An Introductory Discussion

Indian English poetry, to narrate it in the historical context, is to say that it had been continuing as a thin trickle of poesy right from the beginning, that is, 1825, when the first book saw the light of the day. Before calling it Indian English poetry, it should be kept in mind that there had not been a language like that of English which was spoken and written here, nor were there the speakers of it. If there had been the users of it, they were mostly the colonial administrators and official babus trying to perfect themselves. Apart from the contact, but what endeared them to the natives was the usage they taught in connection with life-style and philosophy. Their goods and utilities drew them. The lessons they taught in nationalism, freedom of speech and expression, the connectivity in the form of roads, bridges and railways, human service rendered through inventions and discoveries of the medical world which they introduced and the impact of the industrial revolution definitely benefitted the Indians with heavy tools, home appliances and utensils. Typhoid, cholera, plague, small pox, tuberculosis, cataract, etc. used to maraud the self. The defunct cholera wards, if any, will clarify the point. The English endeared themselves through their service too which but we cannot deny it.

Had there been not the colleges and varsities opened, had Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Delhi been not the centres of upheaval and repercussion, transaction and transition, the trans-continental, intra-provincial things would not have materialized. To talk of Indian English poetry, the Indians writing not in vernaculars, but in English tells a different history. Had they been not in their contact, would they have in English? They could not have had the Europeans not taught to write and learn. As a result of that interaction, the administration into the hands of them and they too trying to compromise and contact through, tried to motivate them. After a prolonged debate, should the Indians write in English, should it be Anglo-Indian or Indo-Anglican or Indo-English or Indian poetry in English, what is Indian in Indian English poetry, we have come to call it somehow Indian English poetry, on marking them, the South Africans, the Canadians and the Caribbean writing in English. Perhaps there is nothing as Indian English, but we have tried to re-designate it so, English is English, with varieties and variations many, but the standard is one. Though we have called it Indian English poetry lately, but is it right to call it Indian English poetry? Is there anything like Indian English? Where is the language? Where is it spoken? Why did the English not settle in here? Here lie in the points of reckoning and conjecture.

There is nothing as that to carry it forward rather than the theme of Indianism and that of Indianness. Indian theme, context, style, manner, purview, mentality, dressing, language, food habit, season; Indian metaphysics, history, culture, thought, tradition; myth, mysticism, philosophy, art, culture; morality, ethics, jurisprudence, faith, belief; heritage, legacy, lineage. It is very difficult to know India and the theme of Indianness. Indian culture is not alike; it is different in different regions, but something works for an amalgamation, which we interpret as synthesis. Unity in diversity is the thing to be said here. But to be Indian is not to be blind to one’s faith, belief and system. India cannot be India if we try not to understand its culture, tradition, thought, belief and system. Interconnections need to be understood and explained. What have we understood about the different facets of it?

It is very difficult to say who is a major poet and who a minor poet. Many have got the press and many have not is the case with the writers of Indian English poetry and poets. Some poets are born great, some have become great and some have been just thrust upon greatness. What it appears ludicrous is this that the subscribers cringe and stoop to conquer as for becoming reviewers and critics, even the commonly. The commonly poets and the commonly critics is the tale of Indian English poetry. The commoners as editors turn into the doyens of it, how can it be? Those who edit journals turn into poets before publishing their first collection of poems and the subscribers like to review the book of the editor first as for to come into the light of the editor. Who is not a self-styled poet and whose books have not appeared from private presses?

What it pains us most is this that in the absence of some senior teachers, the almost new hands and learners have turned into the critics of Indian English poetry, full of so much mutual praise and self-admiration, sidetracking morality and ethics. Those, who are doing Ph.Ds. and M. Phils. on Indian English poetry and poets, none but they themselves start calling themselves the experts and annotators of Indian English poetry criticism. How can it be? Some of these have already called themselves poets too, even writing their first poems. What we require it urgently is the arrival of a cultural critic from whom we can really expect, holding a very low profile in a subdued tone of his own. But the newest critics and poets of contemporary times use the tools in popularizing themselves. Even many of the established critics are but mediocre scholars of English literature turned to Indian English criticism. Today the people beat their own drums themselves.

To peep into the past of Indian English poetry, the colonial past and its exponents or imitator is to be remembered of the parroted lineage. They had not to be poets and poets, but became they in due course of time, as there had not been anyone to work as for the liaison. Those who tried to write in English were the first time Europeanized people. Western logic, reason, manner, style of expression, etiquette and modernity after the years of blatant and invading medievalism and superstitious beliefs which corroded the self and of mother India appeared to be giving wings to their imagination and they dreamt of flying, taking the flights. Most of the Calcuttans, the East India Company men governed people sought to express. The idea of nationalism had been new to them and they could think about the unification of the whole of India or binding into a whole. The post-office, the rail, the telegraph office, the school, the college, the bridge and the roadway construction and the control and reigning of rampant epidemics and pregnancy deaths added a new dimension to their thinking and rational understanding of the self.

Indian English poetry is in reality the commoners’ poetry and the commonly people continue to crowd and cram the pages of it quantitatively, not from the quality point of view. The other point of discussion is this that the minor poets and poetesses have saved the tradition of writing poetry in English and this has proved fruitful for its sake.

We generally start the history of modern poetry and modernism with Nissim Ezekiel and his contributions, but the reality is far from. There are several others who figure before him and we do not know those forgotten writers of Indian English. When did we start giving Sahitya Akademi awards to the Indian English poets? When did we start teaching them in our honors classrooms? The writers of Indian English verse just lingered on as a literary essay to be asked in M.A. exams. Today Indian English poetry has lapsed into self-praise and mutual admiration. One beats one’s drums. One’s own journal advertises one’s own poems and publications. Subscribers are promoted as for writing articles and reading papers on editors’ poems. Once when it pains me to see that even R. Parthasarathy writes about himself in his anthology of Indian English poems. Even M. K.Naik in a recent book of his has discussed his own poetry in the third person. How can it be as such? Some journal editors write about themselves and give the credit to some others. We cannot say which is whose Ph.D.?

Indian English poetry is a study in slender works and minor voices where the echoes of the English poets, from Wyatt to Eliot can be heard. Just a few pages but under a fine cover used to be the poetry books published from Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Kamala Das’ poetry-collection too was so. M.K. Naik’s books of light verses just contain in a few pages. Now many are learning to write and learn too. Once Kolatkar sent across the message to Naik that he was collecting his poems. Just Jejuri gave him a lot of unexpected name and fame and he could not hold in. Once Dilip Chitre too failed to send a copy of his book. Chitre too had just one or two collections of poems in English. Most of his lay in Marathi transcripts and presentations though he translated many of them into English and this is the base of his inclusion.

What is Indian in Indian English poetry, one may definitely ask about it. The theme of Indianness implies many an aspect. It is there in the use and application of Indian history, geography, cartography, ethnicity, linguistic diversity, sociology, archaeology, eco-system, climate, weather conditions, art, culture, tradition, thought, belief, morality, ethics, religion, faith, logic, astronomy, astrology and so on. Indian poverty, underdevelopment, backwardness, illiteracy and superstition can also be a point of major discussion. Indian history, metaphysics, theology, cosmology, philosophy, spirituality and religion can form the basis of Indian thought, culture and tradition. Here into the domain of Indian English poetry, one starts calling oneself just after writing his first poems. Later on, he just substantiates his position. Whoever writes he knows it that he is going to end up as a poet.

In the absence of a literary historian, even a big writer can be relegated to oblivion. There must be someone to work as a curator of the archives or someone to promote it. One cannot be a poet in isolation. In the beginning too, Ezekiel and others did not have more than one or two collections. Gieve Patel turned into a poet just after his first book. Pritish when immature was included in as a promising poet by P.Lal. Frankly speaking, P.Lal’s anthology-cum-credo was an apprentice work done by a novice. If one goes through it, one will come to see it how poorly threw it light, how poorly had been the masters of today then. One may find the words and sentences, he is writing poetry, has written quite a few remarkable ones, his maiden venture is on the anvil. Such a thing should have been in the journal, not in a book of criticism.

If you look into the poetry-books of P.Lal, slender in output, slimmer in presentation, you will laugh at calling them poets and poetesses. But they are the poets and poetesses, as definitely something is therein.

It is a mistake with P.Lal that he introduced many a poet, took money and published them, but never reared them, left them out as the load of the nowhere critics to dump them elsewhere. Give money and be a poet. Now the no men after editing journals start calling themselves poets. The newest Ph.D. students call themselves the critics of such a field in the absence of an authority.

The words with their connotations, Indianism, Indianization and Indianness cover up a long corpus of purview and study and these cannot be restricted to a limit merely, as they stretch beyond it to a larger dimension and horizon. Instead of being foreigners, Max Muller, Romain Rolland, Winternitz, Macdonell, Keith, Paul Deussen and some others have done marvels and we cannot repay their debts. Matthew Arnold, Alfred Lord Tennyson, W.B.Yeats and T.S.Eliot too fall within this way or that way.

As we ask it, what is Indian in Indian English poetry, similar is the case with, how far Indian are those who live abroad. Today, taking to the diaspora dais, the poets are talking of Indian from there. The non-resident Indians too call themselves Indians as they come searching their roots of nativity, locating and re-locating. A few Britons too have been searching the places and departments of their ancestors who worked as colonial administrators. They too have their own memoirs and souvenirs which but we cannot snatch it from. The search for tradition, nativity and roots will never end as these go widening into connections and inter-connections.

It is very difficult to find the books of Indian English poetry; the books of the self-published poets and poetesses. The poets themselves had been the peddlers of their own. They used to cycle and circulate the copies among the friends. Once brought out, the copies used to vanish. Neither the reader was interested nor the publisher even in reading or publishing Sarojini. Even now one cannot find the earlier collections of Jayanta Mahapatra.

India is a very vast country, almost like a sub-continent and there are so many states and regions with their histories, cultures and physical variations and resources. The snow-capped mountains with blizzards, hailstorms and landslides, the deserts with sand-dunes, lesser rains and camels trudging along, the hilly terrains lying clustered with and impregnable and the lush green pastures of the north are the different aspects of our cartography with their ethnic populations and linguistic stocks. India cannot be India if its physical description is not detailed upon. The hilly ranges, plateau regions, soils, climatic changes, weather conditions, seasonal beauties and hazards, temperatures; mountains, peaks, forests, sea-beaches, lakes, waterfalls, bays, rivers, borders, passes, islands, deserts, highlands, lowlands and pastures with exotic flora and fauna are not described. House planning and living conditions vary from place to place. The architectural designs of the homes of the colder regions where there is a snowfall often and those of the tempestuous sea-lying areas vary from.

The southern fringe with Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataks, Pondicherry and Lakshadweep, the northern side with Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Bihar, the north-eastern with Assam, Sikkim, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram, the central with Madhya Pradesh and Chhatishgarh, the northwestern zone with Rajasthan and the western with Maharashtra and Gujarat is a huge tract of land to be taken into consideration politically, socially and culturally. West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand in eastern India too are the major parts of the nation with their specific cartography, history, art, culture and tradition. A language chart of their own shows many of the languages and dialects spoken in the nondescript regions and domains of human populations. Pali and Prakrit are dead languages. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malyalam are the languages spoken in the south. Hindi is spoken in Bihar, U.P., Haryana, Chhatishgarh, Punjab and others together with local vernaculars and dialects. In Bihar too, there are four dialects supportive of Hindi, Angika, Magadhi, Bhojpuri and Maithili, barring the tribal languages. In West Bengal, Bengali is spoken and written. Classical Sanskrit used to link the south with the north and it had the potentiality of connecting the whole of India. The British bungalows and their architectural foundations themselves speak of the spread and contact and connection of the Europeans with and the colonized masses. If we make a study of those colonial foundations and establishments, the things will come to our light. The medical facilities and the bridges themselves tell a lot about their colonization not merely, but the way to connect the far flung exotic, indigenous and impregnable India. To build the roads by cutting the clustered hills would have been a tedious task.

What could have Gandhi done with his satya, ahimsa and shantih had they not recognized and valued him? The foreigners too ruled and reigned over Indian, but they could little good to it. The process of Indianization has taken a quite long time as the English too took their time to understand and know the land and the people they were to administer and hold in. Years of medievalism, looted and plundered by foreign invaders, barbarians and nomads had disrupted it all what it was good in her. Indian words, expressions and slang too form a base of Indian English language. The English language which the Indians employ and emulate is literary English; written English, not at all spoken English. English is here mainly the official language; a language of the court, police, administration, engineering, medicine.

Had the University Grants Commission, New Delhi through its peer teams not advised to include Indian English literature in college courses of studies, Nissim, Kamala, Parthasarathy, Jussawalla, Nandy, Patel, Lal and others would not have got a coverage. Had the researchers not taken them and had the same commission not pressurized professors for the research programme compulsorily for academic and career advancement, they would not have been what they are now. In the scarce no-man literature, they turned into poets just after publishing two books.

Indian English poetry is not what we see it today. There had been some who might have preserved the texts of Derozio, Kashiprasad Ghose, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Torulata, R.C.Dutt. Manmohan Ghose and others. For this the credit goes to those unknown pamphleteers and curators whose initiative had been so great otherwise the things could not have so handy. We do not know it why Aurobindo is not so vocal of Manmohan’s poetry. Perhaps the letters of Aurobindo may throw light in this respect.

Those who are reading Indian English poetry for the first time will feel disgusted in reading the duplicate poets and their imitative poetry. To turn to Indian English poetry as for originality of thought and expression, authenticity is to turn away from that. Original gold it is difficult to find here. Golden but polished imitations in jewellery can definitely be found here. Indian English poetry is a study in rhymers, poetasters, non-poets and commoners; slender voices and slim anthologies of poems. Many of them are not good poets, but bad poets turned into stalwarts and doyens. Indian English poetry is a no-man’s poetry and Indian English poetry criticism too a no-man’s criticism.

As a result of Aurobindo and his ashramites, we find it the Aurobindonian School of Poetry flourishing under his flagship. But Aurobindo as a poet shades other poets.

Frankly speaking, Indian English poetry drew a lot from Indology, Indian thought and culture studies, Asiatic researches and oriental institutes and had these been not, it could not have gained what it is endowed with today. Even now we do not have a sound perception with regard to Indology and Orientalism, their teachings, texts and manuscripts and institutes.

Many of Indian English poets and poetesses have gone missing and are traceless. We do not have any information about those pre-independence time writers of Indian English. Had Tagore too taken them into note, they would have survived. None strove to care about them, not even the people of free and independent India. Even Aurobindo did not rear them up.

William Butler Yeats appreciated and admired Tagore’s Gitanjali; recommended him for the award of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1941, but what had it been the idea of Tagore with regard to Yeats’ appreciation? Perhaps Tagore is silent all about this and what does
this account for?

We generally take the names of K.R.Srinivasa Iyengar and M.K. Naik as the critics of Indian English poetry, but before them there would have been some definitely who saved the annals from being relegated to oblivion? Who are those critics? Have we ever tried to know them? Tagore’s Gitanjali too is a one-book Ph.D. stuff and it paves the way for being example of the research work. There is no binding that one should have four books for to be considered for the Ph.D degree. There will be no mistake if we call Gitanjali a Bengali work as because the poems included have been Tran created from his different lyrical Bengali texts and the work have been written under the influences of the Vaishanava saints and classical love poetry. Such a thing can be new for some, but not for India.

R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage too is a one-book Ph.D. as because the author has not written more than one and it may be that he will add to in future and the Ph.D. on him will be inclusive of all, his interviews, opinions and clarifications in this regard. Suppose one does his Ph.D. on Arun Kolatkar will have a difficult time in handling him. Kolatkar as a poet, you believe it or not, is a mediocre poet, a poet made, not born and this is what he has become, had not been. A visit to Khandoba cannot make him Chaucerian, even not Eliotesque, as he has not struggled and suffered much for poesy’s sake. As a struggling artist, he has taken the help of his ramshackle art to reach the pedestal in poetry with his mediocre merit. M.K. Naik introduced the modern Indian English poets just with one or two book of poems as stalwarts and doyens, but they have not been. They have evolved in due course of time. They had not something great in them, but have become. Kamala was overpraised in such a way that the critics made her climb the palm tree as for juice-taking which but she knew it not that many were there to cut the stem to make her fall from heaven. The summer which she describes is not the seasonal summer, but bodily heat and dust; siestas and mid days full of sensuality.

It is a problem to get the Indian English poetry books, not the classics of literature, but even the slim and slick volumes of poesy authored by the modern poets and poetesses too. They may talk big with Padma Shri and Padma Vibhusan awards, but the ground reality is far from acceptance. P.Lal got the award for being a promoter and popularizer and so was Krishna Srinivas through his literary journal named Poet, published from Madras. Even now one may not get the copy of Rough passage and relationship if they are not acquainted with the poets directly.

While to talk it independently is to put it that Mathew Arnold, William Butler Yeats, T.S.Eliot and Walt Whitman are more than what the modern Indian poets and poetesses have as because the things lie in better represented and succinctly said in their works rather than these Indian authors pedalling Indian stuffs. Though we call it that Indian English fiction is ahead of poetry, but to compare the tings with the Western classics is to withdraw the statement. Mulk Raj Anand’s novel too is a dip in sarvodaya and Haijanodhara. Casteist feelings are there and he has transformed his vision into a broad thinking. The gap between the upper and the lower classes, strata is the thing of his deliberation and discussion. There is nothing new in them as he is saying them for the first time, that is why it appearing new to the audience, selling best in foreign. His workshop is one of inhuman untouchability, but what to say with exactly about the India of exotic flora and funa, multi-ethnic, cultural and dimensional.

Though one outwardly, but it is varied and diversified. The other thing is this that Girish Karnad has just exploited the nag-nagin stories. To sell India in this way I do not like it all. The third-rate criticism, I am sure, will spoil the prospects of Indian English poetry. The mediocre professors and the newest researchers generally turn into the specialists of such a field of literature. Maha Nanda Sharma, Simanchal Patnaik, Dwarakanath H.Kabadi, R.Rabindranath Menon, Kulwant Singh Gill, Hazara Singh, Sarbeswar Samal, Amar Nath Dwivedi, Suresh Chandra Dwivedi, Romen Basu, P.C.Katoch, etc are the poets of the contemporary times whose poems we see appearing in different journals and little magazines. The list is long and it cannot exhaust here, whatever be their output form the qualitative point of view.

O.P. Bhatangar as a poet recreates upon satire, wit, irony, humour, fun, pun and others of this type. There is nothing as to do with myth-making and mysticism. He is clear-cut, somewhere of course terse and tedious when dispensing with the words of his vocabulary and syntax. Sometimes he outwits us and sometimes it baffles us in the comprehension of his poetry. Though he is realistic and is down to realities, Apart from a few Ph.D. these on his poetry, he could not get into the limelight which he should have got. We do not know it why it could not suit their liking. Maybe it that satire and realism are contradictory.

K.V.S.Murti who is from Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh draws his materials from metaphysics, but mixes with logic and reason, wit and conceit to say the things of his own. K.V.S. Murti as a poet is of the same group of I,K.Sharma, O.P.Bhatnagar, Syed Ameeruddin and Krishna Srinivas, though the taste may be different, but avocation is one.

Maha Nanda Sharma, who is from Meerut, U.P., is a writer of epics, if not in the true sense of the term, definitely those ones the poems of some epical design and corpus to be seen elsewhere in the domain of Indian English poetry. He chooses the tales from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana to delve and dwell upon as for imagination and poesy sake to reach the zenith. John Milton and his Paradise Lost and Maharshi Aurobindo from the Indian side and his Savitri work as cadences on him and he draws from them stylistically, tending to the use of vocabulary, syntax, structure and construction. Maha Nanda Sharma used to teach at Meerut University. Indian scriptures used to keep him engaged. Once he planned to write an epic penetrating divine glimpses, but it could not materialize. The critics too had not been quick in their response.

Simanchal Patnaik who is from Berhampur, Orissa is a poet of occasional verses, eventual poems, dealing with the occasion, eventuality and situation of any happening or vent. To read his poetry is to delve deep into newspaper stuffs. News items generally take the canvas away. His poetry is a news reel of the whole century. The volumes of general knowledge and paper things are in reality the poetic tidbits of his poetry.

Hazara Singh, who is from Ludhiana, Punjab is Baconian, pithy and succinct, is a poet of practical knowledge. His poetry is an exercise in worldliness, knowledge and wisdom. How to be knowledgeable and how to be practical and a man of wisdom, these form the basics of his poetry. There is something of course drawn from the prose-writers. An oldie, he has nothing to do with romance, colouring and hued stuffs. There is nothing as that to dye and present. Everything is clear and crystal. Poetry drips as the crystal drops of practical knowledge. The other self of his is a study in the album of martyrs, freedom fighters and nationalists, that forgotten part of history, which he but remembers and recreates it. To read him is to go through the English prose-writers beforehand, as such, A.G.Gardiner, Robert Lynd, Dorothy L.Sayers and E.V.Lucas. The influence of Bacon’s Essays and Russell’s The Impact of Science on Society hangs heavy on him. Hazara is a man of progressive and scientific thoughts, ideas and reflections. He thinks in a quite healthy way. In the beginning, he had been slow, but now with the advance in time and age and ageing, he has moved quite a longer space and deserves to be called one, though not greater, but not even smaller too. To read his poetry is to be knowledgeable and to be wisdomful. One may take tips from him in healthy life and living.
He is Brecht’s Vasco da Gama, not the Mariner of Coleridge, nor the Ulysses of Tennyson.

Kulwant Singh Gill who is also from Ludhiana, Punjab is no less than, a poet of some stature, writing the poetry of the symbolical strength and verve, charming with his narrative style, floating and flowing in a natural way. The symbolical depth is the specialty of his poetry. The tales of the Punjab, its religion, faith, belief, gaiety and the cause of anxiety, what it ails her soul, are the things of his poetry that he takes up so ardently and adroitly. The sweet fragrance of the soil of the Punjab attuned with folk songs and dances and green harvests dot and punctuate his poetry here and there. He is a Punjabi poet of that Punjab has a pulsation of its own. The Punjabi rhythm of life is the story of his poetry. The history and ethos of Sikhism and the enumeration of guruhood, all these take the center space. The poet strives to catch the nuances and idiosyncrasies of the Punjab and Punjabi culture and tradition in his poetry.

Kedar Nath Sharma who is from Himachal Pradesh but settled in Delhi is a pure poet in the sense that he tries follow Walter de la Mare and John Masefield. Simple poems generally take the pen away from his hands and he delves in. Somewhere too much simplicity devastates his
poetic purpose and design.

Prem Chand Katoch had to be a novelist, but he turned into a poet too, mesmerizing poetry with fiction. Actually, fiction forms the major chunk of his writing apart from his trials into the realms of poesy and he is a poet no doubt. An M.A. in English, he has held different administrative positions and together with has gone writing poems in English. Had T.S. Eliot and Matthew Arnold been not, Prem Chand Katoch too would not have been into the realms of Indian English poesy. A narrator in verse, he keeps himself to the art of narration. Some others have also said about me, but I shall not say it myself. If I say them, I cannot be called a poet. There is something as morality and ethics too which the journal-editing poets and poetesses are exploiting them. It is a matter of shame. How can I myself in my paper on Indian English poetry discuss my poetry too in the third person? It does not suit my morality and am against such a violation of etiquette.

Amarendra Kumar from Hajipur, Bihar is a poet to be reckoned with as for his poetry-collections brought out from time to time, but the limelight what he should have got, he could not as for lukewarm mediocre criticism. He is not a simple poet to be taken into casually, as his works demand a reading and re-reading to comprehend what the poet says in his poetic tidbits. A modern poet, he writes keeping in view modernity and modernism and his poetry reminds us of Auden, Spender, MacNeice and Sitwell. Amarendra Kumar is a modern poet who likes to draw from the modern poets and poetry. How could the critics omit him? It is a matter of concern. It is true that he is verbal, verbose and modernistic while practicing poesy. Somewhere the pattern and mode of presentation engages the things in their own recourse. Romen Basu who after spending his years in the UNO and elsewhere is a poet settled in New Delhi and has poetic verve and excellence to charm anyone. The poems which he has tended are replete with romanticism and its colour, dyeing and hue; the imaginative flight and revelling into. The scenery of his poetry very often shifts to foreign climes and environs as for his visits, tours, travels and sojourns. If we miss him, we shall the best of Indian English poetry. Wrong notion and judgement have spoilt the domain of criticism. Basu has beautiful collections of poems published from standard presses. Something definitely went against him and it was prejudice which worked no doubt. Had it been not otherwise, he could have been one of the best poets. Justice is very difficult to be got. It comes rather very late when the utility lies it not in getting it. The politics of judgement works as the influencing force. To deprive a poet like that of the stature of Romen Basu is to do injustice to Indian English poetry. It is difficult to find a poet like him and if he is not, where to find a poet like him?

Madan Lal Kaul who is from Dharamshsala, Himachal Pradesh is a poet of religious fervour and devotion which originates from heart. The works which he has authored themselves are a testimony to that. One who has not read P.K.Joy will miss one of the major poets dealing with humour and laughter. To read his poetry is to burst into a laughter. One cannot hold oneself in check from smiling and this is his specialty as well as poetic achievement.

H.S. Bhatia who is from Khanna is a poet of social reality and truths which we almost go sidetracking. He takes the things in a simple way, using wit, irony and fact. T.V.Reddy who is from some area adjacent to Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh is a poet in whom romanticism lies portrayed in a faded vein. Reddy is a poet of some rural background, as it does not mean at all that he is rural in his poetical pick-up. Melancholy holds his pen and he halts to use in. The untimely death of his beloved wife too has broken him and the whiffs and wafts of it can be marked in his latter-day poems. Apart from being a poet, he has penned a few novels too and this is just for our information. T.Vasudeva Reddy as a poet is Tennysonian and his poems are a study in In Memoriam. The influence of William Wordsworth’s Lost Love, The Solitary Reaper and John Keats’ Ode To autumn is quite apparent on him.

I.H. Rizvi is one of those poets who like to draw from the English Romantics, namely Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron and others. His poetic sentiment, colour of imagination, fanciful concept and the height of imagination dawning upon attract the reader. Love and its sadness too is prominent in him. A poet of bleeding roses and heart, he is beautifully romantic. Sometimes gleeful, sometimes sad, he sings of life and the world.

Inder Kumar Sharma who is from Jaipur, Rajasthan is ironical and conceited. After publishing smaller collections, his poems have been collected in. He is very sharp and witty in his expression. But he has moved at a snail’s pace to cover up a nominal distance. The craft and the intricacies of crosswords with the kernels of ideas are things of his poetic art and expression. Now his Collected Poems can speak a lot in this regard.

Badev Mirza who is from Aligarh, U.P. writes the poems of some artistic background and penetration. His poems used to appear in his journal Skylark. He is not a poet, but an artist of words and the words come to him tenderly, floating and flowing with natural ease and drift.

Suresh Chandra Dwivedi who is from Allahabad, U.P. generally writes the poems dealing Indian society, culture, thought and tradition. In the beginning, he had planned to publish The Mouth of Truth, but he did not. He also forgot the title to use in later on. Suresh Chandra has written no doubt, but his poems lie in scattered over a host of journal which he should collect, but he has not done the rough work so far and has just one book to claim over. He labours hard for expression as they do not come naturally to him. Generally, morality, spirituality, religion and philosophy engage him poetically. Amar Nath Dwivedi, who is from Allahabad, U.P. is a poet of some simple stature writing poetry for simplicity sake. His poems have come to light primarily as for his criticism, but the talent which it lies in the simple forms of expression can never be ignored. They have their worth and excellence to be appreciated in full rhythm. Dwarakanath H.Kabadi is a dreamer, a visionary and an artist penetrating socialism. A writer voluminous in output, he excels in shorter and brief poems which he calls them as flickers. Without following punctuation marks, they follow the course of action. There is nothing as that to question with regard to his poetry and its excellence.

Pronab Kumar Majumder who is from Lake Town, Kolkata is a poet of time, time mechanical and time cosmic, split in between two and this is the dichotomy of his self. Majumder is the editor of Bridge-in-Making journal and has edited several volumes of contemporary poetry. William Hazlitt, H.G. Wells and Philip Larkin seem to have influenced the poet as the sense of time is so strong in him that he goes on reading and watching it for so long. R.R. Menon, I.K. Sharma and O.P. Bhatnagar are the poets who figure in Iyengar’s history work just with their books under the brackets. There are of course a few lines about them in the latter edition of the
work. There is also a passage about Krishna Srinivas in the later edition of the version.

R.R. Menon who is from Kerala but settled in Bangalore is a poet of a subtle standard and prolific too in his poetic output, but recognition had been ordained otherwise. Instead of his book-publications from Writers Workshop, Calcutta, his poems continued to appear in the journals. Krishna Srinivas who hails from Madras and has remained the long-time editor of the journal Poet is a poet of his own corpus, spanning over the religio-spiritual poems. Tabish Khair too is a poet of the same group of the new journal-appearing poets as he used to edit Rachna from Gaya, Bihar. But he has improvised his strength through journalism and foreign teaching.

Onkar Nath Gupta who is actually from Benaras had been employed at Akot, Akola of Maharashtra and now after his retirement from there, he currently lives at Raipur. It is a specialty of Gupta that he compares the old with the modern while entertaining the readers. The satiric-comical effects add to his dimension. Especially humour, satire and realism are the chief properties of the poet. It should also be noted that O.P. Bhatnagar too had been posted under the same Amravati University where O.N. Gupta used to work. Syed Ameeruddin who is from Madras is a poet of the metaphysical dimension. His love reminds us of John Donne, Robert Herrick, Andrew Marvell and so on.

Sarbeswar Samal who is from Cuttack, Orissa has tendered quite a few books as standard publications. The poems which have come down to us from his poetic pen tend to different facets and dimensions of life. A professor of Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, he writes in his own individual style. Though editors could have written on his poetry, but instead of that, they loved and chose to get the articles published on their own poetry in maximum. The poems generally take the longer course as those of Kulwant Singh Gill.

But what it pains us most is this that not only R. Parthasarathy and M.K. Naik have written about their poetry in the books by them, but the journal-appearing smaller poets too continue the same tradition in their history books and papers, as for A.N. Dwivedi, D.C. Chambial, T.V. Reddy, I.H. Rizvi, P.C. Katoch. They can definitely say about their own things, but for courtesy’s sake not in their own critical books and papers, as it infringes upon sense of morality. Who does not like to popularize and promote one’s own poetry? If I.K. Sharma writes a paper on Indian English poetry, he will include Chambial, T.V.Reddy, Baldev Mirza, I.H.Rizvi and others and even if they write, it will be reciprocated.

Vikram Seth, Amit Chaudhary and Tabish Khair are alike in their coming. Vikram’s first book could not find a press in foreign. Hence, it was finally given to Writers’ Workshop, Calcutta and his journey started from there. Even Vikram Seth too is a writer of his type and tenor. His works deserve not to be called the classics of poetry, may these be of Indian English poetry. He visits China, comes to know of Chinese poetry, tries to recreate the rhythm in English, laced with a tour diary and entries.

Tabish Khair too has grabbed the opportunities in becoming a poet. Had he been not associated with the Times of India and had he not moved to Copenhagen, he would not have been what he is today. Without being a literary editor, one cannot be a poet easily. Nissim Ezekiel had been the editor of the Indian P.E.N., Jayanta Mahapatra of Chandrabhaga.

As Vinayak Krishna was himself a poet so are K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar and M.K. Naik. Sometimes we feel it that Indian English poetry is one-book Ph.D. stuff as is the case with R. Parthasarathy. He soared to the heights just with his one book and that is Rough Passage. Koatkar too scaled maximum heights with Jejuri by manoeuvring his commercial art and Marathi entity, proximity to metropolitan Bombay. Just for thinner collections, many of the Indian English poets and poetesses got the Sahitya Akademi awards. Kamala went on posing and posturing as love-mad Mira, but was not in reality. She in a sense degenerated literature and for fame she did it everything. Media glare and limelight had been the target of Kamala. Just on her slim books, we lavished praises, calling her so greatly confessional and bold enough to vent her ire and face the truth, but we should keep it in mind that everything has got some limit and by doing that she trespassed it as for being media-savvy.

Even after so many years of creative writing, you will wonder to know it that not even a single article on my poetry appeared in the literary journals, nor did any editor do it. I too never asked them to do me a favour. But what disturbs me is this that after writing for a year, one starts calling oneself a big poet or poetess which is but modern taste and sense of morality. They do not follow any ethics to be kept as an example.

I used to write about Dwarakanath H.Kabadi, but never did anyone buy my theories. Now a few lines can be seen in M.K. Naik’s recent book of criticism. There is one fault with M.K. Naik as a critic that he often shows inclination towards the media-propped things. If a poetry competition is held, some names will naturally come up as from the lottery draw and those become the properties of Naik. Unknown names figuring in newspapers too turn into critical stuffs just like news items, which become dead so soon.

Today we talk of modernism and the history of modern Indian English poetry, but have we ever opined it otherwise? Had there been not the industrial revolution, new discoveries and inventions heralding a new age in science, technology and medicine; had our education not developed; had we been not connected so well, could we have called ourselves modern? The answer is ‘no’. Modern appliances, comforts and pleasures too have added to our new mental set-up and thinking. Had there been the bullock cart to take us and the earthen lamp to show, we could not have been. Electricity too is a wonder making the things happen so easily. The wonders of science have made us modern rather than the thinking of man. Time and distance pose no problem too is a truth.

Indian English poetry as a branch of study is just an off-shoot of English literature which has developed from Indology, Oriental studies, Asiatic researches and vernacular readings. The base is one of classical Sanskrit, the Ramamyana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavadgita, the Puranas and the Upanishadas, but instead of the vernacular stuffs and the regional things have made a way into the theme and crux of it. We cannot set aside the history, culture, art, tradition and the locale. Had the modern Indian language classics been translated into English, it would have done marvels and have added a new dimension to it. The poetry of Surdas, Mira, Tulsi, Kabir, Rashkhan, Jayasi and Vidyapati is not only stupendous, but elevating too, but we are devoid of the draughts.