Prof. Rajappan's Commentaries on Indian Poetry in English

Nandini Sahu : A Poet - in - the- Making

2013-03-14T03:14:00.001-07:00

Nandini Sahu is a new promise from the Land of Odissi and Geeta Govind . Her poetic output may be small at present,but it holds the promise of a rising star on the eastern horizon of India .

Her poem Bridge -in - Making serves as an apt self- introduction . This poem is intensely reminiscent of Kamala Das's poem An Introduction . Every Indian poet writing in English has found it necessary to justify their use of English . There is nothing of Kamala Das's vehemence in Nandini Sahu's vindication of her use of English .Kamala Das says to her critics :

Why not leave
Me alone , critics , friends , visiting cousins
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like , The language I speak
Becomes mine , its distortions , its queerness
All mine mine alone , It is half English , half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest

Nandini Sahu's justification of English is a subdued one She says :

I guess what I write is not English
Still it's a negotiable alternative
To breathing , to the art of living
It is the aroma to keep my spirit buoyant
It's a reconciliation a bridge-in- making

At times Nandini thinks that her poetry is subaltern speaking . Yes, it is subaltern speaking back to the centre . She has successfully broken down the barrier between the periphery and the centre .Her poem is indeed a pearl of post-colonial poetry which is as delicate as "watered-rice-brinjal-fry-and dry fish"

There is a marked distinction between Kamala Das's and Nandini Sahu's attitude to English Kamala Das says

I speak three languages, write in
two, dream in one

Nandini's language to dream in is, of course, her mother tongue , Odia . It is the language in which she likes to think , feel and dream! It is as real and inevitable as the funeral pyre . . English, on the contrary, is her garland , her sword , and refuge . It is the voice of her longings and belongings . It is as real as the elemental fury of nature. Nandini takes her imagery from the world of nature which imparts to her poetry a touch of elemental power. See how a poet's use of a single metaphor can replace a myriad words ! Speaking of English as the language of her poetry , she says " it is like rain-drops shaped into a pearl "The crowning glory of this striking pageant of metaphors can be seen in the lines

The alphabets of the English I use with their
Jingling anklets , flood my world with joy

My Home reveals Nandini in a different light . This is a delicate poem which captures a rare mood of nostalgia and melancholy. What are human beings if they have lost their capacity to dream ? Nandini's dream home is in Delhi " Delhi away from Delhi" . , at the foot of a hillock , all covered with flowers .

Here I am given more
than I could ever ask for

Peacocks dance to the rhythmic beat of the rain , camels graze at will, birds sing soothing melodies to calm her frayed spirit . Her son is playing around and the country road is a feast to the eye . She sings a tune in her velvety voice . She holds a book close to her chest while the trouts with joyful haste swim in the aquarium . There is silence throughout winter The instabilityof life is reflected in the fickleness of the seasons.. Summer night's silence is broken by the frantic songs of nightingales .The passionate rain reveals yet another aspect of nature After all, man and nature are so closely linked - one only reveals the other!

Thank you for visiting

Prof V.P.Rajappan

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Tagore's Gitanjali:Opening Lyric "Thou hast made me endless"

2012-12-29T22:48:00.000-08:00

Thou hast made me endless , such is thy pleasure" this opening lyric of Gitanjali may puzzle modern readers of Tagore's masterpiece . To Indian readers who are acquainted with the Bhagavat Gita and the Upanishads , the opening song may not be particularly hard to understand . What Tagore does in this lyric is to re-phrase the cliché of Indian philosophy that the soul is immortal and that it casts off worn-out body like old garments . It is old thought , but a thought never so well expressed! Abstrct philosophical thoughts are concretized when they are expressed in metaphors and similes . The density of imgery suffusing the starting lyric makes it a fitting prologue to Tagore's immortal masterpiece.

Tagore uses the term "Thou" to refer to the Supreme Being who is immanent in the Universe . . The terms I and me are not personal , they are universal , representing the entire humanity . The second verse substitutes"frail vessel" for "old garments" to which Lord Krishna compares worn-out body in the Gita . Apart from this substitution of one metaphor for another is there anything else? You will see the amazing originality of Tagore 's mystic vision from the next verse onwards . --"this little flute of a reed "

Tagore's tone right from the beginning to the end of Gitanjal is one of absolute submission , the submission of the servant to his Supreme Master . The metaphor of the frail vessel accords with the little flute of a reed .They emphasize the need for man's total submission to the Lord . He is indebted to the Lord for every gift that he has received from Him . Though he is the humble flute of a reed , God has breathed through it soul-stirring music ! Man may be of earth , earthy , but he seems to have been fathered by the starry heavens !

The first stirring of spirituality in man gradually marked him off from the rest of animals Man emerged from darkness to light . The history of man's advance is recounted through poetic imagery . God is the iinspiration behind music and poetry . Foreign readers of Gitanjali may not realize what spirituality means to to the Indian mind . It is contemplation of God that inspired Indian poets and musicians to pour out their souls Indians consider poetry and music as the gifts of God . Music is not just a concord of sweet sounds , but it is the language of the soul . Indian poets and music composers like Thyagaraja, dikshitar , Swatithirunal etc were all inspired by ardent devotion . Therefore, Tagore believes that poetic and musical gifts have taken man to the pinnacle of power and glory ! "
Ages pass and still thou pourest "
Man has still heights to conquer . but still he needs God's bounteous gifts to scale new heights . Materialism will only put back the clock of human progress .Spirituality alone can ensure peace , progress and happiness for man This is the essence of Tagore's vision as set forth inGitanjali

Thank you for visiting

Prof , V,P,Rajappan

Gieve Patel ; the Belated Link

2012-10-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

Can poetry make things happen? After reading the poems of Gieve Patel one will be in no doubt as to the power of poetry to make things happen . The output of this most unpretentious of Indo-English poets may be small , but it is a highly significant one . He is the belated link between Romantic traditrion representd by Sarojini Naidu and Modernist tradition represented by Nissim Ezekiel .

Gieve Patel loves to dwell in his inner world and depict his feelings with the utmost sincerity and sensitivity . He has no use for gaudy ornaments . His poetry is marked by sparseness of similes and metaphors . At the same time it has the power to disturb you , make you ponder and open your reluctant eyes to to see the seamy side of life . He is at home when he is describing people who live in hunger and deprivation .

I consider NARGOL the most representative poem of Gieve Patel . In this part of the world where there are more beggars than stars in heaven ,the poet's experience is everybody's experience !Pesky beggars importuning for money is a common sight in India . In the opening stanza of the poem , the poet describes his feeling of relief when he does not encounter tne beggar-woman . But the thought of the beggar-woman was not far from the poet's mind . :

At the back of my mind

Behind greetings, dog-licksand deeping

Safety I continued to look for you .

He cannot help feeling that the beggar-woman is physically following his elbow . with her necklace pendulant as her skin and her cringing smile pointing at her disease . Her importunity only begets resistance in him . He sends her away , trotting out excuses like " I hane no money " and You meet me later " . The poet is not exactly lacking in charity bur her obstinacy only creates an equal and opposite reaction in him . Are there not occasions in life when we hehave like petty beggars despite our high social stature ? For the poet"giving" is "giving in " ! He chooses to be a winner by not giving in to a beggar-woman's importunity .

Let her follow let her drone

Sooner or later she will give up

Let herself recede

The poet does not get riddance from the annoying beggar-woman . If she spares him in the street , it is only to re-appear in the privacy of his home !. The poet is unable to concentrate on his book as the woman is trying to catch his eyes "between page-turns" . The oft-repeated phrase " I will give you later" finally does the trick . Why should the beggar-woman pick on him ? Is it need or some private battle?

The mystery of it all is cleared in the concluding part of the poem . The poet vainly hopes that his pact with the woman will give him riddance from her for a year !

My strolls are to myself again

The sea is reached with ease

Reading is simplified

It was not to be a win-win pact , after all ! The battle between the poet and the beggar-woman is indeed an unequal one . The poet is destinrd to be the loser . He loses to a power that never admits battle . Meanness may be a defence for people like the poet . , but not for the beggar-woman . Surrender is the poet's option! The beggar-woman may be dead , but she may re-appear and disturb him because she is the symbol of the deprived and the dispossessed who are on the trail of the wealthy .

She is dead , I thought

And after relief , the thought

she'll reappear

If only to baffle!

Thank you for visitinf

Prof,.V.P.Rajappan

NISSIM EZEKIEL -"POEM OF THE SEPARATION"

2012-05-09T02:21:00.001-07:00

Nissim Ezekiel- "Poem of the Separation"

I consider "Poem of the Separation" as a unique poem by Nissim Ezekien. The poetic Muse seems to have snatched the pen from his hand for the moment and written the poem for him. Unfortunately, Nissim Ezekiel has a tendency to be too flippant or too philosophical , and this has marred his poetry . A poet may be a profound philosopher , but his poetry should convey philosophical truths in an unobtrusive way . Generally speaking, readers do not enjoy poetry that has a design upon them . Ezekiel's preoccupation with philosophy has taken a toll of his popularity The tone of flippancy that shows through even his most serious poetry is another disconcerting feature of his poetry. ''Poem of the Separation"is a refreshing contrast to the rest of his poetryHere the higher truths of life are conveyed through the natural setting of romantic loveThe poet takes the reader to a bizarre world of delicate beauty The higher truths are conveyed wrapped in the mystic halo of a spiritual experience

The poet opens the poem with the genesis of his love . Love has its own strange logic ! It is no respecteor of place and time . The poet met and fell in love when Kashmir was burning .Ezekiel captures the moment of love in these haunting lines

When the bombs burst in Kashmir

my life had burst

and merged in yours

Love begets strange feeling in the hearts of lovers . People indulge in odd behaviour under the influence of love .

Love is blind ans lovers do not see

The pretty follies that themselves commit (Shakespeare)

Ezekiel expresses the same idea in his own inimitable way in these lines

the season, time.and place

rejected their usual names

As their love progresses, the beloved has the inevitable feeling of growing up . The sentiment of love may make men and women whirlwind and lightning . That being impossible, they had to make do with buses to take them to cafes , beaches and parks where they made love ( music) . Like the human wife in Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman , the poet's beloved becomes fed up with material life . She cannot live on echoes - mere illusions in this illusory world . The call of the spirit grows more and more insistent and irresistible .

The pain of separation has been described by many poets . But none of them has brought forth the poignancy of separation as Ezekiel has done in these lines

Ten thousand miles away

you became a shower of letters

a photohraph, a newspaper cutting

a smell at night

The great city of Bombay is the city of his birth and rebirth . In this city she was a new way for him to laugh at the truth . The poet desires her physical presence badly, very badly indeed ! .She can impart to him happiness which she seems to wear so lightly '. - supported by her shoulder , breasts and thighs , symbols of woman's feminine charms . But she is so absorbed in spiritual contemplation that she cannot think of returning to material life . All that she wants now is merger with the Lord's feet .

This poem has a quaint atmosphere and a delicate beauty . It has a haunting beauty . It will linger in the reader's heart like'a smell at night'

Thank you for visiting

Prof. V.P. Rajappan!

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Bijay Kant Dubey : The Ferry Man

2010-10-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

When I read Bijay Kant Dubey's maiden poetic venture, I was reminded of Coleridge's famous remark , " No one was ever yet a great poet without being at the same time a profound philosopher" . Dubey's thought-provoking Preface to The Ferry Man is what Preface was to Lyrical Ballads The Preface to the Ferry Man sets forth in clear terms Dubey's poetic credo While going through all the 97 lyrics in this maiden poetic venture of a young poet , I could experience the truth of what Dubey says in the Preface "The stream of philosophy murmurs by from the river of poetry " .

Bijay Kant Dubey does not apologize for the use of English to express his distinctly Indian sensibility. He calls his poetry a pretty 'Anglo-Indian belle" whose father is an Indian philosopher and the mother an English lady . Using a different metaphor he calls Indian poetry in English "an English flower grown up in the Indian Land" . For all that modern linguisticians might say, Indian poetry in English continues to be an enigma , and the contradiction is succinctly put by Dubey in the Preface ,"Oh, the nice medley, the language is foreign but the literature is native" .Thus Indian poetry in English gives the lie to the linguistic theory that a language is rooted in a particular culture !

'"The Ferry Man" is imbued with Indian philosophy . It is soaked in the wisdom enshrined in Indian philosophical works like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and the Puranas . The metaphor of the ferryman powerfully communicates the poet's concept of the Divine which he identifies with Lord Shiva as the ferryman who can ferry the human souls across the ocean of existence . How powerless is the human soul without the strong hands of the ferryman to guide it ! The poet's trust in the ferryman is absolute and unshakable . The poet says in Lyric No 10

Ferry across, ferry across kindly
The fugacious vessel of my life .
Oh, Thou Ferryman , my Lord Siva
.

The poet's firm faith in the loving kindness of Lord Siva makes all fears vanish from his heart when the vessel is crossin the 'terrible sea " of existence .

The conception of the human soul waiting impatiently for union with the Divine , her lover, is a recurrent image in Tagore's Gitanjali . This is in accordance with the conventions of Vaishnava devotional poetry . - the delightful blending of romance and devotion . Dubey, too, makes good use of this Vaishnava convention. Take , for examplem Lyric No 9

The beloved is restless
In bearing the pangs of separation
Yea, innumerable pains and pleasures vex her
The heart throbs fast

And aches deeply
When wilt Thou meet me ., O Lover?

And Lyric 14

The night is dark
And I am all alone
In my house
The soul is restless
O, she the soul is love-lorn
And lying in her sick-bed
Wilt Thou come and see me my Lord ?

Man as a traveller on the dusty road of existence is a recurrent image in Dubey's poetry .

I am way- worn
The snares and troubles
Of this dusty world
Have made me much fatigued

So, I want to lie in a deep slumber of bliss .Lyric No 15

In Lyric No 17 the poet calls himself a traveller who has lost his way

I am a traveller
The real path is unknown , unseen
It is Thou , my Guide, who showest me
The invisible path of illumination

The Ferryman is is inspired by Tagore's Gitanjali. But Bijay Kant Dubey's thoughts and imagery are daringly original , fresh and unconventional . He showed great promise as a new star on the horizon of Indo-Anglian poetry with his maiden venture , The Ferryman But his later poetry shows an obsession with death and mortality . That may be the reason why editors do not show enthusiasm to include him in their anthologies!

Keki N. Daruwalla: A Poet That Dwells Apart

2010-06-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

While reading the poetry of Keki N.Daruwalla one is bound to have the feeling that he is being transported to a bizarre world No other Indo-English poet delves so deep into the mysterious inner world of the human psyche as does Daruwalla . Daruwalla writes with a vision , and the vision follows him like a shadow . Whlle reading his poetry, the reader will have occasion to remember several poets . His attitude towards nature will remind one of Tennyson, . His morbid pre-occupation with death will remind one of Emily Dickinson . His supernaturalism will remind the reader of Coleridge . His poetry as a heap of broken images will remind us of the poetic technique of T.S.Eliot.
We can see Daruwalla's worldview in his meditative poem Ruminations . The poet has glimpses of the true nature of life . He can see violence and hatred in the air . They are so omnipresent! Man cannot wash away these evils from his mind , try hard as he will! They stick deep . As violence and hatred reign all around . the natural corollary is death- wish . The poet says

Death I am looking
for that bald bone-head of yours!

Flesh is man's ultimate destiny . Alas! it is a prey to corruption. Neither rose-water nor insense-sticks nor flowers can drown the smell of death .

The drift as it comes to us now
is aroma/stench/nausea
jostling each other

Violence can disfigure the human body . The corpse of a woman lying on the verandah of the morgue , the victim of her husband's jealousy , has a grisly look , her nose being sliced off . Man is submissive to his ultimate fate .

bury him
and he is steadfast as the earth
Burn him and he will ride the flames
Throw him to the birds and he will
surrender flesh like an ascetic.

Can man ever have a cleansed feeling such as one gets while walking to the temple after a river-bath ? No, says the poet . Nature has a cleansed look after rain .

the hedge smiles
the leaf loses its coat of dust
the scum spills from the pool

Alas for man .!He can never experience the cleansed feeling ! Sin sticks so deep that sophisticated man is incapable of redemption .

I have misplaced it somewhere
in the caverns of my past!

Daruwalla elaborates the theme of sin in his poem The Death of a Bird . The poem has the same motif as Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment Man has to pay dearly for perpetrating sins on inoffensive animals and birds . The victim of the poet's cruelty is a king monal that was engaged in love-making with his mate . The sinner and his female companion cannot get away with the sin . "Why did our footsteps drag ?""

Depressed a bit we took the road
walking like ciphers disinterred
from some forgotten code

The consciousness of sin begets weird feelngs and sensations . The terror that the sinner experiences is more-than-life-size. The glazed eyes and throbbing heart of the dying monal fill the poet with terror and foreboding . Every incident after the perpetration of the sin however trivial has a nightmare horror . The pony's cry as it fell into a gorge drowns even the roar of the river . The sinners are even incapable of enjoying love-making!

Death and nature's cruelty , the two pet themes of Daruwalla, form the subject of The Ghaghra in Spate. The changing moods of the treacherous river are described using unconventional imagery . In the afternoon the river is a grey smudge on the canvas .At night she is overstewed coffee

At night under a red moon in menses
she is a red weal
across the spine of the land

The river's relentless fury and man's unequal fight for survival are brought out in these lines :

If only voices could light lamps
If only limbs could turn to rafted bamboos

The people take their tragedy with stoic indifference .

They don't rave or curse
for they know the river's slang, her argot

What baffles the poet more is man's indifference to the tragedy that befell other human beings . It is time for celebration for some! Women come in chauffeur- driven cars to collect driftwood to decorate their drawing-rooms . Nature's orgy of destruction is not yet over . Fishes in the fields are strangled to death through an unholy alliance between the sun and mud !

This is the frightful picture of the Ghaghra painted by Daruwalla . The world depicted by Daruwalla is not a pleasing one . It is a sombre world where man is at the mercy of relentless elements . His poetry provides a unique experience for readers of Indian poetry in English . Daruwalla is indeed a star that dwells apart in the firmament of Indo-Anglian poetry.

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Sri Aurobindo : His Poetics and his Poetry

2010-05-21T03:46:00.000-07:00

Many know Sri Aurobindo (Aurobindo Ghosh) as a mystic and as a poet . But how many in India know of his poetic theories? His critical views lie scattered in the numerous essays he published from time to time They are the gems of Indian aesthetics.Being the product of Western liberalism, Sri Aurobindo could successfully harmonize Indian aesthetics with Western thoughts . Aurobindo's essays , therefore, deserve a niche reserved for the best critical literature of the world.

According to Aurobindo, poetry is better described than defined. While trying to analyze poetry through description we make two kinds of mistakes . We think that poetry is only an elevated pastime . This kind of mistake is made by the uneducated people .Aurobindo admits that pleasure is one of the aims of poetry . Aurobindo asserts that poetry is not merely an aesthetic pleasure of the imagination , the intellect and the ear . They are not the true recipients of the poetic delight . They are not the creators of poetic delight, either. They are only its channels . Sri Aurobindo says the true creator or the true hearer of poetic delight is the soul. Poetry ,therefore, transmutes pleasure into the highest form of delight- a divine Ananda (supreme bliss)

While describing poetry the learned among us are apt to make another kink of mistake ..They consider poetry as a matter of "correct and exquisite technique " . Aurobindo admits that in all arts technique is an important first step towards perfection . Poetry makes use of the rhythmic word .This word has a sound value, a thought- value and together they make a soul- value . This power, says Aurobndo, soars high beyond the" laws of mechanical construction ". A poet does not have to create with his eyes fixed on the technique .

According to Sri Aurobindo the rhythmic word of the poet is the highest form of speech available to man . Poetic utterance has a great intensity . Why? .It is because the poets use words in a special way . We use words as conventional signs for ideas . as if they had no life in them! .It was not always so . Words had a life of their own . They denoted feelings and sensations . Sound has a natural property to raise vibrations in the soul . This made primitive languages very powerful . This power was lost when language gained in clarity and precision . Poetry tries re-gain this lost power by making use of the suggestive power of sound .

AUROBINDO'S POETRY

I consider Revelation as the most stupendous expression of Sri Aurobindo"s poetic genius . Among the Indo-Anglian poets only Sri Aurobindo could have conceived and written such a short poem of immense power . Only the blessed can have the rare vision of the Divine . Sri Aurobind belonged to the blessed few who could experience the vision of the many- splendoured but awesome Divine! To have the experience is one thing , but to put that into poetry is quite a different thing . The poet joins hands with the mystic in Aurobindo in shaping the poem . The seemingly unutterable experience of revelation is concretized through tangible imagery -wind-blown locks, a startled bright surmise, a cheek of frightened rose, a hurried glance behind , a thought ere it is caught - all these capture the fleeting moment of divine revelation .

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R. Parthasarathy : His Poetic Achievements

2010-04-24T03:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone will agree that R. Parthasarathy is one of the greatest names in Indo-English poetry since Independence. .His collection of poems Rough Passage has a three-tier structure . In the first section Exile the poet describes his life in England where he felt like an exile uprooted from his culture . In the second part Trial Parthasarathy celebrates love and human relationships . In the third section Home-Coming he gives expression to his joy of discovery when he discovers his native roots and tries to harmonize the English language with Tamil culture.

Cultural conflict is at the heart of R.Parthasarathy's poems . As a young student he was \infatuated with England and the English language . But his life in England put an end to his anglomania !He was caught in a cultural dilemma . His poetry is the product of this cultural dilemma. The first section Exile. reveals that the poet's infatuation with the English language and culture is under strain . The more he sees alien English life . the more he becomes conscious of his Tamil roots . Parthasarathy says :"English forms part of my rational make-up , Tamil my emotional make-up ". This discovery , which must have been very painful to the poet ,is expressed in the first section . His infatuation with English has taken its tol;He has lost his Tamil identity! The poet's enlightenment is expressed in these lines of haunting beauty

"You learn roots are deep
That language is a tree, loses colour
Under another sky. "

In Trial the poet is celebrating love . In England he had non- relationships . Back in India he has formed bonds of love with his own people . Love is a reality here . A look at the family- album fills Parthasarathy with nostalgic memories.. Love gives one a sense of belonging . He realizes that there is no place like home . In the last section of the poem Home- Coming the poet is in an ecstatic mood, though his ecstasy is tinged with regret.He expresses his joy when he comes back to his cultural heritage . He says

"My tongue in English chains
I return after a generation to you "

The poet feels at home when he is amidst his own people . The poet regrets his "whoring after English gods " But an important fact to be noted here is that Parthasarathy is not perfectly at home with the present-day Tamil culture . Alas! Tamil culture is now devoid of all its former glory . The poet expresses his sorrow at the decadence in modern Tamil culture . The poet says that Western civilization has sapped the vigor and vitality of Tamil culture . Even the language of Thiruvalluvar has not been spared, its pristine beauty is irrecoverably lost !. There was a time when the Tamils flocked their temples to worship their gods and goddesses, but today they worship a new set of goddesses --"the high-breasted card-board and paper goddesses of Mount Road!" R Parthasarathy laments the present state of Vaigai river , the river that flows through the temple city of Madurai . There was a time when this majestic river symbolized the vibrant culture of the Tamils The Vaigai was like the Thames of Spenser , but today she looks like Eliot"s Thames - a symbol of decadence! ..R.Parthasarathy"s criticism of present-day Tamil culture shows that he is honest to the core as a poet , and he is not a mere mouthpiece of Tamil jingoism.
As a poet R Parthasarathy is much ahead of his times .His vehement denunciation of Westernization may not be readily appreciated by a generation dazzled by the glitter and glamour of Western civilization .He will definitely have more and more admirers when people realize that a nation dies when it loses its cultural identity and starts worshipping "wrong gods"

"These ashes are all that's left
of the flesh and brightness of youth,
My life has come full circle:I'm thirty

I must give quality to the other half,I've forfeited the embarrassing gift
innocence in my scramble to be man."

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Rabindranath Tagore : Gitanjali

2010-03-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

A century is about to pass by since Tagore's Gitanjali took the world by storm . The world of 1913 , the year Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize for his Gitanjali, was so unlike the world of today . It was a world which stood perilously on the brink of a disastrous war and people quaked with fear as war clouds gathered on the political horizon of Europe . It was a world sick of materialism ,and despair was writ large on every face . Into this world came Gitanjali as a ray of hope for humanity . It re-affirmed faith in the innate glory of man by pointing out his spiritual potential .

Gitanjali is the supreme achievement of Tagore as a mystic poet . This anthology of 103 lyrics is in the tradition of Vaishnava devotional poetry . But Tagore's romantic touch has transfigured them into exquisite poetry which even lay readers can understand and enjoy . The imagery in which Tagore expresses his vision enables the readers to participate in the poet's spiritual experiences .

Tagore reveals himself as a mystic poet in several lyrics of Gitanjali . The opening Song strikes the key-note The allusion to the Bhagavat Gita adds a mystic dimension to to the opening song : "" Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure " The following words echo the words of Lord Krishna in the Gita : '' This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again and fillest it with fresh life " In Song2 the poet calls God the Supreme Musician and describes himself as a captive caught in the meshes of God's divine music . The poet would like to join in the heavenly music of the Creator , but his voice fails him and he can only stand in silent amazement!

AS I have said, the Vaishnava devotional poetry had a great influence over Tagore . In song after song we find the poet describing his spiritual experiences in terms of romantic love in the manner of Vaishnava poets . The human soul is depicted as a maiden and God as her lover In Song 18 we can see a sustained use of romantic imagery to express the human soul's longing to merge with the Divine . The maiden has been waiting for the arrival of her lover throughout the day But as the night comes and darkness thickens and dark clouds accumulate in the sky the maiden bursts out in anguish "Ah, love ! Why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone / '

Charity and self-sacrifice are depicted as the qualities that endear one to God .In song after song Tagore sets forth this idea with suggestive imagery Songs 50 and 54 extol the virtues of charity and self-sacrifice .: The poet went a-begging from door to door . All of a sudden he saw the golden chriot of God coming towards him . His hopes brightened He hoped that his evil days were at an end and would cover him with gifts . The chriot stopped before the poet . To the great surprise of the poet , God held out His hand and asked : "" What hast thou got to give to me ?"" The poet opened his wallet and gave a least little grain of corn . When in the evening he emptied his wallet on the floor , the poet saw a least little grain of gold in the poor heap ! The story narrated in Song54 shows that God appreciates even our little acts of kindness and of love . : God approaches a maiden in the form of a thirsty traveller and asks for water and the maid obliges . But before taking his leave the traveller asks the maid her name ;:" What have I done that he wants to keep me in his memory . ?"

Tagore's belief in the immanence of God in nature can be seen in Song 45 : "Have you not heard His footsteps? " A true devotee of God can hear God's silent steps " every moment , every age , every day and every night " In the concluding Song Tagore's mysticism is expressed through stately imagery The poet surrenders everything at the feet of God Almighty .. Every act of surrender is described with suitable imagery . The poet compares his mind to a rain-cloud of July . heavy with unshed showers . The diverse srtains of his songs join together to form a mighty current flowing into the sea of silence .

I cannot conclude this write-up on Tagore's Gitanjali better than by quoting this comment made by W. B. Yeats after reading .Gitanjali : " these poems have stirred my blood as nothing has for years"

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A. K. Ramanujan : "Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House"

2010-01-19T22:34:00.000-08:00

It has been rightly said that A.K .Ramanujan is not obvious as a poet ; the poet in him has to be gradually discovered. His poems may not impress the readers on the first reading , but a closer reading of his poems will definitely reveal their myriad hidden beauties!

Ramanujan has his own personal views on the poetic process . I think we should be on our guard while making comments on his poetry in the light of the poet's own views on what poetry should be like . A poet's own views on poetry are often the will-o' -the-wisps which mislead the unwary critics . If Wordsworth found it necessary to append a preface to the Lyrical Ballads , it only shows the poet's lack of confidence . T.S.Eliot, on the contrary, set a fine example in this respect . He did not find it necessary to add any preface to his landmark poem The Waste Land In making this short commentary on Ramanujan's poem "Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House" I have tried my best not to be influenced by the poet's own critical theories .

On the surface , the poem is a quaint catalogue of things that come into the Great House but do not go out and and also an equally bizarre list of things that go out but soon come back . Even on the first reading, the reader may feel a bit uneasy and he may find the poem a deeply disturbing one in an inexplicable manner . A closer reading of the poem will convince the reader that the poem is a fine piece of social criticism. The poem will assume a universal significance when the reader ponders on this enigmatic poem .He will then recognize that the poem is an elegy on the death of human dignity and identity .

It is interesting to compare "Small-Scale Reflections" with V.S Naipaul's masterpiece "A House for Mr Biswas" The hero of Naipaul's romance detests what Ramanujan euphemistically calls a Great House. Actually the Great House is an over-crowded house like the Hanuman House in Naipaul's novel . Both the houses are graveyards of human dignity and identity . Mrs Tulsi does not allow her sons- in law to leave the house .In Ramanujan's Great House sons- in law share the same fate :

"Sons- in law who quite forget
their mothers but stay to check
Accounts or teach arithmetic to nieces "

Great House is different from Hanuman House in one way . Here there is no Mr Biswas to start a rebellion . .We are , however, informed that sons and nephews "ran away " to join the army , but , unlike Biswas, they do not stay and fight like rebels . In the Great House things and humans are all clubbed together. :

They come in every day
to lose themselves among other things
lost long ago among
other things lost long ago "

Ramanujan has no compunction to club together things and human beings in the list of things that come into the Great House but do not go out . Look at this bizarre list : straying cows, library books , dishes, servants, phonographs, epilepsies , sons- in law and women who come as brides ! Among the things that go out but soon return are daughters who come back as widows and sons and nephews who come back as corpses slain in distant battlefields . Why do daughters soon return as widows? Ramanujan gives the cryptic answer : they were married to "short-lived idiots" !

This poem is more than a piece of criticism of an over-crowded Brahmin household . of South India . It has a universal significance . When human beings lose their dignity and identity they are little better than cows , dishes. bales of cotton and gadgets like phonographs . This vision of Ramanujan conveyed through this poem exalts it to the niche reserved for the greatest poetry in world literature .

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Kamala Das : Her Feminist Ambivalence

2009-12-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

Commentators of Kamala Das's poetry often link her poetry to specific incidents in her personal life . They explain her poetry with reference to My Story . This biographical approach to literary criticism is an untenable practice in as much as poets are beings endowed with imagination and they set forth in their poems what they perceive as imaginative truths . Whem Emily Dickinson was asked whether the "I" in her poems represented her real self she replied that it represented an " imagined I". The greatness of a poet lies in how far he or she is true to his or her imagined self and the honesty with which he or she delineates experiences . Kamala Das's poetic self is made up of millions of Indian women . Her voice is the voice of Indian women silenced through ages of suppression . Hence, the ""I" in Kamala Das's poetry is a deceptive one It is the will-o'-the- wisp of the critic . Her real poetic self can be extracted from her various poems .collected in three anthologies : Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967) and Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973)

Kamala Das writes about the plight of womanhood in Indian society with. amazing candour . It is difficult for a woman to preserve her sanity , let alone her identity ! She writes :

"I must pose,
I must pretend,
I must act the role
Of happy woman
Happy wife
I must keep right distance
Between me and the low
And I must keep right distance
Between me and the high " (The Suicide )

Life is no bed of roses for an Indian woman . Her path is strewn with thorns in the form of innumerable do's and don'ts ! Womanhood is a curse under the Indian skies . This is most tersely and poignantly expressed in the line " the weight of my breasts and womb crushed me " ( An Introduction) .

Her poem Old Playhouse is a vehement indictment of patriarchy . A girl comes to the house of her husband with great expectations of love and happiness .Alas! Her new home soon proves to be the graveyard of her dreams . Kamala Das gives expression to a woman's indignation when her husband systematically reduces her to the position of a sex- slave . :

"You planned to tame a swallow , to hold her
In the long summer of your lust so that shewould forget
Not the raw seasons alone and the home left behind her
Also her nature , the urge to fly "

These lines describe the fate of every girl who gets trapped into marriage . Her desire to grow , to have self-knowledge and , self- realization is crushed . She is reduced to the position of a helpless hanger-on on her husband . She is nothing more than a sex-object :

You dribbled spittle into my mouth , you poured
Yourself into every nook and cranny .You embalmed
My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices
You called me wife "

In the suffocating atmosphere of her new home the woman" loses her will and reason" .The room is filled with the oppressive smell of " male breath" . Even the cut flowers in the vase smell of human sweat . She feels herself to be a" dwarf cowering beneath the monstrous ego " of her husband .

Kamaqla Das's feminism boils down to one simple and single demand -love! She is not opposed to male domination It is here that her feminism differs from that of Western feminists like Kate Millet , Elaine Showalter and Virginia Woolf . It is not a subversive philosophy with a political agenda .for Kamala Das . Love is what a woman needs most .Without it she will wither away like a flower plucked from its stalk . She says :

" I want to be loved
And
if love is not to be had
I want to be dead "

Kamala Das's feminism matured over the years into an existentialist view of things . One can notice a certain ambivalence in her feminism . In her later poems she does not regard her breasts and womb as symbols of subjugation .On the contrary, she exults in them . they are the symbols of her power and glory . Her poem Jaisurya is a celebration of motherhood . A woman needs a man to attain this moment of ecstasy which she gets when she hears the cry of her new-born baby . A woman's life would be lustreless without a man whose touch alone can make her"gleam like burnished brass " (The Looking Glass )

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Toru Dutt ; Our Casuarina Tree

2009-12-12T23:02:00.000-08:00

Toru Dutt (1856-1877),who died at the age of 21 ,left behind her an imperishable legacy .She lived and wrote at a time when cultural studies were at an incipient stage of development , and the idea that mythologies hold the key to understanding a people , was not properly realized. With her amazing insight into things , Toru Dutt realized the importance of Indian myths and legends She did not need an Edmund Gosse to tell her that her poetry should be a "revelation of the heart of India", but she instinctively realized that Indian poetry ,to be truly great, must be inspired by Indian myths . Her collection of poems 'Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan " reveals how even shadowy figures of legends can come alive when romantically treated .

"Flowers look loveliest in their native soil
And their kindred branches : plucked , they fade
And lose the colours Nature on them laid "

These lines from her poem "Ä mon Père"reveal her conviction that poetry like flowers looks loveliest in its native languages . and poetry written in a foreign language cannot capture the rhythm of feelings . Her lavish use of imagery from Indian culture compensates for the lack of spontaneity due to the use of English for expressing her Indian sensibility .

I think "Our Casuarina Tree " is her most representative poem . This poem reveals the influence of Keats on her . The first two stanzas are an imaginative and sensuous description of the Casuarina Tree, replete with imagery taken from nature . These two stanzas conform to Milton"s conception of what poetry should be --" simple , sensuous and impassioned " ,But the tone changes to melancholic reflexions in the third stanza . Toru Dutt explains why the casuarina tree is so dear to her .---"not because of its magnificence " , but because she , her brother and sister ( both of them are now dead ) used to play together beneath the tree when they were little children . The image of the tree rises in her memory till her eyes become dim with tears .The Casuarina Tree becomes an objective correlative from fourth stanza onwards . It is the symbol of her brother and sister"s memory .She can hear the wailing of the casuarina tree wherever she goes . It follows her to distant lands She can hear its plaintive music even in the distant shores of France and Italy , when the waves gently kiss the shores beneath the moon .

The tone of the last anf fifth stanza of the poem is definitely one of triumph --triumph of immortality over death, loss and oblivion . The Casuarina Tree will remain immortal and it will keep alive the memory of her dead brother and sister , though her own poetry is too weak to confer immortality on them ! Love will defend her dear ones from the curse of oblivion .

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Sarojini Naidu : "Village Song"

2009-10-31T03:46:00.001-07:00

When the young Sarojini Naidu showed her early poetic efforts to Edmund Gosse for his comments, perhaps, she did not know that she was in for a shock . His words of admonition have since become part of history . He told her, " What we wished to receive was not a rechauffé of Anglo-Saxon sentiments in an Anglo-Saxon setting , but some revelation of the heart of India'.' "Sarojini Naidu's poetry was never to be the same again . Her mentor's advice sank deep into her mind . It proved to be a turning-point in her poetic career . She was none the worse for it because the glory that is ancient India and the grandeur that is modern India afforded her full scope for the play of romantic imagination with which she was abundantly blessed !

I consider "Village Song" as an authentic revelation of the heart of India as Edmund Gosse would have liked her poetry to be . In this dramatic lyric Sarojini Naidu reveals the heart of an Indian girl . The girl , carrying pitchers of Jumna water on her head, has to trek along a solitary stretch of land amidst thickening darkness . She blames herself for tarrying to hear the boatmen's song .After all, it was not her fault . Their song was so enthralling ! But now she is tormented by fears of all kinds . The cries of white cranes and owls fill her with superstitious fears . For a moment she thinks about her brother and mother who may be wondering about the cause of her delay . Her mind is again filled with fear of snakes and evil spirits . This wild area is prone to thunde-storms at this time of the year . She chants the name of Lord Rama to protect her from all harms .

This short poem reveals Sarojini Naidu's deep insight into the heart of I9ndian women . It points at Indian women's unflinching faith in their mythical heroes After reading the poem every reader might wonder whether the girl would have made it home if she hadn't had that strong enough faith in Lord Rama as her protector . The poem definitely has a symbolic level of meaning, too . The white cranes and owls symbolize the ills that the flesh is enduring in its journey through the world's wilderness . Indian women are sustained and supported in their moments of trials by their firm faith in their gods and goddesses .

2009-10-25T01:09:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to acquaint the world with the rich legacy of Indian poetry in English . . There was a time when Indian poetry in English was called Indo-Anglian poetry . But this term is no longer favored . It is because Indian poetry in English is as good and as authentically Indian as poetry written in Indian languages. Indian poetry in English expresses a sensibility which is distinctly Indian. It is inspired by Indian mythology , folklore and India's hoary cultural traditions .

In the following posts I wish to comment on certain immortal jewels of Indian poetry in English .
Please wait for my next post .

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