Write a note on the imagery in the poetry of K.N. Daruwalla.

Describe the nature of the imagery of Daruwalla.

Ans.

There is ‘freshness of imagery and phrases’ in Daruwalla’s poetry. Daruwalla is really a master of the art of building imagery. His imagery is original. Nothing is stale about it. Another aspect of his imagery is that his images are tense, terse and suggestive. They also reflect his experiences. Daruwalla is at his best when he works with selective image and metaphor, His imagery has a few more characteristics also. First, most of his images convey the feeling of violence, death, decay and destruction. Secondly, Daruwalla’s images are concrete particularly when he describes passion. Thirdly, like other new poets, Daruwalla also is found experimenting in new imagery. For example, he uses new imagery to express thirst for blood of the rioting people. The new images of Daruwalla are realistic in nature. Fourthly, Daruwalla’s imagery is rich, varied and extremely effective. The variety of his imagery includes the images related to the human body, to nature, to thing and to emotions. Fifthly, Daruwalla’s poetry has animal imagery as well. Animal images perform various functions in Daruwalla’s poetry. Such images refer to animals like snakes and birds like vultures. Further rivers and sea are found as images in some poems of Daruwalla. Finally, Daruwalla makes fine use of colour imagery, and colour symbolism. Such colour images suggest certain things.

‘Pestilence’ contains several images. The body image is presented through many lines like the following:

Brown shoulders black shoulders

shoulders round as orbs

Muscles smooth as river-stones glisten.”

Other images in the poem are found in the expressions like ‘palanquin bearers’, ‘string-beads’, ‘hospital floors’, ‘doctors with white faces’, cattle dying at the takes,” “birds’ and ‘a plank. These images make the poem quite effective.

The Beggar’ also contains remarkable images. The images ‘time circles round him like a kite’, and ‘tired light in his eyes are fine. The following lines contain striking images-

Maggots, moments, worms

crawl like changing seasons

He is a straw Buddha with sperm.”

Daruwalla is a master of the art of building up imagery. Imagery flows from his pen even as ideas and words flow from it. Imagery is a product of his poetic imagination working on an incident or a happening or an occurrence, His imagery is neither fantastic nor common place. It is most unusual. It may be odd or out of the ordinary. His imagery is realistic and concrete. There is nothing artificial or redundant about his imagery.

The chief quality of the imagery of Daruwalla is stark realism. There is realistic and vivid imagery in ‘The Ghaghra in Spate’. In the poem, “In the Tarai’ a whole region is brought to life by means of realistic imagery. It is remarkable for the imagery of the bandits working havoc in the land. His ‘Rail-road Reveries’ poem is a psychological poem. It provides concrete and realistic pictures – a girl huddling into herself, searching for the warmth, arthritic fingers holding a tea-tumbler tightly in their grip, a sad-eyed bitch standing upon the platform.

We observe the unusual imagery in The Revolt of the Salt Slave “The image in the opening stanza is striking. There is a vivid picture of the slave drivers lashing the backs of the slaves not working as hard as they should. The Epileptic is a remarkable poem from the point of view of imagery. It is an example of unusual but authentic imagery. The poem is starkly realistic. It has no exaggeration. The following true picture touches us-

They fanned her, rubbed her feet, and looked around

for other ways to summon back her senses.”

The poem ‘Crossing of Rivers’ presents realistic imagery charged with emotion. Imagery is depicted through the use of metaphors – the rivers ‘coughs’ and ‘eddies’ and ‘converses with the mud. The waters are placid and ‘glassed with green moss’. The poem ‘Routine’ has remarkable imagery. ‘Death of a Bird’ contains elaborate imagery. There is the imagery of the mass of clouds piled on the crags and then of a pony losing its balance and falling down a thousand feet below into the roaring river. There is audio imagery describing the jungle-sounds coming from jackals, wolves and bears. There is the imagery of a fire being lit with turf and peat. The poem Rumination’ has two similes which are themselves vivid and realistic pictures.. The poem ‘Death by Burial’ has realistic and vivid imagery. It has its own importance.

‘Kohoutek’ contains sharply etched images. The imagery is simply fantastic and sweeps us off our feet. The poem transport us to a new world altogether and carries us into regions which we try to usualise but find it impossible to visualize despite the vividness with which the images have been drawn. Every image is sharply etched.

Many of Drauwalla’s poems are laden with information. Part of it may achieve the status of significant poetic image or even of symbol but one wishes that Daruwalla had worked more with selective imagery, condensing and distilling his material into more compact poetry. Daruwalla is at his best when he works with selective image and metaphor as in ‘The Beggar’ and Vignette I Kohoutek (In The Keeper of the Dead’) presents a constellation of powerful metaphors. (Vilas Sarang)

‘River Silt’ is a deeply philosophical poem. Its imagery imparts an exceptional character to the poem. In Rail Road Reveries there is the imagery which lends interest to the poem. In fact, the poem contains a series of images. One of the images which stand out in the poem is that of the sad-eyed bitch:

The sad-eyed bitch upon the platform

Kicked about by urchins doesn’t squeal

Head dropping eyes bored, she walks away.”

The poem contains a picture of the blind boy with his begging bowl. It is noteworthy. In Collage II: Mother’s similes and metaphors describe the sad state affairs in this country:

A floating foestus on a larval bed

the senses giving out puss, the passions putrefying

inanities pasted on the smile-

dragging your feet

wounds smeared with ants.”

In the poem “The Unrest of Desire’ the idea expressed is an abstract one. But much concrete imagery has been used in the poem. Eyes manifest the unrest of desire. The poet gives concrete pictures. The imagery is built up with the use of metaphors. The poem ‘Fire-hymn’ contains imagery which makes this poem a great success. In fact the imagery in Daruwalla’s poems is integral to the theme. It arises from the poet’s meditations upon a subject or from his thinking over a particular incident or happening. It is evident that we fall to come across many examples of imagery for imagery’s sake in his poetry.