Forty of the 75 poems we present here appeared in the Indian Opinion from 1908 to 1914. One of them is in English and the others use Gujurati script even though the language is Hindi or Urdu. They have not been published in the book, A Fire that Blazed. Not all the poems are about the satyagraha struggle. Many of them, however, have characteristics similar to the ones described in A Fire that Blazed. The Gujurati poems have not been translated, and my purpose in presenting them on this website is to reach interested individuals. There is a wealth of information about history, culture, and literary trends among early diasporic communities in South Africa of interest to Postcolonial scholars interested in comparing similar trends in other parts of the Indian Diaspora. They are not translated and appear as in the original. Many words and even lines were hard to read in the original. In all cases I left the original intact. You will find errors, some in the original and others in the transcription. None of this, however, should diminish the poems' significance. Surendra Bhana
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Unpublished Poems |