The poetic veins within: Varun Gandhi

by Dilshan Boange

[Part 2]

In this second instalment of the article series offering an analytical commentary on a selection of poetry of Varun Gandhi, a great grandson of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and currently a member of the Indian legislature from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the discussion begins with the continuation of the focus on the poem ‘Voice of a Resurrected Poet’, and will progress to focus on the poems ‘The Ruin’ and ‘Darkness’.

The voice of the poet then tells his readers that a state of inertia is what he becomes conscious of as his ‘resurrection’ takes place. These sentiments are conveyed in the following lines.

“Unaffected the dead poet rises unloved unloving still dead” A state of torment is silently being suffered by the poet one may argue upon realising that he has come to life only to be aware of that emptiness within. The poem ends with the following lines –

“The vicious backlash of creativity

The voice of a naked poet”

lies alone like a pregnant sore stringing loneliness except for the friendship of maggots and the bloody rocks on which it looks forth on existence and weeps for it cannot hit.” A state of his helplessness is what the poet surely intends to make the reader aware of. The voice speaks of realising that the resurrection has not been to ‘full life’ and to what he perhaps felt abundantly before he descended to a sleep as still as death.

I say a sleep as ‘still as death’ because a death per se should grant a life in rebirth. A soul reborn is born anew and will pulsate with life. This is not an infant opening his eyes to the world but a soul awoken to realise his energies that once flourished have waned. He is numbed inside.

What caused it then is the question? And could this question in its subtext raise the unasked question whether the resurrected poet now wonders why he woke up at all? There is quite a poignant tone and image in the poem ‘Voice of a Resurrected Poet’ which in its somberness indicates that being ‘recalled to life’ may not always assure ‘life restored’ as may have been presumed.

‘The Ruin’

‘The Ruin’ is a shorter poem which speaks more of an overall view of concerns about humanity than the poet’s more personal, inner being and subjective experiences. The poem in full has been produced here for the reader’s benefit.

“As in the sea where all predation began As on the land where I place my last forgotten chance where dust settles like mediocrity The high tide speaks acquainted with the urgency of fate For it has been turned into a screen show with children like ants and mothers like bugs nesting upon dried food.” The cohesive image that is built by the poet is one that is rather hard hitting.

The failure of (so- called) the ‘evolution of species’ (from a point of biological perceptions) to achieve ‘civilisedness’ that respects life seems to be the heart of the message. Has the journey of life on our planet beginning as forms of aquatic life to land dwelling creatures made any difference? If predation prevails regardless of wherever we may dwell what hope is there for a world that does not rely on killing and plunder for sustenance? Could it be a contemplation that may hint at ‘humanity’ in humans as a whole, is like an ideal that cannot become real? Rendering the proposition that ‘humanity’ has become a smokescreen, even less tangible as what is called a ‘myth’, because what is so- called a myth is shrouded in ambiguity and lacks the clarity of chronological history. A myth at least may have its kernels of truth in its origins in a forgotten time that became narrated over time to a larger than life image. What the poet seems to propose is a review about the idea of humanity in its purest form as something that cannot claim to have ever existed, meaningfully.

‘Darkness’

‘Darkness’ is a poem that gave a very strong sign of what seems to be a moment of dilemma within the poet. As befitting the title, this single word which can be treated as a metaphor for that qualities the word is associated with as well as the phenomena of darkness as a state of ‘lightlessness’, speaks volumes of what the poet may have found churning within him needing expression almost perhaps in the pursuit of some silent personal catharsis. Consider these lines from the poem – “I’ve sold myself, I’ve sold myself short again” An artist, who works for the pure pleasure of his work to be born to the world as a labour of love surely believes that he must not betray his heart by letting his craft and his need to express his feelings through his chosen form of expression, be allowed to get regressed, and become deadened.

Could this be at the centre of what spurred this poem I wonder? Or could it speak of some ‘letting down’ the poet chastises himself for through the voice of the poem? Selling one’s self ‘short’ indicates that one’s true worth was not met and yet to submit to the proposition was a necessity perhaps out of pragmatism. It could be the dilemma of any artist.

Varun Gandhi

Further on in the poem the poet gives voice to what I feel may indicate regrets of a poet who perhaps feels he has done his desires and dreams as an artist a disservice. Conjecture through textual analysis is after all the limits of a critic or commentator on literature and so I shall make no pretentions that what I propose can have any merits beyond what they are worth.

And thus on this premise as a critical commentator I will venture to suggest that the voice of this poem –‘Darkness’ speaks of a soul who seeks to capture the hidden true potentials within.

He speaks of what comes out of his own isolation–the ‘effluvia of isolation’ as it is so called in the poem. While being conscious to the consequence of what may come of this secretly suffered ordeal of self exile, the poem’s voice suggests that he must and has in fact put himself through it.

Isolation and escapism

Isolation can be crippling to the heart that seeks the warmth and company of living people. Yet if such a person believes the means to unearth the talents that repose deep within must be woken through a passage of soul searching, then there is a possible dichotomy.

Ernest Hemingway said “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life”. Perhaps the poet is seeing such signs and faces a battle within. Can he face a hermitic life? If that is the price to uncap his true potentials as an artist?

Escaping into mania is another strong proposition the poet puts forward. It is a means to avoid reality and the much brutish harshness it hurls at times. Escapism is a sweet indulgence at times.

Such a state of mind can become a self-contained subjective reality within the confines of the mind of the person. But what is its consequence? What could be its price? Temporary respite is always welcome and in fact needed. But to lose one’s grasp of reality and what must be consciously grasped and dealt with pragmatism while seeking solace in escapism may render newer dilemmas.

Perhaps the darkness that the poem brings out which is very clearly the inner darkness of a mind faced with inner turbulence, acts as a duality of both respite –being a blanket to block out the chaos of the world outside, and torment –being an abyss that hurls the soul deeper into the chaos within.