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| Characteristics of K.N. Daruwalla's Poetry |
Introduction:
Daruwalla is one of the most talented and substantial English poets. He has greatly contributed to the enrichment of Indian English poetry. He has significantly widened the scope of Indian English poetry. He is certainly one of the major voices in Indo-Anglian poetry. He has established himself as an important voice in Indian English poetry. The richness, power and complexity of his poetry place him in the same category as the best anywhere in the world. He is a poet with a powerfully developed social conscience whose humanism is expressed in form that is evocative, subtle and oblique. His poetry broadens the imaginative range of the reader and adds a new experiential dimension to his life. It has a thematic universality with a rich sub-surface web of signification.
Covering a Wide Range of Theme:
Daruwalla portrays vividly and minutely the contemporary Indian socio-political world with touches of irony and sarcasm. He exposes the evils of communal tensions, riots, exploitation, greed, criminalization of politics, dowry etc. Communal violence causes disintegration of social life in Curfew in a Riot Town City. Poems from the Terai, Curfew and Walking to the Centre reflect Daruwalla's professional experiences. In Migrations, he deals with the theme of disintegration of village community. His deep anguish at the institutional corruption in free India finds expression in Hunger, Monologue in the Chambal Valley, Hawk and Food and Words.
The Poet's Social Concern, Compassion and Sympathy:
The most remarkable poems are those which reflect the poet's social concern and his compassion for the victims of misfortune. In this context the poems entitled The Ghaghra in Spate and Pestilence naturally occur to us immediately. In the first-named poem the havoc worked by the flood in the Ghaghra is the main theme, though not the only one. This poem brings before our minds the acute distress and misery of the villagers who have to starve for days because of the flood in the Ghaghra and whose mud-and-straw are swept away by the rushing waters. When the flood-waters retreat, the damage caused is even greater. Then the Ghaghra becomes really bitchy. In Pestilence, the poet depicts the misery caused by an epidemic like cholera.
- Must also read: Themes in the Poetry of K.N. Daruwalla
Irony and Satire:
The poem entitled Graft is wholly ironical and satirical. "Black-cowled he sits, is he Notary or Scribe?" asks the poet in the opening line of the poem. In the closing lines of the poem, Daruwalla ironically says that palm-lines are impervious to change, that fate shows Saturn as being in the ascendants, that Jupiter indicates a very long life for the corrupt man, so much so that his life line extends to the elbow almost, and that this (corrupt) man would beget as many as nine children. "God be praised!" says Daruwalla in conclusion, ironically of course. In the poem entitled In the Tarai particularly in the middle stanza in which the poet speaks about the bandits working havoc in the villages, irony is clearly evident. The poem entitled The People is one of Daruwalla's most satirical poems and here also irony is the chief weapon used. In this poem, the poet has given us a most interesting, satirical portrait of the behaviour of the people, particularly towards their leaders.
Realistic and Original Imagery:
The poem entitled The Ghaghra in Spate is an outstanding example of the poet's realistic and original imaginary. In this poem, the whole situation has been recreated like the pictures of a scene of disaster taken by a photographer with a high-powered cinematographic camera from various angles suiting the purpose of the director of the film. The entire description is highly picturesque and the poet skilfully uses colour words to paint the changing spectacles and colours of the river. The calm and placid watery surface of Ghaghra presents a vivid vignette of varied colours suited to changing time. In the afternoon, the river seems to be a mud heap. On twilight it is 'overstewed coffee'. At night the moon looks red like a maiden in menses and Ghaghra also affairs as 'a red weal' across the spine land. The poem entitled In the Tarai also contains original and yet realistic imagery.
Depiction of Incident:
In the poem entitled Death of a Bird, there are several stages and something important occurs at every stage. Besides, each of the events is interesting in itself and it arouses in us a desire to know what happens next. The first incident in the poem is the killing of a male monal at a time when the bird was mating with its female. The man had taken aim at the male bird and shot it down. The next incident is the death of the pony. The humans had pushed the animal merely to quicken its pace, but it lost its balance and fell down a thousand feet below into a roaring river. Next, at evenfall, all kinds of jungle noises are heard. The man lights a fire to provide some warmth and comfort to his female companion. Towards the dawn, the man, overcome by some strange feeling, breaks his gun into two. But just then a brown-coloured bird lies with great force from the crag where it had been sitting: and, just when it passed over the heads of the two human beings below, it shrieked with fear and fell down dead at their feet.
The Use of Figures of Speech:
The poet makes an abundant use of figures of speech similes and metaphors. His similes and metaphors are original too: and the unexpectedness of these similes and metaphors fills us with wonder and admiration. In The Ghaghra in Spate the river is described as being in the afternoon a grey smudge', and at night as 'overstewed coffee'. At night under a red moon is menses, the river looks like a 'red weal across the spine of the land'. In the poem entitled Death by Burial, some of the similes deserve attention.
Depiction and Phraseology:
Daruwalla undoubtedly has a full command upon the English language. His choice of words and his combining words into phrases and lines show his capacity to discriminate between word and word and his artistic sense. In the poem Death by Burial the vocabulary used by him is not simple: nor is it too erudite. It is the kind of vocabulary that only a well-educated Indian can understand and appreciate. Phrase and lines like the following certainly deserve to be admired.
1. ‘Lacerated lobes’
2. ‘A cobbler flaying hides'
3. ‘through which a Singhi sucks the malady from wounds’
In the poem entitled In the Tarai, Daruwalla presents enough evidence of his command of the English language and his capacity to choose the most appropriate words for his purpose. We find that the words have been arranged in such a manner as not only to convey the ideas effectively but also to create an impression of stylistic excellence on the readers. ‘Townships scooped out of the earth'; 'an earth in ferment'; 'a landscape articulate with despair': 'the hum of insect-dialects'; 'burning thatch and chopping fingers'-these are all examples of Daruwalla's judicious choice of words and of phrase-making.
Art of Condensation or Compression:
Although some of Daruwalla's poems suffer from fault of prolixity, yet he is also a master of the art of condensation. He can use the minimum possible number of words to depict even a big event; and he can use just a few words to create a powerful emotional effect on the reader. The Ghaghra in Spate is not a long poem, but it effectively conveys to us the devastation which a flood in the river can cause. The poet here first gives us a picture of the river just before the flood, then a picture of the whole scene during the flood and. finally, a picture of the havoc which the retreating flood works. And in each case the poet exercises much restraint and avoids lengthy descriptions. The poem entitled Routine is a masterpiece of compression and brevity.
The Masterly Use of Free Verse and Absence of Punctuation:
The use of free verse has become a fetish with the Indo-Anglian poets. Most Indo-Anglian poets write free verse and Daruwalla does so most often. Evidently most Indo-Anglian poets do not think punctuation to be necessary: and Daruwalla is certainly one of them. A reader of Indo-Anglian poetry is thought by the Indo-Anglian poets to be so intelligent and so experienced a reader of poetry that he can be relied upon to provide the punctuation marks himself or make the best of a bad bargain.
