MUMBAI; A young poet approached the dais, and the entire audience—which included individuals who spoke languages other than Hindi or Bhojpuri—listened to him intently. Kedarnath Singh in his chapter “Chhote Shahron ke Jeevan ki Lay” published in “Qabristan mein Panchaayat.”
Since Dr. Sagar was a student at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), people have been able to enjoy his poems. Several well-known poets attended a symposium on Hindi poetry held at the institution when he was an MA student there. The audience at this seminar in JNU was so fond of Dr. Sagar’s Bhojpuri poems already that, despite it being a Hindi poetry seminar, the moderator invited him on stage to recite some of his poems. The tremendous reception and acclaim he received from the audience when he got up from his seat there to share some of his Bhojpuri poetry were so astounding that Kedarnath Singh thought about it and wrote a chapter in his book.
JNU’s Professor Emeritus and renowned poet Kedarnath Singh lauded Dr. Sagar’s poetry in this artwork titled “Chhote Shahron ke Jeevan ki Lay,” which was published in the Hindi daily “Hindustan,” as he pondered on the reception Dr. Sagar’s poems got at that seminar. Kedarnath Singh writes the following in the essay, which has since been included in a compilation of his writings titled “Qabristan Mein Panchayat”.
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“A young poet from among the students joined us on the platform of that cutting-edge university and delivered a Bhojpuri poem with tremendous ease and simplicity. For the poets on stage and the majority of the audience, it was a singular experience to have the whole community—which included speakers of languages besides Hindi and Bhojpuri—listen to him intently.
‘It was the freshness and the underlying vigor of Bhojpuri, a ‘dialect’ which is not considered a language,’ explains Kedarnath Singh while describing how such a marvelous response to Dr. Sagar’s poetry came about during the seminar.
Dr. Sagar’s words still have the same freshness and vigor when he writes raps in Bhojpuri like “Bambai Mein Ka Ba” or when he pens, for instance, the soulful Bhojpuri songs of Sony Liv’s top-rated series ‘Maharani 2’. He remains the favorite of audiences across the country, be they from Bhojpuri or non-Bhojpuri linguistic backgrounds, from North India, South India, or Northeast India. The magic of Dr. Sagar’s words captivates everyone’s mind and heart.
Dr. Sagar’s constant endeavors to make Bhojpuri a part of the mainstream of Bollywood are now coming to fruition. Bringing Bhojpuri to the mainstream of Bollywood has been a dream of his since he was a sixth-grade student. His hard work towards fulfilling this dream has been praised not only by veteran poets like Jnanpith Awardee Kedarnath Singh, but also by decorated cinema figures like Anubhav Sinha, Manoj Bajpayee, Anurag Kashyap, and Shatrughan Sinha.
