It has been a year since Kedarnath Singh, a doyen of modern Hindi literature, left us with a blank page.Of course, his poetry did the same thing: “After all the words, it leaves us with a blank page.” With his demise on March 19 last year, Hindi poetry lost one of its distinctive voices for, in his poetry, one comes across – as Ashok Vajpayee writes – “the presence and absence, of love and loss, of anxieties and questions”.Singh is credited with bridging the vacuum between time and space in his poetry by effortlessly fusing the local with the lyrical. The symbols and metaphors in his writings exhume layers of complexities that are symptomatic of human life. Firmly rooted in the secular and democratic traditions of poetry, his poetry clubs the lilt of the folk life with the epic consciousness to evoke quotidian realities.Abhi, Bilkul Abhi (1960) was his first poetry collection, following which he published Yahan Sey Dekho, Zamin Pak Rahi Hai, Akal Mein Saras, Uttar Kabir aur Anya Kavitayen, Tolstoy Aur Cycle, Bagh, Shristi Par Pehara etc.Also read: Death Has Not Been Able to Put a Full Stop to Kedarnath Singh’s PoetryWhat interested me about Singh’s poetry was his verbal derivation, which was explicitly influenced by Purvaiya Hindi or Bhojpuri. However, this did not let his work diverge from the texture of Khadi Boli. He himself acknowledges the influence and expresses his dilemma:Hindi is my countryBhojpuri is my homeI love both of themAnd look at my problemI look for one in the other.”Those who knew him say that he was simple – not only in the choice of theme for his poetry, but also as a person. Padma Sachdev writes, “Even at the height of national and international recognition, he remained the same old shy boy from Chakiya (in eastern UP).” Harish Trivedi calls him as a “rural cosmopolitan”; Ashok Vajpeyi refers to him as ajaatshatru (unconquerable); Mangaldesh Dabral finds him “most popular as a poet and human being, both”.On his death anniversary, I shall discuss a poem which pays homage to both his roots and the diverse tradition of India. In an interview given to DD National, Singh discusses the composition of this poem, called ‘Banaras’. He said that he had written it long ago and kept it aside – to let the thoughts in the poem ripen.Singh added that he does several revisions – a lifelong practice. In that sense, this poem indicates his commitment to the place about which he wrote, “Banaras was the cultural capital of India at that point of time – a real confluence of the folkloric and the classical, the local and the global. Kajri, thumri, dadra, chalti, Premchand, Prasad and Sudarshan and guest poets and speakers from all over the world… It was here that I had the good fortune of listening to critics such as I.A. Richards and poets of the stature of Stephen Spender. And it was here that I was exposed to international journals like London Magazine, which clearly opened my windows to the world”.The city of Banaras – now called Varanasi – is constructed and activated by Singh in a way which reminds me of Henry Lefebvre’s concept of spatial triad. Contextualising this hypothesis, one can infer that the ‘space’ for a poet represents the emotional, mental and physical being that is sometimes constant but mostly prone to change. Therefore, in the creative oeuvre of the poet or an author, people and places change and so do their impressions and expressions. There are quite a few translations available of ‘Banaras‘, but I refer to H.S. Komalesha’s remarkable one – published in The Caravan (July 2015).Also read: Simplicity, the Essence of Kedarnath Singh’s PoetryWith all its fervour, the poem brings to life the city of the dead – not by positing its singularities but by underscoring its pluralities. In its solitude, it recreates the city by taking recourse to the poet’s memory and imagination.In ‘Banaras‘, Singh implies that there is perhaps no other city so firmly rooted in its touch with nature and nurture:Have you ever seenSpring dawning in empty vessels!It isn’t one of those cities where the ‘sun doesn’t set’ or the ‘places never sleep’. Instead, the pace of Banaras is slow enough for people to face the realities of life and death every day. The funeral pyre, the corpse being carried and the scattering of ashes in the Ganga never fail to remind its inhabitants that material accomplishments are futile in the absence of generosity and goodness. The poet writes:This slow rhythmOf the collectiveBinds the city, such thatNothing falls here, nothing movesNothing budges an inchFrom wherever it isTo bring the city to life, Kedarnath Singh uses visual imagery; he finds it “half in water”. He feels its reverberations “in incantations” and olfactory insinuations through “fragrant flowers”. In the constant rigamarole of life, death and rebirth, this city ensures salvation – in the lure of which people wish to die in Kashi.Singh’s poetry lives on in society’s collective imagination. His serene and secular work is surely an antidote to today’s politics of hatred and communal disharmony.Priyanka Tripathi is an assistant professor of English at the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna