A BOUQUET OF FRAGRANT FLOWERS — SOME WILD, SOME MILD MANAS BAKSHI’S DIALOGUE AT A DISTANCE
Dr. O. P. Arora
Former Associate Professor
Department of English
Delhi University
Delhi, India
Abstract:
Manas Bakshi is a renowned poet, short story
writer and critic. His poetry has won him many national and international
awards. Dialogue at a Distance is his fifteenth book of poems, a fascinating
collection indeed. Every page is vibrating with a new idea. God’s plenty in it,
for everyone. He is a keen observer of life, and his sharp insight weaves words
into magnificent poems.
Keywords: Manas Bakshi, Dialogue at a Distance, Modern
Indian Poet, Modern Indian Poetry
Manas Bakshi is a renowned poet, short story writer and critic. His
poetry has won him many national and international awards. Dialogue at a Distance is his fifteenth book of poems, a
fascinating collection indeed. Every page is vibrating with a new idea. God’s
plenty in it, for everyone. He is a keen observer of life, and his sharp
insight weaves words into magnificent poems.
In ‘Questioned By Faith’ (12) the poet
laments that human values are changing so fast that their ‘sanctity’ vanishes
each passing moment. The world of your convictions, he observes, has turned
into a ‘mirage’, it is in fact ‘crumbling down / At reality’s stroke’. There
are those incorrigible people who still vouch by ‘the last drop / Of faith in
humanism’, dare to ask questions about the degenerated and dehumanized,
sophisticated criminals involved in rape and murders or plunder of the national
wealth. The irony is, these guardians of the human values are made to realize
that their questions are absurd and meaningless in the context of the changing
times. Dr Bakshi is agonized to find that today, faith in human values or
humanism is outdated. There is in fact no place for the sanctity of anything in
the uncivilized world of this civilization.
What is the fault of those who live by these
values? The question naturally perturbs every sensitive person, including the
poet. Who is to blame for their desire to live and behave like humans? Is it
their crime to expect man to be a man? Sadly, they are mocked at for their
convictions that if human civilization is to survive, and if man should be
better than a devil or a dragon, he must have faith in the human values.
The poet, in another poem, ‘Most Likely’ ( 15
) fails to find any consolation in ‘the prosaic leaves / Of life’ and struggles
to get ‘the aroma of a flower / in the scintilla of a poem’.
It is the poet’s passion to create a new
world, away from the real one, use the flight of his imagination to recall and
relive the days when man used to be man. But Thomas Moore had long ago declared
that man had been dehumanized. T S Eliot’s The
Wasteland , in the early twentieth century, rang the death-knell of all
human values. It is a barren land where only weeds grow. Instead of expecting
those days to come back, the poets
should better accept the reality. Times change. If man is demonized, he is. We
must accept the reality and move on. You can’t turn the clock back. Today man
is not ready to save even the earth. We are heading towards extinction, and yet
we are calculating GDP. The demon of materialism will swallow the entire
creation. The poets should confront the reality and awaken the race to the new
dangers. Old values were old, or, maybe, they too existed only in our
imagination or hypocritical behaviour. Perhaps man was always like that, selfish,
irresponsible, materialistic, greedy, crazy… We create an ideal picture of man,
and want him to conform to it. Where is that ideal man? Has anyone ever seen
him, exceptions apart?
‘Enigmatic’ (16) vividly expounds the
universal dejection of not only a poet but every sensitive person who is
baffled by ‘Life behind life’. Here man-woman relationship, source of love and
pleasure in today’s mechanized city-life, has been turned into loveless lust
and money-game which raises the ‘smoke / Of the pyre of ethics / Aflame
outside’. This smoke of ‘the pyre of ethics’ engulfs the poet’s psyche, and his
soul cries out
What makes
me still
Search for
the purity
Of
unfurling petals
Through my
broken window?
That is the poet’s enigma. He still searches for the purity of love in
this man-woman relationship that has been turned into a trade. Not only the
poet, every sensitive individual who quests for love in this loveless,
materialistic world is an outsider, unable to find any support anywhere.
This enigma becomes so oppressive and
horrendous that in another poem, ‘Why Poetry Is Still Written’ (22-23 ), he
finds no logic or reason to pen his passion in words when
Human
values on the wane
Human greed
holds its sway
Doors
half-open
Windows of
mind still closed
Where will
poetic zest find its path?
That is the dilemma of every poet which Dr Bakshi so vividly delineates.
There is no ray of hope anywhere, and yet he cannot portray it all dark. But he
can’t be fake too. Wonder of wonders, poetry is still written. A poet is the
messenger of the divine. He can’t shirk his responsibility. He must show the
mirror to the society. What he does is very painful for him. But that is his
lot.
‘Missing in a Lifetime’ (28 ) beautifully
expresses the lament of every person towards the end of one’s day, that
If anything
in life is ever missed
It’s but
the moment just before death
Life would
have kissed
It is ‘life’ that is missed by the dying person because he realizes he
didn’t live ‘life’ the way he should have. That is one regret everybody carries
with him, that he never lived a fulfilling life. While he had the opportunity
to live a proper life, according to his dreams and conscious ideas, he got lost
in the cauldron of ‘Faith and feeling’ and ‘emotional attachments.’ That is
what life is, a bundle of contradictions, a sum total of opportunities and
failings. It gets too late when the realization dawns. The poet is overwhelmed
by these obvious contradictions and confesses in ‘Pragmatic’ (29-30) the
compulsions of existence:
Against the
dichotomy
Of a
butcher
Appearing
heartless
And the
existentialist in him
Who has
somehow
To earn his
bread.
‘ Life—Leaf’ ( 40 ) is one of the finest lyrics in this splendid
collection. A mystical poem, it propounds Dr Bakshi’s philosophy of life, that
man is just a hopeless victim of the circumstances, chance, divine will or
vagaries of Nature. The concept of free will or choice of man, in most of the
actions, do not matter. The concluding stanza clearly states that
Life—goblet
Empty as
much
As it
appears
Fulfilled
Appearances are deceptive. Man’s ego and arrogance would glorify his
attainments, but in reality all his bombastic claims of achievements are hollow
and meaningless. This reminds us of Shelley’s marvellous poem, ‘Ozimandias’
which vividly portrays the hollowness of man’s pursuits and claims to
greatness. Ego blinds man to the fact that he is not even a dot in the vast
universe and that his achievements, whatever, are insignificant, and fall far
short of his desires, hopes and expectations.
‘Nocturnal Ushering’ (50) mesmerizes with its
romantic charm, beautiful description of nature, particularly the night of
longing and creativity, and the process of poetic creation. This poem reveals
the passionate urges of the poet, particularly when the creative urge takes
hold of him, and his beloved, the poem, comes to him to satisfy his lust for
creation:
It could
Satiate the
thirsty
Could
mystify the desirous eyes
And bring
back
Lonely
bleeding passion
To the
ambit of an intuitive mind.
The poet, despite his pain and anguish, has some recompense. Creativity,
his sensuous beloved is very seductive, and in her he finds his salvation.
‘Somewhere’ (52 ) , a short , lovely poem of
contrasts, romance and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and desperation
expounds a very meaningful aspect of
Nature. Despite the bitter reality
Somewhere
The sea is
sustaining
A pristine
rainstorm
It is never ‘all black’ in Nature. A beam from somewhere comes to help
man even when it is pitch dark of the Amavas night. Despite the pessimistic and
hopeless situation that man faces in reality, the poet finds that Nature
devises ways to sustain the creation.
Supremacy of mind over everything else in life including religion and
God is celebrated in his splendid poem, ‘Cyclical’ (54). The poet opens the
poem with the lines
Beyond the
periphery of mind
Nothing
exists
Not even
the violin of soul—
Mind overpowers the poet so absolutely that he loses the balance
perhaps, and thinks that when ‘everything seems lost’, there ‘still remains
something’ which is ‘the contemplation of mind’. No doubt, mind is one of the
most significant components of human body as it propels thinking, and it is the
thought-process that really turns you into a man. Descartes went to the extent
of saying, I think, therefore I am. But it is arguable that besides mind,
nothing else matters in a human. Soul and Consciousness too are as relevant or
significant as the mind. All the three together make you a man. As the poet
advances in age and experiences, maturity mellows down his absolutism, and soon
he turns down the urges of the ‘subconscious mind’
In
glorification of momentary ecstasy
In
fulfillment of the demands of the body
For reaping
the fruits
Of a
materialistic world
That is being human. Temptations on the way ensnare you and you easily
become a victim of the urges of the body and the physical world. How many
people can escape the frailties and follies. But man is a strange creature. For
his temptations and failings, for his weaknesses which have degraded him from
his high mental strength, he doesn’t blame himself, he finds an alibi in fate.
The poet concludes the poem with
Sooner or
later, we realize
It’s not mind but fate
That often equals
At the turning point of life
A half-burnt cigarette
Fatalism! The worst attribute of man. It negates the will and the human
spirit.
But despite its fatalism, the poem is rich in metaphors like ‘the violin
of soul’ and a ‘half-burnt cigarette’.
‘Madrigal’ (63) is a thrilling love poem
where ‘silence speaks’ and ‘words retreat / Into the valley / Of an unspoken
mind’. When there is true love, words fail the lovers. They might try to
articulate their love in the best, chosen words and phrases, but words can
never be equal to their feelings, they can never communicate ‘pure and sublime’
love. It is rightly said when hearts are full, words become meaningless. Since
times immemorial poets have written of love. You can only feel love, you can’t
define it, you can’t communicate it. Its beauty lies in the failure of words.
It is a divine bliss.
Manas Bakshi has included many poems on love
in this collection, but this lyric surpasses all others and touches the core of
your heart.
In contrast, ‘Repetitive’ (72) describes the
‘carnal flame’ of love or lust, whatever you may call it, since the age ‘of the
Mahabharata’. The ‘fleshly desire’ gathers ‘sensual residue / Of an insatiate
thirst / Age after Age’. This ‘carnal flame’ runs the world and drives man mad.
What a contrast!
‘Etching in Silence’ ( 88 ), a beautiful
lyric, expresses the pain and anguish of a frustrated love. Love is a strange
phenomenon, source of ecstasy, divine bliss and spiritual elevation, but
unfortunately, mostly ruining the lives of the lovers. Pain is universal in
love. Only rare moments of happiness flow from true love. The lover suffers in
silence, cannot even share his experiences because most of the people, callous
and insensitive, without having the depth of love, would never understand or
appreciate him. Bakshi understands the agony of love when he opens the poem
with an apt contrast:
Stone-breaking
stroke
Sounds
Heart-breaking
stroke
Doesn’t.
There is no sound and yet it ‘hurts / And hurts’, and the lover sustains
‘till the end / Death-defying spunk / Of unspoken words!’
Love is indeed a terrible thing to happen to any man. God forbid!
Most of the poems in this collection depict
the urban life and the social and psychological stresses of the people living
in big cities. That is the usual pattern found in contemporary Indian English
poetry. The poets living in Metros have little awareness of the problems of the
rural India, and hence rural life is largely missing from the Indian English
poetry. But Manas Bakshi is an exception, and his sensitivity flies to the
plight of the poor people living in the rural India, far away from Calcutta.
His magnificent poem,’ Hello India—2024’ (73 ) presents a heart-rending picture
of the poor people struggling for a loaf of bread and a bowl of water. When
India talks of progress and GDP, and boasts of being one of the economic
leaders of the world, people in the rural India are waiting for a facelift.
They live in penury and hunger and thirst are always staring in their faces:
Even the
crows forget shrieking
When hunger
and thirst
Subtly
merge into one another
Before the
sun
Just
onlooking…helpless…
It is a pity that India claims to be affluent while people go without
the basic needs. The concluding stanza of the poem paints a very gloomy and
moving picture, in fact shames us all:
Her empty
pitcher reflects
Emptiness
of
Neither
heaven nor hell
But his
hands bleeding for
Two pieces
of bread
And her
hands fetching
A half-full
bowl of water ( 74 )
If only we could work towards a society where none goes hungry! Every
human being has a right to live his life with respect and dignity. This can
happen only when his minimum basic needs are fulfilled. It is a stupendous
task, no doubt, but nothing is impossible.
‘Hello India—2024’ presented a picture of the
poor and deprived populace of the rural India while ‘Wagon Breakers’ ( 93 )
gives us a sad tale of the destitute of the city life. An abandoned railway
wagon tempts the wagon-breakers, beggars and rag-pickers, the rejects of the
city, to break the wagon at night for their belly. An encounter with the RPF
kills them, and their dead bodies lying on the track become a spectacle for the
onlookers. The poet is pained to see that the heavens too don’t care for the
poverty-stricken destitutes who go unnoticed from this world. The poet reminds
us that they too were human, with their longings and hopes:
These men
too had golden days’ dream
Their own
secret stories of life
Neither
disclosed nor fulfilled!
The usual phrase you often hear: Who cares? But the poet does care. He
tries to awaken the dead soul of the society.
Dialogue
at a Distance is a
very rich and profound collection of thought-provoking poems. Manas Bakshi has
the flavour of a true poet, and his use of poetic devices, particularly, simile
and metaphor, heightens their reach. His use of words too is very judicious.
These poems will certainly enrich the reader and widen the horizons of his
thought and understanding.
Work Cited
Bakshi, Manas. Dialogue at a
Distance. Authors Press, 2024.