Write a note on Indianness in Daruwalla's poetry.

Write a note on Indianness in Daruwalla’s poetry.

Describe Indian sensibility in the poems of Daruwalla.

Ans.

Like all the other Indian English poets. Daruwalla also has made Indian sensibility as one of his themes. The poetry of Daruwalla is suffused with varied aspects of Indian sensibility. Most of them paint the portraits of the landscape of India. The rivers, hills, plains etc. of the country are described in the poems. Daruwalla’s landscape is essentially India. In his poems the characters, the places, the irony and the situations are purely Indian. There is obviously Indian element in Daruwalla’s verse, especially ij his use of the landscape. When it is not ornamental, the landscape comes alive as a presence of its own. The landscape of northern India-hills, plains, and rivers is evoked in many poems.

One of the characteristic traits of Daruwalla’s poetry is its pre occupation with the portrayal of landscape in its variegated moods and aspects. He has written very powerful and vivid poetry about place. The ‘river poems’ mirror both the harsh and mild aspects of landscape. Many of his poems are about religious places such a Badrinath. The description of cities, towns and countryside has become an important aspect of his landscape poetry. The cities of Daruwalla’s poetry are like. Meerut, Lucknow and Chinar. Some of his landscape poems include nature poems which describe beautiful scenes. His landscape poetry is definitely an important part of his ‘Oeuvre. The picture gallery created by Daruwalla is called ‘Manscape’. He has created real living people in his poetry. His poetry is veritable picture gallery of convincing people, who are full of complexity. In his delineation of characters there is authenticity as well as variety. His wide range of characters includes realistic people, mythological figures like Karna, historical characters like king Ashoka and even birds and animals like hawks and snakes. All these characters are placed at the locale or landscape which is created with care.

Daruwalla’s poetry has described the world of riot and curfew, sirens, warrants, men nabbed at night, lathi blows on cowering bodies, the starch on our Khaki back, soda bottles and acid bulbs waiting on the roof-tops and press communiques. He has depicted violence, disease and fire. He has exposed the evils and malpractices prevalent in our country. He is a critic who comments on the contradictions in the Indian socio-political life. We observe his ironical and satirical treatment of social evils.

The poem ‘The Mistress’ is an interesting poem about the English language as it has developed in India. Indianness is a. vital element in Daruwalla’s thought, feeling and imagery. He has depicted Indian atmosphere. He the poverty, the squalor and the anguish of Indian existence. He has created an authentic flavour of India by his use of Indian English. Daruwalla’s major pre-occupations in his poetry are Indian. His themes are Indian. He has observed life in India in almost all its manifestations. He has responded to almost everything he has witnessed in Indian life. He has put his experience of active life to good use in poems like ‘Curfew’, ‘In a Riot-torn city”. “Poem from the Tarai’, Routine”, “Curfew 2′ and ‘Walking to the Centre’. He has brought to life the world he has experienced.

The poet’s sensibility is essentially Indian. His observation is keen and minute. His attitude to the various problems and issues of life is always original. His poems contain fresh experience of Indian life. They are by no means stale or stereotyped. His poems reflect his social concern and his compassion for the victims of misfortune. He depicts the horror of the flood “half a street goes churning in the river-belly” and the thatched cottages just melt away in the flood waters. He describes now a buffalo floats over to the roof-top where men have taken shelter. He indicates the misery and suffering. In Pestilence’ Daruwalla depicts the misery caused by an epidemic like cholera. People suffer from this dreadful disease. They are admitted in the hospital. There are frail bodies, frozen bodies, delirious bodies, some bodies absolutely without any strength or energy lying supine, transfixed under the sun.

On the string beds they carry

no henna-smeared brides

prone upon them are frail bodies

frozen bodies, delirious bodies

some drained of fever and sap

some moving others supine

transfixed under the sun.”

But the doctor denies that there is cholera-

Who says they have cholera?

they are down with diarrhea

who says it is cholera?

It is gastro-enteritis

who says they have cholera?”

Rumination also shows Daruwalla’s sympathy. He says that there is violence in the air. It is an indication of the mass hatreds drifting across the moon and hovering, poised like a cobra. The poet describes the kind of hatred which burns in the human breasts and drives them to fight one another.

‘The Epileptic’ reveals Daruwalla’s social sympathy and his compassion for victims of disease. The social concern of Daruwalla appears in the poem ‘The Beggar’. His social sympathy is seen in Vignette I also. Along the banks of the river the lepers sit huddled. The beggars hoist their deformities in the same way as boatmen hoist their sails. The poet says-

The Ganga flows through the land

not to lighten the misery but to show it.”

Daruwallas deals with social with social evils. Many other poems show his social concern ‘The People’ Death by Burial College I. His imagery is Indian. He used similes and metaphors from Indian life. His language also reveals his Indian sensibility.