Poetics through spiritual voice
Tousif Raza
Kashmir has produced many bold, strong and authentic voices in the field of literature especially in poetry during the past several decades. Some of them have earned fame due to their contributions in Kashmiri language and have emerged as the fountain heads for conserving and promoting this language.
The emergence of many young poets of Kashmiri language is the symbol of light and vision for our mother tongue. But unfortunately only few of them are the path breaking or path making for the upcoming generations of the literature.
‘Satish Vimal’ as poet is one of the key or core literary legend in Kashmiri language who is path breaking as well as path making future of our literature. His poetry collection “SIYAH VAR” as a complete compilation of free verse, versed and semi-versed poems is a strong voice to propagate Kashmiri poem on the path of British poem style with the message of spirituality.
His introduction as a complete poet can be divided in three separate sections first is the implementation of beautiful vocabulary, second is the beautiful consistency of thoughts, continued rhyming of the words. And the highest approach of ambiguity in thoughts, messages in poems of philosophical approach.
Satish is among the pioneers of modern philosophical thought with mystical ideology. His views on power and knowledge have reached to the highest level of mystical idea among the modern poets.
As a reader I have seen his poems full of two things-one is producing the curiosity to approach the unseen destination and second is to emerge as contributor to those who seek truth by one or the other way.
As an example ‘my pen’ his first poem in the book ‘SIYAH VAR’, in which he is trying to define pen as an important tool to humans gifted divinely to him that can change the world, that can empower and can illustrate mankind all that it wants.
“When someone else told me
My pass off is to emerge by you
Countless pains
Came up of my heart and vision……..
I’m now sharing all those pains.
Through the music of my verses…..
Come and partake….
Fill up….Your pots with milk cream”
As a poet he says in these verses ‘You want to be a writer, don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen. (Paul Simon) The above mentioned poem is one among my favorite poems.
The above poem is full of similes and metaphors expressing pen in many dimensions saying that “pen drives a man to its goal, pen is a tool to propel a silent person to express his different feeling. The poem in its verses is saying that pen is a mirror through the reflection of which we can make the difference between vice and virtue.
We can heal up the wounds through the love of pen. We can empower the weak, we can sweeten the sour, and we can protect the harm of any kind through our pen. My pen is my friend so every time my feelings are expressed through it even without being voiced. Pen is a living laboratory of new experiments. Pen is a kind of soul providing life to every dead through the valuable time of writing my pen is my proud.
‘Siyah War’: Why has the book been named so
There are many book titles in Kashmiri poetry representing either noun or verb directly but this title is the first that is somewhat different and the most beautiful and most interesting among all because it is the first one guiding its readers to the real vision of knowledge and spirituality.
The name mentioned for the book is of different meaning, as per different dictionaries it means black turns, sinful man, black hole, unseen error, black man and invisible destiny. Technically black turn is a move from high-level to the lowest level, so in this sense name suggested to the book represents character of mankind that can change everything unintentionally.
Scientific studies have proved that black hole is a region of space time where gravity is so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform space time to form a black hole.
Black hole is the origin of everything. Hence the book name given in this sense is very interesting; writer is saying through the book title that my book consists of many things which are same like as black hole existing in nature is my book is teaching the origin of the universe through a spiritual pathway.
Another name meaning is sinful man, redirects the reader to the world of humiliation where we can purify our inner self by tears and repentance always as Allah says my best created are the people who repent for their sins so this name is a big lesson in this way also.
The final and the most important meaning is invisible destiny. As a universal truth we all agree that our destiny is fixed by our Lord Allah but we neither can see nor read but still the writer is talking about the destiny by direct or symbolic way Sheikh Ul Alam (RA) as a great scholar of the initial times of Kashmiri literature has mentioned this thing by seeking the best destiny as provided to all other saints divinely.
Modern time research scholar in Kashmiri literature Dr Ghulam Nabi Haleem has also mentioned all this in one of his poem ‘Preznath’ as he says “And I lost all that I had in my un seen destiny”.
Satish guides the readers by this meaning of the book name and say “Undoubtly you can’t catch up the unseen destiny, so stand besides all you get and be greet full and thankful to characterize your heart to the eternal way of lord and that is your real destiny.
What do the writers say about ‘SIYAH VAR’
Legendary poet, writer, translator and analyst professor Rehman Rahi says “generally this poetry collection is as strong as the voice to propagate a language is. The beauty of this poetic collection is measured by the fact that it induces and dissolves in reader in itself to make him a part of its content by which a reader feels real taste of literature and get indulged into the world of poet by his influence directly or indirectly.
Identification of modern poetry Arjun Dev Majboor is of the view that “Vimal’s poems are a special gift to Kashmiri language, by reciting these poems I feel proud to say that Satish’s poems will provide strength to our literature in future.”
“These poems are a light in front of mirror which reflect to make things visible” Dr Pandav Rangrav says.
Amrita Preetam quotes that “When I read some poems from this book I felt that I’m in conversation with Abhmaniyu Gupt period’s saint who was with the lessons of self identification. I sung some verses and felt that I’m in the world of light and I forget then where I’m, the depth of his poems took me to the world where I lost myself.
Satish Vimal’s work at a glance
Basically to discuss each and every poem is impossible for me here. As I already mentioned above that Satish is divinely gifted poet there is some internal force induced in him that propels him to write meaningful, magical, scientific and philosophical poems with a spiritual message.
His poem ‘why I wrote poem’ is philosophical in origin western in style but is a feeling that is expressed in verses somehow saying that every writer is divinely gifted with a flow of words but feelings of the world prepare writer to design his creation he wants.
Poem “that paper” is totally about the conversation between Creator and creation in which Creator is of the view about his life considering that as an unwritten paper, lord posses a pen to write all he wants and as he wishes.
The poem ‘Dance’ is about the comparison of two parts of life, childhood memories and the stressful life of youth and lord as a mute spectator gazing all he do or he wish.
Satish is a poem writer in every diction either romantic or non romantic, his poems contain every subject as contemporary poetry demands. From decades before people are most probably attached to the high-level materialistic world so called practical and the poetry has become mechanical even in every language.
The influence of west has changed the trend of poetry from spiritual approach to mechanical approach but Satish’s style is western morphologically and is totally deviating from the path west made for literally world.
Poems like ‘Shah Shurni’ (Sounds) ‘bod doh’ and ‘khah te nazme’ (Lands & poems) are full of emotions creating love in hearts for our existence culture. These mentioned poems are showing human being a phase of life which is eternal, which is civilization, which is truly love spreading for mankind without creed, caste and colour.
These poems are spiritual in origin because these are gifted to Satish Vimal. Most of the people in Kashmir think that spiritual approached poetry is written only by Sufi poets but Satish Vimal as contemporary poet and a legend contributor to our literature has proved it wrong by his book ‘Siyah Var’.
His poem posses a path to high approaches through words, they contain feel as well as a spirit to make the reader get dissolved in spirituality. The poems in the book are with the voice of love expressing life, because love is the vital core of the soul to be eternal in the spiritual world.
Poems created by Satish are dream creating to unfold the hidden covers of capacity of the reader. Poems created by him dissolve the reader in destination but then emerge as a responsible winner through courage and eve.
Satish Vimal is not only a prominent poet of spiritualism and socio scientific poems but is one of a good writer of religious poems also, he has contributed a lot about religious faiths, facts and worships also.
He proved in his poems that sense of poetry is a human feeling and is out limit, beyond caste, creed, colour and religion. In the poem ‘Khosboi’ (Fragrance) poet is discussing one of the most beautiful and most important thing our heart.
He says “as the inner doors opened for me I entered in my inner self and burnt my all the error full channels which were the biggest hurdle for me to reach the real truth, the truth which is divine. The smoke from the errors had a fragrance that was sweet and beautiful more than anything else in the world”.
It is directly a message to dissolve in ourselves directly or indirectly. At the end I can only say that Satish Vimal is a bold representative of spiritual poetry in modern style sharing knowledge through his intellectually written poems.
(The author has given translated names in of the poems mentioned. He can be reached at [email protected])
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