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Mumbai: On Wednesday evening, poetry lovers in Mumbai celebrated the pennings of the late Indian poet Nabaneeta Dev Sen, who contributed immensely to Bengali literature. At a gathering hosted at the city's Kitab Khana in Fort, people read, discussed, and widely appreciated the words of Sen alongside a translatated piece of her original collection.
Nandana Sen, the daughter of Nabaneeta and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, discussed her mother’s poems which she translated and compiled in a book named "Acrobat". She mentioned having had the ‘privilege’ to translate the poems of her mother which revolved around the different stages every woman faces in her life.
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At the book event, thoughtfully titled "Right now, forever: The poetry of mothers and daughters", Sen shared the stage with columnist Bachi Karkaria as they dived into the eloquent works of the late Bengali poet.
The event started with Shinjini Kumar, co-founder of Indian Novels Collective, reading an excerpt from "Acrobat" and leaving the audience intrigued for more. Sen invoked the presence of her mother by dimming the lights and displaying a series of their photos together on an adjacent screen. With her eyes closed for a second, she tried to feel her mother-poet Nabaneeta’s presence and blessings for the book reading session.
Soon, Bachi stirred up the conversation by asking Sen a set of questions about the book and her mother’s world of writings. “This book is special to me... We signed it only ten days before she passed away, but as I re-read the pages even today, I feel she’s around me,” Sen said.
Further, Sen expressed how going through her mother’s poems made her understand her much better. “As I read her poems and associate the poetry with her life, it feels like reading a journal. I understood so much about Maa as I looked at her poems - her loneliness, estrangement with my father, coping mechanism... It's both beautiful and devastating,” she added.
The book is a collection of Nabaneeta Sen's poetry in translation and discusses womanhood, motherhood and similar narratives beautifully. It was published in 2021 and is available at most bookstores as well as online for admirers of literary works.
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