Immortal poet John Keats in his poem “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” has so subtly mused:
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.
That is the Grasshopper’s - he takes the lead
In summer luxury - he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed,
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever.
And seems to one in drowsiness half-lost,
The grasshopper’s among some grassy hills
These immortal words have become eternally true that so long as man exists with his natural surroundings, the ‘poetry of earth is ceasing never’. I imagine myself to be a humble grasshopper and a cricket among the galaxy of world’s eminent poets including poets of our sub-continent. Though, our country cannot boast of Keats, Shelly, Wordsworth or T.S. Eliot in English language but India did produce Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu, Tora Dutt, Nessim Ezekiel, Dom Morris, Vikram Seth, Dr. I.H. Rizvi, Keki N. Daruwalla, Kamala Das, Imtiaz Dharker, Jeet Thayil, Vijay Nambisan, Dr. Hyder Nayab, Ruth Vanita to name a few. But India’s’ contribution to poetry in Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and other languages are no less than that of any other language. The best of philosophical thoughts and gems in poetry are found in Indian languages.
On the contemporary Indian scene, we have galaxy of poets like Dr. Krishna Srinivas, Editor ‘Poet’ Chennai, Dr. M. Fakhruddin, Editor ‘Poets International’ Bangalore, Dr. H. Tulsi, Editor ‘Met Verse Muse’ Visag, Dr. Simanchal Patnaik, Prof. R.S. Sharma, Prof. K. Jagannathan, Editor ‘Brainstorm’ Chennai, Dr. Syed Ameenudin, Editor ‘International Poet’ Chennai, Harza Singh, Pronab Kumar Majumdar, Editor ‘Bridge in Making’ Calcutta, Dr. D.C. Chambial, Editor ‘PoetCrit’, Pradip Kumar Chaudhari, Editor ‘Poetry Today’ Calcutta, Prof. C.S. Srinivas, Dr. Shiv Prakash, Editor ‘Indian Literature’, Jyothi Lata Girija, Srinivas Rangaswami, Dr. Ms. L. Lobo Prabhu, Dr. S.N. Tripathy, Dr. K.V. Venkataramana, Ms. (Dr.) S. Radhamani to name only a few from among a galaxy of shining stars & rising meteorites. To claim company among these famous poets would be an act of indiscretion and folly on my part. It would again be presumptuous to claim myself to be a poet of any stature. But human failings compel an individual to express his feelings in lyrics & verse, to muse at the pathos and sufferings, to sing songs of joy, mirth and laughter. I claim to be a victim of this human failing and have dared to raise myself to hop like a “Grasshopper”, and not to remain as a frog in a pond, but allowed my urgings to pen in verses. I Though, I cannot claim to be a rose in a garden or be “Full many a flower is born to blush Unseen” and allow myself to “….Waste its sweetness on the desert air”. Yet I have embolden myself to pen verses in my collection. I may have failed miserably to come up to the strict standards laid down by syntax, semantics and poesy, yet with all the apologies to the past and existing poets, I present my fresh collection of poems. I have named it “In Golden Times”.
The New Millennium is spoken of today as “golden times” for all the scientific marvels, it has presented to mankind, with all the security, freedom and openness of mind & soul for free wanderings anywhere in the seven corners of the Mother planet. The spirit is free to soar higher and higher, but the materialism of the times and slow waning of the hold of ancient culture is making us all to muse along with Percy Bysshe Shelley:
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought
My musings began in June 1997 in my mother tongue Urdu, but gradually expressing more spontaneously in my second language English, during the New Year 1998, to continue unabated. Now my diary of poems is to its brim. I have emboldened myself to initially publish one hundred and one poems; Haikus & Tankas in this collection. I hope to publish my second & third volumes ‘In Golden Moments’ and ‘A Search from Within’, with equal number of poems in each volume in future course of time.
My love to my parents, grand parents, wife and children, brothers and sisters, teachers and friends, relatives and colleagues, have always was constant; also to my “guides”, (“Peers” in Sufi terminology, who opened my mind to esoteric and mystic aspects of Sufism). They have all helped me in one or the other way to understand life and its vicissitudes.
I specially thank my friend Dr. M. Fakhruddin, who took special interest in first publishing my poems in journal “Poets International”, Bangalore and also to introduce me to Dr. Ms. H. Tulsi (Editor, ‘Metverse Muse’) who, earnestly replied to my letters and encouraged me by accepting my poems. Also to Dr. Krishna Srinivas, Editor “Poet”, Chennai for so readily agreeing to go through my manuscript and write a foreword.
Dr. (Ms) H. Tulsi has added her golden touch to my collections to enable my poems to gleam. For which, I am deeply indebted.
My colleague & friend Shri V.K. Ashtana, Member (Technical), CEGAT has been reading my poems, as soon as it used to emerge. He has been a continuous source of encouragement to me. At this bidding, I have taken upon myself the task to have my collections, “In Golden Times” published. I also thank my P.S. Shri P.B. Muralikrishnan, Shri R. Janardhanan Pillai, Shri G. Shridhar, Shri D. Somasundaram and Shri R. Kumar, who have all been so helpful in typing my poems.
I take leave of my readers and urge them to forgive me for my failings and accept me, wherever I have been able to muse too their satisfaction.
With profoundest wishes for happy reading.