“A 16 year-old girl
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who’s standing
on the corner of Grand and Miracle Streets,
at 11 in the evening
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in a tired little dress...”,
In a six-minute video, Manu Remakant narrates the poignant opening lines of Haitian Creole poet Rudoph Muller’s ‘A 16 year old girl who’s standing’, evoking myriad images in his viewers.
Later, as the poem concludes, viewers learn that the girl is standing on the street because she does not want to watch her mother die of hunger.
The poet, Manu explains in Malayalam, exposes the primitive orthodoxy of a large section of our society and then shocks them with the cold truth.
It is one of the posts from Manu’s new video blog, ‘A Cup of Kavitha.’ Manu feels that most readers in Kerala tend to stick to a few popular poets such as Neruda and Shelley. “Certain poets like Charles Bukowski, although well known among poets and teachers, are unknown to many readers. I wanted to introduce people to little known gems from around the world,” he says.
Being the son of famous poet and translator Kilimanoor Remakantan and novelist K. Indira, Manu grew up in an atmosphere filled with verse and poetry. So it is no wonder that he fell in love with words early on in his life. A travel writer and freelance journalist, Manu launched the blog on November 30, 2016, on the death anniversary of his father. “He was a person who introduced world literature to Kerala through his translations. I guess, I wanted to continue that tradition in my own way,” he adds.
Head of the department of English at S.N. College, Chempazhanthy, Manu has been collecting poems for a long time now and has over 100 poetry books in his collection. Each poem, Manu believes, depicts a different world and a different perspective.
“I have not been able to travel as much as I would love to. The blog is a way to explore the world by sitting in my home and then sharing the experience with others,” Manu says.
Most of the poems that he talks about in his blog are translations. “That is a problem, as translation, most often, turns the poem into a shadow of it’s original self. But even then some of these poems are truly impressive, which tells you how good the original work must be,” he says.
‘A Cup of Kavitha’ is not merely a literary analysis of poetry. It is an interpretation of the ideas, reality and the world that the poet tries to convey. Manu attempts to make the viewers empathise with the theme that the poet speaks about in the poem.
He begins each video with a little explanation about the poet as well as the surroundings around the creation of the poem.
“Interpretation is the life of the blog videos. For a complete interpretation it is important to understand the poet’s life as well as the circumstances under which the poems were crafted. So I always do a thorough background research before starting with the poem,” he says.
For instance, in the video that discusses ‘The Girl/ The Scream’ by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Manu starts with the Israel-Palestine conflict and how it has shaped the fierce tone of Darwish’s Arabic poems.
“I take care to not bring my opinions in the interpretation. I want this to be a presentation of the poet’s own views. I will also be presenting poems that might be highly critical of the establishment and societal norms that I believe in,” he adds.
“I have got a great response from viewers. Prashanth Nair, Collector of Kozhikode, even shared the videos,” says Manu.
Manu adds that he has enough poems for the next five years to keep brewing his cup of verse!
Pick of the lot
Ono no Komachi, one of the greatest waka poets of the Heian period in Japan, is the pick of the lot for Manu from among the poets he has already discussed in his blog.
Komochi’s poems, especially those which reveal her pain of separation, fascinates Manu.
Flavour of the week
Short poems or a few relevant lines from longer ones are the ones Manu chooses for his videos. So every week viewers get something brief to ponder on. Hence, the name ‘A Cup of Kavitha’.
Shot takes
The videos shot at night has a modest yet dramatic setting, with Manu sitting at a table, often with a laptop, in his balcony, under the light of a hanging lamp. The atmosphere is perfect for a discussion on poems. An amateur photographer, Manu shoots and edits the video all by himself. The visuals relating to the theme of the poems are embellished with music and his narration. He posts the videos on his Facebook page ‘A Cup of Kavitha’ and a HD version of the same on his YouTube channel, ‘A Cup of Kavitha.’