“The color & fragrance of seasons shaped my creative sensibility” – RK Das, Poet

R K Das appreciates literature in all forms. He has a special fascination for appreciating and composing poetry. He started his service as a college lecturer in English Literature. Presently he is working as a Senior Officer in the Indian Parliament .

Sandhya S.N : Can you briefly give us an introduction on the birth of a poet in you?

R K Das: Unlike many poets who start writing early during their school and college days, I started writing poetry late in early; 80s The first poem I wrote was ‘ Metamorphosis ‘ which was published in magazine called. ‘SASWAT’ in the year 1985. After that there was a lull of 15 years and I restarted writing poetry from 2000 onwards and there has been no looking back. My first book of poems is ‘PASSIONATE MUSINGS’. It contains 32 poems on diverse themes and was published in 2006.

Sandhya S.N : As a man with a strong intellectual back ground why did you prefer poetry as a medium of expression? .

R K Das : Poetry has always captured my sensibility since the very beginning. I would always love to carry a book of poem any time and silently read poems after poems and relish them thoroughly. I loved to delve deep into the layers and layers of meaning and significance of the poems those touched me at the very first reading.

Sandhya S.N : Which are the famous poets of your choice and why?

R K Das : I have always loved the poems of John Donne, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost. The Indian Poets like Tagore, Jibananda Das, Jayanta Mohapatra, have always drawn my attention. And I have read their poems any number of time.

Sandhya S.N : Do you believe globalization could influence poetry in the present situation?

R K Das :  Poetry writing has always been influenced by different socio- political situation of the period during which it is written. With the world becoming smaller and smaller due to information technology, internet, larger mobility of the people, poetry writing will certainly have a global perspective. Now-a-days poetry is getting a greater readership. Online poetry is doing well in the sense that a world of poetry is available just at the click of the mouse.

Sandhya S.N : There is always a strong influence of nature and loneliness in your poetry. Why so?

R K Das : My rural background and the rich natural backdrop of my birth place have gone a long way in creating and shaping my creativity. As a boy brought up in the greenery of the coastal district of Kendrapara, the delta of river Mahanadi, where the sight and sound of nature are in full bloom. The color & fragrance of the cycles of all seasons have shaped my creative sensibility, Hence nature in its myriad forms abound in the imagery of my poetry. I believe that every soul is essentially lonely. Every individual who even lives in the social togetherness of his family & friends is still a lonely person. His loneliness gives him an inner identity. And I try to express the joys, sorrow, ecstasy and the agony of every lonely soul.

POEM

The Cactus

Imagine me
A solitary and ostracized
Vegetative cell
Of a barren loin
On a limitless sandy habitat,
Where my tender dream
Was sprouted.

I was dazed in my virgin dream
On being tossed
By the seasonal onslaught
Of blinding winds and winter
And sweeping shadows
Under a looming barren sky.

Between unending moments
I felt the primordial thirst
On my thorny throat,
With which sooner
I got myself familiarized.

I have touched with my palm
The surface of the damp Moon
On a naked firmament,
Playing her ancient game
Of hide and seek
On a periodic pattern.

During lingering nights,
Waiting on a forlorn hope,
I have also seen
The hollow and waterless
Eyes of the Pole Star
Nurturing in every blink
A fraction of a dream
Of a pregnant cloud
And pining for the chaotic drops
Of an earthly monsoon.

Me, having loneliness
For a company eternal,
And parched to the core
In the midst of a tropical May,
Waiting on my toes
For the breath and whisper
Of an Indian Sawan.

Remember Me

Remember me
During the perennial cycles of seasons
When the Spring sweetens you
With its glorious fragrance
And your days are brightened by its colours.

Remember me
When the Autumn makes you gloomy
And the mellowed tears
Trickle down your pale cheeks.

Remember me
When the monsoon lashes your rooftop
In a torrential chaos
And the rainbow peeps through
Your open window
To sneak a look at you.

Remember me
When roses bloom in the valley
And throw you into a thorny thicket of nostalgia
Also remember me
When smiling-jasmines cajole you
In their nocturnal sensuality.

Remember me
When the aroma of a half-soaked earth
Spills over you
During the first rains of  the season.
And you wish the aroma lingers
And lingers and lingers.

Remember me
When the smell of vegetation
Of a rustic delta of the Mahanadi
Takes over you.
Also the cuckoo of my village orchard
Sings my ballad just for you.

Remember me
When you silently recite
My passionate musings
In the isolation of geography,
And in the loneliness of your heart
When me here languish in a solitary island cell
In a pathetic nostalgia.

Remember me
When the evening descends on the domes
And prayer is heard aloud
From the mosque, the church
And the temple.

Remember me
When I am dead and dissolved
And my frail body lifeless entombed
In a nameless graveyard
Of the countryside.