It took decades to get English poetry out of the captivity of framed ideological expressions and various isms. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to associate a suffix of any ideology or ism with today’s English poetry. English poetry on a broader canvas is now generally known and recognised again on the larger impact of the poetic language and its craft.
The famous Chinese thinker Lao-tse had said that what is true cannot be said, and what has been said cannot be true. So he advised to listen to the songs of silence. These poems of Ashna are the ‘songs of silence’. But we need to read him aloud: his silent stresses pave way to the clarity of his word:
Like the wild river I flow day and night under your balcony striking my wounded self against the stones of your river side
English poetry in India is a poise of mystic consciousness of the spiritual unity and the firmament of the contemporary social concerns. Ashna too evokes us with the fusing theme of his vision of self and nature. He sings the hymns of melancholy, solitude, reunion, meditation, despair, hope and inner contemplation.
It is a world of love and lament; abundant images and hyperboles stand testimony to the fact that romanticism of Aashna is not a spiders’ nest, not a pigeon-hole, not a self-contained area. His images speak in symbols but elucidate in discourses:
In the midst Of dark skies Away, faraway I shine Like a star And wash The steps of your stair For the whole night With my eyes sight
Stubborn resistance and challenges to poetic and social conventions are a part of Ashna’s poetic tradition. But yes, this poetry is not the mirror-image of our individual or collective thoughts but undoubtedly it is the shadow of our individual and collective celebrations. The poet is interested in exposing his human condition. Kashmir is the land of not only the geographic beauty but of the beauty of thought and spirit. Our spiritual traditions are so rich that even the non-believers speak in the idiom of the sages. The poet has a proud inheritance of the tradition. Like the beads of rosary, the poet uses the painful moments to recite his prayer. Here, most of the times, we see the poet taking a flight to the transcendent zone:
In the dense woods Of unfathomable ages Among thousands of wicked paths Intertwined like the lines Of my forehead I search for the lost path Of my destiny
There is a lot of blood in many of his images. When he speaks of Kashmir, he does not only speak of the landscape. Kashmir is a vibrant, buoyant symbol of life in his poetry. The frozen silence, desolate and dreamless eyes, absence of flower-winged butterflies in his no fragrant apple orchards and dark depths of his heart’s caves are some of his very powerful images:
In the city of strangers My aged mother Rocks my wounded self Drenched in mud Of wicked lanes Like the pain In her bruised eyes
This is the poetry of a spiritual relation between philosophy of life and emotion of life. His expression is deeply imbued with his tendency of not insisting upon. For him poetry is an escape from emotion and personality. As a master he undergoes the pain of this escape without hue and cry. His escape is in no way the instrument of evasion. His halted rhyme stands testimony to his silent sacrifice:
I am the little sparrow The night is darker Than the wing of a crow And the water is not At a stone’s throw But I must go But I must go
Ashna’s poems are direct and accessible yet complex and not easily accessible. His symbols are the combination of his vision and courage. You cannot find a bit of conscious beautification here; no laboured and deliberate images. Here naked simplicity of his words is in marriage with his poetic intensity, concentrated richness and musical suggestiveness of his symbols:
On mother’s forehead I blossom Like a drop of sweat Before I merge With tears In her blessing eyes Under the scorching skies
Ashna’s poetic revelations are magnificent. His belief that life that breathes now, lies still and yet moves fast, rushing but firmly fixed in the midst of the resting places. The immortal comes from the same womb as mortal:
Candle like Shall I continue to burn Through the stormy night On your threshold alone With life in fists Hiding my own darkness Under my skirt
We find a word of mutually illuminating metaphors in the poetry of Ismail Ashna. The themes of harnessing and un-harnessing, which shift in their positive or negative value; the closely related theme of finding open space and freedom, always a positive value in contrast with being hemmed in and trapped ; and the fear of being hated and attacked. These are linked to other many such metaphors which I call the constellations of images. The pomegranate tree, the dance of flames, walks in search of hearts avenues are some powerful metaphoric expressions.
Ashnas’ honesty and artistic integrity forces him to recognise that generalisations about life must by its very nature do less than justice to life’s complexities:
I shall take birth In the burning lap of mine At countless times To drink flames And unravel Mysteries of twisted destinies
Ismail Aashna’s poetry is a flowering, a flowing energy. These ‘Unheard Songs’ are the compositions of the telegraphic treatises of the dances of inner self. So much is pressed into the small expressions that each sentence has turned into a luminous energy-store. Undoubtedly these poems descend from his shining heights into the dark depths of our anxious souls.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Satish Vimal is an famed writer, poet and critic. He can be contacted on satishvimal@gmail.com.
