EVOLUTION OF (MY) POETRY-PART-2

THE VERSES GET A BIT LONGER…………..

The second stage came while I was in my  +2 classes. The pressure of peers and studies were bogging me down..It was not so much about letting down the expectations of near ones as much as the fear that all your friends might make it and you might be left out that was pressurizing. Looking back it is surprising that we had so little choice then.There were choices but somehow it was kind of “follow the leader” kind of game. Everyone who was doing science was expected to try for medicine and surgery. Students now are more resourceful and gutsy to try out new things.

            One thing making up verses did to me was it made me more sensitive to my surroundings. The quality of verses had nothing to do with it. I was becoming more receptive to nature, noticing small things around me, personifying objects.everything was live, communicating to me. May be that’s the reason why meditators all round the world supported artistic qualities. Painting,poetry,music,dance all was nothing short of meditation.It made you more alive more aware. Incorporating these in their meditation techniques new age “guru”s have made millions.

          
The verses I wrote had a depressive feel about it it seems but I had tried to end it often on a hopeful note. Hope was created with some imagination though. The back ground of each verses  I don’t clearly remember,but vague images are there.

It was winter in Faridabad. The evenings were cold and silent. Our garden was in full bloom but standing alone there made you a bit melancholy:

THE WINTER WINDS WERE RAGING

THE COLD SWORDS OF NATURE PIERCING

AND I AMIDST THE FOG AND MIST

WAS WONDERING FOR WANT OF LIGHT AND WARMTH

AND THEN PERCHANCE I CAME UPON YOUR DOOR

TO BEHOLD YOUR SMILING FACE BEAMING ON ME

YOUR EYES HAD ALL THE LIGHT OF THE SHINING STARS

IN YOUR BENIGN PRESENCE THE WARMTH MY HEART LONGED FOR

     Reading it now I am reminded of Raj Kapoor’s “jaagtey raho “ last scene. May be that inspired me in the dreary winter.

         
 In our eleventh class  we were supposed to do a project  in each of our science subject. I had selected “ash analysis” as my  chemistry project. It required me to collect leaves of plants ,dry it and then burn it. Collect the ashes and do salt analysis on it to find what it contained.Each sample was labeled as after it is reduced to ash it was hard to say which was a rose and which was from the "ber" tree. I had then written:

ASHES SHOULD I CRY OVER YOU

YOUR PAST UNKNOWN ,YOUR FUTURE UNCERTAIN,

NO ONE TO PRAISE ,NOR ANYONE TO ADMIRE,

BUT THEN SOME SAY YOU DO HAVE HOPE

WHEN YOU WED THE SOIL TO BECOME ALIVE AGAIN.

           

                I came across a feather  in the play ground. If you watch the texture of a feather you can but admire it. But I pondered:

 FEATHERS DROP

  OR ARE THEY DROPPED?

   THAT THEY MAY NOT HAMPER THE FLIGHT

   THEY DROP WHEN “THEY” FIGHT

    OR DURING A SUDDEN TAKE OFF

    AND SOMETIMES WITH NO REASON.

    HOW HARD IS THE PARTING

    ON THE FEATHER OF THE BODY

    NEVER DOES THE BODY WAIT TO PONDER.”

            At the school we used to go to the play ground with our lunch boxes during our recess. Sit in the shade of some tree and eat together. After finishing the lunch we just loitered around. Sitting in the grass my eyes came upon  a tiny flower in the grass just in front of where I was sitting. It was a single flower. Tiny that it was hidden by the grass. Perhaps the purpose of the flower to be there at that moment was to trigger the following lines:

THERE UNDER THE BRIGHT SUN

IS A SPOT OF DARKNESS

NO ONE SEES IT ECLIPSED BY THE LIGHT

BUT NEVERTHELESS THE SPOT IS DARK

DARK AS THE DARKEST OF THE NIGHTS

BENEATH THE SPOT HIDDEN BY THE GRASS

IS A TINY PINK FLOWER

CRUSHED AND BRUISED ARE ITS PETALS

NOT KNOWING IF TO CURSE THE FEET THAT CRUSHED

  
           I came across the following lines-DUM SPIRO SPERO—While I breathe,I hope I wrote under those lines:

“Hope never dies

It just goes below the surface

Only to pop up again

With greater vigour and vitality.”

                   I don’t really remember why I wrote the following lines. It was written in 1993.That is clear from my diary. Something had hurt me. Isn’t it strange the same things which hurts us so strongly  become so trivial that we do not even remember them after a while. If only we could whenever we are hurt, stop and think how we would rate an incident 20 years later  we would be a forgiving race of human beings.----

LOST ARE THE TIMES

A CHAPTER OF MY LIFE CLOSED

LEAVING ME WOUNDED,BLEEDING AND SHATTERED

NO DOUBT THEY WILL HEAL

FOR LONG IS THE ROAD I TREAD

BUT SCARS WOULD REMAIN

TO REMIND ME OF THE TIMES

BUT GREAT ARE MY HOPES FOR THE MORROW.

Funny thing is now even the scars are not there and I was never hence reminded of the "times". I might  have made the same mistake twice ……since I did not remember…."the times".

                                                      WITH THE FOSSIL(S)( TREE)

THE EVOLUTION OF (MY) POETRY

                                                 BLISS WHEN ONE WITH NATURE

                         I should have inherited poetry in my genes going by my father’s interest in poetry. But I had this extreme hatred for memorizing things. It was always  “read, understand, reproduce” for me. Hence poetry was not something I liked. Since I was good at speaking out in class most of my teachers had  a belief that I might do well on stage items. To please them I often got on stage but personally knew I was not so good. The problem was I could not(read -would not) memorize prepared items and forgot  in between. Most of the prizes I won were because my competitors were worse and I was not proud of those prizes. Thanks to my father and initial good schools I attended my language was good. In fact I now feel it was better than what it is now. Since my father was a voracious reader who read widely and did not focus on a particular type I traversed the same path. After rhymes and multiplication tables I thought days of memorizing were over.

          
But then life I have found is there for a purpose-it will steer you towards those very things that you want to escape. Many who while learning driving would have experienced it. If you see a stone or something at a distance and strongly want to avoid it often we find ourselves steering the vehicle to that area subconsciously. We get what we want very strongly. People have since ages known it. Some called it prayers. They  would go on to say if you prayed really “hard” your prayers would be answered. Little do they know our thoughts and nature connive to make it happen. Of course  we blame it on an external power—God. The other fact is that those things that we hate often chase us down. If we are loving something and hating the opposite of what we love simultaneously chances are more that we come upon the object of our hatred sooner—as  hate is a stronger feeling than love.We do more extreme,more irrational things in hate than in love . So if you seek something you love make sure  not to hate the opposite or else….

      
In my case I had a revulsion for memorizing  and I came upon the career which to take wings required me to memorize not just simple poems but entire chapters and books. The above part was  an introduction why there was no reason for me to go after poetry in spite of the books in my father’s collections. He still has a lot of urdu poetry books-Ghalib,Mir and other books in hindi, I remember H.R. Bacchhan’s “madhubala” and “madhushala”to name a few. Occasionally bored  by fiction I used to venture into them and read some poetry especially the parts where beauty and love were explained hoping to impress some girl  somewhere. All movies and mills and boon sort of stories were rife with women and girls who fell head over heels with poets etc….so the notion struck.....even  if it was copied.

    
I always thought poetry was all about rhyming and arranging words in attractive manner. The idea changed after I came across Waltwhitman’s style of poetry….he became my favourite poet then…..I understood how poetry was not about pleasing others but it was more pleasing yourself……a vent for your repressed feelings…….a reprieve from depressed state of mind. It was not ovation that most wrote for, as the best got ovation only after they were long gone.

     
 I found another use of poetry ----was while writing autographs, and filling up greeting cards. After school farewell I had filled up plenty of books for those to whom I seldom talked while  I had the chance.

  
 Apart from a translation I did of a hindipoem  written by a hindi poet who called himself “nirala” I did not do much verses. The translation must have been good as my father was amazed by the deep inner meanings in the lines and immediately said the poem wasn’t written by me! I impishly told him I had translated it  and showed him the original one in hindi. He was impressed by my translation skills then. I even had my English teacher Mrs. Monga impressed by the same poetry but I told her it was translated stuff that took away  all the credit.

The  very first of my verses were written  in 1993 or at least that is the only records I have. I was in school and wrote n a small notebook. I called the notebook “heart beats”. The verses went like this:

MEMORIES LINGER ON

AND REFUSE TO DROWN IN THE SEA OF THOUGHTS

BUT POP UP NOW AND THEN ON THE SURFACE

TO GIVE US HEART ACHES HARD TO BEAR……

I don’t know if “pop up now and then” qualifies in poetry but then that is what I wrote.

The second verse was for an old English teacher who taught me in st.joseph’s convent. She was my class teacher when I was in ninth class which I consider the best period of my schooling. There was so much fun and there was so much to learn in ninth class. I had given her a card on xmas or children’s day and I wanted to make it special so had coined up the following:

IN THE JOURNEY THROUGH MY LIFE

A GENTLE BREEZE OF FRAGRANT FACES PASSED ME

AMONGST THEM WAS YOUR FACE

WHICH STAYED ON BRIGHTER AND CLEARER THAN THE SKY

LONG AFTER THE BREEZE WAS GONE

The third of my verses was written at Okhla railway station after a visit to the international trade fair at pragathi maidan with some of my friends. We were dead tired but had enjoyed ogling at the pretty models at the stalls and were munching on some bread pakodas available at the station. I loved bread pakodas especially from the station. We had gone somewhere in Delhi after pragati maidan and had decided to board our emu at Okhla. May be I had let my fertile imagination run amok with some pretty face at trade fairs……I don’t remember…..but any how it went like this:

FATIGUED ARE MY LEGS

STILL I REGRET NOT

A GLIMPSE OF THY FRIENDLY FACE

SENDS MY SPIRITS SOARING

AGAIN DOES THE LAMPS OF HOPE BURN

THE NECTAR OF LOVE QUENCHING MY THIRST.

Reading back  the verses now I feel I was heavily influenced by the lyrics of hindi movie songs of the times and had taken “inspiration” from them. But then that was inevitable

                                                                             …….to be contd.

                                                   THE VIEW ALWAYS DECEIVES

LOAD SHEDDING

                                THE FEEL OF WET GRASS BENEATH THE FEET

                There is no electricity, it is around 2.15 a.m. My mind is getting clouded…A lot of memories come rushing in. The mosquitoes are buzzing in the ears. Without the fan it is difficult. The humid heat becomes unbearable but somehow my memories keep me calm. Perhaps that is the function of memories. They have always done so for every person. As the present situations worsen and because the future is uncertain, most get solace from their past, and some get strength. May be that is the reason why we find our past better.

               Now as it was hot I had an urge to get inside the blanket! It was a strange habit that I had when I was a kid. When we had first started staying at Faridabad we used to live at 5NH(NeighbourHood) at a house owned by one Mr.Adlakha. His wife was a teacher at Dayanand Anglo Vedic  school at I NH where  my brother and I got admission initially. The house which was rented to us was a portion of ground floor, the other portion owned by another malayalee family of Mr.Kurien. Our portion almost had no windows. In the hot afternoons I remember using a hose to water the walls of our room. The white washed walls would soon soak up the water and the ceiling fan would dry up the water and what remained was a cooled comfortable room. In this room I used to lie on the floor under a blanket. I sweated then the ceiling fan did the same to me what it did to our room.             

                 Thinking back now though we did not have much, the family was together and close. It is difficult for me to make anyone understand the way our family bonded. The relationships were so beautiful. As comforts increase families have ceased to exist. People are now interested in arrangements. Often these arrangements are what we know as families of today. Arrangements where all try to outwit, clash to let their egos tower over the egos of others. When “the fathers were the head of the family and mothers were the heart of the family” children had  better childhoods. With equal rights awareness reaching dizzying heights most families have become double engine trains where often the trains are pulling in the opposite direction and the compartments suffer.

                Near the Adlakha residence there were small stores where you could buy a lot of things. Bottles of sweet soda with a marble to cork it and they were known by the name of marble-“kancha”.Its true in life too .Often the bottles are forgotten the corks  get famous. You could rent comics for 25paise for one day. Evenings you could buy chappattis and sabzi.

                  We started playing cricket with Sonu and Raju, Adlakha’s sons. Due to heat and frequent dust storms in the evening and the ill ventilated house we lived in my mother who was a chronic asthmatic became so sick she had to be hospitalized. Now being a father myself I can but marvel at the way my father handled two children with my mom at the hospital. I had shifted to St.Joseph’s convent near by. We later shifted to one Kishen lal’s rented place which was not far from Adlakha’s.The best feature was it was on first floor and there were big windows with large panes throwing in plenty of light and air.

                          MAY FIREWORKS ADD THE SPARKLE TO THE NIGHT