Suspicion Of A Poem

It was in the year 1943 that the rebel of a poet, Sahir Ludhyanvi, wrote these lines :

ये महलों ये तख्तों ये ताजों की दुनिया

ये इंसा के दुश्मन समाजों की दुनिया

ये दौलत के भूखे रवाजों की दुनिया

ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है?

ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है?

The poem was made into an equally famous song for another classic, rebellious Hindi film, Pyaasa (The Thirsty), sung soulfully by Mohammad Rafi Sahab.

The poet says :

This power hungry world where every society is the enemy of humanity. This wealth- mongering world of empty rituals. Even if I acquire this world so what ?

Poetry is the mirror of society. Seldom there is a poet who does not give voice to his/her dissent to what contemporary society stands for in its political, social, economic context.

Gulzar Sahab, is one of my favourite poets, of modern times. In the anthology, Suspected Poems, he expresses his  disappointment in the conspicuous absence of contemporaneity and relevance of democracy even after seventy years (now more) of independence of the country. He is hesitant to call these open verses as poems lest his free voice is held as “suspect” by the vested interests.

Pawan K Varma, is a politician, author and former diplomat. Ironically, the poems written in Hindi by Gulzar Sahab are translated in English side by side by him in this very anthology.

I quote a few lines (translated) to underscore the flavour of this unique book.

There is nothing really

new in New Delhi

Except that every five years a

new government comes in

The factuality of the statement belies the intransigence of apathy. A city where nothing changes except the face of the government.

But how can we talk

of a paradise

That is not yet in sight?

So come, let’s keep walking,

and talk about our country!

The phrase “let’s keep walking” is allusive of a journey which has not yet culminated into the aspired destination.

His hand has slipped

from my grasp

He is lost in the multi-

tudes of this town

The search is on for

the common man

A search for a person missing!

In the vortex of  intricacies of powerplay it is the common man who is perennially at sea.

Somebody is distributing

seats, another is pulling

chairs away;

No one moves ahead,

or steps aside.

I am caught in a traffic jam

For the last seventy years!

The dystopia is epitomised by the phrase “I am caught in a traffic jam for the last seventy years”  indicative of a state of  stagnation akin to death.

Maybe a writer, perhaps

some intellectual

Someone had asked

him for his views

And then cut off his tongue!

An assumptive yet dreadful predicament – ruthless strangulation of the strength and freedom of expression which is not in tandem with the power be.

Who will climb up to clean

this seven-coloured rainbow?

It looks black, enveloped

in a thousand cobwebs.

The abjectness of the lack of alternate ideosphere required to infuse the ‘colour of rainbow‘ to the horizon of the future.

When lines were only

etched on the palm

They told our destiny

We kept them closed in a fist;

When they are drawn

on the ground

They cut across oceans,

countries, homes and hearths.

Divisiveness in society is an annihilation of humanity. It cuts across people’s hearts and hearths.

Passengers have no say

In the arrival or depart-

ure of the train

Depends on the driver

Who runs the locomotive

of democracy

Entirely according

to his whims

The saddest devolution  wherein the keystone of democracy is hammered to  dust by the absence of visionary direction and political will.

The work of the poet is to nudge the readers gently and at times harshly.  To compel them to not overlook the rude realities shoved under the carpet of glossy rhetoric. To impel them to whip up harmonious discussions and healthy debate till it becomes the clarion call and a change agent for definitive action.