Coming full circle

Retired top cop Jija Madhavan Harisingh brings to fore her love for verse to raise funds for Covid-19 afflicted artistes and artisans through a poetry festival 
Coming full circle

In the early ’70s, just before Jija Madhavan Harisingh joined the Indian Police Service, she was engrossed in the works of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley as an English lecturer in Kochi. Poetry, like art, has influenced Harisingh to a great extent. So much so that when her daughter, Yumna Harisingh Jawa, suggested putting together a poetry festival, Harisingh felt it to be a natural extension of her own passion. “It was like delving into the sweet realm of nostalgia. Whether happy, hurt or in a rage, I turn to poetry. My work is full of emotion, packed with imagery and written without rhyme or metre,” says Harisingh, who retired as the Director General of Police in 2011. 

Now in the midst of preparing for the Glass House Festival, to be held between July 23 and 26, Harisingh says this is in response to the physical isolation that we are witnessing.  “We wanted to create a gathering of poets and poetry lovers. Coming together like this to provide a community of solace, beauty and understanding. We are also raising funds for Covid-19-afflicted performing artistes, weavers and artisans,” says the co-founder of ArtMantram Trust, a non-profit organisation working to promote the arts. 

Drawing on the immersive intensity of traditional brick and mortar festivals, the programme includes recitative and slam poetry, close readings of poems, works in translation and in regional languages, poems of protest, resistance, empowerment, environment, panel discussions, workshops and performances. Over 75 poets from all over the world, including Chandrashekhara Kambara, K Satchidanandan, Nirupama Rao, and American poet and writer Sonia Sanchez will participate in the festival that touches upon various themes – coronavirus, black lives, American poetry, and queer and Dalit poetry.

It also includes poetry awards that are open to everyone in categories  including Haiku and children’s poetry. “The festival will shine light on hope in the time of sorrow and understand how various issues taking places currently are impacting people,” says Harisingh, who will be moderating a session. “It’s also a tribute to frontline workers of Covid-19, the victims and the civic agency and police who are working to contain the pandemic,” she says. 

The programme, Yumna feels, is meant to be an experience one can soak in. At a time when virtual communication fatigue is setting in, Yumna says, “This is an attempt to re-create what we miss.” It also includes a session by lecturer Anna Chandy Mathew, who will deconstruct poetry. “My dad has shelves of poetry, and when I asked him what he thought of the schedule over a month ago, he pointed out that there are so many people who read poetry but don’t understand it. We wanted someone who could evoke that love for poetry,” explains Yumna. 

Harisingh would have been in Japan and Korea in April, however, the pandemic threw plans off schedule. But her hands have been full through the lockdown, so much so that when friends hint at boredom, she retorts that she hasn’t even had time to sleep. 

COVID
Flaying arms
Flapping wings
Red-eyed monster
Pitiless gaze
Cruel, all pervading
Dance of terror
Clutching nations
Miserable men
Swept indoors
Ministers rattle
Treasuries squeezed 
Laughter evaporate
Old are dead
Young cortisoled,
Give up, bite dust,
“Blooddimmed tide”.
-Jija Madhavan Harisingh

For further details, visit artmantram.org.

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