A Critique of Satyajit Sarna’s poetry, “ The Profane”.

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Critiquing a book of poems is always a rewarding experience, both for the poet and critic
where they meet to exchange pleasantries and share felt- experiences. What does poetry mean to a
curious critic. and an equally avid reader. who desires to get the best out of the self-endorsed world of
imagination- the best of esthetic experience, and an enhanced perception of the layered world of poet’s
experience. It’s where content and form , rhyme and rhythm become integral parts of a poem. But in
post-modern poetry, all these accoutrements and binaries are willfully destroyed to make poetry a
“spontaneous expression”. The poet is at liberty to hand- pick whatever his experience records, and
whichever the form he chooses to write in. It’s this freedom of the verse libre that permits him to create
self-space to traverse vast terrains of his experiences, and create larger world of perceptions.

Satayajit Saran seems to have chosen a simple world of mundane reality over the complex
truths of metaphysical constructs hidden, more often than not, under the fugue of suggestive
innuendos. The poetic world created by Satyajit is rather pellucid to the point of simplistic ordering of
experience as seen in the turn of a phrase or clause or in the use of a word without the frills of the
highfalutin. It is more or less Robert Frostean in its free flow of thought and emotional over plus. For
instance in his poem “An Apology”, he writes:” I wish it hadn’t been so dark/ and I had drunk less not
smoked/that joint not shown up at tow/jacket unbuttoned,/knowing what bodies good for…” It’s just a
recordation of the quotidian, a matter- of- fact reality, without an overdose of verbiage. In another
poem, he writes.”How long can you stare /into a straight bower of water? And then which one is
deeper, the mirror or the sky.” There is “miles to go before I sleep” simplicity and honed perfection in
the use of bare-boned language . Not a word is wasted, and not a word is redundant.In another of his
poem, he observes:”In love as in all things/we chose with our feet,/not with our hearts, land not with
our claims/and not with stras calling our names”. A remarkable achievement with an easy and racy flow
of cornucopia of words that plum the depth of passion so raised.

One of the most endearing concinnities about Satyaji’s poetry is its simplicity that borders on
the recondite imagination couched in an artifice that carries reality in all its lucidity and directness. Here
is another poem called “National Anthem” that gives you the much touted notion of nationalism that
the present day govt hardsells. :”We will die of this : “I standing in cold,/ while our guardians kneel to
kiss/the hem of each passing belief/sitting in relief.”In another poem, he writes about Amir Khusro’s
Delhi: “Khusro, wher you lie, they still beg/without legs, hands black with the dirt/of a thousand nights
and at the flyover”. This is the new age, New Delhi, where politicians of all hues rule to infest the social
mosaic, and the sprawling megalopolis stands exposed to heat and dust, and maniacal lust for power.
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And rule it without ever trying to address the real problems faced by the people. There is an interesting
poem about the ghastly tales of lynching. This is obviously a social crime perpetuated by the present
dispensation, under the bjp rule.Titled as “I dreamt of a Lynching”, it goes on graphically presenting ths
horrid tales of lynching that shook the collective conscious. Here is the poem:

“In the dream,I swing at the man with the knife

And nothing happens,I’m made of sand,

All the ais I struggled for in life

Have left me-there’s no strength in my hand…”

This is “man’s inhumanity to man”, a horrendous custom unleashed by the hooligans on whom no govt
initiated any action. His poem’ ”On Poets” is almost a self-parody, mocking and unmaking of poets who
turn out Insubstantial, airy nothing. Here I quote the poem:

“ I am thinking of my firieds-the poets.

The real ones. The god-touched bastard

Who to night sitting in a room, the jungle-

One room, one bed, one small bottle.

Filling up the page with quiet raving..”

Most of the poems are Delhi-centric and they seek to provide a succinct account
of how politics that shape human lives, and how they corrupt in the individuals’ freedom unmercifully,
though. The centrality of the whole collection is Delhi’s dirt, corruption ,lynching, murder and mayhem
shred of humaneness of humanity. The poems are simple, flowing , and the cadences are firm and
unregistered.

But what the poems in this collection miss out is profundity, and fervidity of imagination. Many times,
the expression falls flat and the phrse strikes as disingenuous and anal without any decorative frills- like
a fascinating metaphor or symbol synchronizing the whole, and forming into the anthology’s a leit-motif.
The bare-boned expressions at times border on prosaic ordering of experience that lacks nuanced
perfection. Satyajit at least could have fallen back on nuanced rhythm, could have tried trycet or
traditional stanzaic form in order to give his poems a semblance of poetic ordonnance .It’s difficult to
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categorize this kind of poetry-should I call it postmodern or simple exercises in the postmodern poetry.
However,his poetry rings authentic and autochthonous with quite a few untypical touches of profanity
thrown in, and verging onto the light-hearted banter and persiflage.

Dr Karana Rao.