The poetic veins within Varun Gandhi

By Dilshan Boange

[Part 1]

India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was world- renowned not only for his statesmanship but also his prowess as a writer. I first encountered his captivating craft in the written word that carries a distinctive poetic charm through Glimpses of World History.

Although not occupying centre stage in the context of how the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is personified today in the eyes of the international press, Varun Gandhi, a great grandson of the late Pandit Nehru, can perhaps be seen as taking his own steps from his ‘Nehru heritage’ of poetic scholarliness, while being in career politics. VG is a member of the Indian legislature (Lok Sabha) representing a constituency Uttar Pradesh as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The focus of this article is not to discuss the political career of a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi lineage but the worth of his writing as poetry that speaks very strongly of a voice that seeks to express his conscience, undiluted. I came across VG’s poetry on his official website. (http:// varungandhi.net.in/) From the volume of poems he has put, out this full time politician is no doubt a poet who does not merely dabble with verse but takes the mode of expression and the content he puts into it very seriously.

Critical commentary

Focus of the discussion In this two part article I wish to look at six of VG’s poems in the light of discussing them through critical commentary; looking at the poems as texts as well as possible reflections of the poet’s own consciousness. The poems I have chosen are –Prince of Wounds, Voice of a Resurrected Poet, The Ruin, Darkness, Father to Son, and the Return to Introspection.

The poem ‘Prince of Wounds’ projected a line of thought that bespeaks of a conscience that has begun to question the ‘journey of the traveller’ so to say, and thereby delivers an inward gazing set of questions that perhaps the poet himself is unable to answer. It is not unheard of that it is the journey and not the destination that thrills the traveller. But then who charts the course of the traveller? Do the feet that walk the path become navigators or does the mind that directs them command every step? Does a traveller always stick to the charted course that he may set on at the very outset? These seemed to be some of the symbolic questions that the poem spoke out in its voice of a very contemplative and perhaps perturbed soul. Consider for example, the following lines

from the poem – “As I stray
I am told
Don’t think but look
The walk must show the way”

Does the journey have a life of its own? One can only keep watch for what will loom ahead, and hopefully manoeuvre. A wanderer as distinguished from a traveller is possibly best understood in terms of how they perceive and negotiate their directionality.

When one strays from the path what consequences follow? Arguably there is the need to rationalise the straying if he is a traveller and not a mere wanderer. How the poet may harmonise these possible frictions that speak out through the text is rather thought-provoking.

The following lines extracted from the poem appears to give indications. more strongly of what the poet may have seen and been witness to in his life experience and especially so if I may venture to conjecture, in the political arena.

“So there’s no accountability. A stranger is just a victim you haven’t met” Hints at political mayhem?

Is it about political mayhem? I wondered if this is a line that projects a much more personal perspective of the poet where the text takes on a stronger thread of the poet’s own ‘statement space’.

“Sometimes I walk the secret way Is it fate or is it me”

Prince of Wounds carries the above lines that speak of perhaps a path that may be secretive as the poet may feel it may be a path that he should not take? But why? arises as the subsequent question.

Could it indicate a questioning of the belief of the ‘will of man’ by citing fate’s presence in the possible changes of the path? Perhaps there is solace to think that it is ‘fate’ that drives him to what he may even secretly resent and have doubts about.

And then it may also be a feeling of empowerment to think that it is his conscious choice. Either way the soul that traverses the path his feet move on must know that he is bound to the ground he walks, and be it fate or the will of man, it is finally ‘mortals’, be they rulers or the ruled, who must face the results of human action.

Fear

Shadows cover the area surrendered. It’s only really fear when realised.Taking on the image and metaphor of the traveller as what perhaps gives good insight to dissect the meaning in this poem I venture to suggest that perhaps every traveller surely feels how his journey is one that he must steer as the helmsman of his own ship. In this regard group

mentalities can surely prove to deafen the individual to his own individual voice within.

I feel it is this point of realisation that VG brings to the reader through those lines cited afore. Fear is felt lesser when in the security of a group and becomes intense when isolated.

And when alone, in solitude this realisation can be overwhelming. That can mean an overpowering moment of fear. There is sometimes the notion of strength in groups which dwindle like dew when faced with solitariness. And what matters at moments like that is how at peace you are with your conscience.

Symbolic

Perhaps the symbolic traveller and his traversing is what VG may have intended through this poem as a message, and to show that we gather ‘wounds’ in our journey as much as we gather experiences that thrill us. And as much as we gather these wounds perhaps it is prudent to be conscious of that fact that as we pass through different locales and meet new people we also can be ‘causers’ of ‘wounds’. The benevolent traveller must always be watchful. Wounds caused to the innocent ‘in passing’ cannot invoke blessings upon the traveler.

The poem ‘Voice of a Resurrected Poet’ weaves a theme that speaks of an urgency and subsequent perplexity.

One could say that the poet through this very inward gazing poem reaches towards defining his idea of poetry from a very subjective ground. It spoke out as an unravelling of thoughts in its unrestrained form as ‘thinking’ made to speak as the written word.

The following lines excerpted from the poem give the indication as to what is at the core of defining what the poet will call his craft.

“As I wait for ideas not realising that it is Thinking and not the thought that made me a poet.”

Poetry had strict definitions in its classical forms and from sonnets to Petrarchan poems, and had ‘frames’ which set the form and manner to define the mould of what becomes a poem and what does not. But of course over centuries of artistic rebellion and creative transgression has ushered the age where poetry is seen as more as an expression of words from the heart rather than a textual pattern that subscribes to a ‘frame’. It is interesting in this regard how the poet offers us the following line to express what was perhaps a moment where he found himself

“No thoughts but frames”What can a writer achieve if he is not conscious to the streams of thoughts that surge within him?

Being sensitive to the emotions and thoughts that arise within, gives the writer his most potent ground to sculpt his images and put them into motion that birth narratives.

The lack of creative thoughts indicate a deadened pulse to an artist and the awareness that frames impose themselves on you can be quite daunting to a voice that embraces the passion for expression as a free spirit, which is what one finds in VG’s poetry.

Perhaps the line quoted afore speaks of how the poet may feel that constraints of the regulations of form. And to ‘conform’ acts as a shackling of the artistic mind.

To be continued