”I wanted my words to carry that semblance of hope”-Sayan Aich Bhowmik

Sayan Aich Bhowmik is an accomplished Indian poet who gained recognition with the publication of his debut collection of poems, titled “I Will Come With A Lighthouse” in 2021. His poetry explores various themes such as love, longing, self-discovery, and the human experience.

In addition to his poetic endeavors, Bhowmik is also actively involved in the literary community as the co-editor of Plato’s Caves Online. This platform serves as a semi-academic space dedicated to the discussion of literature, politics, and art. He is also the coeditor of the journal Postcolonial Interventions. Bhowmik’s literary journey came to my attention when he shared a link to his published poems on social media. The poems were featured in a magazine, providing readers like myself an opportunity to explore his unique writing style and the depth of his poetic expression. His ability to convey profound emotions and evoke vivid imagery through his words captivated my interest and left a lasting impression. Sayan is politically and socially very aware and vocal which any reader can find through his poems in his debut collection. Prachya Review is showcasing Sayan’s thought regarding his poetic journey and current literary trends for this issue.

Shafinur Shafin: Was there a moment or experience in your childhood or youth that foreshadowed your future career as a poet?
Sayan Aich Bhowmik: My now late grandmother, left an indelible impression on my formative years. She was the one who inculcated in me a reading habit and would gift me books even when there was no so-called occasion to do so. It was she who encouraged me to write and it started out with her cajoling me to send articles to newspapers like The Telegraph. I started out mostly trying my hands in fiction. Poetry came much later. I was writing, what I thought was very juvenile stuff and the thought of sending the poems somewhere for publishing was not really at the top of my scheme of things. That was maybe because I was not both sure and serious about poetry as a craft and whether my calling was this art form. But as luck would have it, around a decade back I met the poet, Arundhati Subramaniam at a poetry reading session in Chandigarh. She was her most inspiring self and had the most encouraging things to say to a novice like me. I credit my becoming a poet and taking up poetry seriously to her. Had it not been for that chance meeting, maybe I would still be trying to find my calling.

Shafinur: Could you share your experience publishing your poetry collection, I Will Come with a Lighthouse? Is this your first collection?
Sayan: I Will Come with a Lighthouse is my debut collection of poems. The manuscript had been in the pipeline since 2018-19. And perhaps not very surprisingly, maybe because it still lacked the required polish or finesse, it was rejected a few times by publishers both in India and abroad. The ones who were willing to take me on board, I was a little circumspect about their publishing policy and their approach to the collection. Hawakal Publishers who have been doing a fabulous job bringing out Poetry titles and showcasing young and debutant poets decided to bring this out and give my poems a home. I was asked to prepare a synopsis of the collection, a kind of summing up of what the collection represents and addresses. Kiriti Sengupta, a notable poet in his own right, provided the much-needed inputs, sharpening the manuscript and giving it the form and shape that we find it in now. His insights were helpful in my having a clearer understanding of how the nitty-gritty of the publishing procedure works. And finally, the stunning cover was conjured by Bitan Chakraborty. Safe to say, without the presence of both these gentlemen, the collection would not have seen the light of day when it did.

Shafinur: What is the inspiration behind the title of your book? Why did you choose not to name it after a specific poem or line from the book?
Sayan: For the past few years or so, I have been concerned about the state of the country and the atmosphere of intolerance and divisiveness that has grasped the civil society, specially after a particular political party has come to power. It is in these trying times, that this collection was conceived. A lighthouse for me stands for a beacon of hope. I wanted my words to carry that semblance of hope for my readers, be it on the personal front of a spiritual crisis and on the social and political one. In choosing the title, I was aiming at trying to provide a sense of comfort, a feeling that my words would speak to the ones who need strength and hope in these trying times. On a more personal level, I had been besieged by a feeling of uprootedness for as long as I can remember. A feeling of not belonging to my immediate social surroundings, an anxiety stemming from trying to find an answer to who I am in the larger scheme of things. It is in this backdrop that I had my daughter, Raangta, come into my life and provide the much-needed mooring and anchor that I seemed to have been struggling to find and locate for all my life. In a way, she has been the lighthouse and as Shakespeare would say, a “star to every wandering bark”. (Sonnet 116). Hence, the choice of the title.

Shafinur: Your book is divided into four sections, each with its own title. What is the significance of these titles and how do they relate to the poems within each section?
Sayan: My collection, as you pointed out is divided into four sections, namely On Longing and Solitude, Love Poems, Political Poems and finally, On Writing. The first was born out of years of battling with thoughts bordering on crippling depression and looking for answers about the world I live in, Men and Gods and basically life in general. I would not say that I have been suffering from depression because that term has now come to be used very lightly and I do not want to trivialize the seriousness of the condition that others experience or go through. But I have grappled with the ideas of death and living and safe to say that I have not found any easy answers to the questions that I had been posing for myself. These poems were born out of that negotiation and conflict, not with people, but with the different faces and hearts that I had felt lived within me. The second, Love Poems, is perhaps the most personal of it all. I tried to put my finger on the changing dynamics of love, with age and with people arriving and leaving and with the Protean nature of the emotions associated with the “jubilee and knell” as Dickinson would say in a different context, of experiencing love. Very closely related to the first two would be the final section On Writing, where I was trying to chart the struggles of the poetic self and the status of the poet and poetry in today’s world. I have often wondered about the exact nature of the kind of world poets inhabit, whether it is possible for poetry to make a difference. In trying to make a statement, I have struggled to find the right and the most pertinent words. This section is a testimony to that struggle. The section closest to my heart is perhaps the third one. As I mentioned earlier, India has been experiencing, maybe for the first time in its nation’s history, such a blatant and unabashed polarization of the civil society. I don’t subscribe to the view that all art should be propaganda, but I do believe that art/ poetry is a mouthpiece and a weapon, a kind of looking glass which needs to be polished often and well. India has a checkered history of communal and casteist violence and I think more and more people should stand up create art to address these issues. Not only of the parliamentarian politics, but also politics of caste, class, gender and the community.

Shafinur: Your poetry often explores complex emotions and states of being, including themes of isolation and grief. Could you speak to how you approach writing about these challenging topics in your work and what you hope readers will take away from your poems?
Sayan: I think I have lived with this isolation for a long time. After a certain point, I tried to put my finger on the exact nature of the grief, its texture, tonality, and hue but did not quite find the right answers. Writing about these intricate emotions, I imagine I’m having a conversation with someone like me, someone who needs to hear these words, someone who needs to be told that in the world out there, there is another and maybe many more, like her/him, who do not know the exact nature of their suffering, but suffer nonetheless. What I would want my readers to take away from my poems is a sense of solidarity. And maybe a bit of warmth.

Shafinur: In your “Political Poems” section, there is a strong sense of nostalgia and longing for a sense of belonging, juxtaposed with the harsh reality of political cruelty. I can remember this line: “I run my fingers all over the atlas and the tip of my fingers Smell of blood.” Could you speak to the inspiration behind these poems?

Sayan: I have grown up with my grandmother telling me stories of her life in erstwhile East Bengal. She was a native of Sylhet and curiously, her reminiscences were laced with a longing for a country now not hers and a recollection of the violence and cruelty that man unleashed on man during and after the partition of India. Much later, I came across the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali, who spoke with a similar longing and nostalgia for Kashmir and presented a harrowing account of the life of the people there constantly under surveillance of the army. India as a country has not, and I do not think it will, recover/ed from the communal carnage of the partition and will continue to carry that burden for years to come. Unfortunately, the communal tension has been fanned by various political parties for their electoral gains. The motivation behind these poems has been to address these issues, to highlight the infinite cruelty that man is capable of committing. To put it into perspective, in the words of Wordsworth, to throw light on, “What man has made of man.”

Shafinur: Your poetry explores the complexities of time and the relationships between people and their experiences over time. However, there are references to memory to eternity and the idea of something transcending time. “Memory is a foreign tongue rusting on spiral staircases that go all the way to the moon.” Could you speak to the role that eternity plays in your poetry?
Sayan: I do not know if it is eternity that I am concerned with. But you are correct in pointing out about the relationship of time and how human relationships change over its course. I think in this aspect memory plays a very important role. What we remember, how we choose to remember and what we choose to forger reveals a lot about us. But most importantly, I think what I dread the most that there will be a point in time in the future of the world that there will be no person living in whose memory I might have a place. More than death being a scary proposition, it is the preparation of death that holds a greater challenge.

Shafinur: With the rise of social media and the popularity of shorter forms of poetry, such as micro-poetry, do you think that there is a danger of poets feeling pressured to pursue fame and followers over the pursuit of artistry and craft? Additionally, how important do you believe it is for poets to explore a range of forms and modes of expression, including longer verses, in order to fully develop their artistic vision?

Sayan: I think it is a curious vicious cycle. For one, there are more authors/poets than readers. Specially with social media providing the platform, we are also slowly losing out on sincere readership. It is also true that poets/ authors are in a curious conundrum. I myself had been asked by this publishing house about the number of followers I have on twitter before they even thought of considering taking up my manuscript. The focus I think has shifted. What one reads needs to replace the numbers of how many people will read. But numbers are important too. Specially for the publishing houses. And I do get their concern about the target readership. As I said, it is a vicious cycle and which shows no signs of abetting. I think, and I speak for myself here, more than exploring range of forms, the poet should explore a wider range of themes, not restricting her/himself to a particular thematic predominance. What needs to be said should be a question of experimenting and exploration even if the poet decides to limit her/himself within the small garden of how s/he wants to do it.