Foreword by Vir Sanghvi
Sanjay Trehan’s poetry is much like
the man himself: honest, candid,
straight-forward and spontaneously responsive to the changing environment. The poems in
this collection also demonstrate the vast range of his interests: from politics to movies
to rock music; he finds inspiration everywhere.
Some poets treat their work as a secret passion, as a quiet expression of their other
selves. Others, usually those who’ve been frequently
published, treat it as a vocation or a craft, judging each poem with the
clinical detachment of a master.
Sanjay fits into neither of these categories. There is nothing shy or
furtive about his poetry; his poems have been available on the net for quite sometime now.
And yet, he lacks the craftsman’s detachment. His poetry is unforced and
spontaneous; his natural response to the world around him.
At The Hindustan Times, we don’t generally print poetry and certainly not on the
editorial page. But we’ve frequently made an exception for Sanjay because we
recognize his work for what it is: a comment on things he sees around him.
It is a measure of Sanjay’s versatility that he can get as passionate about two
seemingly unrelated issues. When communal violence rocked Gujarat, most of us were,
naturally enough, agitated. And Sanjay brilliantly captured the anguish and anger of many
educated Indians in the Gujarat poems (some of which first appeared on the HT’s
editorial page) reproduced in this collection.
But he was also energized and agitated by another set of events far removed from the
Gujarat riots. When Roger Waters, the former principal songwriter of the British
band Pink Floyd came to India, Sanjay flew to Bangalore to see the concert. Being of a
generation that finds it impossible to think of the dark side of the moon without
imagining a ray of light being refracted by a prism, Sanjay was profoundly moved by the
experience (the poem is in this collection) but angered by the sneering tone adopted by
the HT’s rock critic (the sort of younger person who believes that any sentence that
contains the name ‘Roger Waters’ should also include the phrase ‘pompous
old fart’). Sanjay came to see me, full of indignation. We had offended
Floyd fans everywhere, he exclaimed. This was simply not on. Finally, he fought
for and got equal space to set the balance right.
What kind of man feels so strongly about a rock concert review that he
protests so intensely? What kind of man feels so deeply about the carnage in Gujarat
that he takes Narendra Modi apart with the raw anger of his poetry?
My guess is that Sanjay’s poetry is best understood as representing the voice of a
generation of educated, young, upper middle class Indians: people who draw inspiration
from all over the world but whose greatest concerns are firmly rooted in the Indian values
of decency and fairness.
The poems in this collection fall into no easy categories: they demonstrate anger and
celebrate beauty; they throb with the sensuous and yet, they can capture the damp defeat
of disappointment.
They are, nevertheless, united by all the things that Sanjay demonstrates in his own
personality: a certain directness, an easy candour and a powerful sense of justice.
Vir Sanghvi
Editor
Hindustan Times
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