My poetry reflects farmers' plight: Bhalerao
THE GOAN NETWORK
MARGAO
In a lecture laced with selected extracts from his poetry and anecdotes, tracing the origins of his poetry and mentioning about the reflection of the farmers' plight in his poems, formed an integral part of noted Marathi poet, Prof Inderjit Bhalero's synposis on the topic 'Mhajya Kavitechi Vatchal' (the pathway of my poetry) at Gomant Vidhya Niketan's (GVN) 'Vichar Ved' series of lectures on Friday.
Prof Bhalerao claimed to be highly influenced by the farmers' movement and said he learnt a lot from it. He paid rich tributes to the leader of the farming community, late Sharad Joshi. “I portray the reality of farmers through my poetry,” he told the audience.
Prof Bhalerao, who claimed to have penned 11 poetry volumes comprising of a total of 450 poems, claimed one of the reasons to highlight farmers' plight was also due his father's sorrows. “I wrote poetry only on farmers to highlight my father's sorrow,” he added, while informing the audience about how late Sharad Joshi also acclimatised him about the plight of the farming community.
Hailing from Hingoli district of rural Maharashtra, Prof Bhalerao also disclosed how his poetry had a direct flavour of folk culture, particularly from rural areas.
Talking about his childhood, he claimed to have tended cattle, which later inspired him to pen the immensely popular novel 'Gayi Ghari Alya' (the cows have come home). Later, yet another poem 'Baap' catapulted him into the text books in Maharashtra school curriculum on a trot for 20 years.
Prof Bhalerao also enlightened the audience about his religious moorings, his origins in the 'Mahanubhav Sampraday' (Mahanubhav sect). “In school, I knew the Bhagwad Geeta as well as Bahinabai's poetry by heart,” he told the audience, even as he was quite open to state his academic failures at school level and was also critical of the state of the education system.
He later recited more poems, which regaled the audiences, indicating the depth of his poetry.
