Five Indian English Poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, R. Parthasarathy

In this comparative study of five Indian English poets the main thrust is on content analysis of their poems with a view to identifying the degree of the Indian experience and sensibility as expressed in them. The choice of English as the medium of creative expression — especially poetry — makes the Indian English poet's credentials suspect because the question of the Indian sensibility does not become an issue in the case of the regional writers in India. As Vrinda Nabar appropriately observes, one does not lose one's Indianness automatically only because one writes in English which is an acquired language for the Indian writer. What needs to be emphasised is whether the total nalive/deshi heritage is rejected in favour of some alien sensibility. The present study tries to define the Indian sensibility and also briefly traces its development in the history of Indian English poetry. In doing so it does not attempt a value judgement on the poets under consideration, namely, Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre and R. Parthasarathy, who have now been accepted as the doyens of Indian English poetry. The book offers practically a poem-by-poem discussion of the works of these five poets in a fresh perspective.