Poems by Dr. Dalip Khetarpal - Book Length Poetry Section

Dr Dalip Khetarpal features in the CLRI November 2013 Book Length Poetry Section

Poems by Dr.Dalip Khetarpal

Masked Sans Mask

In this vast cosmos

Of masquerading fair,

I often intuit faces

Wearing a cold blank mask

Thinner than air.

Even my keenest vision

Fails to rip open

This impenetrably transparent mask--

---A primary defense,

A fortified safeguard,

Enforced by overriding social norms

To facilitate one’s survival.

The masks of identity

Forced upon by society

And human psychology

Generates self-alienation

And a strange feeling

Of estrangement.

But self- revelation

Is also, and always

A cruel painful process

Shunned only by a social animal

And not by a real primeval animal.

For, if human skin is stripped,

There’s excruciating pain

But if mask is stripped,

There could be death.

In this masked fair

Of simulacrum

A man intimate

Sometimes appear unknown

And sometimes, intimate strangers,

While even some strangers

Sometimes appear intimate friends.

But strangest it becomes

When even kith and kin

Appear strangers,

When even a wife

And a husband

Appear masked

Before each other__

---Becoming a traitor

Not only to oneself

But also to each other.

So, whither goes

Real open ended human relations!

And concepts of wholeness

Of ecology, divinity

And even science

Are imperceptible

Interrelatedness among humans

Whose further relatedness

To vaster cosmos  then becomes

Naturally inconceivable.

Like thunder

That tears up the clouds

And reveals the sky,

Eruption of plethora

Of pent up feelings

At times suddenly teas up the mask

And in a flash

Reveals the real man….

----but only momentarily.

For, the incredible power

Of re silence of the mask,

It’s inbuilt dynamism

For constructiveness

Quickly repairs itself

And restores it’s original form.

When the real man

Never or seldom surfaces,

Different people

And different mirrors

Would show different pseudo- faces

Of one’s ever changing

Surface of the face

Wherefrom multiple crises

Of personality

Also springs.

A mask that is blended

With the face

Is also an impenetrable fence

To observation and perception

To the fluid interchange

Of thoughts, of feelings

Of emotions.

Love & hate, so,

Affect me not

Camouflage sex and kiss

Give no sensation

A stroke or caress is nothing

But a brush past

Over my insensate skin

Into which warm waves

And vibrations of feelings

Flow not.

I often look over the sky

And see how the invisible God

Is also masked

With an invisible mask

That doubles his invisibility

And sustains His mystery.

I also know that

No one can ever strip

This mask

Nor ever see

His mystique form,

So, can never

Also ever

Improvise any ontological specifications

For Him.

But  cannot and should not

There be any such specifications

For the at least  feeling, thinking, breathing,

Visual and geometrically designed humans?

Paying huge medical bills?

Waste away your scarce savings. Through

These rivers — all polluting.

Illusion Turned Real

Their wildest attempt

To merge into each other

Made them so fiercely locked

In the tightest of embrace

That the two

Appear one,

Proving lust so intra-somatic.

When one flesh

Attempted to forcibly blend

With the other flesh

I thought the two thick flesh

Between them hindered

The union of two souls.

But they could not break

The barrier of flesh

For, in just a few minutes

They voluntarily separated

With an abrupt jerk

The face of the one

That exuded intense attraction

Minutes ago

Now, incredibly, exudes

Deep repulsion for the other

Whose earlier heavenly beauty

Turns repulsively ugly now.

The perfect merger minutes ago

Has led to perfect separation now.

Startled, I rubbed my eyes

To ascertain the facts…….

Perhaps, it was an optical illusion

But surely

There was a great lull

After a great storm.

Mutual Exploitation

A woman enters

Into man’s desert

Thinking that

It is a fertile land.

But the water & greenery

Showed by man

Is not to slake her thirst

Nor to provide her comfort

And joy

But to devour her flesh.

The woman on her part

Bears all pangs----physical and mental

As long as she gets shelter,

Protection, commitment (though false)

And sex satisfaction

Or dissatisfaction.

For all these

She has to go to man

And only man.

Though most wise woman

Can foresee this

They still willingly dwell

In the carnal life of man

For they have nowhere else

To go.

Exploitation & greed thus

Come to assume

A universal form

At both ends

And brings man-woman relationship

On equal footing

Resulting in

An equal duping

Though discontentment

Still spurs feminist movement.

Inevitability of Sin

One remains

A psychological sinner

Until he accepts & does

What the scriptures say.

So, if scriptures are

To make one

Sinner or virtuous

All have to be priests or nuns

To lead a sinless life

And be sacred

But, if this be so

The world would cease

To exist normally

While it still exists normally

When thought blasphemous

Also simmer in the minds

Of most revered

Priests & saints

As they do

In the minds of sinners……

With varying degree.

The Paradox of Love & Sex

More than successful love

Successful sex

Raises man’s esteem

In the eyes of a woman.

It also breeds confidence

In him

As pride

In her.

Sadly, it is man

Who needs to inculcate

Strength & esteem

Even in sex

To be esteemed

And considered a man

By his partner.

Sadder still is the fate

Of faithful & devoted woman

Who though even unquenched

Is still too forgiving.

She will not expose

Her counterpart’s inefficiency

And will also seldom

Look for greener pastures

Even when unslaked.

Despite man’s impoverished virility

A woman’s reverence for her mate

Seldom wanes_______

Just to keep man in high spirits.

Sex, so, is only an adjustment

For her

While it is a means

Of attaining heavenly bliss

For him.

Strange that

Sex is a passion

For man brutal

And compassion

For woman ideal.

Dr Dalip Khetarpal launched into teaching career way back in 1983 by working as a Lecturer in English at Manchanda Delhi Public College, Delhi. Then he joined Technical Education Department of Haryana, and worked in various capacities, as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and H .O. D (English) in various institutes of Haryana. He worked as Dy. Registrar and then as Joint Director with the Directorate of Technical Education, Haryana, Chandigarh. Thereafter, he was posted as Training & Placement Officer. Presently, he is working as Director Principal with Jat Group of Colleges, Kaithal. Dr Dalip has also started a new genre in the field of poetry which he would like to call ‘psycho-psychic flints’. His poems are flints because they emit spark when they hit the readers’ mind. All these flints can be vividly seen in this book. He has won laurels for pioneering this new genre in poetry writing. His criticism and poems are often reflected both in national and international magazines and journals.

 

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