Is it a challenge for an Indian poet to write devotional verse in English?
For an Indian poet to write a devotional poem in an Indian language today will be equally a challenge. You can’t write as if you belonged to Basavanna’s close circle. Clichs will make your work phoney, imitative nostalgic, falsify the sentiment. Language shapes emotion and structure. So how are your Marathi poems different from the English? Not something I particularly want to know. My Marathi poems were written in different times and periods in my life, and that could have made the difference rather than language. They are probably more dense texture wise, and opaque. At least that’s a common complaint. Anyway it’s futile to form a judgement of what I’m doing in Marathi in English. Does Marathi have a tradition of tight, graphic imagery, the kind of strokes you make? Probably not. Good or bad, my Marathi poems are of their own kind. Some use exaggerated imagery, far too much, which puzzles people. Why are the English poems easier? People want to know. I don’t know. Why shouldn’t they
