Cranes in the Drought- Sahitya Akademi Award Winning Collection of Poem in Hindi

CRANES IN THE DROUGHT (Akaal mein Saras) which won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award for the poet Kedarnath Singh in the year 1989, unravels racial memories on an exquisite philosophical plane. The note of displacement in some poems of this collection establishes a new kind of relationship with the folk life. Most of these poems are deeply embedded with a strong rope of interrogation, which leads to a pleasant blend of thought and feeling. Parallel to the urban tradition of New Poetry, he raised a poetic structure which had a beautiful blend of both the rural and the urban sensibilities. It is remarkable for its freshness of language and reflects the author's intense zest with the common man.

For its presentation of contemporary reality in a style remarkable for its skilful combination of the rhythms of free verse with compactness of meaning, this book is considered an outstanding contribution to modern Hindi literature.

Kedarnath Singh, born in Chakia, Ballia (U.P.) on 19th November 1934, got his primary education at his native village and went to Varanasi for higher education. He is one among the luminaries of contemporary Indian poetry. His polyvocal, dialogic poems are known for their vital reverberations of racial memory, charged mythic consciousness and deep sensory perceptions. His poems are multi-layered and his craft is terse, so he does demand a close second reading. This does not mean that he is obscure. His philosophical vision deepens down further in the recently published Uttar Kabir aur Anya Kavitayen. The silent, mysterious and magical presence of everyday realities in his poems are easy to relate to, and they pleasantly undercut the overt endorsement of logic and positivism in them.

As a critic of poetry he had developed a unique critical idiom of his own which lays special emphasis on the linguistic tools in terms of imagery, diction etc.

At present, Prof. Kedarnath Singh is working as a Professor of Hindi in the Centre of Indian Language Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. His works include Abhi bilkul abhi (1960), Zameen pak rahi hai (1980); Yahan se dekho (1983); Pratinidhi kavitayen (1985); Akaal mein saras (1988); Uttar kabir aur anya kavitayen (1995) and Bagh (1996).

Vijay Munshi, the translator of the present title is a human resource development executive. His books published s for include Silences (poems) and two co ons of Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena's poen anslated into English, Poems and People hanging from pegs (Khoontiyon par tange log). He lives in Pune.

**Contents and Sample Pages**