Prison Days and Other Poems: Nilambari/Signs and Silences/First Person Second Person

Nilambari

Nilambari is a collection of the poetry of Ajneya, written between 1965 and 1980, later translated by him. They reflect the poet’s love for solitude and the eternal bond between man and nature. Capturing the agony of man when he denies the true nature of perishable and impermanent life, these well-crafted poems make readers confront a reality that, depending on whether it is accepted, can be both terrible and beautiful.

Signs and Silences

I asked, ‘You there, if I should tell you. There is someone I love, would you be shocked? Would those eyes blink surprised’ unmoved he never heard: The same dull void was frozen in his eyes. Through that chill of blue blood not one ripple ran.

First Person, Second Person

The poems in First Person, Second Person explore the otherness of the self: a mystery that lies beyond ordinary human comprehension. A dialogue between the self and the soul, a journey to discover where, if at all they meet, this well-crafted anthology deals with the most fundamental contradictions in human nature in an attempt to unlock that which lies beyond the narrow realm of the self.

Sachidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan (Ajneya) (1911-1987) was an eminent Hindi writer, critic, journalist and pioneer of Indian modernity in Hindi, as well as a revolutionary freedom fighter. A harbinger of new trends in almost all genres of literary writings, Ajneya has written poetry, short stories, novels, travelogues, essays and poetic drama.