The word of a poet

with this old trunk that the poet in Padgaonkar grew. He grew up listening to poems recited by his mother. "The subconscious is like a sponge, especially that of a child’s. My ear was trained for poetry, at a very young age," he says. And it was almost inevitable that he would be a published poet by the age of 21, with a collection called Dhara Nritya.

Then there was no looking back. From Bolgaani where he writes for the layman to Salaam, a socio-political satire to Udasbodh written in the style of Sant Ramdas’s Dasbodh, Padgaonkar has proved his versatility in every genre. But the most amazing aspect of his writing is the language he uses. As broad as his canvas gets, the more simple and unpretentious remains the language of his poetry. The subjects of his poetry speak the common man’s word. "We are all expected to be a part of the social structure. Nobody cares for the individual as we try to fit in with some norm or the other not even the individual himself. Bolgaani perhaps talks to people about their own `being’," he reasons.

But the trade mark of the `Padgaonkar poetry’ is the imagery and symbolism that draws heavily from his childhood. Born in Vengurla, Konkan, the rains, the streams and the forests of his growing years are all there in his work. And his absorption with his childhood is best reflected in the fact that he has been writing for children for the last 50 years. "Children have one capacity that adults seldom possess — the capacity to immediately disown things that don’t please them," he says. But his favourite form of poetry, strangely is song. "There’s something deeply human about a song," he says. To Padgaonkar, poetry must have originated from the song. "Man must have first started humming," he says.

Therefore, he has also written innumerable Marathi songs, including songs for children. For this, he draws inspiration from Vyas and Shakespeare. "The wide range of characters they have handled leaves me spellbound. Moreover, each character is different from the other. Shylock has to die, and does die, for Hamlet to be born," he says. Padgaonkar has translated the works of Mirabai and Kabir in the same metre and is currently translating Surdas. He is also working on Moru, about how the system has reduced people to Morus, or fools. And what differentiates poets from fools? Says Padgaonkar, "A basic acceptance of all experiences — from sublimity to morbidity."