REPRESENTATION OF THE CITY: SELECTED POEMS FROM NEGLECTED POEMS BY GULZAR

This paper attempts to interpret the representation of the city in the poems of Gulzar from the collection called Neglected Poems. The paper discusses around seven poems from the collection. These poems have direct references to the city. There are four poems in the collection, which are about the four major cities of the nation. The poems are “Kolkata”, “Afternoons in Delhi”, “Mumbai”, “Chennai”. One poem is about “New York”. Some other poems are about the general views of the poet about a city. This paper considers all these poems to analyses the poet‟s depiction of a city. A reading of every poems brings out some different aspects about a city. The poems about the four major cities of the nation give clue about the distinguished features of the cities. The poems do not disappoint readers to know about the cities from various perspectives. The tone of the poet varies from poem to poem to match the respective nature of a city. Poems are written in simple structure and dictions. Yet the poems never fall sort of socio-cultural illustration of the city. The poems are so fulfilling to understand the image of a city that one of the poems forefronts the poet‟s comments on New York and leaves a comparative statement for his own nation. There is longing to go back to the lap of nature from the concrete world of a city. The city presented through the poems is a city existing in our surrounding. It is a city, which everyone among us is familiar with. This paper highlights all these elucidations of the poems. Through the methodology of description through analysis, the paper accounts the meanings layered throughout the poems