eyes. He takes ordinary moments or mundane objects and makes them shine in a way they've never been shown before...This new [collection] is carefully edited and beautifully produced. The selection of verses will please admirers of Dabral's work while attracting and inspiring new readers. . . . Both in the original Hindi and in the English renditions, Mangalesh Dabral's voice remains true and honest, an eloquent cry from the mountains that echoes in the city."

—The Hindu

"[Dabrals themes] are so simple they verge on being impersonal: childhood, sunshine, concerns about the future. Nothing here is developed enough to give it an individual character. It is up to the reader to supply the details. This poem, like many of Dabral’s works, escapes from impersonality only when the readers dip into their own memories and enrich the poem with their own associations."

—Words Without Borders

"One should use silence in order to tell about the aesthetics of absence in the poems of Mangalesh Dabral. His is a poetry of displacements inside of personal cities and abandoned oblivions; the duality of the world contained in each open door settles in his eye, as when someone goes away leaving both flowers and beggars behind. The translator of Herbert, Ritsos, and Neruda—Mangalesh Dabral—writes in Hindi and speaks about home, yet brings the dust of the world in among his lines."

—Nikola Madzirov, author of Remnants of Another Age

"In many of [Mangalesh Dabral’s] poems you can still feel the fresh Himalayan breeze and see the observing consciousness of the boy who has come from the village to the big city. Although now a praised and acknowledged poet, Mangalesh’s tone is still unassuming. Although critical as well: Is the world good enough for our children? Is human contact becoming reduced to impersonal communications via cell phones? Mangalesh’s poems are like fingertips that feel out the world and translate what they come across."

—Annette Van Der Hoek, Poetry International Foundation

From the Publisher