Poems by Gopal Lahiri & Sunil Sharma
Authors Press, 2018

Review
Varsha Singh

We live in cities and cities do live in us differently. There are cities which make us raise our brows by our just familiarity with them through a connecting cord, or through the string of willingness to see the city alive in person for at least once.

One such city which binds many eyes together is Mumbai – the city of hope, dreams, passion, growth, fall, love, heartbreak and everything else cocooned together. It graciously holds everything together behind its perforated sheet, through which any dream can enter at any given time.

After witnessing a range of narratives in form of cinema, theatre and stories for decades, which have managed to represent the soul of this city vividly, it now feels illuminating to find a work of poetry which bares open a new window towards the iconic city – Mumbai.

Gopal Lahiri and Sunil Sharma’s joint collection Cities: Two Perspectives published by Authors Press has all the uniqueness as it puts forth the ‘normal’ life and liveliness of Mumbai which comes up as a shift from the regular showcase of the city’s two extremes, either the grandness or the poverty.

The common and not so common life as portrayed from two perspectives through this collection defines the city in all its newness ! We may certainly claim it as a great addition in the scene of poetry.