Born on January 16, 1941 in Durg, Madhya Pradesh, perhaps the most prolific and multi-faceted writer of his generation, Ashok Vajpayee is a poet who loves life’s untouched passion, unseen darkness and half-opened flowers as well as those withered flowers , which are often ignored by a common man. In the texture of his poetry, there is a combination of true, true and conscious modern Indian man’s sensitivity, in which the revision of tradition and the search for modernity go hand in hand. When the history of post-independence poetry will be written, Ashok Vajpayee will be one of those Hindi poets, whose poetry will have a deep imprint of Indianness in its soul. The understanding of his poems is not one-sided but multidimensional.
If we look at the contemporary poetic scenario, then Ashok Vajpayee is that important and rare poet, who has continued to search for new ground in his poetry. Significantly, the main concerns of his poetry are love, life and death. These are the three subjects, which are included in his poems.
Ashok Vajpayee’s first collection of poems ‘Shehar Abhi Sambhavna Hai’ was published in 1966. ‘Kuch Rafu Kuch Thigde’ is his eleventh collection of poems. The first edition of this collection was published by ‘Rajkamal Prakashan’ in the year 2004. The poems in this collection, written over a period of one year, are bright and serene in their transparency, at times clouded with sadness. At the center of the poetry of this collection are the aura and images of ordinary life, which Ashok Vajpayee’s language evokes with unique words and timeless intentions.
Let us read eleven selected poems from Ashok Vajpayee’s poetry collection ‘Kuch Rafu Kuch Thigde’, which underlines many important points of his poetic sensibility-
1)
lightly
the leaf trembled lightly in the wind
the wind trembled lightly as it passed by the leaf
a child sitting there shivering a little from the cold
on the dying face of an old man
Life trembled again and became calm.
2)
old woman
in the old lady’s bag
Some fruits were dried,
some repressed desires,
Some words left unsaid.
There was no food in the old woman’s house.
No bed,
No one, the sound of someone being there.
putting your bag on your side
the old woman keeps on spreading
in the shed
As if life is lying on the floor of death.
3)
What do you want?
to live you
What is the least needed?
A little bread, some salt, water,
a perch, a rug, a sheet,
a pair of clothes, a bag,
two slippers,
a few words, a few books, a few hums
mother’s memory
Childhood gone away
Death approaching
What do you need to do poetry?
many lives, ancestors,
love, tears, humiliation,
The noise of the people, the solitude of the forest,
Home of language, space of rhythm,
slice of bread, nugget of salt,
pitcher of water
and cruel sky.
4)
the tree said
What will happen by wandering here and there?
stick to your roots,
draw juice there,
Flowers, fruits and birds will come there,
sunshine and dew,
There the sky will bow
There the earth will touch
where the roots are
and you are stuck on them,
There itself.
5)
sound
birdsong
invisible above the trees
pure and transparent
just sound
Who doesn’t say anything to anyone.
6)
Bird
after all the bird says the same
The first bird
What does the bird say
and to whom
Why else?
7)
everything is waiting
Everything is waiting
glee in the green leaves,
Unseasonal shower suddenly came and went,
Awakening of the deity sleeping in the pagoda with the chanting of mantras,
Annoyance when the newspaperman could not throw the newspaper till the fourth floor in the morning.
Don’t know in which corners the lonely sound of pigeons in the lazy afternoon,
The excitement of fresh vegetables in the neighborhood kunjde shop
a sick child constantly circling on his tricycle
Everything is waiting.
Letter printed by mistake on typewriter,
Incomplete sentence left inadvertently in the poem,
illegible words written in cursive in the letter,
without knowing and without any grammar
let’s wait-
Neither he nor anyone else knows whose.
8)
place words
leaves fall
neither tree knows how many
Neither the leaves know where.
rain drops fall
They don’t know where
they feel lost
Nowhere.
death comes
feet in the desert
like the wind
who does not know
that where she is going.
amidst all this
some wet some dry
words take their place
and like stones
just go
for some centuries.
9)
words keep from falling
Words save from falling:
they fall weightless
on conscience.
they in the dark
With the help of invisible light
Searching among the bushes
stairs,
corridors in the wilderness,
from the prison of murderers
A window to jump out.
they weave a rope
by which someone from a blind hole
can come out
or can be traced
Who has fallen in the well.
sometimes when we’re on the wrong side
the words suddenly emerged inside the shoes
Hits like a nail:
they can’t stop us
but definitely give this much
That we can go some other way too.
words as heavy as pebbles
grind yourself into sand
and lay
so that when we fall on them
So don’t get hurt.
Words keep you from falling.
10)
Now and then
when all the insults fell
When all desires have withered,
When there is no room left in the street
then the benevolent god came
from the story of a past life
bringing back some characters, some events
dust them off
Making them as bright as gifts.
11)
beginning
they all left
trample everything down
Be sure that they didn’t leave anything intact.
then like insects lost in a pile of dry leaves
came a word
and he put a little mud in his mouth
And started composing after picking up the straw.
.
Tags: Book, Hindi Literature, Not poetry, Hindi Writer, Literature
FIRST PUBLISHED : June 29, 2023, 23:52 IST
