UK poet in India to release book
Impshi, impshi! Jaldi, jaldi!
A young girl of 10 from Lucknow hurriedly scampered along to scream aloud the above words when a train to Pakistan slowly but steadily chugged out of the platform, picking up its speed on the rotating wheels.
This was the post-partition time, much troubled with the turmoil across the borders when scores of people marched to save lives over miles to exchange settlements on either sides of the divide.
“My mother was precisely a nine-year-old child then, who had happened to witness the entire eventful episode embossed in India’s history, from close quarters. The scars left behind by the partition mandate are hard to heal up even after ages flew past and surely it is clearly delineated as one of India’s defining moments. Later on, mom had narrated this first-hand account of her early life to this son of hers for the umpteenth time. I had an instinctive feeling while listening to that anecdote which underscores the fact that I was watching a movie as if, a period piece in short. This particular incident harks back the olden era of over two-centuries’ British Raj on Indian soil. Her father, i.e. my grandfather, was then employed in the British Army. Although he never served as a soldier, yet he was posted as a guardian to ensure a safe passage of the carriage, ferrying a horde of local migrants from east to west, six decades ago in 1947. It was a mass exodus, an expansive departure of a mammoth populace along with its entourage. The train journey onto the other side of the border was a remarkable one and can evoke a cinematic visual effect in front of any pair of imaginative eyes. Having stayed in India for a brief span, till she was a teenager, my mother returned to England soon after India achieved her independence,” fondly recapitulates Adrian Johnson, a well-known Birmingham poet laureate and storyteller.
This distinguished writer, poet and storyteller was in Kolkata recently when the British Council and Prabha Khaitan Foundation jointly played host to the launch of Journeys, a compilation of short stories, poetry and reportage by writers connected to the South Asian Diaspora.
The collection took to shape formed by using a common thread i.e. the theme of journeys as a starting point.
A special prize was also awarded at the venue to the best writer, Hema Raman of Chennai, the winner in the 16-plus category.
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