Immortality in email IDs: Review of Hemant Divate’s ‘Struggles with Imagined Gods and Other Poems’ by Manohar Shetty

With characteristic irreverence, Divate lashes out at Mumbai’s inequities and consumerism

With poets left to fend for themselves, a number of independent cooperatives and small presses have emerged over the years. Their publications cannot all be expressly branded as vanity or ‘bespoke’ products — some bravely fill a vacuum. There were a few small publishers like Clearing House, Praxis and Newground in the 70s and 80s, followed in recent times by Poetrywala, Copper Coin and Red River, among others, that still uncompromisingly publish verse.

First published in 2013, this reissue of Divate’s collection by his own press contains 11 new poems. Impeccably translated from the Marathi by poet and architect Mustansir Dalvi, the poems bear Divate’s unmistakable iconoclastic stamp and robust humour, filled as they are with four-letter words and more. From chicken shops to “the nadi holding up the chaddi of religion” to branded labels, e-commerce and the global marketplace, all is grist (and gristle) to the pounding mill of Divate’s verse. It is refreshing to find colloquial speech elevated to the realm of poetry. Central to his theme is the city of Mumbai, its overwhelming inequities and the consumerist society at large. It’s a city where the smells are “at once repulsive and enticing”, where “bombs go off serially” and where one is trapped in “a labyrinth of brands”.

A pervasive scatology reflects the city in which taking a bath “pisses off” the poet and hapless citizens are the “pets this city has domesticated”. In language “chewed down to a cud”, Divate berates the city’s inequalities and its flashy exterior. There are some arresting images such as these: “A huge looking-glass/ Lies shattered in a large courtyard/ Every shard reflects a squirming/ Bloodshot eye, my eye...”

The poet is himself a part of the failure of the city which he nevertheless “wolfs down like a glutton”. In this consumerist climate even language is a victim: “The corpse of language, as she is spoke/ Finds itself stuck in the garbage of Dharavi.” And even as the poet tries to redeem language, “The guy behind pushes me into the gutter”.

Divate is a fierce and energising voice, haranguing the dehumanising effects of technology where relationships are “crumpled like junkmail” and where, paradoxically, immortality lies in email IDs never deleted and Facebook and LinkedIn profiles which gleam on eternally.

The writer has published Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems (1981-2017).

Struggles with Imagined Gods and Other Poems; Hemant Divate, trs Mustansir Dalvi, Poetrywala, ₹300