EK Janam Mein Sab

The life from within which Anita Verma and her poems come to us is not one-sided or two-dimensional; rather, she takes the challenge and risk of recognizing, accepting, and then giving us its irresistible diversity. She is one of the very few Hindi writers who explores their inner world beyond self-obsession or self-indulgence and does not present it in a syrupy masochism or hedonism. Anita Verma has no qualms in the stubborn and daring use of suffixes almost exiled from todays poetry like soul, love, void, kiss, torture, sadness, sacred, light, sorrow, body, form, death, despair, pulse, infinite, stem, shiver, solitude, shadow, touch, sadness, life, unconscious, soft, with which she creates an inner, private - not solitary - world, passing through which one is reminded sometimes of poets like Mahadevi-Szymborska and sometimes of the complex, sensual imagery of Shamsher-Lorca. Her poems contain many sensitive portraits of tender human emotions and relationships, but she almost always manages to avoid sentimentality, pathos, and self-depression, transforming them into a contemplative self-expression. As a result, Hindi has received such remarkable works as Prayer, Love, Vaarth, Right Now, Within, Water Gates, Play, She, Wonderfulness, Beauty, Death, Above the Earth, July, Kiss, Touch, Aimless, Similarly, and Dont Speak, all of which display a stunning harmony of emotions, thoughts, words, images, music, and lyricism. Painting and imagery seem to fascinate Anita Verma, and she sometimes, like the Expressionists, Imagists, and Symbolists, risks using a personal, autonomous, and refined language for their transcendental beauty, highlighting the new potential of Hindi poetry. However, such poetry also contains unique, realistic expressions of joy, sorrow, and love. Such works alone would not have been sufficient to make a poet significant, but her vision is not limited to the inner and the individual; she also sees the external world and the collective. It is because of this vision that Anita Verma not only sees the visual aspect of the famous works of Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Renoir, but also recognizes and feels the painful stories and complex lives hidden within them. The society and life behind the artworks have rarely been explored in this way in Hindi poetry. Even further, Anita Verma is acutely aware of the vast world of tenderness and pain unfolding around her right now, including newborn babies, the horrific trade of capital, a woman screaming among savages, jealousy, greed, and innocent dreams, and laughter and love beyond the shadows of death. This vision sees not just a crumbling house, but also its crumbling past, its dire future, the laborers, beggars, animals, and the housewife of the house for which a truck now arrives at night to carry away bricks. In Home, the poet begins with todays dwelling and reaches back to primitive shelters, viewing the entire earth as a habitat, but also recognizes the harsh reality that homes are now built through compromises, where love is rooted in values. The poets vision, while observing reality, is not entirely skeptical. She always manages to maintain a balanced control over her subject matter, language, and craft. Her poems about the larger world are unambiguously in favor of the deprived, women, and children, and against capital, profit, regulations, markets, advertising, exploitation, and atrocities. If Ameer targets a life of luxury, Ek Aur Prarthana also reveals a self-ironic realization: Lord, my divinity is disturbed by the torn shirt of the rickshaw puller, shivering in the cold early in the morning. Tarpan has the audacity to call religion and civilization anti-human, while Advertisement depicts man and society being destroyed by consumerism. Anita Verma has some very different poems on women and children. Abhi Virodh tells the story of a woman who used to earn money and pray, but even when she enters the open, beautiful world, she is opposed. The poem To Women doesnt invoke popular feminist terminology but instead calls for bringing out a bright smile from your own darkness. A profound assessment of the commodification of the female body is found in Isteem, whose poignant lines like Be thankful that beautiful mothers dont sell their children/This work is reserved for ugly mothers are horrifying. A poem on the Dalit massacres of Laxmanpur Bathe and Shankar Bigha begins with a weeping woman. Works on schoolchildren like Anita Vermas Apni Klass, Zahid Ali Ka Panna (which moves wonderfully between the themes of childhood and communalism), School, and Hum Jo Hain observe childrens complex present and uncertain future with a rare tenderness. Whether the ground is public or private, whether the subjects are contemporary or transcendental, Anita Verma has acquired a language and style, a way of conveying complete human empathy and expressing her innermost thoughts, that has earned her a distinct identity and a permanent place in the forefront of the large generation of young Hindi poets who have emerged in the last two decades. Vishnu Khare