Malela Jeev — a literary platform hosting Kavya Samaroh (poets gathering) online, is the brain child of NRG ‘Vepari-Kavi’ (trader-poet) Janak Desai, who runs a small-sized $5-million diamond business in New Jersey. It was named after the prolific author of Gujarati literature Pannalal Patel’s award winning short story which was later taken as a plot for a Gujarati film.
While 14 members of Malela Jeev are entrepreneur-poets settled abroad who are to meet for the first time for a Kavya Samaroh in Ahmedabad in coming months, Desai’s other group of 400 which is open to all — Kavyo Ne Gazalo nu Aadan Pradan — also hosts Kavya Samaroh on-line.
“My passion for poetry prompted me to do this,” said Desai – who has nicknamed himself a ‘Vepari-Kavi’. During his forty year struggle in a foreign land where he did odd jobs and faced the pangs of an expatriate’s alienation while setting up a business in a foreign land, poetry never left him.
Neither the pressures of an expat’s life nor the dazzling of diamonds could turn this entrepreneur-cum-poet Desai blind to the sparkle of emotions in poetry. Desai had immigrated to the US in 1970.
He kept pursuing his passion tirelessly by penning down poems amid the “chaos of life”. “Though none of my peers understood or appreciated what I wrote, I continued to write,” said Desai, whose poems have recently been published in several Gujarati literature journals and magazines and have earned him recognition at Kavi Sammelans in Gujarat.
Desai started the diamond and gem business in 1986 with an investment of $12,000. “That was my little savings from odd jobs;” explained Desai, “And today my business has grown into a $5-million business firm. I am happy that during this difficult phase of setting up my business, poetry never left me,” said Desai.
Seeking like-minded entrepreneurcum-writers, Desai formed the platform on a social networking site.
