A room of his own

Standing on the edge of a cliff behind poet Manohar Shetty's house and watching the sun dip into the cobalt Arabian Sea, it was difficult to believe "there is no intrinsic poetry in external beauty," as the poet wrote in his autobiographical essay 'Drifting on a High Tide'. 

I visited Manohar Shetty in Dona Paula, on the outskirts of Panjim – where he has been living since he left Bombay as a young poet and editor – earlier that afternoon. We talked about poetry, Panjim and Bombay over tea and shrimp puffs. We leafed through poetry collections he took down from his shelves, penned mostly by the Bombay circle of bards, Shetty's friends and acquaintances from his days in the city.