Jejuri (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Arun Kolatkar (Author), Amit Chaudhuri (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: November 7, 2005

A sequence of stunningly simple but haunting poems, Jejuri is one of the great books of modern India. Jejuri is a site of pilgramage in author Arun Kolatkar's native state of Maharashtra, and Jejuri the poem is the record of a visit to the town -- a place that is as crassly commercial as it is holy, as modern and ruinous as it is ancient and enduring. Evoking the town's crowded streets, many shrines, and mythic history of sages and gods, Kolatkar's poem offers a rich description of India while at the same time performing a complex act of devotion. For the essence of the poem is a spiritual quest, the effort to find the divine trace in a degenerate world. Spare, comic, sorrowful, singing, Jejuri is the work of a writer with a unique and visionary voice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kolatkar (1932–2004) became a leading literary light in India, writing in Marathi and in English about the contradictions of the developing subcontinent. Composed in English, this fastidious, ironic lyric cycle helped make Kolatkar a national, if not international, star when published in India in 1974. Its impressionistic and anecdotal poems describe a visit to the town of the book's title, a Hindu pilgrimage site in Maharashtra state where ancient stones and holy men coexist with modern consumer culture and media, with their "slashed editorials/ and promises of eternal youth." Some poems retell (or undermine) local legends; others simply describe, using everything from jumbled typography to songlike stanzas to depict the site's disjunctions. There are no notes to explain place-specific references. And Kolatkar's techniques, like those of many British poets, may strike American readers as understated—simultaneously casual and terse: "I killed my mother/ for her skin./ I must say/ it didn't take much/ to make this pouch/ I keep turmeric in." Kolatkar's technical assurance and variety, and his decidedly vivid townscapes, however, ought to compel new readers on their own. (Nov.)
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From The New Yorker

Available for the first time outside Kolatkar's native India, this sequence of poems (written in English, and first published in 1976) describes a trip to a Hindu pilgrimage site in the state of Maharashtra. Amit Chaudhuri's excellent introduction tells us that Kolatkar was both an amateur musician and a successful art director in the Bombay advertising world, which perhaps explains the acuteness of his ear and eye. Veering between the epigrammatic and the incantatory, these poems capture a place that is both ancient and modern, with crumbling temples and "stock exchange quotations." Kolatkar's pages are populated by saints, beggars, prostitutes, and priests, by rats, stray dogs, and the occasional butterfly, a creature whose transitory beauty is meticulously described: "There is no story behind it. / It is split like a second. / It hinges around itself."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 52 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (November 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590171632
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171639
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.3 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,252,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best kept secret of Indian writing, December 6, 2005

By 

Prashant Rao "prashy69" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jejuri (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

It was on a lazy Saturday afternoon, whilst browsing in my neighborhood book store, that i chanced upon this book...and guess what, i feel i have unearthed a treasure.

This is a short book of poetry by flannuer- poet Arun Kolhatkar, about his weekend trip to Jejuri, a village on the Khandoba (an Indian deity) pilgrim's track.

Through a short burst of 50 pages, Kolhatkar, conveys perspectives on religion, urbanization, capitalism, mythology, superstition...etc. It is clearly an urban eye, which is capturing the beauty and the depth of the ordinary everydayness of a small village in rural Maharashtra. Almost 30 years from when it was first written and published (1977), Jejuri, still resonates loud and clear.

This edition, also has an introduction to Jejuri and the poet, by Amit Chaudari ( author of Freedom Song etc), and it is in the recounting of the poet and his setting (Bombay(note not MUMBAI)- then, now and Forever) , that one gets many more insights out of this slim edition of poetry.

It is indeed a pity, that Jejuri was not accessible to an international audience, until recently. If it was, then perhaps, Arun Kolhatkar would have been the "poster child" of Indian writing in English. Go ahead and discover, the best kept secret of Indian writing.