End to End, by I. K. Sharma, Jaipur: Sand-Pra Publications, 1/30, SFS Mansarovar, 2008, Price-100/- Reviewed By Dr. Shaleen Kumar Singh

Dr. I. K. Sharma is a veteran scholar, translator, reviewer, Associate Editor (IBC) and poet from Rajasthan. He belongs to the age of O. P. Bhatnagar (on whom he has edited a book of critical essays entitled O P Bhatnagar – A Critic with a Big Heart 2006) Nar Deo Sharma, Prakash Joshi, R. S. Pathak, A.N. Dwivedi, K. Shrinivas, Atma Ram, P. K. Joy, P. C. K.Prem, T. V. Reddy and many more. It was an age when these poets were writing and thinking of strengthening the foundation of Indian English Poetry and Criticism so that it may be recognized as separate offshoots of knowledge of Indian Literature. Therefore the contribution of the above mentioned poets, critics need comprehensive appraisal. Dr. I. K. Sharma, with his poetry collections entitled- The Shifting Sand Dunes (1976), The Native Embers (1986), Dharamshala and Other Poems (1993), Camel, Cockroach and Captains (1998), and My Lady Broom and Other Poems (2004) and now End to End has acquired a prominent place among those luminary poets published from big publications Houses like O.U.P, Macmillan, Harper Collins and Longman. Here it is to be noted that his poetry has no less sensibility or poetic mettle than those of luminaries rather it excels them at some places.
The present collection under the review is dedicated to ‘those who/ muse about…/ and/ amuse themselves…’ The collection carries 27 poems in which a few poems are already published in some leading journals of India. The poems of the collection are of varied tastes and hues in which the experienced acumen of poetry is visible crystal clear. A careful study of the book reveals that the book is marked with the characteristics of simplicity, precision, music and spontaneity mixed with meditativness. The poems of the collection are both subjective and objective. Reckoning the days of childhood when ‘Nothing is sweeter than the mother’s lap’ and where ‘all sore notes of care end;/ to which no emperor can pluck this place of joy’/ ‘that a sage seeks in forest, many in ascetic yards,’ he sketches the school days somewhere keeping his own childhood in mind in the poem ‘School Interval,’ “Their sky breaks/ as the bell tolls,/ their minds turn and turn/ to raids of the ball;/ they, heads bent tumble into their pen/ like lambs with a brand on their skin…” (2)
He reaches to the evening of life i.e. Old age and answers beautifully in the letter to the editor in which someone wrote to the poet, “I am 84 waiting for the Whistle of Destiny.” But the poet responds strongly and says, “ Age whispers no doubt on the brink,/ nags to, but eighty four is no fatal number/ for him who floats ever in books’ pool,’ and musters up energy by saying-“ there is enough bounce in your bones,/ and right swing in your pen.’ (11)
Some poems like ‘Swami Dayanand Saraswati,’ ‘Wild Love,’ ‘The Singer Who Lost His Voice,’ ‘A Tribute,’ ‘A Tribute to Chidambaram,’ ‘May 13th,’ ‘How Untrue….,’ and ‘The Terminator’ are written on important persons, events and dates of history. But the poems like ‘Termites,’ ‘Just Like That,’ ‘When No One Stops to Kiss My Face’ and ‘Loss’ are fine examples of simplicity, pithiness, symbolic and evocative imagery. But ‘The Lost Face’ on her wife mirrors his deep love to his wife in which he says in the end;
From her ashes rises music
That in me shall not die
No face, no face ever
Shall fill my empty sky. (38)
And the poem ‘May 13th’ shows poet’s deep love to Jaipur and its people as well as his indomitable zeal against the terrorists. On 13th May a synchronized bomb attack by terrorists caused a huge massacre ‘in the city of cool gems’ when people tried to tie ‘bands of love’ and ‘dye every hurt with a soothing voice’ yet the terrorists tried to plant ‘venomous darts’ ‘to rip pink petals’ of ‘faith.’ The poet in Sharma is not terrorized, so he writes:
Wet with blood our armour is
Yet our heart is Chetak
Willing to maul mid summer madness
Of a hundred fusty gangsters.” (31)
Alike a perfect social conscious and ideal poet he knows his duty to bind the people in the thread of love and fraternity so that people may live a life of fearless citizen aware of his duties and responsibilities in the dark hour of fear and dejection.
The poems of the collection are both meditative and amusing. The choice of themes and then the tackling of it in a skilled manner establish the fact that Sharma’s poetry is superb and excellent and his poems bear the stamp of his wide knowledge as well as concern for individual and social harmony. This collection is replete with many experiences of love, hate and kaleidoscopic images of life and it gives an interesting reading resulted in joy and hope that Dr. Sharma will not end here but will write more and more.