Nitty-gritty of modern life
Kanchan Mehta

Kamandal
by Jaswant Deed. Lokdeep Parkashan. Pages 118. Rs 100.

The spirit is restless, anxious and melancholic and the flesh is weak, weary that sums up the modern man. "I have no interest anywhere/ `85 no direction is befitting `85 I silently ruminate for nothing/ but always without rest." For its excellent treatment of modern man’s predicament, Jaswant Deed’s five-verse anthology has deservedly won the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2007. With its wide-ranging scope, this collection of cerebral, experimental, complex and variegated poems makes a substantial contribution to contemporary Punjabi poetry.

Focusing on the tension between spiritual and material modes of life, the past and the present, the country life and the city life, the East and the West, making and failing of relationships, the autobiographical poems dyed in imagination plunge the readers into deep thoughts. It is interesting to see how the poet presents the themes of universal significance as profoundly personal. The witty, ironic, poignant lyrics are a picture of many conflicts, tussles that inhabit modern man’s soul.

Identical to the poet himself, the fractured and fraught poetic persona, feeling restless, with a kamandal (a mendicant’s vessel) in hands, sets out in search of "tek" (rest), but time and again is chased and tormented by worldly desires.

"Haath kamandal kapdiya, man trishna upaji bhai", Baba Nanak’s words sparkle in the title, Kamandal and a few religious poems—Bhakti, Gajadhari, Kutiya and Tere Dar Pe. It’s in this sense the book has a religious tinge. A yearning for deliverance haunts the poet.

The poet draws his subjects primarily from his own life and surroundings. A nostalgia for his rural roots and the consequent melancholy colour the poems Tabar, Pudina, Pind Duji Waar, Pindo Suneha. His complete honesty in terms of dialect is striking.

Jaswant Deed’s poetry is a far cry from the mainstream Punjabi poetry. It subverts the glorified ideal of faithfulness in the man-woman relationship.

In Vichhoda, separation instead of tormenting is relieving for the partners, and how true in the modern context!

Jaswant Deed, professionally related to television, uses visual details deftly and abundantly in his poems. The poet ironically celebrates the elemental greed, craftiness, cunningness and slyness of cats and snakes (the recurrent images) to describe the nitty-gritty of modern life.

The rugged style and ironic portrayal of the vicissitudes of modern life make Kamandal a must for those interested in modern poetry.

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