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| R. K. Bhushan Sabharwal |
- Prof. R. K. Bhushan Sabharwal
This
collection of poems, Two Indias and Other
Poems, has shown the amazing growth of the poetic vision and poetic
craftsmanship of Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar. This is functional poetry embracing
the working and movement of life in its entirety and the poet’s honesty and
seriousness in understanding the urgencies of life are suggestive and
expressive of his convictions and maturity. This is an intensely lyrical
expression of the poet’s deep sensibilities, political, religious and social
tensions, pains, agonies and genuine concerns. His canvas has widened and encompasses
all that happens within and beyond time and space to sensitize the reader about
what damages and disgraces the harmony, goodwill, fraternity, peace and the
laughter of everyday human life. We can clearly hear the sighs, sobs, cries and
groans of the innocent, the neglected, the deprived and the victimized and the
helpless on the wounded, bleeding and suffering the beloved motherland; these
have been captured in all their nakedness and truthfulness in his fresh poetic
idiom and metaphor by the stricken conscience of the poet at the sight of the
vulgar and savage laugh of the callous powers that rule and run the sanctity of
the system with their loud-mouthed hollow declarations. The poet’s badly hurt
sensitivity speaks unafraid freely and frankly with strong convictions in no
choked voice, though at times, his screams are at their highest pitch. However,
these songs actually sing of his larger golden dreams of happy, healthy and
harmonious humanity, at present suppressed, crushed and destroyed, but can be
realized and fulfilled through serious moral and spiritual teaching. There is a
frequent sway and swing of the lyricism of the poetry of the British Romantics
like Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson and Yeats with echoes of the Irish guts
and grit in these radical and rebellious poems of Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar,
true to the meaning of his name (SUN) destroying the darkness from every corner
of the universe and warming and burning the cold and frozen hearts. This is
also his radicalism at the deplorable loss and unfortunate collapse of moral
and spiritual values with open, deliberate and audacious disrespect for the
ideals and sacrifices of the brilliantly enlightened personalities of our
beloved Mother India and those enshrined in our glorious literature. He asks
Delhi where the Duryodhanas and Dusshashans have become progressive and
proactive wearing a cosmopolitan mask standing tall in the modern Mahabharata
for the dignity, liberation and emancipation of women and watching the gaiety
of rapists whom the arms of law and justice cannot bring them to justice.
This
is a fine poetry of politics, persons and personalities playing upon the
innocence of the general populace; the poetry of pallid and peevish poverty and
people ploughed down into utmost penury by the conspicuously mighty but not
necessarily right. The poet’s mind delves deep into the past and present and
looks to happy vibrant future with optimism and faith as the social and
cultural traditions and religious ceremonies and rituals and rites followed and
practiced by the masses in innocence or ignorance but scrupulously shall
fructify one day in the fulfillment of desires and realization of dreams
cherished since long generation after generation. Bhaskaranand Jha shakes,
disturbs and rouses the sensibilities of the reader to the prevailing
wide-spread mess and spoils of stinking corruption, hunger, starvation,
exploitation and anarchy to the malicious delight of the powers that be there
but also acquaints and awakens the dull reader to wake up and rise to mend
matters. His tributes to the gems of India-A. B. Vajpayee and A. P. J. Kalam
are not that glowing and lacks luster. However, his poems on Maithili cultural
glory and his tribute to Maharajadhiraj Kameshwar Singh are indeed highly appreciable and deserve our
attention in knowing what Maithilis are and , for that matter, what
Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar is! The poet’s use of surprising richness of imagery
and striking poetic language and idiom to portray the procession of the events
and pageants of the contemporary world shows the wide expanse of his outreach
into the new horizons. This new collection of Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar’s poems is
a poetic assertion of Matthew Arnold’s dictum-“Poetry, at bottom, is a
criticism of life under the conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and
poetic beauty.” There is a notable and remarkable assertion and application of
this unchallenged function of poetry in all literatures. The poet here
exercises with restraint the moral responsibility and socio-cultural,
socio-religious and socio-political convictions to enlighten the reader about
the exact meaning and functional purpose of life.
The
poet’s heart bleeds at the complete criminalization of the entire social,
political, economic, religious setup and even the justice system and his pain
and anger find radical but genuine expression in poem after poem in this
collection. Most of these poems are a relentless indictment of the degeneration
and debasement of human values in a tactfully organized manner. The poet’s deep
pain and anguish, and his humanistic concern can be felt in such a
disheartening situation in the following lines-
“Where
corruption prevails,
The
corrupt are more active
…………………………………………….
………………………………………..
The
innocents are crudely run over
Their
ideals have a post-mortem.
……………………………………………..
The
country, poor, crawls with a bowl
For
the children, starving and naked.”
-Anarchy p19
The
closing of the poem awakens us to the conscious moral and spiritual collapse
wherein the devils dance in mad glee amidst willful confusion caused by the
intellectual cunning, hoax and hoodwinking-
“The
best become the worst of all
The
worst do prosper in full swing,
An
innocent heart lacks conviction,
A
tactful mind shrewdly robs like a king.”
-ibid
These
lines have a loud echo of W. B. Yeats. This cacophony of crooks about the
welfare of the masses, alleviation of poverty, development, prosperity,
nationalism, vision of a new India, deafening songs of sympathy for the
deprived, depressed, destitute and helpless to wonderfully improve their plight
has deafened , disturbed and angered the real poet, Bhaskaranand Jha. He says-
“Those
who follow don’t lead;
Those
who lead don’t follow.”
-Floral Tributes p20
The
poet is not only rues and critical of the performance of politicians but is
sarcastic and ironical about offering bouquets of flowers to them. And he is
absolutely right when he says that only very few deserve these bouquets even
when they die-
“A
very few deserve
Shrouds
of floral tributes
Just
after they die in harness…” -ibid
Even
today, India “divided into several pieces” remains ”scarred, stabbed,
butchered” and is still haunted by the English past, writhing and groaning,
born blind to the great sacrifices made by our forefathers and their “soaring
zeal of patriotism”. This youthful patriotism of this gifted young poet is
simply astonishing. We can hear the shocking cry of his soul in these lines-
“Secular,
moral, embracing conscience
Has
succumbed to lynching
And communal
crusade
That
is adamant to give another blow
To
the national fabric.
National
integrity and harmony
Have
lost their toil-stamped impression;
The
tri-colour looks unwilling to unfurl.
……………………………………………………………..
To
the mast of singing jingoism
For
carnage carnivals
For
a handful of vultures of the polity
And
the corrupt politics……….
…………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
The
old rogues
In
newly sewn Indian attires-
…………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………….
Pleasant
breezes are yet to blow afresh!
Soothing
rains are yet to kiss
The
half-dead crops alive in the dead field
Of
peevish and impoverished peasants.”
-1947
The
poet’s eyes are wide-open to see this disgusting show with tears welled up in
his eyes, his soul benumbed and the glorious poetry singing its functional
statement. “1947” is a striking metaphor for the selfless endless sacrifices of
our great forefathers for freedom to fulfill dreams of brotherhood,
understanding, peace, harmony, love, happiness and prosperous growth of
posterity. And what we have done, what we are doing and where we have landed
our beloved Mother land adored by the noble blood and sacrifices? Wow, dear
Bhaskaranand Jha! Salute to you for daring to portray the truth of the day!
Bhaskaranand Jha is faithful and truthful in portraying the polluted and stinking
mud of politics and polity with his daring poetic dash and dig at the managers
of the system suffering from deadly ailments “of lucrative schemes and
programmes”- “an eyewash for the masses” whereas-
“Theirs
is a kleptomaniac tendency
To
commit and omit scams and embezzlement,
From
the underworld of swindling thoughts….”
-Black
Sheep of Politics p 36
All
their hoarse declarations of idealistic and ideological standpoints lost in
hollow promises and shallow performance, their values of humanity, morality,
nationalism, “exemplary commitment, spectacular dedication” and even “their
patriotic loyalty to the nation”-
“Are
what they sacrifice or shun or drop now
To
the altar of dark politics of contemporary India
Staggering
stuck in mud of crimes and corruptions.”
-ibid
Not
only this, the poet is painfully aware of the dubious bloody games played from
across the borders against our land “of love, compassion and humanity.” The “untrusted
masquerading face” with blood-smeared hands engaged in back-stabbing since long
and exposed globally is a potential danger to our beloved motherland whose
cries rant the skies. Bhaskaranand Jha Bhaskar is at his poetic and patriotic
best in his short but very eloquent and rhetorical poem, “Cries of the Country”. He tells us how India is confronted with the
savage dread and dangers from the people
and powers beyond-
“Mentally
blinded by the lights of religions
………………………………………………………………………
With
jaws of fanaticism, inhuman resorting to fratricide
In barbarian
exercise of their perennial superstitious beliefs
Where
religion lies, humanity dies, God flees, and society cries.”
-Cries of the
Country p26
The
poet is using this as a double-edged sword to daringly expose the barbarian
irreligious and unreligious bloody tendencies of “deep-rooted bigotry, fanatic
hatred” gone mad to drench every page of the Book of Life with detestable
steaming blood! In “Hounds of Politics”,
the poet tells us how these beasts of prey have laid a long trap from which the
victimized poor have no escape. In “Dance
of Democracy”, he tells us that elections in democracy simply change the
people in power with their soaring greed maintaining the status quo and leaving
the general populace to roll and rot in their deplorable pitiable plight. The
evil curse of hunger troubles and teases and haunts the men and the cattle. In
a short poem of rhythmic beauty, “Hunger”,
the lyrical closing leaves the reader dazed-
“Fire
in the belly activates the hands
Rather
than building castle on sands.
Hunger
in mind makes us thoughtful
Mind
held high so grave and graceful.”
-Hunger p 56
Still
he breathes in “the billowing fragrance/ lingers in the gusty winds of hope” in
“Bleeding Roses of Kashmir.” (P27).
Amidst
all these cries, cruelties, callous crimes crushing to crush the beauty, truth
and humanity, the rapes of the innocent from two to twenty, eight to eighty are
celebrated here and the rapists remain beyond the long arms of the law and go
scot free. The poet’s anguished heart
bleeds-
“Nirbhayas,
Nancies and Asifas
Must
be murdered
As a
punishment to be born
A
mere helpless girl?
Unprotected,
all unsecured
In
their own volatile turf
Be
it home, society, state or country…”
-Sexual
Assaults p 34
Humans
have become beasts, brutes and savages and the yahoo is ferociously out to
rule. The poet says that in such a sorry and dreadful state of affairs-
“The
time is ripe to impart ethics-
Value-based
education;
The
dose of spirituality is a must
………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………..
Why
nor moralize an immoral society?” -ibid
These
are times of mass exodus also and Poll
Dates, Holy Cow, Republic, Award Wapasi, Have and Have-Nots, Happy Beggar,
Indian Demagogue, Political Brouhaha,
Smiling Buddha Bleeds, Freedom is Chained, Sobbing Sita, Sex Vultures, Demon is
Reborn- all tell their tale when
there is the Festival of Colours in the Hues of Life and the Hands tying Rakhi , Mother Goddess arrives and
the Goddess Durga is worshipped ceremoniously. Still the Railway Platform tells a different tale in the new and refreshing
poetic images, idioms and metaphor. The poetic personality of Bhaskaranand Jha
takes a whirlwind tour of the length and breadth of the Mother India. This is
the India where “Survival of the Fittest”
is the high sounding message for all. Zeal to survive in the world of turbulent
times alone moves us forward. This zeal is essential to be the fittest in our
game of survival. Here is the stark realism the poet emphasizes-
“Zeal
to survive in the world
Is
what matters most,
More
than anything else
In
existential life.” -Survival of the Fittest p 48
This
is the “sole motto and dictum”, we must carry on to pull ourselves through
these painfully troubled times. The poet understands that our society is not
only morally deteriorated, debased and decayed but also dead. This teaching and
moralization are the most urgent need and ought to be the top priority of those
who run, govern and guide the affairs of the country and society as-
“Deeds
and misdeeds both bleed
Good
deeds are crippled and crawl
Beaten
by the misdeeds of life’s race
Miscreants
outrage their modesty
……………………………………………….
………………………………………………………….
Sounds of deeds
echo but no outcome
For the rescue
of the victims harassed!”
-Silence of Sounds p31
When
we have an over-all honest view of these poems with the feeling heart and
loaded head of Bhaskaranand Jha, we realize that he has made, created and
directed poetry to be truly and significantly functional failing which poetry
is devoid of its life-blood and soul-stirring strains! These poems pierce
through the heart of the reader and the poet has successfully fulfilled his
mission as a poet in highlighting the cancerous ills that afflict our beloved
Mother India, society and humanity and cause writhing pains day and night; he
has also suggested meaningful effective remedies to cure and restore the health
of the Glorious and Resurgent India!
