Brittle Ice

Though Sindhis are well rooted in India, and were, and are, Indians before and after Partition, their nostalgic minds have not forgotten their land – their birthplace – with which they are still emotionally bonded. Sindhi litterateurs, being more sensitive than a common man, have turned to this fact of losing their Janmabhoomi with marked pain and pangs. Sadly, when Sindhis refer to the year 1947, more often instead of Independence, the piercing word Partition appears before their moist eyes. This sentiment has extensively been reflected in their writings. Mohan Gehani’s title of the second poetry collection ‘Muhinjo Nagar Kahiro …?’ (Where is my Village…?, 2001) painfully reminds us of our being uprooted from the native soil. In this collection too, a few poems creatively speak of the agony; the inner turmoil takes shape on paper (Poem 67 and others).

The most important characteristic of the poems is that we find more of the conception and less of projection in them, and that has become the effective tenor of Mohan Gehani.