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Time to die alone
In They said something the depiction of human helplessness and apathy is trenchant. The rot in our society in all its pungent ugliness comes forth in Awkward times. Although this volume is about today, it is not a chronicle because poetry is, in Aristotle’s words, "something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history." However, the colours are somber and the tone lugubrious. Surely, life has joys on offer too? But that will be questioning the poet’s prerogative, if not his sensibility. You may question the craft’s perfection in this volume but you will not be able to resist the food for thought it offers. Hushed musings
This volume has 13 short stories and 15 poems on different subjects and situations. For example, Across the bridge highlights attitudinal conflict between liberal and prejudiced worldviews represented by a young girl, Seema, and her conservative mother resulting in the former’s tragic death. Similarly, in Fateful vigil Kachu helps a Pakistani soldier – who had strayed into India from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir – return to his country without being detected by Indian security forces. When she returns home she learns of her only brother’s death due to firing from across the border. Kharu’s poems cover such topics as girl child, life, father’s death etc. This book epitomises the late British journalist Cyril Connolly’s assertion, "Better to write for yourself and have no public, than write for the public and have no self". An armless hand
writes
These words from Keats’s Lamia come to one’s mind while reading this volume. Poetry’s charm lies less in its structural perfection or high-minded didacticisms and more in the vision that accompanies a poet’s flights of fancy. A poet is much more than a mere versifier. He is kavi, respected in the Indian literary tradition as trikaaldarshi – (the one who knows the past, is aware of the present and can envision the future). He is the society’s conscience-keeper who protests against wrongs perpetrated and shows the right path to humanity; his words have the power to trigger revolutions or silence booming guns; his works manifest nature’s beauty even as they provide a cosmic perspective to individual experiences; he elevates love to a much higher plane than carnality can ever reach; his sublimated creativity keeps mankind humane. Philosophy lends depth to poetry. But, this volume is more cold philosophy and less warm and charming poetry. There is erudition for sure – imbibed from western mythology and philosophy; there is cadence too, but the attempt is more to awe than communicate although the poet helpfully provides footnotes for the benefit of the uninitiated. There is very little that is relevant (barring exceptions like Riot and the young lady) to today’s India. Intellectual calisthenics and verbal pyrotechnics do not a poem make.
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This volume’s poems are
about here and now. The language is lucid, the technique simple and the
message unambiguous. There is melancholy in the poet’s voice when he
observes in the title poem Time to die alone, "But hate I
no longer/the privilege of the poor. /The haves equally dread each other’s
company/and prefer to live alone/scattered in loneliness/driven by horn
of plenty`85".
Musings – the first step
towards literary creativity – are product of a process that involves a
writer’s perception of the world, insight into events and his or her
experiences in life.
Do not all charms fly