Mughal Badshaho ki Hindi Kavita

After reading Anamikas new collection, Tokari Mein Diganta - Theri Gatha: 2014, my first impression was that the entire work is a long poem, containing numerous small scenes, episodes, and ordinary women of our time wrapped in the metaphor of Theris. The date of 2014 in the collections title suggests, I believe, that the entire collections emphasis is on this time-context rather than on Theri Gatha. The collection begins with a short preface, which should be read in conjunction with the poems. Buddha is at the center of many poems, repeatedly questioned and undoubtedly accepted as a beacon of light! This new collection contains numerous quotable passages or lines that linger in the readers mind. Without any logical coherence, the entire collection feels like a poetic canvas with an open ending. According to its author herself, present and past, history and legend, imagination and reality can be seen dancing together here like a wandering paraiya. Unlike the familiar landscape of todays womens writing, this is a new imaginative creation that, instead of forcing its lines on the reader, speaks to them, and in doing so, secretly imprints its meaning in their memory. Perhaps this is a new poetic genre that will attract the attention of poetry lovers. As a reader of contemporary poetry, I felt that this work is an introduction to a new poetic language, one that opens many closed doors of consonance, and all this happens around a local center. This is an intervention of subaltern sensibility into the familiar world of poetry, one that will not go unnoticed. - Kedarnath Singh.