Jaydeep Sarangi’s Notes on the Rock of Job Charnock
Reviewed by
Dr. Sapna Dogra,
Assistant Professor
(English),
Atal Bihari
Vajpayee Government Degree College Sunni,
Shimla, Himachal
Pradesh, India.
Notes on the Rock of Job Charnock | Poetry | Jaydeep
Sarangi |
Black Eagle Books, 2026, pp. 232, INR 250
ISBN 978-1-64560-855-4
A book of poems is particularly intimate because every
poem represents a lived moment transformed into language. Here we celebrate not
only a new collection by Jaydeep Sarangi but a poet who has consistently
enriched contemporary Indian English poetry with his distinctive voice.
The title itself Notes on the Rock of Job
Charnock invites us into history. Job Charnock remains one of the
most debated figures associated with Kolkata. Whether or not he founded the
city is less important here than what he has come to represent, a colonial
memory engraved upon a city whose history is far older than colonial narratives.
Sarangi uses that historical marker not to rewrite history but to converse with
it. The “rock” becomes a metaphorical site where memory, history, mythology and
personal experience intersect.
As the poet himself mentions in his introductory note,
this collection is devoted to Kolkata, its heritage, its rivers, its people and
its emotional landscape. Yet while Kolkata is the geographical centre of the
collection, it gradually becomes something larger. It becomes every city that
carries memories of conquest, migration, longing and survival.
The
theme of this collection is Kolkata; the city, its heritage, history, people
and landscape. Many claim that Job Charnock founded the city. Some historians
opine differently. Flowing deep river Ganges is a holy mind space here. Great
souls are cremated on its holy banks. Some spiritual hubs have settled over the
decades. I recall all visitors with whom I paid visits to many ghats of the
Ganges in different times. Matters of the heart are more than just physical. No
change in me has happened to me as a primeval lover. (Introductory note
7-8)
One of the remarkable strengths of this collection is the
way Sarangi treats the city not as an object to be described but as a living
companion. Streets, ghats, bridges, cemeteries, temples and neighbourhoods
speak. They remember. They grieve. They accompany the poet through different
stages of his life.
Rivers flow throughout the collection, not merely as
geography but as memory itself. Rivers in these poems connect rather than
divide. They carry ashes and flowers, history and hope, departures and returns.
They remind us that identity is always fluid. We are all shaped by the rivers
we inherit, whether they are physical rivers or rivers of memory.
Ganga
ghats chant songs of the dead
crows
whispering their silent stories
bustling
streets slicked the Bengal Subah
hiding
in the walls of trade
sometimes
tantalising -- ways (‘Crows Whispering Stories’, 66)
Equally fascinating is the way the collection moves
effortlessly across multiple temporalities. Ancient civilizations, mythology,
colonial history, contemporary politics and personal relationships exist within
the same poetic space. References to Ashoka, Attila, Krishna, Derozio, Job
Charnock and everyday Kolkata coexist naturally. History here is never static.
It continues to breathe through the present.
I
start playing it again, Krishna Krishna
Flowers
spread fragrance, bees bum in Kalighat
Ultimately,
this image is my Krishna in my town (‘Krishna in Kolkata’, 59)
Another aspect that deeply impressed me is the
extraordinary geographical imagination of these poems. Although rooted in
Bengal, they travel to the Nile, Euphrates, Congo, Venezuela, Iran, Gaza and
countless other places. These references never feel ornamental. Rather, they
remind us that human emotions -- love, exile, grief and hope -- have no
national boundaries. The local continually opens itself to the global.
I also find it significant that the collection repeatedly
returns to silence. Many poems carry words like “notes,”“silences,”“memory,”“shadow,”“doors,”
and “history.” Silence in these poems is never emptiness. It is another
language. Relationships are measured as much by what remains unsaid as by what
is spoken. The poet teaches us that poetry often begins where ordinary language
fails.
The poems also resist easy categorisation. They are
lyrical, meditative, historical and philosophical at once. There are moments of
romantic tenderness, moments of political questioning, ecological concern,
reflections on mortality, tributes to parents and teachers, and celebrations of
friendship. Yet throughout these varied themes, the voice remains unmistakably
Jaydeep Sarangi’s, gentle, reflective and deeply humane.
I was particularly struck by the recurring imagery of
stones, rivers, doors and birds. These images return almost like musical
refrains, gradually accumulating symbolic power. The stone becomes memory; the
river becomes continuity; the bird becomes freedom; the door becomes
possibility. Such recurring imagery gives the collection remarkable coherence
despite its diversity.
One of the qualities I admire most in Jaydeep Sarangi’s
poetry is its generosity. His poems are never enclosed within the self. Even
when they emerge from intensely personal experiences, they continually reach
outward -- to history, to nature, to literature, to friends, to strangers, and
to future readers. His poems invite us into conversation rather than demanding
interpretation.
As someone who studies literature, I also appreciate the
intertextual richness of these poems. Echoes of world literature, mythology and
Indian cultural memory enrich the reading experience without becoming
intellectually intimidating. The poems remain emotionally accessible even as
they reward repeated readings.
In today’s increasingly fragmented world, where speed
often replaces reflection, poetry reminds us to pause. This collection asks us
to look again at the cities we inhabit, the histories we inherit, and the
relationships we often take for granted. It asks us to listen—to rivers, to
stones, to memories, and perhaps most importantly, to ourselves.
The endorsements at the beginning of the volume describe
these poems as rooted in Kolkata while carrying the weight of world history,
and I believe that is an apt description. They speak from one city but resonate
far beyond it.
I would like to conclude by congratulating Jaydeep Sir
once again. Every new collection extends an ongoing conversation between the
poet and the world. I am confident that Notes on the Rock of Job Charnock
will find readers who return to it not once but many times, discovering fresh
meanings with each reading.