In the Shadow of Memories

In the Shadow of Memories (Chefen Di Rhol) is a collection of Sahitya Akademi award-winning six long poems originally written in Dog by Champa Sharma, an acclaimed poet. The poet sees the world essentially with a woman's eye of love and compassion: celebrating the birth of a girl child: contemplating a future when today's children would grow up and leave their parental home like fledglings taking wing: expressing a mother's pride in the gallantry of her soldier son and his peers: and taking courage that even though the world is harsh with her, she has acquitted her role well.

Champa Sharma (b. 1941), retired as Professor & Founder Head, Post graduate Dogri Department, University of Jammu, J&K. An acclaimed scholar, academic, critic, prolific writer, poet, and translator, Champa Sharma has as many as 43 published books to her credit, including 19 original works, seven translations and seventeen anthologies which she has compiled and edited. Her works include Dogri Kavya Charcha, Kavya Shastra te Dogri Kavya Smeeksha and Dogri Bhasha Mein Prayukt Sanskrit Shabdo ka Arth-vishyak Adhyayan, to name a few. She is equally at ease with Sanskrit, English, Hindi and Dogri. As an adept translator, she has tried her hand-with equal success-at rendering into Dogri celebrated works from these languages, such as Katha Saritsagar Part III (Sanskrit), Thakur Raghunath Singh (Hindi) and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (English).
Champa Sharma was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award in 1988 for this collection.

Suman K. Sharma is a translator, essayist and newspaper columnist. He has published a novel each in English and Hindi. He has translated into English a collection of Dogri folk tales. His other translations include Shailender Singh's Dogri novel Hashiye Par -for A Tree To Grow and a collection of Dogri short stories Ajje Di Dogri Kahani - Dogri Short Story Today and Lalit Mangotra's Sahitya Akademi award-winning collection of essays, Reflections.

Cheten Di Rhol In the Shadow of Memories is a collection of six long poems in Dogri. Going by the time of its creation, the first poem of the collection should have come the last, but in terms of the extent of its canvas, it is the biggest of all other poems in the volume. Providentially, I was afforded an opportunity to recite a few of the verses of one of the poems in the collection at a multilingual poets' meet co-organized by the North-Zone Cultural Centre, Patiala and the Jammu Kashmir Cultural Academy. Encouraged by the wide appreciation it got from the audience, my mind set off on an emotional course. One verse followed another and so on.
The genesis of this poem is fortuitous. One day, my daughter in-law was rebuking my granddaughter for not doing her homework and in a fit of rage, she slapped her squarely on her plump cheek. Looking at me intently, the little girl went on crying for some time, but without making any sound. I did not say a word to her mother, but hugging the child warmly, I pacified her and sat her down again to complete her homework. It took me a great effort to hold my temper. It is correct that children have to work hard to cope with things in today's competitive world, but it also is too true that, one day, after having completed their higher studies, they will probably move far away from home in pursuit of their careers, leaving behind their homesteads and their folks. Perhaps it would be many days, nay, may be months and years before the parents would get to see their cherished child again.

**Contents and Sample Pages**