There’s nothing new in New Delhi!

"There is nothing really new in New Delhi/

Except that every five years a new government comes in

And converts old issues to new schemes

Opening scabbards anew

They unsheathe again all the rusted laws

That can cut neither grass, nor necks!"

The lines are from one of the 52 poems in a new book of poetry written by Gulzar and translated from the original Hindi into English by Pavan K Varma. The title of the book is ‘Suspected Poems’.

"Gulzar Sahib writes poetry of an order that has few parallels today. His poems are, therefore, hardly 'suspect'! So when he told me that the next volume of his poems would be called 'Suspected Poems', I was both amused and intrigued," says Varma, who has translated three other volumes of Gulzar's poems.

In yet another poem 'Ayodhya', Gulzar writes:

“The sentry on duty

Pushes the crowd back with his gun

He was an avatar once –

But looks completely like a minister today

Not moving an inch without security!"

"It is not as though Gulzar has not poetically commented on these issues in the past. But, for the first time perhaps, all the poems in a volume by him are organically animated by public concerns, ” adds Varma.

The poem on the murdered scholar MM Kalburgi reads: "He did not die... The person who died and lies on the threshold Is someone else..."

Another one on ‘News’ reads: "Every day the same newspaper column/ Gulps of the same brackish news/ Every day the same mouthful of promises/ Sentences dissected/ Each word chewed again and again."

The book published by Penguin Random House also has a poem on the demolition of the Babri Masjid:

From the smoke that rises daily

A part of the sky

Now remains black the whole day…

…Who was the one who struck the first blow of the axe?

Yes, this indeed is that piece of land

Which till yesterday was also a home to some god!"

The themes of other poems in the book range from Indo-Pak relations, border posts, neighbours and Karachi to traffic jam, procession, Ramzan and newspapers to high heels, kabaddi, blood test and tattoo.