Fredoon Kabraji (Gujarati: ફરીદૂન કબીરજી; 10 February 1897 – 1986) was an Indian poet, writer, journalist, and artist of Parsi descent.[1][2][3][4]
Life and work
Fredoon Jehangir Kabraji[2][3] was a Parsi born in India on 10 February 1897. His father was Jehangir Kabraji, an Indian civil servant, and his mother was Putlibai.[1]
Initially, his parents wanted him to pursue a career in farming, but growing tired of this, he moved to Britain perhaps around the mid-1920s,[1] and married Eleanor M. Wilkinson there in 1926.[1]
Kabraji and his wife went back to India where they had two sons, and a daughter, Cynthia (Kashfi).[4] The family returned to Britain in 1935, not long before the outbreak of World War II. Their daughter Cynthia later married the Afghan writer and thinker Idries Shah, an associate and friend of the poet Robert Graves.[4][6] Shah's father, Ikbal Ali Shah published two of Kabraji's poems, "The Lovers" and "Tulip", in his 1933 work The Oriental Caravan: A Revelation of the Soul and Mind of Asia.[7]
Kabraji was listed among the Vice-Presidents and Representatives of the colonial branches of the Empire Poetry League, under Bombay.[13] The League was founded in 1917[14] and was operational for around 15 years.
Works
Books
Sett, Adi K. (1940). Kabraji, Fredoon (ed.). Rain in My Heart: Forty Poems. London: Fortune Press.[15]
Fredoon Kabraji (1944). A Minor Georgian's Swan Song (Fifty-One Poems). London: Fortune Press.[1][16][17][18][19]
Fredoon Kabraji (ed.) (1947). This Strange Adventure: An Anthology of Poems in English by Indians, 1828–1946. London: New India Publishing Co.[1][20]
Cranmer-Byng, L.; Kapadia, Dr. S. A., eds. (1927). Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry. London: John Murray: The Wisdom of the East Series.
Campbell, Kathleen Winifred, ed. (1930). An Anthology of English Poetry: Dryden to Blake. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Ali Shah, Sirdar Ikbal, ed. (1933). The Oriental Caravan: A Revelation of the Soul and Mind of Asia. D. Archer.
Wright, S. Fowler, ed. (1924). "Fredoon Kabraji (Bombay)". From Overseas—First Series: An Anthology of Contemporary Dominion and Colonial Verse. London: Merton.
Ganguly, Anil Baran, ed. (1984). Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology. Delhi: Atma Ram. pp. 153, 155.[21]
Kabraji, Fredoon (September 1936). "The Patriots [poetry]". Left Review. 2 (12–16). UK: International Union of Revolutionary Writers, British Section: 638.[22]
Kabraji, Fredoon (1950). "Creative Literature in English by Indians". Sunday News of India. No. 27.
Selected short poem
Tulip, tell me, what do you hold in your cup?
I hold in my cup the magic that swells the thirst of your soul, O Mother, when you look on the form of your child; the opiate that fills your dream, Mother, with the awe of the Unknown!
But, Tulip, tell me, why do you guard your magic beyond the wing of melody?
Because, ere Thought was, a kiss of Love did capture Death in the Seed of Life. That is why no melody of Life can hold all the magic in my cup, Mother; that is why Love cannot hold your child in Life alone!
— Fredoon Kabraji, "Tulip", in Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, The Oriental Caravan: A Revelation of the Soul and Mind of Asia (1933).[23]
Reception
In The Observer on 18 February 1945, the scholar and historian Edward Thompson criticises the "thoroughly bad" title of A Minor Georgian's Swan Song, and calls Kabraji's preface "brash" and that it would antagonise "powerful critics and versifiers".[12] Thompson does praise the poem "I Look upon Simla", which is critical of the British colonialism and poverty in India, though he notes that the poem will "hardly delight all reviewers".[12] Thompson also notes that Kabraji does not use standard metrical forms, alleging that the poet appears "frightened" by them. However he concludes that he has "no doubt that Kabraji has genius if he can find a way to express it."[12]
Writing for the Manchester Guardian on 23 May 1945, Georgian poetWilfrid Gibson is of the opinion that A Minor Georgian's Swan Song is "unhappily titled",[19] because the author, Fredoon Kabraji "has no affiliations with any school and is an original poet".[19] The reviewer adds that although Kabraji's work "suffers at times from diffuseness, [it] is remarkable for its range and for the versatility of its technique."[19]
In A History of Indian Poetry in English (2016), editor Rosinka Chaudhuri describes Kabraji's This Strange Adventure: An Anthology of Poems in English by Indians, 1828-1946 as excellent, and "comprehensive and accommodating in its reach."[17] She writes that after the "lean" years post-independence, there has been a "resurgence of interest" in such anthologies.[17]
^"S.FW – Some Yorkshire Poets". The Works of Sydney Fowler Wright 1874–1965. sfw.org. Archived from the original on 14 December 2020. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
^Reddy, Sheshalatha, ed. (25 June 2012). Mapping the Nation: An Anthology of Indian Poetry in English, 1870–1920. London, New York: Anthem Press. pp. xxxii–xxxiii, xlv. ISBN978-0857284419.
^Ali Shah, Sirdar Ikbal, ed. (1933). The Oriental Caravan: A Revelation of the Soul and Mind of Asia. D. Archer. p. 167.
References
Arora, Sudhir K. (2016). "24. Fredoon Kabraji (1897–1986)". Cultural and Philosophical Reflections in Indian Poetry in English Footprints. New Delhi: Authors Press. pp. 171–175. ISBN978-93-5207-206-4.