Tribals in Indian English Novel: A.K. Chaturvedi, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi ISBN -975-81-269-09445 Reviewed by Dr. Shaleen K. Singh.

A.K. Chaturvedi, a senior lecturer and scholar of English literature has been seriously involved in criticism of Indian English novel for a pretty long time and has published most of his research papers in distinguished literary and critical magazines of India. He is currently Assistant Professor in English in a Govt. College of Gwalior.

The book under review is designed beautifully in hard bound exhibits the author’s hard labour which he undertook in the preparation of the book. Though a few pieces from the book are already published, yet the author has arranged all of them in a single volume which ‘seeks to bring out the similarly between the primitive life as portrayed by the Indian English novelists and as lived by the tribal in the remote rural area of India’.

Chaturvedi in the book starts from the historical background of Indian English novels to the English education in India and then elaborates clearly the reasons of late development of Indian English fiction. A few of his reasons why authors chose English as a medium of their expression are no less interesting when he says that Indians wrote in English because they were desirous of impressing the British public and here Chaturvedi gives references of Shambhu Nath Mukherji’s letter to Meredith Townshend to prove his argument. And he appears more hopeful to the future of Indian English novel than the counterpart literature in the regional languages.

In the second chapter of ‘Tribal in ancient India Literature’ the author at first defines the tribal from Indian and Western resources, then searches its roots in Ancient Indian literature like that of Kadambari, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the most ancient book in the Rig Veda. Here he has tried to remain honest in his opinions when he looks at the both pros and cons on the point of discrimination and the treatment with the tribal by the upper strata of society.

The third chapter ‘Searches’ references of the tribal and the issues pertaining to the tribal in the four major Indian English novels viz. Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Vishwas, Kamla Markandey’s The Coffer Dam, Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss.

In Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Vishwas, Chaturvedi finds tribal world as symbol of ‘elemental life when nature the absolute are not conceived as separate entities but the Tribal village to which Billy escapes is a haven for him. Here he is free of worldly restraints. It is the place where the border lines of divinity, superstition and magic converse’.

Similarly in the sixth novel of The Coffer Dam (1969) Kamla Markandaya, Chaturvedi finds ample references of tribal issues and incidents in the picture of a Tribal village near which the British engineers, Howard Clinton and Mackendrick intend to build a big dam to control and channelize a turbulent river “that rose in the lakes and valleys of the south Indian highland and thundered through inaccessible gorges and jungle dawn to planes with prodigal waste”.

In Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra, which according to Chturvedi, unlike her previous novels is one that could not make a mark, is seminal book that ‘reflects the shift of novelists concern to Indian sensibility and deals with the themes like cultural values, music, art forms, ethos and tribal life’. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss the booker prize winner novel deals the issues of Tribal’s marginalization in a very limited space. According to the seventeenth chapter of the novel, where the pathos of the tribal of the stone town, Janjiwar are clearly visible. Here the issue of tribal’s marginalization is very significant because for long Trival community which suffered the lack of resources, poverty, illiteracy and even starvation despite false promises of the govt. and groundless development programmes of Govt. and non-Govt. sectors. Tribal, though have seen the light of development and the authors poets and journalists have looked deep into their life, yet they need all round support in our Nation, so that they may not remain a issue or object of the author’s writing but may walk hand in hand on the road of progress.

To sum up, Chaturvedi deserves high accolades for his arduous labour in the book which is fully critical precise, objective and to the point. In his mission of research of the subject matter, Chaturvedi nowhere seems strayed or superfluous. So, the book needs wide distribution among critics and laureates of Indian English criticism so that they may understand the literary contribution of Dr. Chaturvedi.

REPRESENTATION OF INDIAN WOMEN IN MEN’S POETRY by Dr.Shaleen Kumar Singh

“To the unique phenomena of the unprecedented growth of indo-English literature during the post independence era, Indian male poets have contributed fairly a good deal of verse, which is worthy of critics’ attention”(SCIEV), is aptly remarked by A.N. Diwedi, a notable Indian English critic in his collection of Critical Essays on male poets. In the contemporary situation, Indian male poets have enriched all the genres of literature as well as voiced their notions on almost each and every theme from political situation to social disorganization, from love, fantasy, and sex to human foils and foibles, from rapid development of Science and Technology to rapid decline of ethical, moral and human values and gross realities that are being faced by modern man and woman also. As recent Indian poetry in English is no longer the shadow, it has become the substance, nor is it an echo but a potent voice worth listening to. It has acquired its own identity on the global scene and has become the synonym of success. A large number of male poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Keki N. Daruwala, V.K. Gokak, R. Parthsarthy, Krishna Srinivas, Dom Mores, A. K. Ramanujan, Shiv K. Kumar, O.P. Bhatnagar, D.H. Kabadi, Pritish Nandy, Keshav Malik, V.S. Skanda Prasad, Syed Ammeruddin, Baldev Mirza, I.K. Sharma, H.S. BhatiaI.H. Rizvi, Pronab Bandhopadhyay, Prakash Joshi, R.N. Sinha, Suresh Chandra Diwedi, Niranjan Mohanty, P. Raja, Narendra Pal Singh, Mahanand Sharma, Aju Mukhopadhyaya, G.K. Kottor, Tabish Khair and a numberless more have penned on the Indian women with their own viewpoints and angles. Owing to this reason, there is a need of comprehensive discussion over the title. The purpose of this paper is to make an in-depth study in the poetry of Indian English male poets who have represented Indian women
We can commence with comment of O.P. Bhatnagar who remarks:

“The milieu, ever since Indian poetry in English came to be written has been one of change, due to the influence of the western notions of love, individuality, freedom and equality of woman on one hand, and industrialization, social reforms, education and economic independence of woman on the other.”

Talking about the poetry on the Indian woman, the factors of development in the field of education an outlook cannot be under-rated if we take contemporary poetry into account. Modern poets have witnessed the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of the present time and their poems bear the testimony and tale of such bare realities of life of man and woman.
Nissim Ezekeil, the first Post-independence Indian English poet who gave Indian English poetry ‘A local habitation’ and a name, though he is of Bene Israel origin, he possesses a strong sense belonging to India, the country of his birth and living. His poetry covers a wide range of subject and variety of expression and vivid pictures. In the poem ‘On Bellasis Road’, he makes a graphic picture of Indian woman:

“I see her first
As colours only
Poised against the faded
Red of a post-box
Purple sari, yellow blouse
Green bugles, orange
Flow on her hair
A moment later
A sense her as a woman
Bare as her feet
Beneath the shimmer.” (IVE 3)

In the earlier poems of Ezekeil, we find the themes of love and woman both similar to the themes of Kamla Das. B.K. Das observes:

“He (Ezekeil) looks at love and woman from a man’s point of view as Kamla Das views love from a woman’s point of view. Flattery and bold advance are necessary for ‘survival and success’ in love and married life.” (CEP 24)

According to Ezekeil Sex and Sensuality are a part and parcel of life and in order to accept art one has to affirm sensuality for Ezekeil believes in art for art’s sake. In his passion poems and Nudes Sex moves centripetally and physical satisfaction of love holds the key in the poems. Some other poems like ‘Two Nights of Love’, ‘Recluse’, ‘Jewish Wedding in Bombay’; the consummation of love remains predominant. As Ezekeil examines a situation clearly and express it in his own words in on outspoken manner while observing a situation on which a woman was wood by a man in an unmistakable term, he says:
“You are a wonderful woman, he said
And she laughed happily
Having heard it before from many men
To see her naked
And to know how she surrendered
Who was so hard and vain
In that moment of mutual deception
And almost lovable.” (CEP 24-25)

In his ninth collection ‘Hymns in Darkness’, he makes the woman appear in the role of sex objects where he describes this intimate scene between man and woman in a calm and cool way:

“Don’t she says, don’t
Conniving all the same
Short of tearing her clothes
His using all his force
Soon his had what he wanted
Soft, warm and round.” (CEP 26)

In another poems lime ‘Motives’, ‘At the Party’ and ‘At the Hotel’, the persona of his poems looks at the woman from the point of view of male protagonist and his poetry in mostly satirizing doting on the man-woman, their manners and behaviourial norms, relationship between the spouses, their sexual preoccupations and the environments through which all the persone in his poetry have to pass the biological point of view and takes it as a normal instinct in man and woman. Sex should not be a myth but a reality like other realities of life; this has got to be described through in an artistic way:

“Ethereal beauties may you always be
Dedicated to love and reckless shopping
Your midriffs moist and your thighs unruly
Breast beneath the fabric slyly plopping.”(ibid)

B.K. Das observes:
“Ezekeil uses unconventional words like ‘unruly thighs’, ‘plopping breasts’, ‘midriffs moist’ and describes female anatomy as well as garments in his poetry.”
Ezekeil like Kamla Das and Shiv K. Kumar uses erotic vocabulary in his poetry and makes an objective look at the realities of life. Here the comment of Prakash Joshi can summarize his poetry when he says:

“Mr. Ezekeil is a poet of body who loves the nakedness of woman as the work of God though she may manifest his in the form of a bitch.” (49)

“A.K. Ramanujan”, who according to C.N. Shrinath:

“is a fine craftsman with a super control over his medium in a fair response to his poetry.” (CEP 29)
Some critics of A.K. Ramanujan find in his poetry the syndrome of expatriation, alienation and obsession, yet quite a few speak of Ramanujan’s rootedness in his Hindu experience and his ‘Indian sensibility sharpened and conditioned by a western education’. Family is the nerve centre of Ramanujan’s poetry. Most of his poems have their origin in poet’s recollected personal emotions and have a touch of nostalgia and pathos. His description of woman is catalogued in many forms of woman as mother, wife, daughter (widowed daughter). His poetic outputs namely ‘The Strides’, ‘Relations’(1971) carry distinguishing features of autochthonousness, Indian myths, symbols, people, customs, rich cultural and spiritual heritage constitute corpus of his poetry. The image of Indian woman by Ramanujan is drawn with his portray of family in some of his remarkable poems like ‘Of Mother’, ‘Among Other Things’, ‘Love Poem for a Wife’ and ‘Small Scale Reflections on a Great House’, where ‘Family, the theme haunts the poet and there are some other poems which owe their origin to recollected personal emotions and deal with his memory of relations. In the light of this view ‘Of Mothers, Among Other Things’ is a soft soothing poem which encompasses the mother’s youth, her unerring care for the ‘Crime Cradles’, her devotion to her worth unmindful of the rains and the fluttering loose Saris and her painstaking responsibilities. He says:

“My cold parchment tongue licks bark
In the mouth when I see her forth
Still sensible fingers slowly flex
To pick a grain of rice from the kitchen floor.”(TS,26)

Another poem ‘Love Poem for a Wife’ highlights the poet’s sense of estrangement from his wife but there is no such writing of the heart and the tone has softened considerably in portraying the lean and thin but lovely and charming face of poet’s wife:
“My wife’s face still fast
As sleep as blessed by
Butterfly, snake, ship rope,
And grandmother’s other
Children
By my only love’s only
Insatiable envy.”(Rel.,5)

The poetry of A.K. Ramanujan is a projection of his feelings through the invention and structuring of images particularly Indian Hindu life where woman is circumscribed into his own boundaries of thoughts, imagination and Indian ethos.
Dom Mores is much similar to A.K. Ramanujan when he reopens the book of his memories related with his mother when he says:

“These relics of my mother, which
Came brown paper, caused me griefs
The rich brecades the ornaments
Napthalena balls dead photographs
And a white bra, lapsed in the cups
Since she last slipped it off to sleep.”( NBIPE, 123)

‘Letter to my Mother’ which is in the section New Poems revealsMoraes as a mature poet who has renounced the childhood of fairies, angles and demons and tries to enquire the pathos of mother and through her the country of his origin and finally reach at a mood of humbleness:

“You pray, you do not notice
The corpses around you
Sorrow has stopped your eye
Your dream is desolate
It calls me everyday
But I cannot enter it
You know I will not return
Forgive me my trespasses.”( SCIEV, 80)

Most of the Indian English poets have tried to draw a sketch of contemporary Indian society which is characterized by economic, physical, cultural and personal laughable and pitiable and man and woman both are dehumanized or insensitive to the pains and throes of their beings. Contemporary Indian English delineate a transparent picture of Indian women like we may glance the poem of Pronab Babdhopadhyaya who depicts the degradation of woman when he says:

“Ila ray must run
Another hundred or two
Selling off
Her evening ardour youth.”( CIEP, 136)

And at another place he writes:

“On the dark silken chest
Of the woman night
The dead mother
Sucking the sleeping child
The bare naked rails
The hardened python
Of a weary civilization
The pavements as seasons of the year
Shift mood. Colour, stance.” (139)

In the poem ‘Indian Woman’, Shiv K. Kumar Describes the Indian women who while making a queue near a well for water wait for their men’s return who have gone ‘beyond the hills’. Here he wishes to draw the image of rural and tribal India come alive in the poem:

“In this triple baked continent
Women don’t etch angry eyebrows
On mud walls
Patiently they sit
Like empty pictures
On the mouth of the village well
………………………..
With Zodiac doodling on the sands
They guard their tattooed thighs
Waiting for their men’s return.”( IVE,53)

There are scores of poets who describes the physical beauty of women in their poems. For them women is considered be merely a commodity to be exploited and where all scribbling of these poets are to meander to and fro alike pendulum of confusion like Keshav Malik when feels sad at the loss of beauty of woman, says:

“Lady I see how time dates your beauty
Your Sylph like figure wrapped each revolving year
With layer on layer of rich fat,
Till to my recognition you are all but lost-”( MIEP,105)

Some poets like Syed Ameeruddin and Tabish Khair mingle their feelings of love when they draw the picture of woman infuse the element of nature in it also. Tabish Khair says:
“Into the winter of my maidenhood
You came as the spring
With the promise of budding flowers
And past a summer of warm womanhood
You left me as the autumn
With the empty rustle of manhood.”( COIEP, 79)

Similarly Syed Ameeruddin appears to be celebrating in the feeling of love and longing when he is in the communion of woman or her beloved:
“Let us celebrate
The night of White shadows
Shed by liquid moon
Sunk in the debris of rivers
Come beloved!” (COIEP, 20)

But unlike many of his presceder-poets O. P. Bhatnagar takes woman not for sex or baby food. Though in his mocking tone he tries to tell us:

“That sex is not a baby food
To stick to only one brand
Least it may cause indigestion
To one’s delicate system in growth.”

Rather he makes us to see sex in a refreshing manner when he says:


“Sex should come as challenge
Not as shame or consolation
Or something to shy from
It’s a pleasure on which body grows
And soul feeds like honey
Made rich by the extracts of different flowers;
Serving ideas with a different hue
Causing wide stomach upsets
Agreeable but only to a few.” (COIEP, 55)

Bhatnagar seems nowhere apologizing of permissiveness in sex rather he appears to be criticizing the conventional morality which is imposed on woman only which is a clear affirmation of Bhatnagar’s faith in human values as that which is biologically and socially advantageous to the species. There are several Indian English poets who respect and honour the dignity of woman for they believe ‘Yatra naryastu poojyante; ramante tatra devta’(where woman are worshipped; God resides there) Dr. C.L. Khatri, editor cyber literature respects the woman as woman who asks the mythical Draupadi, the classical heroin of the Mahabharata to come down from heaven to redeem the dignity of her sisters:

“Come down from heaven Draupadi
Regain your dignity, awake the Pandavas
Re-enact your historical swear
Redeem the dignity of your sister.” (44)

In the contemporary Indian English poetry the suppressed voice of woman is not only uttered forcefully by these poets but also they have tried their best to uproot those fanatic, chauvinistic and traditional bound superstitious and myth ridden ancient approach from our minds. As Indian woman for long has been under the grinding wheel, enchained, muffled and voiceless and made to surrender to the whims, fancies and eccentricities of ‘savage’ man, his over lordship and to treat woman as a chattel. The life of woman remains a saga from birth to death, beret with agencies, pains, depravation and untold sufferings and though much has been done by Indian English male-poets to ameliorate the plight of Indian woman from time to time by their constant efforts of voicing the predicament of woman and their crucial needs as well as arising as a host of questions and demand to be discussed in public it is yet to gain ground in our male dominated society. Here it is important to know that a poet is free from cliques of poetic form, metre and rhythm as well as the literariness and morality, yet he has to keep up the tradition of poetry and remain fully conscious to the societies’ lackadaisical approach and apathy towards the one set of society whose whole history has been a sorrowful tale of prostitution, beggary, rape, slavery, child labour and discrimination. If we glance at the whole spectrum of Indian English poetry, we will find that the issues and her present situation has been portrayed more forcefully by the Indian English poets who are male and who are also considered to be belonging to the category of man called synonymous with the adjectives of ‘Savage’, ‘Brute’ or ‘Seducers’ of woman.



References:
· A.N. Diwedi (Ed), (Studies in Contemporary Indo English Verse- A Collection on Male Poets, (abbreviated as SCIEV in the text), Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1989.
· O.P. Bhatnagar, ‘Love:Male and Female Responses’, Love and Death in Indian Poetry in English. Ed. S.N.A. Rizvi, Delhi: Doaba House, 1989.
· Syed Ameruddin (Ed.), Indian Verse in English, (abbreviated as IVE in the text), Madras: Poet Press, (1977).
· B.K. Das, ‘Nissim Ezekeil and the Making of Indian English Idiom’, Critical Essays on Poetry, (abbreviated as CEP. in the text), New Delhi: Doaba House.
· Prakash Joshi ‘Attitudal Dichotomy in Nissim Ezekeil Poetry’, Literary Horizons, Amravati:January, 1987,
· A.K. Ramanujan, The Strides, London: Oxford University Press, (abbreviated as T.S. in the text) 1966.
· A.K. Ramanujan, Relations, London: Oxford University Press, (abbreviated as Rel. in the text) 1971.
· G.K. Kottor (Ed.), A New Book of Indian Poems in English, (abbreviated as NBIPE in the text), Kolkata: Writers’ Workshop, 2000.
· B.K. Das (Ed.), Contemporary Indo English Poetry (abbreviated as CIEP in the text), Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1986.
· B.K. Das (Ed.), Modern Indo English Poetry (abbreviated as MIEP in the text), Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1982.
· I.H. Rizvi (Ed.), Contemporary Indo English Poetry (abbreviated as COIEP in the text).Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1988.
· I.H. Rizvi (Ed.), Contemporary Indo English Love Poetry. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1990.
· C.L. Khatri,Kargil. Patna: Cyber Publicaton House, 2000.
· O.P. Bhatnagar, Angles of Retreat. (Abbreviated as AR in the text), New Delhi: Samkaleen Prakashan, 1979.

‘The Route to the Open Sea’- The Poetry of Rita Malhotra

When looking at the whole scenario of Indian English Poetry from pre independence to Post independence, Pashupati Jha’s observation is noticeable:
Although Indian English poetry written by women marked its presence in the nineteenth century with the arrival of Toru Dutt, further reinforced by Sarojini Naidu in the next century; this poetry, despite its strength and importance, lacked a sense of immediacy and intimacy of personal experience. These poets were more concerned with establishing their credential as an Indian poet writing in English than with the exploration of their inner urge…but after the mixed sixties of the twentieth century, a perceptive change was noticed with the emergence of ‘I’- an assertive self in the poetry of Kamla Das and this trend went on gathering strength with Mamta Kalia, Eunice De Souza, Sunita Jain, Lalita Venkateshwaran and Shri Devi. (Jha)

We find that a major shift of ideas and themes from objective to subjective, from self expose to self-identity and from imitativeness to originality. The simultaneous growth and development in the field of woman and her consciousness can not only be discerned in the society but also it is a living reality in the woman literature also. Woman poets have been the true janitors of different heritage and cultures as well as they are the emotional sculptor of civilization. In this context the post independence Indian English women poets mainly Anna Sujata Modayil, Chitra Prasad, Rohini Gupta,Dorothy Sinha, Gauri Deshpandey, Kamla Das, lluxmi Kanan, Lalita Vyankateshwaran, lila Dharmraj, Monika Verma, Ira De, Tapti Barua Kashyap, lila Dalmiyan, Renu Roy, Roshan Alkazi, Mamta Kalia, Mina Alexender, Sunita Jain, Suniti Namjoshi, Vimla Rao, Marry Andasgupta and Rita Malhotra are the pioneers of Indian English women poetry. Unlike their processors, these poets are rich in their sensibility and craft both. Besides, they claim to be categorized in a separate class called Modern Women Poets.
Moving our glance from the whole scenario to the poetry of Rita Malhotra in particular, we will find the velvety woman and caring and caressing poet in her. Sobrato Bandhyopadhyaya aptly remarks:

The ‘poetical- key’ in Malhotra’s poems opens doors to delicate songs with balanced rhetoric and emphasis of conviction a perfect admittance to one’s interior shadows, powerful enough to fly through innovative intuitions. (Blurb)


A reader in Mathematics at Kamla Nehru College and visiting Post Graduate Faculty, Delhi University-, Dr. Rita Malhotra is a PhD in Mathmatics and has been a Post Doctoral Fellow at University of Paris IX on a French Government Fellowship. She has published her two collections previously; the first one is Reflections published by Writers Workshop Calcutta (1997) and the second Images of love published by Virgo publications (2003). She is widely translated, published and awarded. Her poetry carries several imprints of romanticism but does not forsake the plight and challenges of modern life and woman in particular.
In her I am not Your Woman and Other Poems her latest collection, Rita mingles memory with meandering emotions and is seen absorbed in the quest of roots of love in woman’s life. In her opening poem ‘I am Not Your Woman’ when she in the end says:

Today he is synonymous
With absence
Today I seek a route
To the open sea. (1)


We find a blend of past with the present as the warp and woof of her poetry which is synonymous with aerial presence of love that is a light house anchoring the poetry of Rita to the new shores of experiences and meanings. Her poetry, therefore is not merely a document of personal experiences, rather it bears agonies, pains and anguish of modern life in society wherein she with the subjects of child marriages, rape of minors, child prostitutes, hypocrisy of man, homeless children and the hollowness of middle class ethos in urban India and the false babble of politicians. In her poem, ‘Woman’ she metaphorically compares woman to a ‘flowing river/ assuming myriads shapes, shades/ along her journey/ through life’s rocks and stones/ in its fickle twist and turns’ ignoring the ravages of time. She portrays all the images of Kali, Rukhmani or Gauri in her woman and expands her ocean of thoughts and makes the woman to ‘welcome, embrace/ to prayers, sins/ ashes and all.’ Similarly in her poem ‘Bindi’ which is marked as ‘caste mark of profound piety, Rita muses over myriad aspects and journeys through myriad moods and finally speaks in the words of Bindi:

I empower
I endow her with sense of space
As I pave the vibrant way
She remains the soul
Of this day.(20)


In another poem, ‘Cookie Woman’ she mirrors the fate and plight of woman when she says:

Woman, born, reborn
And born, again
All in one birth
A function of man’s desire
Seeking sense in
Sometimes- loved
Othertimes- ignored gestures
Shaped, chiseled,
To suit her master,
Is the manicured cookie
Relished bite by bite until
Dreams defeated,
She is a shapeless mass once more. (39)


Similar thoughts are exposed in the poem ‘Widow’:

Disarray of solitude
Shuts her eyes to lust lies
Brutal desires drowns her sobs of shame
Dignity imprisoned for life
She dies once more, and once more,
Numberless times. (50)

In the poem ‘Words’ she alike Baldev mirza considers words as a potent medium to bring the people close in the words of Mirza who says:
I fling a cord of words
To walk unto me.
Similarly Rita says:
“Words drew us close
Words tore us apart
Light- years hence
We reach out once again
Treading upon the word-path. (108)


The creative genius of Rita is chiefly visible in her poems of love, nature and man and woman relationship where she is both candid and confessional without any inhibition on her part and where she expresses her notions in simple, genuine and human style, displaying a rare emotional maturity, combining tenderness, passion and emotions and her weakness if any is the weakness of entire class. Her sensitive and sober observations are the both penetrating and piercing that can be seen in her poems ‘Untitled’, ‘Infidelity’, ‘Prisoners of Patterns’, ‘Canvas’, ‘Unwed Mother’, ‘ Solitude’, ‘Footstep’, ‘distant’, ‘Devote’, ‘New Son’, ‘Tempest’ and ‘Picture Perfect.’ Besides, poems like ‘Silence’, ‘the Sea Within’, ‘Borrowed Bliss’, ‘metropolis’, ‘ Land- Sea- Land’, ‘tempest’, ‘ Blanket night’, ‘ night’, ‘ Kaohsiung Images’, ‘Earthquake images’ and ‘Like Every Other Day’ are full of the hues of the Nature in which Rita has tried her best to portray almost all the aspects of Nature and life. For example, in the ‘Earthquake images, she says;

The earth quakes in fury
Puts life to a dreadful sleep
Shakes the dead awake.’ (96)
Or in ‘Kaohsiung Images’ she draws a sketch:
“Moments linger
Through reciprocal promises
Of meeting again
Memory-laden
We return
Shut eyelids of the stare-strewn waters
Of the Love- river
Conceal sadness-rears. (95)


In another poem, ’Metro-morality’, Rita gives a realistic picture of the metropolis:

Sultry monsoon-evening
Screeching cars
On angry abused roadsoccupants sport
Latest- in- fashion’ garments
On way to a dinner meet
Deliberations on the Agra summit
And the Phoolan Devi- killing
Follow talks of
Hectic schedules and humid weather.

x x x x x

Curses damn the inhuman city
Warped morality manifested,
Pseudo-compassion warded off
Like a swarm of bees,
The car moves on, A C full blast
The F M channel plays
The next popular number. (101)


And in another poem ‘Freedom Fighter’, she is both realistic and emotional at the sad demise of a freedom fighter:

Today log-stiff, still
Draped in white
He smiled his death smile
The medal shines bright
On his frail proud chest. (86)

Or in ‘Their Tuesdays’ she puts a humorous and ironical picture of the hanuman temple:

The affluence-draped devotee
In white Jasmine fragrance
Falls prostrate
Seeking divinity
In garlanded exaggeration of stone idols
The priest’s vulture-glance gleefully crystallizes in
The generous offerings
At Hanuman’s divine feet. (79)

The short poem or the Tercets appended in the last of the book are no less sensuous, beautiful and poetic in which most of the poems are about love, pain, hope, nature and feminism where the three unities of rhythm, idea and vision can be found predominant.
The metaphoric images, graceful symbols, alliterative phrases, deed ruminations and excavations of heart’s pain, fine arrangement of words, appropriate linguistic use, constitute these short poems. For example, we may take the first Tercet in which Rita creates a metaphor when she says:

Lotus leaf
Trembling water drops
Hint of love. (123)

Or a silent pain can be heard when she says:
“The slow exudation of ironic perspectives the protraction of impulsive labouring and the conception of emotional candour is obvious in these tercets where Rita’s authentic poetic sensibility which is mostly charged with self-indulgence, self-experience and a vacuity which remains visible in most of the poems hits at the genesis and the development of the idea, and the motive of the poet. The Indian ethos and sensibility are nowhere absent nor the deep-rooted Indian rituals have become fetters like other Indian English Women poets who denounce the social bindings’ rather she voices the issues of woman more forcefully than any other current woman poet. She is never dismayed or dishearten in the adverse times when she appears to be saying:

I remember time
In colours of hurt
Yet I dream dream.”(126)
X x x
“Algae- covered pond
Depressed waters
Yet the lotus smiles a fresh pink. (130)

Yet we become reflective when we read such lines:

Can we give the street child
His last childhood by drooping
A coin into his begging bowl?’(134)
X X X
Woman today
Is not a mere mirror
That magnifies the image of her man. (135)

According to her, the human quest and human predicament is much similar to these tercets:

Immense daylight, edgeless
Scorching desert sands, endless
Search for an oasis continues.”135
X X X
Wild grass
In the graveyard
Flower struggle to survive. (Ibid)


She, at times, appear to be breaking all restrictive codes of decorous behavior of poetry but she never cuts across the boundaries of morality and decency rather she remain emotional, poetic, and flowing. A fusion of transmutation of image, symbol, metaphor rhythm and tone with feeling create a high sensitivity and vitality in her poems as well as the intensity of experience and the prominence of feeling and sensuality make her more passionate balanced and celebrated artist. Her ward pictures are lively, vivid as she is gifted poetic artist who uses vivid, crisp, evocative and alliterative phrases: - blank between, melodies, meanders, hired henchman, romantic resides, powerful prostitutes, dew drops, brocade-blanket, anxious anticipation, diurnal dip, deluging desires, falsity ferments, falsehood, whistling winds, glow golden, cheerful chocolate, gamine grin, soft silk, brown buds, permanent probability, earnest expression, colossal cosmos, pattern played , profound piety, soberly splendor, death disguise, seismic storm, fragment flown, bare breasts, shambling seaside, sounds, fragile fabric, monochrome magic dark days and rocking rhythms, (in her long poems) lotus leaf, time trembles, death’s door, still sighs, stone-still shelf and wind-worn (in Tercets).
According to her, when ‘the soul embarks/ upon a journey to fantasy land, / floating stars on dark water / make a poem’ or when ‘dawn smiles / foaming waves lack- hands / in an endless white chain / a poem takes shape’ or when ‘ words weave poems / a nourished soul / spreads its wings’. It is nowhere a ‘sudden outburst / inspired moment’ / or ‘spontaneous overflow’. To her, poetry is a daughter of love and agony. It is a perfect marriage of experience and expression. We find her nowhere vacillating between the two or over weighing the one. She is nowhere away from life’s realities, so she remains interesting and charming. Here the comment of Dragan Pragojlovic worth mentioning:

Malhotra’s poems come into being between love and agony. Her poems do not ignore life’s truths. That is perhaps the reason why her poems often convey very deep emotions and sound honest. The reader cannot remain indifferent and would be able to feel the warmth and pain of Malhotra’s verse in his mind. (Blurb)

Besides, the two poems, the one on Dr. A.P. J. Abdul Kalam and the other on’ Mother Teresa’ are also beautiful because they not only eulogize the two luminaries but also leave a didactic note.
It is our turn now
Deep inside, each one
Is a proved brave heart
Ready to walk along
The path you carve
Beyond thoughts, beyond dreams.
Beyond times. (114)

Therefore from the above observation, we may clearly see that the poetry of Rita Malhotra is pure and perfect in the sense as it dose not leave its readers reflective on account of its suggestive, vigorous and lively images revitalize and recharge the human being should be the aim of the poets to make their readers both passive and active; passive in the terms of human regeneration or disorganization and active in the terms of vivacity of thoughts and emotions.
The collection I am not Your Woman and Other Poems paves the way to open sea on which we find her moving constantly with silent steps. The Indianness, picturesqueness, truthfulness, innocence, viability, suggestiveness, clarity, appropriateness and the accurateness of Mathematics is well reflected in Rita Malhotra’s poems. So she remains graceful, delicate, mature, perceptive, innovative and balanced from beginning to the end of the collection. I personally wish for the long life of such creative genius so that she may continuously bliss her readers with her mesmerizing poetry.




References:
Jha, Pashupati, ‘The Emergence of ‘I’ Among Indian Women Poets’ Indian Writing in English: Tradition and Modernity. Amar Nath Prasad (Editor) and Kanupriya, New Delhi: Sarup and Sons. 2006.
I Am Not Your Woman and Other Poems by Rita Malhotra, Kolkata: Sampark, 2007.ISBN 8-7768-0463, Price- 250/-, pp140. (All the subsequent references are from the same poetry book)

I Live……..

I live a death
On the name of life
I live a hate
On the name of love
I live among false
In the sanctum of truth
I live an aphony
On the name of words
On the name of feelings
On the name of thoughts—

Do you live life in fragments?
Like I live in shattered broken glass pieces
Do you die of growing falsity in man?
Like I die often failing in life’s combat
Do you merge alike sinking ferry
Like I used to in my daily attempts of living
FRIEND! Can you understand?
What pricking of hearts means
What happens when you feel none around
Only dark mist beyond visions
Do you crave for stars
That fall from the sky
And just reside in eyes alike dreams
Do you ever grope something in dark
With hope of finding
And your search, when ends in
Desperation, farce and nothing at all

How do you live friend?
How do you live among these dead ?

Shaleen

VISIONS OF DELIVERENCE by Syed Ameeruddin, Edited by Krishna Srinivas, Chennai: International Poets Academy, 2006. ISBN 81-900653-2-7, price 300/- pag

Syed Ameeruddin is a poet of new awakening and his poetry which is complex, evocative and emotive has been widely published, anthologized and critically analyzed by the critics of India and abroad. His edited collection Indian Verse in English is judged as the most representative anthology of our time. For his laudable contribution Ameeruddin has been awarded with Michal Madhusudan Award, Australia Day award for literature (1980) and other prestigious awards from Indai and abroad. Syed Ameeruddin, ‘… is a poet with vision, mission, fusion and transfusion to vigorate and rejuvenate the dejected and faded spirits like phoenix’, is rightly remarked by Shujat Hussain, an eminent critic. He is ‘emerged as a unique phenomenon for his poetic vision, spiritualism, vibrating dynamism, symphonic symbolism, complex imagery and above all for his humanitarian and metaphysical concerns’. (A Critical Review, 226 )

The latest collection Vision of Deliverance is before me for review and I find it too difficult to sum up the critically this magnum opus in few words. And yet an attempt is being made to look into the book in critical way. The collection has thirty poems and a few critical opinions on Ameeruddin’s poetry before and after the collection are incorporated for a better critical understanding of the poetry of Ameeruddin.

The first poem ‘A Prayer for My Grandson’ which is according to late Dr. K. Srinivas has ‘epic dimensions’ and though in the form of personal conversation the poet has beautifully mingled social consciousness, philosophy and predicament of modern life in the poem. We can see it in the following lines when he, addressing his grandson, says:

Who are you my little angel…!
Tears of blood
Roll into my eyes.
Where all this will lead-
And to what destination?
This fiasco of inhumanity
Will certainly lead-
To the symphony
Of demure sepulcher,
And to an orchestral cemetery-
A diabolic deluge!
A celebration-
Of vicarious vultures! (39-40)

Though the collection has poems of various tastes like, Nature (‘Moonlit Meanderings’), Nationalism (‘My India’), Spirituality (‘Mystery of the Divine’, ‘Vision of Deliverance’), yet the poems of love (‘A New Love’, ‘Drumbeats of Dampatya’, ‘My Beloved’, ‘Love Times’, ‘Your Eyes’, ‘Your Are a Beautiful Poem’, ‘Love Song’ and ‘Come Dancing Thine Way to Mine Arms’) have remained predominant in the collection. A fine example when poet referring mythological characters writers to his wife:

The rest is a ravishing history
Of nuptial bond-with a wiggling march.
I saw a sonorous Parvathi in you
And you perceived in e a vivacious Shiva
We Vis-à-Vis- and hand in hand
Crossed the travails and thrills of life
With melodies of devotion
And enchanting drumbeats of ‘Dampatya’. (180)

The title poem ‘Vision of Deliverance’ is the finest poem of the collection both from the points of view of idea and diction. The poem is replete with evocative phrases like ‘eerie furies’, ‘hoary diadems’, ‘phallic deliriums’, ‘trembling rills’, ‘rhythmic plethora, churny gurgles, canaled thunder, and purple holes, ethereal slumber, aspen pantomime’ on one hand and beautiful alliterative phrases like ‘alphabetic acrobats’, ‘labyrinthine lilts’ ‘scissoring slops’, ‘shimmering shrieks’, ‘smithereens souls’, ‘rottening riots’, ‘puerile play’, ‘vast vista’, ‘frenzied flash’, ‘tyrannous trance’, ‘luscious light’ and ‘gurgling galaxy’ on the other. This poem is coupled with lively similes, imagery and symbols to intensify the impact of the poem. The poem commences with the volley of questions of the protagonists resulting in Neti…Neti…Neti, and-

The Moksha! The Magfirat! The Nirvana!
The blow of ‘Soor’
The drumbeat!
The Shriek of Shankh!
Deliverance! Deliverance! Deliverance! (202)

The poem has universal appeal and charm which can captivate each reader’s attention and leave a lasting impression on him. The poem can be called perfect for it is rich in rhyme, thoughts and feelings. The deep-rooted Indian ness and philosophy epitomized in the poem has made Ameeruddin a mastercraftsman of our time.

To sum up, it can be said that Vision of deliverance is a book which gives us a glimpse of India, her philosophy and consciousness and establishes Ameeruddin among the finest poets of Indian English writing.