Poems evolving in to
social alertness
A poem is a creative
mind’s answer to the question as to what is to be done by a person who has
humanity at heart when the established social order severs the very roots of
social justice. The super-revolutionary
times of information technologies realize that poem is the life-saving medicine
of so many spiritual problems. The
society at large is gradually becoming aware of the fact that there is no
suitable medium other than poem to demarcate our mental activities and the quandaries
of existence which it has to accept and the consequential animosities and
restiveness. Poem gained such an importance and significance because it
symbolically expresses the resurgence of our conscience which remained frozen
after globalization, and our mother tongue which remained restricted. It is
also notable that even universally, poem remains as the influence to awaken the
soul of language and culture.
Mr. P.K. Ajithkumar was a
poet of significance in the Malayalam periodicals during the nineties. But
somewhere on the path of life, he either left behind the poems or continued his
journey without exposing the poems in
him. It is quite pleasing to note that his return after two decades is
remarkable due to its excelling uniqueness and exciting dignity. The collection
of poems titled as ‘Vaachaathi and my pains’ is an excellent
illustration of this quality.
Where did the meaning of
the word ‘freedom’ reach now when we are going to complete six and a half
decades of freedom? We preach that this is the best example of democracy, but
who are reaping the real benefits of this freedom, apart from being a voter?
How many people live here with the wound marks of having got their selves
kicked and crushed violently? There is nothing strange in the ignorance of the
capitalist-government-fake intellectual nexus, who only think about the high-tech world, about the conditions of the
vast majority who do not get the small pieces of land which they deserve and
have to exist with empty bellies and eyes deep in their sockets. But a few
isolated voices emerge who realise that the aforesaid majority are also human
beings and want their resurgence. The
poet who sees vaachaathi as a question mark is actually invoking the calamities and dreams of the majority
indian villages.
Although the poet recognize the disasters as
seen in the lines,
When the holy democracy
is being
torn off in gifts and
affluence,
the fire of death was
burning
in the cemi-starving
stomachs
of Vaachaathi,
he is not trying to escape to the
island of pessimism or to produce waves of sympathy, but accepts Malayalam Poet
Edasseri Govindan Nair, who taught that the strength of Poem is higher than
cast iron; and declares that he too
endorses the summons to bury the pains and to leap to strength.
But keep it in your mind;
that dawn will emerge
tomorrow too,
and a new generation will
rise up from the ocean of
tears
which will flow out from
our blood soaked eyes
and in the wind roaring
in them
our undergarments
which you stained with
blood
will fly as red flags
and their sound and
strength
will deliver the historic
verdict
in you as
bleeding
punishment.
It is an alert political consciousness, which
leads this poet. While he keeps always an India
The
poet’s arduous effort to convert the achievements and gains of heredity into
sublime poetic conscience will surely attract everyone intensely. Howsoever he tries to cut them away, the
roots of Inherent culture tighten around the poet as an instinctive influence.
Even if one shouts from the flames of revolution that human relations are
irrelevant, upon which surface can he fix the emotional symbols which come
alive in mind at moments of prudential comprehensiveness? The images which enter through vision,
hearing, smell and touch are the
necessities of fortunes accumulated by childhood and adolescence to become the relief in the tiresome journey through
life.
Dear
mother, the first letters of my life are
the fields of three
harvests
the field of paining
soul, the legacy,
the offering of my
father.
In
poems like Vavata, Vaaykkari etc. too, the firm grip of heredity
upon the poet is clearly observable. These poems represent the reflections of
the strength of an erstwhile civilization upon the mind of a poet even in the
vicinity of to-day’s ultra-modern style of life.
The
duality in the combination of attraction and repulsion are woven beautifully in
many of the poems in this collection. While at one end is that love which is
famed as the spring of life and the resultant pensiveness; at the other end is
the ultimate loss in death which arrives unexpectedly making one experience all
of a sudden the transience of life while being busy in knitting heavenly dreams
misinterpreting everything as eternal splendours. Accordingly, some of these
poems explain various lessons about love and death becoming indivisible
experiences.
It is my offering to you,
whose heart is wet with
love,
the red flag
which I held in my heart
and the black flag
which is flying upon myself.
Poems like Love of hearts, River
Nila etc. also succeed in creating the same experience.
This
collection of poems of P.K. Ajitkumar emerges with so many diverse experiences.
Instead of the old, worn out poetic imageries, these poems carve out a lot of
new impressions, which are capable to awaken our extra-sensory
perceptiveness. These poems create a new
awareness through meaningful innovativeness.
Even while being placed in modern layers of experiences, there is the
poetic effort to fuse together the strong rings of inheritance. Also evolves
the wisdom that more than being a simple art of entertainment, poem is
instrumental to respond strongly wherever need arises.
Let
us hope that the second arrival of Mr.P.K. Ajithkumar to poetry will make the
defence of the society against rottennesses in cultural growth stronger.
Sastamkotta Dr. C.
Unnikrishnan
25.11.2011 Malayalam
Department
Sastamkottah, Kerala
