In an era where gross commercialism reduces the valorous revolutionaries into feigned black T-shirt sporting life styled rebels and the fast expanding globalization exposes us to a hail of deadly arrows of mono-culturalism, what can save us from the frenzied and menacingly threatening world? Do tenderness and ferocity filled words go far beyond the aesthetic and voyeuristic pleasure? A perceptive study of the Hindi poetry written during the last 15 years reveals that Hindi poetry exactly aims that with remarkable ease and enthusiasm. A reputed literary e-magazine Samalochna carried eminent Hindi critic Om Nischal’s insightful appraisal of several Hindi poets whose outpourings put up a creative bulwark against glumness and import a sense of meaning in the notoriously excoriating society.
For the editor of the e-magazine, Arun Dev, poetry is nothing but a roar against the arrogance of the power and to drive this point home he published Om Nischal’s brilliantly written analysis “Fifteen Years of Hindi Poetry from the Prism of Books” and his sharp witted essay is certainly a delightful spoof on the theory avoidance prone articles churned out routinely by Hindi criticism.
It goes without saying that almost every human activity has become subservient to commercialism and no one seems in a position to take up cudgel against it. Now it is the turn of Hindi poetry to supplement what has been left out and according to Om Nischal a number of Hindi poets offer a spirited resistance and the inherent human ability to fight off becomes quite visible in the works of Kunwar Narain, Kedaranath Singh, Arun Kamal, Chandrakant Devtale, Leeladhar Jaguri, Ritu Raj, Naresh Saxena, Ashok Vajpayee, Rajesh Joshi, Arun Dev, Manglesh Dabral, Dinesh Kumar Shukla, Kumar Ambuj, Savita, Anamika, Asutosh Dubey, Sanjay Kundan Prabhat and the like .
Stamping out the very foundation of their existence- land- and handing it over to the builders for making easy money is the oft repeated narrative story and many farmers fall prey to it. Naresh Saxena’s poem “In this rain” vividly narrates the perils of chasing ambition by selling the land as it inflicts the seller with the unexpected curse of oblivion:
“Whoever got my land,
Now my rain has been with him
Black clouds gather for him
The whistling cry of cuckoo is for him
Gold like aroma of the earth is meant for him
Ox and plough is no longer mine”
The poet rightfully asserts that one who loses his land, sky eludes him and he vanishes without trace.
Arun Kamal’s subtle and realistic portrayal of the fast growing unjust world brings out both the agony and ecstasy of a life dedicated to something grisly but unspecified.
His recent collection of poems “Putli Mein Sansar”, presents an alternative to what the dominant discourse of our times offers and for him not much seems to be going right in the world today. Om rightly asserts that Arun’s poems pay heed to the sound of silences and gapes that is hardly audible in the world. The ruinous march of exploitation leaves him completely exasperated:
“The moment I try to get a bite
Someone calls me”
His laconic poems are well crafted and replete with fresh images and they unfailingly symbolise an indomitable life force both pensive and reflective.
Ashok Vajpayee’s poems fluctuate between opulence and the banal interruptions and the narrator did not reach where he wished he could have. In the first poem of his latest collection “Kahin Koi Darwaza”, the poet laments that space for anguish and sense of loss is dwindling gradually.
Violence has become most deadly but equally handy weapon which is being used by the terrorist and the state to pulverise the masses and it astounds Kumar Ambuj who could not put up with and killing for humanity or restoring peace and boosting morale does not go well with him.
The latest issue of Samalochana not only meticulously maps out the creative terrain of the contemporary Hindi poetry but also acquaints the readers with changing dynamics of Indian society and for this Om Nischal and Arun Dev deserve appreciation.
