BOOK REVIEW OF “ KANGAL HOTA JANTANTRA” BY Dr. VIKRAM SINGHAL

This is not to present a critic of the book but an attempt to test myself , as to how much have I understood the personality, and person of my friend, the author, Mr Anil Sharma. By recording my understanding of his poems, I am expecting an endorsement, of being receptive enough during our short but intense interactions that we shared, a few years back, at his hometown usually under the watch of our common benefactor PN Sir.

My presuppositions regarding his intellectual outlook, shall colour, my analysis of the present work, and shall also reflect upon my own convictions as well as pretentions, especially towards theoretical grounding of social and spiritual phenomena.

That life may be simple and uncomplicated is the fundamental assumption, in this collection. That the inconsistencies of human mind are both the inductive and deductive quotient of the inconsistencies and complications of the society, which makes it impossible to form any cogent social imagination, and thereby incapacitating the individual to make ontological choices , so as to express his identity and desires.  These fallacies extend to both,  faith and logic, of the person .hence the individual is both the villain and the victim , of this complicated world.

  “Ishwar hone ka kitna bada prapanch”

“prapanch”  or ‘phenomena’ ,  the ‘bundle’ of meanings, often created by language, when crosses the intellectual capacity of its weaver , presents itself as the indiscernible GOD.

      “ apne svakrit ishwar ki sthapna mein”

The solipsist shall ever be in his trance.

“ekangi soch ke nashe me ab jaagti hui neend aadhi hai”

This tussle of the simple with the complicated, with all the detailing by information and facts external to the reality, is reflected in the tug of war between the simplicity of faith and the complications of reason.

“Aasthe ki safedi lagati ho tum, buddhi ki kalikh main pot deta hoon.”

But these inconsistencies and fallacies are equally distributed , between faith and reason. This leads to the greatest of ‘dilemmas’ ,choosing between trivializing the truth or Chaos. This tussle becomes more evident  when the poet’s thought process becomes laboured. The ‘immediate’ interaction of thought , thought process and consciousness is lost.  Using simplistic theoretical  explanations loses the reality and trivializes the truth where as trying to collect particulars of the present causes a chaos, where the reality and its relation to the self and identity of the person is lost.

“ye sochkar main sochta hoon ki kya sochun”

“aadmi cheej ki haqiqat kya hai, duniya me jeene ki jarurat kya hai”

By now the dichotomy of the real and the phenomenal seems complete, and it is also evident that reason is able to apprehend only the phenomenal and not the real. And this limitation of reason affects the person’s cognition and behaviour.

“badi koshishon se na idhar dekhta hun na udhar dekhta hun, ae shaitan si duniya tujhe hu-ba-hu dekhta hun.”

 What then obstructs this apprehension of the real?

“jneya matra avalamban jo ho , par sthul nahi, ye sukhsma nahi.”

For the real is neither material nor immaterial and reason equipped with only five senses and logic may not apprehend it. Faith on the other hand has lost its credibility and is no longer a trusted source of knowledge.  Even this realization of the inapprehensibility of the real is lost upon the collective consciousness which turns both parasitic and saprophytic, upon itself and its sentience.

“soshan ka samajik anubandh , parjivi sanskaron mein doobi hui rachnayen.”

The harmony between change and continuity, unity and duality, is the next challenge before this inability of apprehending the real . how then do we relate any two entities, objective or incidental. The evolution of truth , the reification of the dialectics is stymied.

‘sari sambhavnayen thos hote samay me jam kar chattan si ban gayi hain.’

Identity is the product of continuity and unity, which provides some certainity and thereby some succour, in the midst of this unending struggle. This identity may itself turn into an inconsistency in a fight for survival against other identities, or it may serve as a firm bedrock, for the poet to stand upon, by acting as a Kantian category, processing the real, the ‘phenomena’lization of the noumena. So that the person may be able to accept the perceived as a derivative of the real and proceed further. But as seen above this dilemma is not resolved and the crisis of identity persists.

“bada hi up-to-date hoon. Har taraf se uprooted hoon , har jagah apravasi hoon, mai global village ka nivasi hoon.”

Lost sentience, leads to loss of confidence on reason, and faith already denounced , the recipe for an alienated self is complete.  This alienated existence is evident in the supremacy of the market and ideology, each is a claimant to being a greater phenomena  than the other.

As the amount of facts and information  multiplies, the words become heavier and the speaker is no longer the master, the words assume meanings independent of the speaker. Trivializing ideologies are set in a time warp blissfully unaware of the swelling of the words and definitions, and the ever experiencing individual is left with no choice, but to use these incomplete and misleading dictionaries further alienating him.

“ shabdon me sarthak kam, jyada nirarthak hoon.’

“ bhasha aur vibhasha ka tark milata hoon, shabdon ko naya arth pilata hoon.”

As markets become Orwellian,  using the chaos of details to intimidate the individual to withdraw into the shell of consumerist existence. The choices forced upon him confound both his identity and desire, to an extent that even the Cartesian cogito is no longer beyond doubt. Markets assume the form of a huge monolith which has become the new order and determines the keystone of ethics. Has profit come to replace ‘good’ are both synonymous or analogous as the order changes.

“ jiska gala tai mein aintha hai,jo dil ko dimag me jane se rokta hai.”

“ab prakriti bazaar me samaa rahi hai............ab dharti batue me samaa rahi hai.”

Alienation may be expressed both ways, egoistic renouncement or fatalistic withdrawal. Either you decide that the world is no longer worthy of your indulgence, or that you are no longer capable of indulging in it.

“ab ye desh na to tumhare layak raha, na hi mere layak raha.”

As one withdraws, the phenomena seem transcendent, and as one renounces, they seem immanent. Confounded by variable perceptions, one may find it beyond the epistemic limits , may be overwhelmed by its ubiquity.

“ raja Bali ke yajna me vaman avatar hain, he bhagwan; bhrastachar hain.”

We may go on taking examples , and may explore an unending series of facets of this dilemma and its corresponding alienation, but I feel that we need to go beyond observations. That this work has illustrated the above observations in the most obvious manner and no esoteric conversation or harangue is resorted to, yet it stops short of committing itself. Coming back to the basic assumption of the possibility of a simple and uncomplicated world, it is expressed only in lamenting its absence. The anguish of the lost paradise very well affirms the alternate reality which is there for the taking only a phenomenological reduction stands in our way. For the ‘real’ is always present and available. While my friend may appear to be Kafkaesque, expressing no hope for our alienated (sinful,false,faithless) life, he has kept the torch burning high, albeit only in individual consciousness and not in collective consciousness.

I may still ask of him that the trend of poems written over more than 20 years , from prime youth to middle age, they show remarkable consistency in their assumptions, and the anguish expressed is relentless. Has hope not crossed you once, do you not identify yourself in any of the countless human endeavours that keeps the light glowing in each of the individual consciences.  I hope to read differently in your next book.

                                                                                                                           Dr Vikram Singhal

                                                                                                                                                 (I.A.S)

                                                                                        Plot No. 23, Delhi Government Officer’s Flat

                                                                                                           Greater Kailas-1, New Delhi