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The image of the waiting potter in
the searing heat of the summers for somebody to bring him the
means of livelihood is like the eternal wait of the plants for a
shower. The innate thirst is human quest for the beyond. Man is
swayed between hope and despair. But even in the sprawling
deserts, man retains the hope for water. Somebody descending
from the tall concrete structures to guide the people to the
pool of cool waters is like the proverbial prince charming who
arrives from nowhere, crossing all the insurmountable hurdles to
liberate the fair princess imprisoned in an enchanted castle by
an ogre. The poet says that as seed is sowed in the soil so is
hope in the human heart. As a shoot forms into a tiny stem that
fork into outgrowing branches so an individual fans out in the
world.
In the poem Rishte
(relations), the poet asks: "How does the blood flowing in
the veins discover the chemical logic of the kinship
system?" The poet here wonders at the chemistry of such
relations in various societies the world over. Sometimes their
logic baffles the ordinary people. From all such inscrutable
mysteries, the poet instinctively comes back to poesy because
only here he feels at home. For him, the poem is not a passive
product created by a poet as a commodity. He brings out the
interactive role of the poem not only for the readers but also
for himself.
In his poems,
Manmohan is more concerned with the cosmic entities like sound,
time and form. He states: "Sound, time and form perish to
merge into one another from where they evolve and flourish
again". The most intimate means of communication for the
poet is ‘touch’ that sends tactile vibrations to the entire
nervous mechanism of the body thus momentarily melting it in the
form of fluid feelings. The poet avers, "Touch is an
alternate language that causes vibrations in finger tips, sighs
in breaths, throbbing in veins, and articulation in dialogues.
Touch spawns signs, images, metaphors, similes, artefacts and
spaces. Touch is a language without words, paper and pens. Touch
is a tactile meta-language..,." From the tactile sensation
the poet moves to cognition (bodh). But he is not after
the knowledge of the world nor of any divine being. His quest
for knowledge is a kind of self-realisation that is to
understand his own being. The poet is lost in the world which is
his own home. He is trying to discover himself and explore his
inner being. He says: "I was here just now. I have
misplaced myself somewhere... perhaps under the books or on the
pen-stand on the table or under the waters in my son’s
photograph playing on the river banks. Where have I lost myself?
I don’t remember where I have misplaced myself!" Now this
journey through the inner-most recesses of the human soul brings
the poet in confrontation with himself. His own being appears as
the Other which has to be conquered by means of self-realisation.
This leads the poet to go back to his roots.
Manmohan is a poet of inner
spaces. His poems are an effort to resolve the inner
contradictions and paradoxes. He uses evocative symbols that
arouse multiple feelings in the reader making the poem an
experiential event for him. Literature humanises society, the
policemen are no exception.
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