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Festival of poetry
Kritya has taken her first step into the vast expanse of the
world of poetry. She has been received with welcoming hands. A
lot of appreciation and a little criticism, Kritya is thankful
to both. The first step of a child is always enthralling to
parents. Even though it might be a little bit rambling, what
counts is that it is entering a new world not only of walking,
but also running, climbing and flying. So Kritya’s entry has
given poetry lovers an occasion for celebration.
To mark Kritya’s achievement we organized a “celebration of
poetry” at the Museum Auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
As we know, poetry, the oldest form of literature, is always
kept alive in other art forms like drama, dance, music and even
painting. So we celebrated it by singing, acting, talking and
painting poetry. Dr. Ayyappa Paniker, the eminent poet who put
Malayalam poetry in the world arena and brought the world
literature to Malayalis, inaugurated the function by reading a
poem – ‘Hymn on Slippers’ of Rati Saxena. Kavalam Narayana
Paniker who has given a new grammar to Indian theatre, was the
chief guest and he read his own, and Ayyappa Paniker’s poems. B.
D Dethan, a great painter from Kerala who has combined the
tradition of Indian and western painting, painted on the spot
while the poems were being rendered.
 The inaugural function was followed by a captivating drama
presentation based on the famous Sanskrit Drama “Ashcharya
choodamani,” by Sopanam Troupe. Punjabi artist Neeta Mahendra
acted out Amrita Preetam’s story “Kori Handi” (the unsullied mud
pot), which was hailed as a brilliant performance. This was
followed by Rabindra Sangeet by Pallavi Krishnan.
D.Vinayachandran , a famous poet of Kerala, read out one of his
poems. Rendering of the poems of Pash and Rati Saxena( the
editor of Kritya) constituted the grand finale. The festival of
poetry turned out to be an experience of the essence of poetry
involving all the senses and the sensitivity of the heart - a
Jugalbandi of reading, acting, painting and singing. A
combination of Rasa, Raga, and Rhythm in different colours.
Homage to Prabhakar
 Prabhakar Chitrakaar was from Chattisgarh. I might have met him
in Dhamatari sometime after a poetry reading, but I don’t
remember his face. He wrote to me that he liked my poetry and
wanted to paint on them, as my poetry talks to him. He started
sending me paintings on my poems one after another along with
brief letters. When I dreamt of Kritya, Prabhakar’s paintings
were in my mind. I wrote to him about it, but there was no
reply, the first issue of Kritya came out with his paintings,
but Prabhakar was strangely silent. Now I have come to know from
a letter sent by his wife Vimala, the reason for his uncanny
silence. He is no more in this world to paint my poems.
Kritya pays homage to Prabhakar.
Kritya-in this issue
 Kritya, in this issue, projects the poetry from the eastern
states of India - mainly Bengal and Assam - both poems
originally written in English and those translated into English.
As in the previous issue we have taken poetry from north-eastern
regions and those closer to this area. Earth, water and air give
a characteristic fragrance to the literature of a particular
region, and even so, there are individual differences.As usual, we are also offering poems of other poet friends from
different parts of the world - so that we can relish the colours
poetry assumes in different parts of the world. The editor’s
choice this time is the revolutionary poet Pash from Punjab,
whose poems in Hindi appeared in our previous issue. Through his
poems he makes his voice of blood, sweat and mud heard. This
time again we are bringing a Kashmiri poetess, Habba Khatoon.
Her voice is different from that of Lalded. It sounds the note
of physical love instead of philosophical love. A desirable
courage in a woman, I feel. In the section “In the name of
poetry” Sanjukta Dasgupta talks about the “poetry after
independence in India”. This time we are also including the
outlook of different poets about poetry. From this issue two new
members are joining our family Dr Sudha Varrier and Dr.Jayasree
Ramakrishnan Nair.
So friends, Kritya is again in your hand, read it quietly, read
it loudly, read with your self and read with your friends, and
do respond.
Rati Saxena
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