Punjabi review
Verses for the beloved
Shalini Rawat

Mehakde Pal
by Sukhdev Singh Grewal. Chetna Prakashan.
Pages 104. Rs 100.

"If ghazals burst forth from turbulent hearts/ knowing Persian is not a must.." Writing ghazals in Punjabi can, indeed, be a daunting task, as there seem to be more writers than readers for the genre in this tongue. Sukhdev Singh Grewal, however, is convinced that he has found his Muse. In the true tradition of ghazal-writing, the couplets seem to be addressed to a ghazala (beloved). And what better to write about than the pining of the heart, the lonely expanse of the star-spangled sky, the turn of the beloved’s mood, the rise of a hope and, sometimes, its fall.

If poetry be the food of love, ghazals are considered just desserts, syrupy sweet most of the times, satiating the senses and leaving a wonderful aftertaste. What distinguishes this work from most of the poetry being written nowadays is its old-world charm as well as the Socratic ethos it promotes. You could also call it the Dickinsonian spirit which maintains, "Say not the struggle not availeth". Most of the references are centred in the tradition of Urdu poetry like the search for true love, finding or losing it and most of the times pining for it. Repetition of the love theme bears testimony to the fact that the poet has loved and lived and that the metaphors he uses are not merely ornamental.

"Autumn is spring, deserts are oceans/why do I cheat myself everyday?/Lifetimes have gone by since we met and parted/Why then do we still connect this way?"

The poet polishes his two-inches of ivory, the recurring theme being the mushy love of romantic novels.

"Winds hush, hold their breaths and stand tiptoe/when all around whispers of our love bristle/a whirlwind, a tsunami, what is it that rises/ when your temper and my patience jostle?" But a definite spark is evident when for some moments the poet is not merely a wordsmith but a voyeur of the fourth dimension:

"Perhaps there was the sun’s spark in my eyes/As the moon passed by it was lighted/My heart aflutter, is barely in control/That’s how it was against me incited" or when he says "Tis a scrap of Dhruv that lives inside me/the stars revolved around me so/Those who rose above Time, surpassed it/They cry who couldn’t take Time’s blow/ I thought tears would be sweet and comfort me/But her rudeness turned saltish their sweet flow".

Seldom do you find the poet hammering together unusual foster-ideas, as is the case with most modern poets, a trend that was in a large way responsible for shooing away readers in all languages, which went ‘modern’ in the use of poetic diction. So here you have poems grounded in the poet’s roots written in the most elegant and colloquial yet simple diction. There are no calculatedly witty metaphors although he does take a jab at immoral social practices: "You strangle them before their birth/If there are no girls, whither Giddha’s mirth?" or at the patronisation that all achievers seek nowadays regardless of their capability: "Stopping at every corner to garner false praise/they seldom reach their goals with their flippancy/No resources, money nor company did I have/I traversed the earth on flights of sheer fancy."

Although few and far between, some fine thoughts are presented. The poet would do well to leave cliches alone and hone the realism in his poetry a bit.

HOME