“Freeing robbers and rapists on Republic Day the amnesty adds "We'll review with sympathy the cases of the following jumps, pederasts, poets.”
and further
“We have inaugurated crematoriums With an unclaimed corpse a V.I.P. has opened the sluice-gates of a drain and given it an epithet "the drain of hope."
Daruwalla's attitude towards India and the rampant malpractices is unsparingly unsentimental and daringly realistic. The lines quoted above reveal the anger and anguish of the poet. He aims at reforming society by such frank and candid exposures of the prevailing evils in India. Bruce King writes: "….Daruwalla's poetry also has an immediacy and anger. It contrasts the naturalness of violence, aggression and social desires with repression, hypocrisy and deceit. Usually the speaker and sympathetic characters appear alone, isolated, alienated from their society. There is anger at incompetence, passivity, official lies, romantic illusions and repressiveness of communal solidarity; but there is also a strong interest in Indian history and traditions."
- Must also read: Poem The Unrest of Desire by Keki. N. Daruwalla
Daruwalla puts emphasis on "the physical, the concrete, the immediate, a survival and being tough." In Collage II he says: "Corruption is the chemistry of flesh/no wonder the senses suffinate, passions futrefy." Daruwalla detests those who accept the finality of fate and do not fight in order to survive. Bruce King Comments: "There is not only anger at the incompetent, but also a strong ethical and moral consciousness often expressed in savagely satirical comments." There is a powerful undercurrent of moral note in Daruwalla's poetry, which distinguishes him from his contemporaries. The italicised expressions in the following lines in Dialogues with a Third Voice reveal more awareness in his poetry:
“I think of sin
as a curio, not as an archetype
Hence, guilt wears thin
There's nothing much to choose between
a ghostly presence and a ghostly absence
yet at night sometimes
the ghost-heard haunts me
buming through my chin.”
as a curio, not as an archetype
Hence, guilt wears thin
There's nothing much to choose between
a ghostly presence and a ghostly absence
yet at night sometimes
the ghost-heard haunts me
buming through my chin.”
Again he writes:
“You have escaped your deserts by the skin of your teeth but, guilt that inner nemesis you can't avoid.”
To Daruwalla content is above form. In this connection he himself writes: "It is unfashionable to say so, but I feel that even in poetry content is more important than form. For me, poetry is first personal, exploratory, at times therapeutic and an aid in coming to terms with one's own interior world. At the same time, it has to be a social gesture, because an occasion I feel external reality bearing down on me an all sides with a pressure strong enough to tear the ear drums. My poems are rooted in landscape which anchors the poem. The landscape is not merely there to set the scene but to lead to an illumination. It should by the eye of the spiritual. I try that poetry relates to the landscape, both on the physical and on the flame of the spirit. For me a riot -stricken to with its thespian traffings, as shown in the poem The Tragedy Talk."
- Must also read: Characteristics of K.N. Daruwalla's Poetry
Daruwalla's poetry is remarkable for its modernity C. Paul
Vorghese makes the following comment: "The modernity of neo-modernists
consists mainly in their refusal to 'ladle wit in couplet droplets' and to have
nothing to do with sweet breedings or blank verse explosions and their
realisation that unhibited expression of the image of a culture is possible
only in modern idiom…..and current speech rhythm. K. N. Daruwalla's admonition
in his
Dialogue With a Third Voice expresses this rejection in the new
language of poetry:
“In a curved universe, a straight metric line is floundering in a rut You must give it multiple meaning A work of art must hit you in the gut.”
Daruwalla's poems amply illustrate how pungently effective and scornfully sarcastic in tone the new language of poetry can be. He has presented a fine portrait of the modern man oscillating between hope and despair, doubt and faith, natural and artificial and lust and guilt has been presented in the poem The son speaks the Dead Rake in The Keeper of the Dead:
While we oscillate between the fires of lust and guilt seeking our refuge in those air-tight, air conditioned pharmacies of the heart Where the antidotes so guilt are being prepared.
Daruwalla occupies a unique place in modern Indian English poetry by dint of his immaculate technique and craftsmanship. He is ranked with Nissim Ezekiel who is known for the simplicity of diction, controlled rhythm and unhibited poetry. He has expressed himself through his works using new idioms, phrases and realistic images. Nissim Ezekiel remarks about his contribution: "By putting Daruwalla among his contemporaries are sees how he scores heavily over them. By depth of feeling, economy of language and originality of insight, Daruwalla commands respect."
- Must also read: Keki N. Daruwalla's Social Concerns with His Sympathy and Compassion
- Must also read: Love and Sex in Keki N. Daruwalla's Poetry
