Daipayan Nair's Haiku book reviewed in MBR

 Book Review:

     Review published in Midwest Book Review: Reviewer's Bookwatch, September 2024  

https://www.midwestbookreview.com/rbw/sep_24.htm#rksingh                                                    

                            R. K. Singh's Bookshelf

 

The Ten Hands of a Fuchka Seller
Daipayan Nair
Penprints
www.penprints.in
9788197403620, (300) $35.00, PB, 80 pp. (12 years & up)

https://www.amazon.in/Ten-Hands-Fuchka-Seller/dp/8197403627

 

Haiku has been a flourishing genre of poetry writing in India. Among the several new practitioners of the Japanese art form, Daipayan Nair has established himself as a remarkable new voice. He creates truly Indian haiku rooted in where he belongs in a fluid urban space. He captures varying haiku moments from quotidian experiences , and effectively images them, underlining the native socio-cultural ethos, as part of Indian kigo with global appeal. For instance, 

"Kolkata street corner--

the ten hands 

of a fuchka seller"

bhel poori

this misunderstanding 

between us

skipping across

the rain-washed terrace

her alta feet

evening adda 

I sip the first line

of her recital

Bhetki Fry

layer upon layer

of your lies

Daipayan Nair explores the complexities of living 'Here and Now' and draws the inner nature in outer events:

graffiti art--

an old beggar pees

on revolution

red blouse

a safety pin between

her lips

returning home

on a hand-pulled rickshaw

school song

scattered fishbones...

a young waiter gathers

his thoughts

a jute bag

filled with cauliflowers

uncle's greetings

raining petals...

the street sweeper stretches

her spine

Indian vision and imagination predominates the poet's perception, just as his charm lies not in using any verbal or rhetorical trick to create his three-liners but to simply express the ordinary and relatable in truly haiku spirit. His  aesthetically pleasant book testifies to the poet's oneness with haikuists elsewhere,  irrespective of what he shares as senryu, which is his forte. Highly recommended.

Editorial Note #1: Daipayan Nair (https://hellopoetry.com/daipayan-nair/) is freelance writer/columnist, poet, fiction writer and essayist. His works have been published in a lot of anthologies and poetry journals like The Poetry Breakfast, The Galway Review, Tuck Magazine, 1947 Literary Journal,

Editorial Note #2: Dr. R. K. Singh is a retired Professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad, India. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Krishna_Singh)

Dr. R. K. Singh, Reviewer
rksinghpoet.blogspot.com
Retired Professor of English, Indian Institute of Technology - ISM