Voice of the bard of myths 
Vandana Shukla

For a teacher of maths, being recognised as a poet is a bit unusual. Perhaps not! Jayant Mahapatra, the celebrated poet from Orissa taught physics all his life while earning accolades as a poet. Paramveer Singh is perhaps following his footsteps, in Punjab. However, for this recipient of the Yuva Puraskar, 2011, introduced by Sahitya Akademi this year, recognition has come early. The 32-year-old Punjabi poet is much younger than Mahapatra (he wrote poetry in English), who began his poetic career rather late in life.

Singh has received recognition at the national level for his second anthology titled Amrit Vela or, the time of the morning.

Fascinated by myths and the qissa poetry of Punjab — the interplay of myths in oral traditions — Singh imbibes the classic tradition of poetry while dealing with contemporary issues. And, he considers himself to be a medium for carrying this tradition forward. At a time when poetry is marginalised, more so in the regional languages, Paramveer writes his verse in perfect metre and rhyme, a hard task to achieve in the times of free verse. But, as he puts, it is the most natural thing for him, this is how poetry visits him — contained in its own music. "I do not know what metre I use, I became aware of the difficult chhand used in my poetry only when experts made me aware of it. If I become conscious of technicality, I won’t be able to write. Poetry sings to me from within," says the unassuming poet who has composed poetry even in the fastidious savaya chhand (one quarter of a metre).

No wonder, at a poetry reading session organised at Sultanpur Lodhi by Anad Foundation, people were held captive by his verse. Even foreigners who could not follow the language were swayed by the sheer music of it. He prefers to sing his verse in a full-throated voice. "Everything changed for me since poetry started happening to me. As though, all barriers fell. I began to celebrate life in all its hues. You flower only when you are fine, if you allow barriers and burdens to grow, poetry won’t choose you," he hums, "`85preetan je pakiyan le ud ve panchhi/ sanu vi arshan de naal."

Justifying the title of his anthology, perhaps, Paramveer says, poetry visits him early morning when the world is asleep. He wakes up before the break of the dawn and leaves home. Nature holds key to some hidden treasure within, that opens up in its presence to articulate the blur in the medium of words. His sensitivity and imagination take him around the world on this vehicle. And he feels the silence of Christ being disturbed by the bombing of Baghdad, he touches the dates growing on a tall palm tree in Mecca, filled with reverence and he feels the pain of the widows of Gujarat and of the victims of the1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Poetry makes him travel through time, at times even 4,000 years back, to the land of Krishna, when he begins to sing songs of the gopis, bursting in musical alliteration, celebrating the beauty of a world gone by in a language that befits its purity.

The first anthology of his verse Surt di Loa (light of higher consciousness) was published in 2006 by Amritsar-based Singh Publishers, who have published his second anthology too. The quality of publication is comparable to any quality publication in the country. And Singh is more than obliged for the time they have taken to write a well-researched forward.

He declares with pride that his daughters sing only his verses, instead of the regular nursery rhymes and take pride in his musical compositions. "Writing poetry is not a part-time job, as people usually think, it requires preparation. I live silence, I live beauty and harmony to create a space within for it."

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