Maybe it’s time to think about what it means to be a poet writing in English in a country that barely cares about poetry. Of course, poetry collections continue to appear, mostly at the poets’ own money, in print and online, but it has been difficult to reach the influential media and academia. General support is lacking.
Aside from power and politics, practicing poets and editors like DC Chambial, PCK Prem, TV Reddy, PK Joy, IK Sharma, RK Singh, Angelee Deodhar, Atma Ram, HS Bhatia, Pronab K Majumder, P Raja, Sudhir K Arora , Abnish Singh Chauhan, CL Khatri, Shaleen Kumar Singh, KV Dominic, CL Khatri and many others have been generously supporting powerful voices that deserve public and scholarly attention. Even when they demonstrate an understanding of the poets’ relationship to both the present and the past, to the rich literary tradition and to the sociopolitical system that denies their presence, the problem of literary mediation remains. His muse struggles to gain a foothold in the world of literature.
Unless scholarly research on emerging and marginalized poets and writers in English is promoted as a policy at local, regional, and national levels, native literary culture will not develop. It would be not only difficult but biased, exclusionary, elitist and negative to discuss contemporary trends and consciousness in creative writing without talking about the hundreds of new voices that appeared after Ezekiel.
If a poet like VVB Ramarao stands out, he is an experienced academic, bilingual writer and translator, it is not only for his ability to carry the message of Indian culture and heritage with dignity, but also for his ability to communicate. He sounds collaborative with contemporary life and society and writes with a purpose, which is both personal and social. Aware of the generational change, he looks at the outside world with a critical eye and tries to speak frankly. In the process, he turns inward to become religious, moral, and interpretive.
His manas, sensitive and mature as it is, creatively explores the conflict-ridden world: “kill, tear, rape, maim” with “strange codes for strange outrages”, and transforms into a life of love, kindness and compassion: ” Will the vultures turn into white doves, blue doves, and black birds? (‘The Seer’s Eye’), he suspects, but sounds reassuring when he says, “Suffering need not necessarily degrade” (‘Examining a Poet’) .
As he lays out what he sees outside: “Wholesale threats of extinction are on the cards again,” with Laloosaurs, tyrannosaurs, psittacosaurus, Apatosaurus, saltosaurus and so many other hydra-heads challenging humanity everywhere (“Maybe the center can’t hold on, things are falling apart” -Pessimism), demonstrates his inner strength: “But faith would never lose it”. He becomes positive and calls for order, to look inside, through the microscope of oneself, to see what he visualizes as “whiteness of mind” and “child’s face”.
Most of his poems are full of images and metaphors that reveal wisdom, knowledge, understanding and insight: “What is without is within/Seek the face of the child you love:/Just look within” (‘ Look inside’ ); “Ask not what the world has come for–/ Realize what you have come for” (Mall Malady Moron); and “Blessed is it to be alone / A consummation to be devoutly desired / That’s all we need to know” (“Blessed be He”).
The moralist and teacher in him is always on the alert: “It’s not enough to have a watch right on your wrist/You must know the value of time” (‘For our grandchildren’); “Spirituality needs wisdom and mercy” (‘Seeing through the ICU’); “The days of liberation move farther and farther away / Hydra heads can’t be decapitated at all” (‘Breasts of Prey’); “Between ism and feminism falls the shadow / Because his is the kingdom / Time does not heal: it only dulls. / Not everything is vanity: / Pain is real” (‘Blunted’); and “Only karmic suffering purges the dross” (‘Soul in transit’).
Ramarao’s didactic tone in many poems may or may not appeal to the new generation of readers, but all can feel the radiance of his thought. He tastes and generously shares what he calls “delicatessen” in poetry through holy wisdom: “Some tales in our scriptures, like epics, are guidelines for all.”
Like a seer-poet, he poignantly uses his metaphors to convey what may seem unpleasant but is true. He critically meditates on various social issues of the time and communicates his own personal vision, revealing the seasoned scholar he has been and seeking his own salvation. His poetry defines the way he perceives the world around him and shows what is inside him. There is a touch of faith in what he says. To that extent, his poetry is critical, with clarity of thought and diction, as well as humor, irony, satire, and a moral tone that draws him into the ways of the self with the same zeal with which he engages in bhakti or devotion. to being The Divine.
In fact, he flirts with the muse to experience the human and the divine as a seeker (cf. ‘Winter Rain’ and ‘Foul Play’). In his ‘Winter Flowers’ and other sex-laden poems, he seeks to emphasize how “love sex” is a means of fulfillment. If one wants more and more of it, it is because, for J. Krishnamurti, “there is the cessation of self-awareness, of ‘I’…complete self-forgetfulness.” It is a condition for freedom from the self, a spiritual state free from oneself, “seeking to be free from conflict because with the cessation of conflict, there is joy. If there can be freedom from conflict, there is happiness in all the different levels of existence.” .”
When Ramarao’s narrator speaks of give and take, longing for an exuberant warmth, in absolute unity of physical union, he seeks a greater continuity of pleasure and an escape from the deadly feeling of emptiness, isolation, loneliness. “Loneliness is hell,” he says. The poet seeks solace in the advait philosophy of unity, but warns: “Libido is not everything, it can light another hell on fire” (‘Vetting a Poet’). He continues:
“Hidden arsenals haunt a diabolical mind
Eager to add lustful continents to
The balloon bursting at the seams.
There is no point in chanting mantras for benign navigation.”
But love is its own eternity as discovering the paths of the self through poetry is Ramarao’s meditation. The volume is a discovery of the truth that everyone can enjoy. I’m happy to be a part of this as a reader.