Kanchan Bhattacharya Reviews Khurshid Alam’s Investigative Poetry & Other Poems
Kanchan Bhattacharya picks three poems from Khurshid
Alam’s debut poetry anthology titled Investigative
Poetry & Other Poems and makes an exploration.
Sacrilege: The Babri Mosque
The Babri Masjid events have induced anguish in all
intellectual and right thinking Indians ─ it was an event that should not have
happened. It is largely viewed as a political non-entity’s quest for power, and
a compounding of the national sense of shame and hopeless anger at the
political leadership’s ability to make capital out of non-issues.
Set against this background, Khurshid Alam analyses the
event in a very detached manner ─ as an observer, distancing himself from
rancor and ill feelings. He has added an explanatory note:
This poem expresses anguish on the demolition of the Babri Mosque, Ayodhya (UP) on December 6, 1992. The poem depicts also the condition of a people who are pushed to a corner of uncertainty and fear.
India
has seen political and religious upheavals and pogroms throughout its history.
Never united as a nation in the past, the Hindu collective memory has seen
Muslim invasions, demolitions of its own icons like Somnath and other places of
worship ─ all within the conqueror’s sense of being right! And yes, the
invader’s successors have become Indians.
Khurshid brings out a simple agony felt by those Indians
whom the majority feels are aliens through no fault of their own. A misdeed of
the past cannot be representative of the present inequalities. This is the
essence of his poem, xenophobia in people…
The hatred bared one people to come nearTo save the edifice or beat the heartThey must scream in some corner in the darkThey must not memorize the DayAnd if they do they risk their patriotismThey should be kept away at a distanceThey are strangers, they are from other nation.
In India,
we of the majority, are wary of Abrahamic religions, especially those sects
that owe spiritual allegiance beyond the borders. Yet to say that they are
aliens, not Indians is a very harsh judgment, as they have contributed to the
country’s progress in the times past.
The basic question is very relevant…
A nation within a nation, a dual nationCan’t work for a great nationWho are patriotic? Who are nationalists?Those who create nations of a nationThose who create alienationAmong the people of their own nation?
Khurshid feels for the country as much the others do. His
poem is a statement ─ awake, India,
rid of biases.
I wish he had spoken more of the anguish in his poem, a
little more of the fear.
His is a call to rational nationalism…I do not seek the
meaning of “investigative” poetry ─ the poem narrates a fact in a mildly but
admirably restrained interpretative manner. The questions are raised in
narrative, in a prose verse format. The flow is there, and a stark simple way
of speaking the truth.
Demolition: The Bamiyam Buddha
Khurshid Alam has made an interesting protest against the Aniconic Wahabi method ─ the meaningless and wanton destruction of the priceless treasures of the Bamiyan Buddha, in his poem, Demolition: The Bamiyan Buddha. In a fanatic attack at the turn of the millennium, Taliban troops blasted the Bamiyan Buddha caves that had sheltered intellectual coexistence for centuries along the Silk Route:
The first cultural melting pot on earthThat united the West with the EastAnd stood a resort for all –Tourists, schools and connoisseurs of arts
Islamic fanaticism is twofold ─ a perception of persecution
and therefore revenge, and the propagation of Islam at any cost, even
elimination of the faithful, despite the teachings of the benign kind: the
religions that preceded the arrival of the Prophet.
Oh heaven! Cease to exist there.And fall on them…the abbot of unreason!But there is a silver line that shinesFrom under the dust clouds. He’ll reincarnateAnd the hands will rise for blessing againFor he who grew wide ears to lend earTo people’s misery, and brooded on to easePeople from grief. He had the heartThat did no harm to any and professedNo Godism and no atheism.
Much beyond the narrow thoughts of the Taliban that seeks
to propagate Islam through the gun as its Prophet, Khurshid asks them to note
that the resurrection of the becalming Messiah, Buddha will happen eventually,
a hope and a prayer for the Sakya Muni to return…
He’ll live through the Turkish and Afghan folktalesForever in the form of male Salsal or female Shamama charactersPeople will remember him as Sakyamuni, or Dipankara munis.
Khurshid adds in his epilog note, “the abbot of unreason” expresses the strongest opposition to those who
claim to guard one’s own culture but destroy others for mean logics.
This poem is again an appeal to rational thought!
House Arrest: The Mumbai Attack
It was an event that shook India in November 2008. The killers, except one, were killed. There was an immense “collateral damage” and a few martyrs too laid down their lives. The invasion of a goofed up Pakistan, and an incredibly inadequate juggernaut called the security forces became highlighted.
Khurshid speaks of this event exactly as the Indian felt…
helpless but not without hope.
A sea of emotion, commotion, and anguishThe people have suffered a lotThey can’t forget the burns they’ve got at their backFor what fault they are to buy the pains.
Fanaticism has a color, the color of lead…
Each bullet shouted the name of GodBefore tearing the dreams of the victimsThey killed in the name of religion!
And it seeks its prey, the perceived persecutors…
The terrorists looked for British and American tourists.But can you see? They took people of all religionsHostage. There were Khans, Singhs, and Williams
The death toll was immense, three days of carnage in the
name of religion… gently, he reminds
‘What religion do you follow, can you tell?‘What faith do you have, can you spell?‘Which religion can be as senseless?‘To preach killing of all innocent people.’
If each religion wages war against othersWhat a world of hatred we can haveEach person with a sword in a handAnd the Holy Book in another to sayThis can be the only book that you can have
There are many who have written of this. A general peace
loving Indian would seek this poem too, as a way to wade out of the tragic
events of November 2008.
In these three poems, we see a poet who seeks reason to end
the irrationality of human hatred. This poem is a big one by way of understated
agony. The more we have poems of this genre, the better.
|
Author: Khurshid Alam
Publisher: Createspace
ISBN: 978-1499755718
Published Year: June 2014
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 68
Genre: Poetry
|
Khurshid Alam is a
writer by profession. He leads a team of technical writers with an IT company
based in Pune, Maharashtra, (India).
Besides he writes poems, stories, flash fiction, screenplays, criticism and
on literature and culture. More than hundred poems and many stories have been
published in various journals and magazines in India and abroad including The
Applicant, Asia Writes, The Blue Fog Journal, The Criterion, Daily Love,
DIOGEN, Gently Read Literature, Mainstream, Meantime, Miracle eZine, Muse
India, ken* again among others.
His writing has been included in the anthologies An Anthology
of Contemporary Love Poems, Contemporary Literary Review India 2013, The
Dance of the Peacock, Fancy Realms, The Feline Muse, Poets' Paradise,
and The Poetic Bliss. He is also the founder editor of Contemporary Literary
Review India
and is currently working on a novel.
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