Let me say how much pleasure I gained from this insight into India and the State of Orissa, and the felicitous expression which distinguishes many of your poems.  - Prof. John Jones, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, England in his response to Delightful World of Poems

If we do not talk about Simanchal Patnaik, the story of Indian English poetry would not be complete. A Subordinate Judge he wrote and published poetry which we could not take a note of seriously but here was a writer who engaged and definitely sought to grapple with. A poet he was like M.N. Sharma, A.C. Sahay, M.L. Kaul, K.N. Sharma, D.H. Kabadi, P.K. Majumder, A.N. Dwivedi, S.C. Dwivedi, D.C. Chambial, Hazara Singh, Kulwant Singh Gill, Baldev Mirza, K.V. Venkataramana, P.K. Joy, T.V. Reddy, I.H. Rizvi and so on. If they are not poets, where will poetry be found? Someone may definitely ask me as for how do you promote them? How do you call them poets? There was a time when it was difficult to work on them but comparing the things we got at. In the eighties or the nineties even the books of so-called poets were unavailable. Krishna Srinivas too is from the same group but has not been taken seriously even though he was awarded by the Government of India. Narenderpal Singh even though he was a recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award for Punjabi but not for writing poems in English. Romen Basu who was a fine poet apart from a novelist could not find favour with critics and professors. Basu’s books appeared from standard houses and presses, but his poems are not still on the syllabus for the students. Maybe someday they will prescribe him.

As for explanation, something must be noted in. P. Lal’s first anthology and credo which he edited and promoted was a study in minor poets evolving, making a way with new poetic ventures on the anvil from which the major ones have evolved. When C.R. Mandy had been the editor of the Illustrated Weekly, he was not satisfied with the bad verses written by the Indians. Pritish Nandy too was given a chance when of a tender age by Lal who was his teacher. Almost all the writers, Kamala Das, K.N. Daruwalla, Jayanta Mahapatra, Nissim Ezekiel, Adil Jussawalla barring some, were published by Lal. Their slender books were not in the market as they were from smaller presses and for private circulation too. At that time there were no takers of Indian English poetry which was but Indian poetry in English. Even the Ph.Ds. done on the Indian element used to be underrated as second-class works. 

But it pains us to find that K.D. Katrak was left behind even though he was equally good. Katrak, a Parsi poet, did not find favour whatsoever be the reason while K.N. Daruwalla, Adil Jussawalla and Gieve Patel got promoted. Patel did not have enough poems but he got the critics and their recommendations. Adil Jussawalla too had been busy with his journalism and poetry-picking apart from his casual write-ups keeping poetry at bay. Jussawalla promoted new writings from Debonair, Jayanta selecting poetry for the Telegraph Colour Sunday Magazine and Khushwant Singh writing about the new poets in his columns. Dilip Chitre too had not books, just one or two in English, that too self-published ones, out of stock. Vikram Seth’s book rejected in the West in the initial stage found favour with Lal’s Writers Workshop, Calcutta. Arun Kolatkar had not his collections in the beginning, was just publishing in journals and was trying to bring out books. Similar was the case with Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. The other thing is this, if Meena Alexander and Eunice de Souza can be poets, how can Anna Sujatha Mathai be left behind? The small book named Relationship for which Jayanta Mahapatra got the Sahitya Akademi Award for poetry too had been out of stock.

Narenderpal Singh, Kulwant Singh Gill, Pronab Kumar Majumder, Sarbeswar Samal’s books appeared from Writers Workshop. I.H. Rizvi’s and also Sarbeswar Samal’s books appeared from Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly. M.N. Sharma used to teach at Meerut Univ. and had the epical works based on Indian characters. D.H. Kabadi who had been from Bangalore was a great poet of stylistic and manneristic writings. The supervisor at CIEFL approved his stylistic, manneristic poetry for a Master of Philosophy. So were P.K. Majumder and Hazara Singh promoted in the social sciences and humanities deptt.

Kulwant Singh Gill’s literary works used to appear in the Tribune. Hazara Singh’s poem was finally included in the text for the secondary students in Maharashtra. S.C. Dwivedi wrote the preface for Simanchal Patnaik’s anthology of poetry. T.V. Reddy was a National Fellow as Visiting Professor. Ph.D. theses have been finished on the poetry of M.N. Sharma, I.H. Rizvi, P.C.K. Prem, T.V. Reddy and R.K. Singh.

Still now err we in starting modern Indian English poetry with Nissim Ezekiel rather than knowing its history. How much do we know about the poetry written by Manjeri S. Isvaran, P.R. Kaikini and others? Did Indian poetry die with R. Parthasarathy’s anthology of twelve poets?

Simanchal who has Delightful World of Poems, Bedroom Poems, Poetry In Tranquility, Sonnets & Other Poems, Poetry of Himalayan Wisdom, Queen of English Poetry and others as his collections of poems can easily sail through if judged through critical canons.

Invoking the elemental things, he talks about Adisankara, the primordial energy which has shaped this world and his pen cannot paint the Jyotirlingas which have been since long. The poet speaks about Somnath, Vishwanath, Baidyanath, Nageshwara, Kedarnath, Omkareshwar, Ghumshmeswar, Rameshwara, Mahakaleswar, Bheemashankar, Mallikarjuna and Tryambakeshwara which are but the hearts of the Hindus. Shiva’s dance in chhou style at Baripada in admirable attire is a sight which has fulfilled his desire.

Lord Shiva

Let us call Adisankara the great to infuse
In us glories of Lord Shiva in various places
Which are so wonderful, so enchanting, and so precious
For neither I, nor my pen, nor any famous Muse
Can picturesquely paint the points of the past era
Somnath, Vishwanath, Baidyanath, Nageshwara,
Kedarnath, Omkareshwar, Ghumshmeswar, Rameshwara,
Mahakaleswar, Bheemashankar, Mallikarjuna and Tryambakeshwara
Are the Jyotiringas, the hearts of the Hindus
Named my three sons, born on Mondays as per prayer,
The dearest days of Lord, as Kapileswar, Nilakantheswar,
And Bhalunkeswar to get His bountiful blessings
Shiva’s dance in chhou style at Baripada in admirable attire
Is a sight which has fulfilled my desire.

Konark Sun Temple, what do the folks say about the temple and its construction? The populace takes it Sibai Santa as the chief architect of the temple commissioned by the king under whose command the temple was built. What do the folks say about the construction of the Konark Sun temple? What more do we know about the Oriya king and his architect?

Konark Sun Temple

The world famous monument was a product of painstaking
Work of Sibai Santra like Michelangelo of amaranthine fame
Eminent King Narsingh Dev of ancient Utkal by name
Nourished and nurtured it as an object of sightseeing
The finite-like gorgeous Sun Temple in sculptured stone
At the confluence of holy river Chandrabhaga and Sea
Has architecture par-excellence and to inquisitively see
And enjoy it would be skin to reaching Moon
The chariot-like sacred Sun Temple of sublime
With a dozen awe-inspiring pairs of wheels driven by seven
Gigantic sculptured horses is indeed and in fact a Heaven
Albeit a portion is consumed by the tyrant Time
The fauna and flora, damsels and demons of hoary
Architecture remind us of the past pristine glory

Nuakalebara of Lord Jagannath of Puri  is a poem which puts it before the ritual of the changing of the wooden statues every thirteen years. The ritual of doing away with the olden statue is Orissa-centric and time-specific and it interests us in terms of cultural penetration, the panorama observed.

Nuakalebara of Lord Jagannath of Puri 

Like Kumbh Mela and Godavari Pushkaralu, the festivities,
A special function of Jagannath is done every twelve years.
Like human beings the bodies of the three deities,
Become old and so the same are replaced with tears,
And the souls are transferred from old ones
To new ones with unparalled pomp and ceremony.
The old wooden bodies are buried in temple-gardens,
Like human bodies buried in churchyards with agony.

Nuakalebara is this function performed with abracadabra,
Which is observed regularly since time immemorial.
Such new incarnations of Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra,
Make Hinduism from age to age roll.
It’s meant for people like ‘Boston Brahmins’of yore,
Who’ll get an insight into India’s Spiritual Treasure.

The poem evokes the memory of the Krishna legends and cults, Krishna’s teachings in the Bhagavad-gita, Krishnalila and Raslila. Where Braj, where Mathura? Where Vrindavan?

Lord Krishna

Lord Krishna is a wonderful symbol of the Supreme Being,
His advice to Arjuna in Gita mesmerises every reader,
Millions of Indians read it regularly for spiritual pleasure,
Many commentators wrote on this eternal spiritual spring.
To see Braj where Krishna played joyfully
Many spend thousands of rupees travelling long distances;
I’ve seen with my eyes Mathura with ecstatic dances,
I’ve seen with my eyes Vrindaban blissfully.
As He held aloft against Indra’s vagary Govardhana hillock
To give shelter to cows and cowherds, I prayed
Before Him to give shelter from people wicked,
Who torture me always due to my bad luck.
Who doesn’t want to see the Abode of Absolute?
Who doesn’t want to hear the music of Krishna’s Flute?