The Mirror of Modern India

A prolific writer and a noted graphic designer, Arun Kolatkar was a bold writer who found amusement in the daily life moments. His poetry is the epitome of modernism coupled with a touch of dark humour.

An established artist and poet, Arun Kolatkar; Image Source: Scroll

Kolatkar was born into a typical Hindu family in Kolhapur, Mumbai. After completing his schooling, he joined S. B. College of Arts, much to his father's dissatisfaction. His life as an artist was not easy. After years of struggle, he found shelter as an art director and graphic designer in several advertisement agencies. By the 1960s, he became an established artist and also won the prestigious CAG award.

While Kolatkar was always interested in poetry and wrote in secret, he never found the confidence to publish his work until he was diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s. His friends then convinced him to publish his work. This was followed by the publishing of Bhijki Vahi (that won him a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2005), Dron and Chirimiri in Marathi, while Sarpa Satra and Kala Ghoda Poems were published in English.

Shit city, he thunders;

the lion of Bombay thunders,

Shit city!

I shit on you.

You were a group

of seven shitty islands

given in dowry

to the Shit King of Ing

to shit on

– and now it’s all

one big high-rise shit;

waiting for God

to pull the flush”

– The Shit Sermon, Kala Ghoda poems

The above poem poses a critique of post-colonial India that still felt the lingering vestiges of the British Raj. While Kolatkar's musings were a gift from long hours of observation at the Wayside Inn Cafe in the Kala Ghoda region of Mumbai, the name of his anthology, Kala Ghoda Poems, reminds us of the statue of King Edward VII made out of black stone. The statue itself manifests into the power of the British rule that a modern India was desperately trying to erase to win the rat race of development. Unfortunately, in the stampede of this race, many marginalised sections were ignored. Kolatkar's poetry identifies and glories their existence as it is.

Similarly, Kolatkar's first English book, Jejuri, was also well-received by fellow poets and littérateurs. Jejuri is inspired by a real-life event when Kolatkar visited Jejuri which, inhabits the deity Khandoba. By invoking the mythical and historical past of Jejuri, Kolatkar tries to draw a comparison of the golden past with the increasing degenerating, consumerist present of post-colonial India. One might mistake the essence of the work as piety but, on a deeper thought, one will discover the vanishing easiness of the past into the commercial thickness of the present.

Jejuri makes its rightful claim by winning the won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1977. Kolatkar's finesse earned him the ultimate fame by being the second Indian writer to be featured on the World Classics titles of New York Review of Books.

Kolatkar's legacy still echoes in the vision of Bombay. In his magical way, he manages to capture his readers with his heartfelt poetry that acts as a mirror to society. He is still commemorated as a recluse and audacious poet of his time.