Indo-Anglian literature whatever is its present status in the nation of its origin, in the present context has grown and increased in both quality as well as quantity over the years. Gone are the days when we appreciated the Western laureates, poets and scholars as well as imitated them even in our literature and especially in poetry. In the present context, Indo-Anglian literature is not only luring the global readership but also has given birth to extensive criticism and interpretation and finally commences the process of rebuilding and recreating new palace called Indian English poetry of its peculiar originality, sublimity and excellence. There is a series of good poets who by one or two published collections of poetry have attained such height which appears rather impossible to attain. Amitav Chakravarty, C.L. Khatri, Vihang Naik, Anil Kumar Sharma and Pashupati Jha are those few signatures of Indo-Anglian poetry who though have paucity of a large bulk of collections to their credit yet the force, grip and poetic talent of such caliber is hard to find. Dr. Murli Das Melwani considers the scarcity of mature and appealing poet, so he writes: ” There is only handful of Indo-Anglian poet writing today that it has cast off its derivative origins. It is based on the experiences of those who write it.” Talking about these poets of modern time, Amitav Chakravarty writes on the important trend of social awareness and mingles it with lyrical quality. C.L. Khatri with his two collections The Ripples in the Lake’ and Kargil evinces patriotism with thoughtfulness; Vihang Naik dealing poetry and poetic process enjoying in a sterling use of phrase and imagery; Anil Kumar Sharma aspiring to attain the celestial heights of philosophy and indulged in spiritual ecstasy and lastly Pashupati Jha, the poet refreshingly free from the intellectual clap-trap and more prone to passion and emotion than to thoughts. His poetry breaths a distinct fume of pathos that directly touches the senses and tender feelings of heart, therefore his collections Cross and Creation (2003) and Mother and Other Poems (2005) became synonyms to success and captivated the analyzing eyes of the critics. On the first collection, the comments of two great critics and scholars are worth quoting. Firstly, Bernard M. Jackson says: “We are faced with the inspired writings of an enlightened intellectual a man of passion whose verse is imbued with clarity of style and concept.”(Blurb M.O.P.) Secondly, Patrica Prime speaks: “Passion and creation work hand in hand but it is creation that has the last word.” (Blurb M.O.P.) Pashupati Jha, educated at Dharbhanga in New Delhi is presently Professor of English in the Department of Humanity of Social Sciences, I.I.T. Rurkee. He is not a new bloomer in the garden of literature, yet after years of reading, teaching and suffering the poet begins writing. He says: “Now I dare The dangerous plunge And taste the forbidden fruit Fully will aware That a fall would be The only outcome But who is not tempted By the trap of creation?” (C.C., p. 7) In this age of advancement of science and technology, the future of humanity appears to be groping in the dark but a literary effort is the magnet which tries to attract together different particles of which this beautiful and vigorous world is made. Regrettably our more interest in science and technology and lesser craving for poetry have generated the process of social disorganization and social change. Here and now the role of poetry becomes vital because it makes a platform to stand all the voices together. Pashupati Jha himself castigates the lopsided development in society which has resulted into cruelty, rape, communal violence and corruption and is in favour of revival of interest in poetry and other forms of creativity that constitute a sensitive human mind. Writing in the preface of ‘Cross and Creation’, Jha suggests: “Please give poetry a chance to ennoble your mind and spirit; its impact may be slow but certain. So, cultivate a taste for poetry and save mankind from further cruelty- it is not just a chance that all great scriptures are written in verse. It is with this firm belief that I have collected and composed the various experiences of life in this collection.” His first collection Cross and Creation carries a number of beautiful poems in which most of the poems are philosophical and deal with the theme of death and social consciousness. The second poem of the collection ‘Jesus’ is poet’s observation of death when he looks up at the picture of Jesus Christ on the wooden plank with drooping neck and sad eyes and the poet cannot help saying: “Death immensely sensuous When it comes in one snatch But it is acutely painful When the destination is reached Drop by drop, dragging for hours.” (C.C. 11) But soon the poet becomes subjective and makes similarity of the wounds of Jesus with that of his own. “O Jesus, when unearned wounds Are daily inflicted on me I automatically look to you, Do parts of past always continue? (ibid) A few poems of the collection voice the problems of contemporary poets and writers what their dilemma is, what they feel under different circumstances, what they have to write according to the demand of people and what they wish to pen, are the main concern of the poet. In the poem ‘For Dullu’ the poet raises such questions. The wife, the colleagues, the publishers and the students demand and expect different things because all have their selfish motives. The demands of colleagues and friends ‘to fine tune the poet’s feelings to the computer keyboard’, the demand of publisher to pen ‘something marketably meaningful that can be softwared and sold’ and the student’s ‘to word’ to the strings of their instruments ‘as if that which is not pop is flop’ makes the poet perplexed and flabbergasted as to write or not. “Good me! I am a whole lot confused What to write, what for to write? (C.C. 17) The birth, survival, changing pattern and the predicament of poetry is very well understood by the poet who dedicates all his poems ‘to those of’ his own who in the days bygone gave the poet acute pain because ‘poetry originates from its intensity alone’ and then he dedicates it to those unexpected few’ who gave love to the poet because poetry survives on it only. In the present scenario, the birth and survival of poetry is in jeopardy, but poetry is the only weapon to protect humanity: “And then if we have A heart that lives a little, Poetry makes a lot to happen.” (C.C. 10) The sporadic flashes of realism of the poet cannot be hyphenated with his depression and agony. In fact the poets of Modern era are not associated with any group or influenced with any particular thought or more, so they cannot be classified under any social school. Here the comment of Keki N. Daruwalla is relevant to quote when he elucidates the reason of paucity of social groups or school because in Modern times ‘there is no Poetic congeries, no Gurus and no disciples.’ Indian Poetry in English is absolutely away from the Gurudom as it believes Poetry as the potent medium of by which man can attain perfection, enlightenment and Nirvana as well as it has firm faith in reaching to the conclusion rather than to linger on the illustration and elucidation of the problem or to continue sketching the abysmal and ugly picture of the society and world. As Jha is one of those few ones who treat poetry more as socially aware phenomena than a personal gesture. Modern poets are indulged more in drawing the picture of society as it is claiming and justifying it as ‘art for art’s sake’. S. D. Sharma observes: “One thing more is to be understood well that the poets of modern decade do-not make any sustained effort to expose any social cause; they merely hint at a social malaise, the treatment is rather far from their capacity. They, therefore, appear as watchdogs to the erring social custodians. They scrupulously avoid involvement, but intelligently present and hint at many burning social ills.” Up to a large extent Jha can be classified in this category but because his surrealistic mode of expression makes a graphic picture of the society like in the poem ‘Night in A City’ the poet pictures the city life as: The coolie stretches out His tired limbs on the bare pavement, And before sleep suspends everything, ************************************ Night is all awake in the next street Bantering bruised bodies for hundred bucks each Squeezed lives soon wait for daybreak to sleep. ********************************************** In south part of the city, A maid hangs herself to death With the strings of her soiled garment; For her unclaimed, indiscreet womb Has been showing off for the last few weeks ********************************************** In the nearby slums, shriek of a child Shreds the silence of midnight, His head smashed by helpless parents To cut short the pang of slow death.” (C.C. 21) Some other poems like ‘A Widow’s Woe’, ‘A Right Victim’, ‘An Old man’s wish’, ‘Milk or Tear’, ‘A Golden Country, ‘ A Busy Son’, “An Indian Woman’ and ‘Art and the Artifices’, are some poems which deal with realistic splashes of life, its experiences, physical and non-physical, society, its branches and components, social evils, its effect on humanity: nation its burning questions and social relations and its foils and foibles. One more important poem ‘Passing the Bulk’ raising the question of generation gap in a realistic way runs as when the poet says: “How easy it is To accuse your father For all your failures Staring now in your face, As if you carried them all From his seed itself Like the primal sin!” (C.C. 54) But another picture of reality is drawn by the poet at the same time when he says: “But mind my son, Your son as well Is readying himself, In Likewise fashion, To pounce on you For what you do And what you do not” (C.C. 54) Therefore, poetry of Jha expresses not only the abysmal and ugly aspects of reality but also edifies and puts a moralizing ideal before us so that we may learn and grasp those unread, untouched and undealt truths of life. Similarly, the poetry of Jha embraces all the aspects of love from the imaginative to the realities and from sensuousness to divinity. In the poem ‘Love, The Latest Definition’, defying our forefathers as fools who focused their whole life on ‘one beautiful face alone’ and ‘idiotically calling it a moon’ and assuming ourselves a real democrat the poet presents a latest definition mingled with reality. “Love is not love that is stagnant, It should be a free flow, Even if that of a gutter- At least there’s a movement there, Along with frog, reptile and Aborted foetus.” (C.C. 16) But in the poem ‘The imaginative Aspect’, the poet breathes in a beautiful manner when the poet feels the touch of love: “Then you touched me with a smile- And, after a long, long while, There was an untimely rain, And I was all poetry again.” (C.C. 10) Pain which is the another image of love is portrayed in ‘Your strange love’ in which the lover ‘squeezes the marrow out of the bones’, pumps out all the blood from the veins, flings flaming darts everyday’, ‘petrifies the body with blazing eye’ and “defying all norms of human touch, excepting not even a sigh in return”, the poet (lover) when asks “Why this much bitter and bile?”, He finds the reply-“This, the way of I love my dear”, establishes the beautiful and refined imagery of the past. But in ‘Love Song’ his opinion about love is more different too what we expect and thinks modern decade because the ‘words of the poets’ are not ‘easy to scan’ because merely pelting pebbles will not be sufficient to father the depth of the sea. It is beyond our imagination and a thought, for the poet regards “Love” as: Love is more than a skinny affair, It is more than seek and hide, Are you ready for a life-long dive? (C.C. 15) And the poet’s urge to love is universal as well as eternal when he says: “So, let our love be undefined, Let our link be mysterious as the universal, Open to eternal exploration beneath the rind Where one meaning leads to another search” (C.C. 24) Therefore, the collection Cross and Creation is replete with the poems related to ‘cross’, the symbol of agony, pain, throes, perforation and death and ‘creation’, the symbol of birth, joy, happiness and ecstasy or say it the collecting is a mingled yarn of joy and sorrows which is eternalized by the poet like the cross of Jesus that is also the symbol of pain, bore by Jesus years ago but enkindles the lamp of motivation still in the heart of the poet and let the poet ponder over the issues of modern times commemorating it with the ancient references of Jesus. The second book Mother and Other Poems if we glance it with the references of the theory of Rasa, one of the important schools of criticism in Sanskrit in ancient literature. With Bharata’s Natyashastra and was first conceived by Bharata in the context of theatre, and only later was it extended to poetry. Poetry too, is essentially drama, a verbal enactment of emotions. Rasa that means ‘essence or aesthetic relations’ inherent in the artistic work in relishable experience, If we take the poetry of Pashupati Jha, we will find number of poems formed in different shades of Rasa. The nine kinds of Rasas; Love- Shringar; humour- Hasya; compassion/pathos-Karuna; wrath or anger- Krodh; valour or heroism- Veer; horror/terror-Bhayankar; disgust- Vibhatsa; wonder- Adbhuta and peace- Shanti. All are evident in the poetry of Jha but the lack of proper recognition, indication and expression of those few but important concepts of Rasa. Rasa in his poetry has not been brought to light. The book ‘Mother and Other Poems’ is dedicated to poet’s late mother ‘and all others of this world who take pride in their motherhood and the first poem ‘Mother’ is full of love and pathos in which the poet remembers his mother and rummages through the pages of the sacred book of memories when ‘squeezed while many child birth and suffering innumerable pneumonia and typhoid’, the poet ‘saw’ his ‘young mother’ so beautiful all the time and her smile was ‘the most charming thing’ in his life. And with a chain of comparisons of her touch as the softest touch, her ‘cooked food on firewood’ as ‘the tastiest’, her words as ‘the most musical and wisest’, the poet descends on the earth of reality and goes blue but soon recovers energy and courage and asserts: “Mother, you were Therefore we are, And would continue to be Till eternity.” (M.O.P. 13) Lastly, addressing the mother element as the Goddess and inspired with the dictum of Hindu scriptures ‘Matra Devo Bhava’, he says: “O you Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipresent And Omnipotent! No death can make you die. I vow to you and sing your praise.” (M.O.P. 13) Like Cross and Creation,the book is entitled on the most remarkable book of the collection and rest other poems are full of contemporary issues dealt with subjectivity. Putting much emphasis on the words and feelings, the poet compares himself to the weeping sky melting his body ‘to sprout the world/ with green life’ and says: “Feel my pulse, If you want to believe me, Watch my words, If you want to re-live with me.” (M.O.P. 16) The poems ‘To My Surgeon Son’, ‘Pages of My Life’, ‘I don’t Want’, ‘Smiles’, ’Daily Drudgery’, ’Touch Me Not’ are the poems which are written in autobiographical and conversational tone. Exhibiting sometimes the satiety of the poet ‘Who wants simply to be average and above/accepting and enjoying/life and its losses’ who asks: “Will you let me live Even such a life, To the end of strife?” (M.O.P. 22) His constant search in his own self and self created world has made him realize that: “It is not easy at all To write the unwritten And weave a poem.” (M.O.P. 22) The poetry of Jha commences from the early reminiscences of childhood or the memory of younger days, particularly this trait is much similar to the poetry of Baldev Mirza whose poetry “is of a private musing going back to childhood and its state of growing with self confronting realities of the world outside in a personal way”, says Dr. O. P. Bhatnagar. Similarly the poet grows mature with the memories and is nourished and schooled in the realities of life where his fights of imagination seem to dash into the dust. In ‘Daily Drudgery’, his sketch of everyday life is compared ‘with the scratching of face/with an over edged razor,/followed by hurried path with treasures and shirts putting on with a few buttons/and stitches always missing’ and busy all the time ‘Amid creaking fans/and the croaking voice of the cruel boss/ with no battle night/ struggling hide and seek with mosquitoes and bugs. ‘Notwithstanding the darkness dreary and long/ the optimistic and the determined self of the poet as well as an obedient son becomes obedient in the last of the poem when he says: “No, I am the breast fed son of my mother, Who has put so much of calcium in my bones? That my structure can withstand Many a raising storm, So, I eagerly wait for another morn.” (M.O.P. 34) The collection has poems of romanticism, realism, maturity, optimism, social consciousness mingled with irony, pain, satire where the feministic concern is clearly visible. His portrayal of human existence is of myriad color because he tries to sketch lie its all aspects negative and positive, all hues passionate and indifferent and all the stages (childhood, youth, and old age). In some of the poems Jha appears to be celebrating the joy of sensuousness. ‘The Last Glance of Romance’, ’Pages’, ‘A Small Me’, ’Phonix’ etc. are the poems in which we can mark out the state of sensuousness. The poetry of Pashupati Jha is humanistic as well as optimistic. His absolute surrender and faith in poetry make him return into poetry when the poet feels disappointed and dejected. He says: “When all doors are close to me And there is none to sooth and se My open wounds, my body blue.” (M.O.P. 53) He gives preference to content and to form and reaches to the roots of the thing because he says: “Is it not so important Who has written it Or who has read And understood; But it matters a lot Who inspired the whole?” (M.O.P. 64) The poem ‘My Choice’ echoes the humanistic and compassionate bent of poet’s mind where he seems to have the courage to reform the whole world and society. His insistency of obtaining a choice to merry a whore ‘than to whore the world that has/ whore her without asking for her wish and to ‘balm all the bridges ,with unending love’, though ‘it may take an hour and years’, yet the poet is determined to do it with a remark: “And mind it, I would be Doing it all not for any reward Or a script on the screen, But for redeeming my sins As Man.” (M.O.P. 48) The poet in the poem ‘The Achievement’ summarizes his whole life beginning with his craving for the post and promotion for higher pages and perks and then for his bloated age where all his needs of close and shining shoes were for showing to the world that he was ‘something’. But in the last page of life he comes to realize the true meaning of life when he says: “I only clutch to my experience Of those rare moments Of real relationships And wealth of words Carved on pure white. The last leg of the journey Is better, if you travel light.” (M.O.P. 56) The poetry of Pashupati Jha encompasses all that is best in the highly imaginative, thoughtful and creative soul. His poetry is abundantly clear, refreshing and spontaneous in expression. Both the collections reflect his verbosity of feelings that also gives a glimpse of his firm determination, optimism, feminist outlook, and reverence to womanhood and lastly the love for humanity as well as human values from his life’s experiences and occurrences around him. Bearing the quality of thought provoking as well as revelation of stark realities which mark side by side, with human struggle in life, the poet succinctly observes, pertinently feels and graphically expresses a strong vein philosophical musings and his insistency on satiety and human values establish him a poet of 1st rank and one of those promising poets on whom we may trust for bright future of poetry. Works cited: • Mother and Other Poems(abbreviated as M.O.P. in the text), New Delhi: Creative Books,2005 • Cross and Creation, (abbreviated as C.C. in the text), New Delhi: Prestige Books,2003. • Melwani, Murli Das,Themes in Indo Anglian Poetry. 1984, Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, p.17 • Two Decades of Indian Poetry in English 1960-1980, Ed. Daruwala, Keki N., Delhi: Ms. Vikas Pub. 1980, p.xxx.v • Sharma S. D., Thematic Dichotomy of Writing in English Indology and Culture, ‘Struggle For Existence- Social Responses in English Poetry’, 1985, Bareilly: P. B. D., p. 8 • Bhatnagar, O. P. ’New Indian English Poetry Today’, Indian English Writing. Ed. Singh, R. K., New Delhi: Bahri Pub. 1987. p.22 Shaleen Kumar Singh M.A. (Eng.), LL.B., Research Scholar SaiNeeharika Patiyali Sarai Budaun (243601)
