News from India: Divyesh Bhandari in Profile

Poetry-newcomer Divyesh Bhandari recently completed his first book of poems: it's called Imbroglio. The Hindu takes a closer look at Divyesh Bhandari's poetic practice and at its intersections with theater and music.

Imbroglio means the ‘chaos that creates’ in archaic English,” says Divyesh Bhandari, who has recently published his first anthology of poems titled Imbroglio(Leadstart Publishing Private Limited, Rs. 150)

And it is not just poetry that he creates. He is also the founder of a theatre production house of the same name that has finished its first production titled Dreams 2012 — a Disney music based production, “Nearly 2,500 people turned up for our show. It was the first time Disney issued copyrights for India for a musical.”

This talented young man admits to be under the thrall of two things—poetry and music,

“Music and poetry goes hand in hand. Music inspires me— most of my writing took place while writing the musical. I had the show and released my book on the same day.”

Poetry became an essential aspect of his life very early, “I was in boarding school for 6 years. The best thing was that it was attached to the Bannerghatta National Park. It was such a scenic place—I would look out of the window and see lakes, trees, so much beauty. That is when I started writing,” he says adding. “Poetry gives me the freedom to play around with things; I can express myself more easily through it. I tried to write a novel but failed miserably.”

He says that he can draws poetry from a wide range of topics, “I read a lot of mythology and draw a lot of mythological parallels in my poetry. I also read a lot of poetry- I started off by reading the classics but have now moved on to more contemporary poets.”

He does admit that poetry is a bit of a niche phenomenon and that it was difficult to get it published, “Many bookstores do not even have a poetry section,” he rues. “It is only in academic circles that poetry thrives.”

He welcomes the new phenomenon of performance poetry adding that it is a great thing to have happened and hopes that it will continue. He admits to using some amount of poetry in own production, “A lot of plays use monologues and all which is basically poetry. We have used poetry to weave the script together in our show.”

On future plans, he admits that he is has just been admitted to the University of Leeds and is visibly thrilled to be studying in London, “I’ve specialized in poetry creative writing which is wonderful, “he says. “And I’m really looking forward to being able to go to West End,” he smiles.