The books being published are Namdeo Dhasal, Poet of the Underworld: Selected Poems (1972-2006); As Is, Where Is: Selected English Poems of Dilip Chitre (1964-2006); and Shesha: Selected Marathi Poems of Dilip Chitre (1954-2004). There are four other manuscripts waiting to be edited and structured for publication, as well as ongoing creative work and translation projects. I prefer not to talk about them now.

Why did you decide to translate the work of Namdeo Dhasal and Hemant Divate?

Namdeo Dhasal is a younger contemporary and, in my view, a major twentieth century poet of global stature. I have been translating his poetry since before his first collection was published in 1972. This book is the outcome of all I have been doing for about four decades. I decided to translate the entire first collection of Divate's Marathi poems because they have significance beyond Marathi in a globalizing world. His poems are consistently good and the book makes a coherent poetic statement about life in Mumbai since the 1990s. It reveals a disturbed and disturbing microcosm and the poems can withstand translation.

Image: Gunther Sontheimer, Lothar Lutze and Dilip Chitre photographed by Beatrix Pfliderer. The late Dr Sontheimer was a legendary Indologist who taught comparative religion at the University of Heidelberg; Professor Lutze taught modern Indian literature at the same university and 'opened the doors of Germany' for Chitre. Sontheimer and Chitre collaborated on the English translation of songs by the bards of Lord Khandoba, Maharashtra's ancient folk deity.

Also see: Of interrupted ghosts and Hrithik Roshan

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