Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Poems about India

How did poets in the erstwhile Soviet Union see India? The answer to this may lie in a book that the Russian Cultural Centre, Thiruvananthapuram plans to bring out shortly. The book is the Malayalam translation of 16 poems on India written by a dozen Soviet-era poets. Litterateur D. Vinayachandran translated the works.

The poems featured in this book include `An Old Hindu' and `April in India' written by Robert Rozhdestvensky, `Kanyakumari' and `In Memory of Faiz Ahmed Faiz' by Rimma Kazakova, `The Kali temple' by Alexander Mezirov, `Mahatma Gandhi' by Valentin Sidorov, `The Sacred Cow' by David Kugultinov and `Meditation About India' by Lev Oshanin.

Director of the Russian Cultural Centre Ratheesh C. Nair said the Centre was entering the arena of publishing to try and further the relations between India and Russia though the world of literature.

There was a time when books printed in the Soviet Union were available in Thiruvananthapuram at very low prices. "The former House of Soviet Culture also used to regularly screen movies. Now, we are trying to sort of recreate those days. Today, lovers of Russian literature can come to the Gorky Bhavanam to access our e-library and read the works of about 20-odd Russian authors. In place of the regular screening of films we are now organising festivals of Russian films and making available Russian movies in CD format. We are also organising classes on the Russian language over the Edusat in cooperation with the IT@School programme," Mr. Nair said.

Those wishing to access the e-library at the Gorkhy Bhavanam can log on to the web site `russianelibrary.org.' According to Mr. Nair readers can also take printouts from the e-library at the Gorky Bhavanam.

Even though the book that is to be shortly published is all about the works of Soviet-era poets, the Russian Cultural Centre also plans to translate and publish contemporary works in Russian literature.

Mr. Vinayachandran, in a note about the work, says that the poets included in this book may not be those who are very well known to all readers. However the poets' love for India is visible through these poems.

G. Mahadevan

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