Creation and Criticism

Srinath has been publishing his poetry collections slowly but steadily, one after the other. Earlier he has published Mysore Poems, but now he has published poems which go beyond Mysore to wider spaces. This collection contains a variety of poems dealing with the theme of contemporary life, social problems, Nature, European countries, academic institutes and even philosophical topics and so on.

Some poems deal with European towns, buildings, Universities and Churches like Cambridge, St Peter’s Cathedral at Vatican, Jesu’s diapers, Roger, Villa Serbolini, Walmart, and Australian Fire, which show his international travelling experience and his reaction to them.

In ‘Bless thee Cambridge’ he describes the important and inspiring buildings associated with the prestigious University where his father Professor C.D.Narasimhaiah had been educated under the tutorship of Dr. F.R.Leavis, known for his enormous contribution to British criticism and rigorous analyses of literary texts backed up by his sociological knowledge. He says:

Last year at Downing

Leavis the legend came alive

Ruthless critic and pilgrim of text

Open collar cyclist of pulsating human centre

Guru of revaluation, ever the word stopped. (p.20)

Srinath has a special attachment to his hometown Mysuru for various attractions it has for him. Mysuru is known for some eatables like Mysuru Pak, Mysuru Bhaji, masala dosa, idli and vada. In his ‘When Young in Mysore’ he reminisces his experience there as a young man enjoying the common refreshment available there. He says:

In corner hotels and nooks

We ate petal soft idli and simply stunning

Coconut chutney, golden brown crispy masala dosa

Like beaten copper sheet enfolding the delicacy of playa

And the iconic kesaribath on glowing plantain leaf

…

Culinary extravaganza on pauper’s budget. (p.63)

The poem shows that the poet is a connoisseur of food and refreshment items and also his gusto for life.

In his ‘Maharaja’s College’ he pays tributes to the famous Maharaja’s college of Mysuru where his father taught earlier and where he himself was educated later. He describes his college as Mysore’s trophy:

What a college

A galaxy of wise teachers, singers,

Actors, artists, players all cae says,

Last year at Downing

Leavis the legend came alive

Ruthless critic and pilgrim of text

me alive

at the behest of a young prince of a principal

exuding grace and learning

speaking a foreign tongue with a native mind. (p.37)

He comments further how several lectures, debates music concerts and drama performances were arranged there perpetually thereby inspiring the students to become great achievers in future.

In his poem ‘Marimallappa’s, My School’ he remembers his school where many teachers taught him and pays tributes to them. Some teachers used their wooden dusters to beat the knuckles of students to make them learn things quickly and surely. The algebra teacher and the Sanskrit teacher with his tufted hair on head and the lean headmaster shaped his life and he respects them for their sense of dedication and sacrifice. He says rightly:

Oh my teachers! What sacrifice, what commitment

With paltry pay and poor living

Bless your tribe, me gladly part of it. (p.40)

Mysuru is simply unthinkable without the names of Wodeyar royal family. His tribute paid to Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar is quite appropriate because this king, who undertook several developmental activities in Mysuru kingdom like encouraging empowerment of women and commoners, sacrifice his personal wealth for the welfare of the society like the construction of memorable dams like Krishnaraja Sagara and so on. That is why the poet describes rightly as: "A prince among men, led a monk’s life/ Maharaja, at the service of commoner" (p.43).

There are many poems dealing with different objects and aspects of Nature like birds, squirrels, buds of bloom, Jog Falls, monolith and cave, rain, Banyan Tree at Adyar and so on.

There are many philosophical or reflective poems in the collection dealing with Partition, Time, Karma Yogi, Ultimate Desires and Candidate for Sagehood, Vertical vs Horizontal and so on. ‘Vertical vs Horizontal’ has a touch of religion as well as metaphysics and may be interpreted variously. He says:

It is always the struggle

Between the horizontal and the vertical

The vertical in solitude

Shoots off to space barrierless

The horizontal has all the ground to accommodate with community

Gravity of hiranyagarbha

Levitation of Virat…

Here the vertical may symbolize the transcendental approach of a saint or yogi, whereas the horizontal may symbolize an empirical approach of a gregarious man. Whereas the vertical looks skyward and Godward, the horizontal looks at the earth and is downward. Thus the meaning may be extended further according to the contexts.

In ‘Time’ he points out how time cannot stand still, but has to go forward and flow into the sea that is invisible and uncertain. Time is always compared to a flying bird in Indian philosophy.

In some poems, which are social the poet ruminates about caste. The Western sociologists and anthropologists say that India is a synonym for caste. In fact, caste is the worst bane of Indian society, which has created unlimited number of problems and conflicts in almost all the fields of life. In ‘Circus of Castes’ the poet says:

I am born Sudra in yoni of blood and pus

Negotiating for milk and food

Like Vyasa to grow

And in childhood fight for

Identity of self and the other

Like Kshatriya. (p.77)

A poem like this easily brings to our mind similar attacks on caste-consciousness found in the poetry of Sarvajna and Kanakadasa. It is medically proved that there is no difference between the blood of a Sudra and that of a Brahmin in the Indian context; or between a white man and a Negro in the Afro-American context.

Finally the poet suggests that knowing oneself (a la Socrates) is greater than knowing anything else. Mere abundance of information and worldly success backed up by one’s luck is finally meaningless, when compared to the knowledge of the ‘self.’

In ‘Caste’ he shows the invisible walls built between the castes by quoting Mooknayak who said that caste is a tower of many floors without a staircase and laments how the caste-conscious man has forgotten how to be ‘man’.

Among the poems on contemporary themes he has two on Carona pandemic. In ‘Lockdown notes” he says that man has to engage himself in reminiscences rather in any solid action. He says:

Lockdown time is endless.

Time for masturbation, mediation, monitoring

accounts…

watch an old movie or mandatory serial on TV

wink at sexy damsel, chant a pious mantra. (p.30)

In another poem ‘Carona Reforms’ the normal human and social activities are resumed. He concludes by saying, "Carona, the philosopher virus, you have made/ Humans crawl on earth, while the sky beckons them to fly" (p.25). Thus he has highlighted two contrary activities connected with the deadly pandemic.

His poem entitled ‘Eye’ has Freudian connotations and depicts man-woman sexual relationship. There are a few poems which are meta-literary and reflect on different aspects of literature and poetry. For example, in ‘Poetry Can’, he says that a poem sprouts, pulsates like a:

Just- born babe, cries its entry into

World giggles, smiles, blooms, vibrates…

It awakens the lazy, consoles the distressed

Poem can do, I bet. (p.46)

In another poem, ‘Poem cannot’ (P.72.) he says that a poem cannot stop a war (but it may induce one; that it cannot alter borders of nations and that it is unheard like the cry of a peacock in a desert.

On the whole, there is a good deal of variety within the limited number of poems collected in this anthology. The title itself is quite paradoxical and teases the reader. Like modern American poets, Srinath does not believe in using the capital letters and small letters or punctuation marks at the right places. The overall impression that the reader gets is that thought overweighs imagery in his poetry. In some poems a few obscurities lurk here and there tantalizing the reader. Anyway his Resonance of Silence is a welcome addition to the realm of Indian English poetry.

The book is well produced but exorbitantly priced for a commoner. One wishes he had numbered the poems and arranged them into separate thematic sections. His brief bio-data and a list of his other collections of poetry are conspicuous by their absence.

About the Reviewer:

basavaraj-naikar Dr. Basavaraj Naikar, an eminent scholar, creative writer, and critic, is Professor Emeritus of English at Karnatak University, Dharwad, where he formerly served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of English. Widely recognized for his contributions to Indian Writing in English, Comparative Literature, Translation Studies, and Postcolonial Criticism, he has published extensively in reputed journals and has authored/edited several books of criticism, fiction, and translations. He resides at Sivaranjani Nilaya, Kotur Plots, Malapur Road, Dharwad – 580 008, India, and can be contacted at: bsnaikar@yahoo.com