Unwinding Self by Susheel Kumar Sharma
Reviewed
by
Dr.
Prakash Chandra Pradhan
Professor
Department
of English
Banaras
Hindu University
Uttar
Pradesh, India
Unwinding
Self | Poems | Susheel Kumar Sharma |
Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute, 2020, pp. 152, INR 250, $15
ISBN: 978-81-943450-3-9
Unwinding
Self: A Collection of Poems, written by Susheel Kumar Sharma
records the poet’s conflicts, doubts, and dilemmas. The persona’s compassion
towards human suffering in a chaotic world is noteworthy. Sharma’s search for
understanding ‘self’ and the world through his poetic sensibility is surely
appreciable. He has tried to explore his ‘self’ through multiple encounters
with a number of situations which are beyond the comprehension of the poetic
self. Sharma has made efforts to capture the mysteries and irrationalities in
the world to a considerable degree. His book can therefore provide a
pleasurable reading experience. It explores the complexities of human nature
and life. The collection of poems, though grounded in Hindu cultural tradition
of India, also points towards the poet’s training in English literary
tradition. The book has included seven reviews of the book itself, and a
glossary that can help the readers who have no much acquaintance with Indian
culture and tradition. The poems are meditative and reflective. They are
sometimes ambiguous since Sharma embodies different layers of meaning into
them.
Susheel
Sharma’s poems delineate myriad experiences because of his wide-ranging travel
to different places in India as well as abroad. His sincerity as a poet lies in
his representing his authentic experiences through his first-hand observation.
Sharma’s delineation of a thematic pattern is complex. Let us consider the poem
“Durga Puja in 2013” in which so many issues have been presented to connect to
the mythic representation Ma Durga
and Mahishasura : the poet’s mother, monumental pandal at Kalibari, raining
and darkness, darkness’s association with birds, tigers, dolphins and
seagulls, memory of destructive Phailan cyclone and serene beauty of Gopalpur
on sea. All of them contribute to the fragmentation of mental reflections of a
sensitive self in the contemporary world. The poem “ On Reading Langston Hughes’
‘Theme For English B’” explores the pathos of a poor boy willing to learn in a glorious University where
he is “treated like dirt” (pp 9). The poem obliquely referring to
Dronacharya-Eklabya episode of The Mahabharata
brings out the pathos of millions of poor and deprived students whose dreams
wither in their futile struggles to be successful in life because of the
callous education system. The bias for a foreign education and White culture
has the disapproval of the poetic self in the poems, namely “The Destitute”,
“The Black Experience” and “Me, A Black
Doxy”. The poet understands well the racial bias in a globalized world despite
liberal values. He denounces the colour bias, and pleads for human values and
hopes for the end of discriminations. Moreover, the miseries of a black
prostitute evoke emotions, pathos and compassion in the poem “Me, A Black
Doxy”. Another beautiful poem in the Collection is “Thus Spake a Woman” which
deals with the changing nature of life
despite the fact that basic tenets of life never change: “Life was fine. / Life
is fine/ Each one of us has to die.” (pp 19).. Often Sharma’s anger and
dissatisfaction are marked in the poems to correct the wrong trends and ethos
in a chaotic world. However, he presents the stories of his characters with
utmost sympathy and empathy as well. His compassion towards human suffering is
obvious in his treatment of Bubli, the girl, in “Bubli Poems”, the woman
dreaming in the poem “ Thus Spake a Woman”, a black prostitute in the poem “
Me, A Black Doxy” and the migrants in “The Destitute” and “The Black
Experience”.
The speaker in the first poem “Snapshots”
reflects on a number of spectacles, a myriad of scenes/activities observed.
Coming to the last poem “Stories of the Mahabharata” we understand that the
poet touches upon most of the episodes of the epic, The Mahabharata, in 25 stanzas. Going through the two poems, it is
obvious that the poet tries to find out meaning of life by contemplating the
self in fragments. Commenting on the diminishing vision of eye-sight by the
passage of time, the speaker in the poem “ The End of the Road” expresses his sadness: “ One’s reality becomes another
man’s burden/ If one loses one’s eyesight” (pp 4). Sharma’s poetic self is
introspective in the poem “Endless Wait”. He comments on how certain books in the book shelf wait for a pretty long time without being opened up for a reading by certain intellectuals who have kept them in their home library:
“Some have turned yellow/ waiting for me for ages” ( pp 60). Here we mark a satirical
note in the tone of the poem. Sharma’s use of metaphors and imagery is
brilliant in many poems in the Collection: For example, the poem “ The Soul
with a New Hat” attains beauty and power because of the use of a number of
images joined together to evoke rich symbolic meaning: candle, house, wind, tunnel, fog and so on.
Believing in the concept of rebirth ,
the speaker perhaps thinks of spreading light of knowledge and noble deeds so that he can have a better life in the next birth: “ My
next life will be decided /By my karma or devotion /To the cathedral” (pp 62).
Sharma delineates the pathos and sacrifice of a poor mother for her son’s
wellbeing in his life in the poem “Renewed Hope”: “She could pass days and
nights /Praying for him. With empty stomach/Invocation brings results quickly”
(pp 63).
Sharma
has made efforts to depict
varieties of his observations in various poems in reference to society and
personal experiences as we find in “The New Year Dawn”, “The New Age”, “The
World in Words in 2015”, “A Pond
Nearby”, “The Kerala Flood 2018”, “Sahibs, Snobs and Sinners”, “Buy Books, Not
Diamonds”, “Lost Childhood”, “Crowded
Locals”, “A Gush of Wind”, “Ram Setu” and “Cannaught Place”. Analysing these
poems, one can have a deeper understanding of Sharma’s poetic self. The poet
has interpreted the issues and problems with the sympathetic heart of a
passionate poet rather than as a sceptic finding faults in others. Sharma sees
a world of humanity helping each other in a busy place of trade and commerce:
I see a world of humanity here
Each vying to help each other
In their efforts to survive even in the
Competition to hook a customer. (Cannaught Place: pp 83)
In the poem “Ram Setu”,
he imagines the creation of a new world where people of different communities
and religious faiths can live together and respect each other:
Interfaith respect and dialogue are waiting;
Is it so difficult to make stones float and
Create a liveable and loveable planet earth? (81)
“The Fountain Square” seems to be an obscure
poem as in it we find the speaker trying to connect the myths of The Mahabharata to certain contemporary
issues through the employment of a number of disconnected metaphors: fountain,
marble, sun, water, flute, dice and palace. Of course, Sharma has heightened
the complexity of the poem entangling the various thematic strands. The complex
strand is obvious in the following as an illustration:
The wishes exuberantly dancing
By the water in the musical fountain
Look for the drummers, pianists,
Bass
players and guitarists. Krishna
With
his flute intact in his hip
Smiles
and smiles. (78)
The two poems “Coffee”
and “The Unborn Poem” are not so obscure and complex like “The Fountain
Square”. However, the way these two poems deal with the vision of the poet is
also peculiar: “Can good coffee be brewed/Without any whirling? / Does the
coffee taste good? / What did I get by rivalling the snobbism/Of my wine
drinking friend? /I have stopped asking silly questions;/I have learnt to live
with it” (Coffee 76). Let us take an illustration from the poem “The Unborn
Poem”: “Irony, satire, humour, jamboree/Stare at the enjambment./….The unsoiled
paper/ Has silver hopes…The epitaph needs/To precede/The poem” (pp77). I find
that the poet has attempted to convey his ideas and vision without being too
much explicit. Right, a poet conveys his ideas obliquely; however sometimes
Sharma becomes too much obscure and such obscurity affects precision and
clarity of meaning. I wish, the poet should have pruned slightly in many of the
poems. Nonetheless the poems also deal with Sharma’s keen observations about
human life and society.
The poet’s understanding of suffering of
the poor is obvious in the poem “Like Father, Unlike Son” when he interrogates:
“What is the point in burdening the dreams/ And packing them safely till the
doomsday” (pp 64). The poet has employed the interrogative syntax as an
important poetic strategy in many poems in the Collection: “Why should someone/
Pay me for/ Such thorny questions/And sedimented foot-falls?” (A Voice: pp 22).
The same is the case in the following: “What is the use of/Coming thus for/For
penance/ If one does not wish to lose life?” (Chasing a dream in the Ganges: pp
25). More examples can also be illustrated in other poems: “Why should a wife
bow down to her husband?”…. “Why to lie
prostrated before the Lord?” (Bubli
Poems: 44). Such interrogations are prominent in many poems because Sharma’s
poetic self has perhaps been greatly perturbed by the way the world is
governed. The self is not sure what is right or what is wrong. It seems that
the poet is often disturbed since he finds that there is a kind of obscurity
also in God’s Creation in the Universe.
Another marked feature in Sharma’s poetry is an informal
that enables the poet to express his ideas and vision in colloquial language,
rhetorical questions, repetitions, inversions, parallel expressions, contrasts
and a narrative often dominated by orality. Although some of the poems seem to
be personal and localized, they are however original since the poet beautifully
embodies his emotions and feelings into the local events with a considerable
authenticity. The important aspect in Sharma’s poems is his approach to the
contemporary issues to understand them in his own ways that enables him to
write naturally with some kind of original flavour. In the poem “A Family by
the Road”, the poet celebrates the happiness of a poor fellow who lives on the
pavement along with members of his family. The repetitive syntax beautifully
brings out the poet’s vision with emphasis:
Let me enjoy my freedom
I am proud of my poverty
I am proud of my ignorance
I am proud of my dirt. (pp 73)
We also find such
repetitive and parallel syntax which beautifies the description and brings out
emphasis as well: “I am the consciousness/ I am the reality, I am the water/ I
am the land” (pp 72). The beautiful but functional repetitions are also found
elsewhere in this poem: “You have to change your rules/You have to change your
books/ You have to change your atlases” (pp 72). Besides, Sharma also employs
contrast as a poetic strategy to heighten the effect and bring in variety and
beauty to the description: “Deserts need camels, not planes” (pp 72).
Repetition is perhaps a favourite stylistic marker in Sharma’s poetry. His
poetry attains a kind of musicality and liquidity as in the following:
Water alone does not make watermelons
They need some pulp, some sugar
Some strips and colour too. (pp 72)
Sharma delineates the
miseries and poverty of the man living on the pavement with compassion an
empathy; simultaneously the narrative is burdened with a touch of ironic note
and satirical tone:
We have befriended mosquitoes
And the lice alike. Bugs too
Give me company. So do the snakes?
Who then is
Affected by my poverty. (“A Family by the Road”73)
We can illustrate the
varied stylistic features in Sharma’s poetry in reference to the poems in the
Collection the poetic. These stylistic devices in his poetry add to the beauty
of the descriptions and narrations. They are also serving a lot of important
functions bringing in emphasis and vision powerfully.
Reading the poems in the Collection is immensely useful,
and provides a lot of pleasure when we understand the poet’s endless search for
meaning of life. Since life is dynamic, and it has its own flow, the poet seems
to be exhausted and he is in a dilemma whether he should search further or stop
his search. Close analysis of the poems shows that the poet’s search has been
inspired by rivers which flow on, and change their paths when their paths are
obstructed. Sharma has understood well that mere intellectuality is inadequate
to comprehend the mysteries of life. He therefore combines his intellectuality
with passion and emotion for a first-hand understanding of the Universe.
Despite crossing a long distance through his poetic sensibility, Sharma feels
that he has failed to understand the tricks of the mysterious world. He
therefore continues his poetic journey, and takes recourse to Indian myths and
cultural tradition for a better understanding of contemporary issues,
situations and crises through his poetic representations. Although he is not
sure, he however explores the heritage of rich Indian culture grounded in Hindu
tradition for an enduring solution to the conflicts of his self. Finally,
Sharma therefore refers to the many complex episodes in The Mahabharatain the last poem of the book, and contemplates them
thinking that the crises of the contemporary world might have an inevitable
conclusion as in the case of The Mahabharata.
Sharma’s exhaustive search for a meaning in life through
his poetic renderings remains incomplete despite his continuous efforts.
However, they are good attempts to raise human consciousness and awareness to
many ills and complex issues that we come across in life. Sometimes, the poet
is obscure because life itself is complex and obscure. Complexity cannot be
resolved in a straight forward approach. It needs many contemplations and
meditations. The book can therefore impress the readers in
the spiritual plane inculcating human values while entertaining them despite
the occasional obscurity found in some of the poems. The Collection of poems in
Unwinding Self is surely a plethora
of meditations and contemplations of the speaker. The imagery, the metaphors,
symbols and similes, the mythic representations and conceptual reflections
found in different poems are not merely decorative and beautiful for the sake
of art. They fairly contribute to the philosophy of the poet’s self: his
reflections and doubts, his confusions and interrogations, his assertions and
dilemmas, his joys and sadness, his rational mind and empathetic heart. Of
course, a few of the poems are obscure because of a number of thematic strands
in them found to be feebly connected. These poems however bring out the deeper
experiences of the speaker and his psychic reflections. I therefore think that
Sharma’s Collection of poems has the merits to stand top on its own, and can
give the readers an enjoyable reading experience.