Notes: Poetry and New Delhi
Chapter-VI: Quest for Self in the Poetry of A.K.Ramanujan
The identity crisis in the poetry of A.K.Ramanujan escapes easy categorization. The writer who is born and brought up in the Hindu way of life and who has educated himself as a world citizen, the conflict between the inner and the outer forms the core of his poetry. The poet’s self is the theatre in which are staged a host of incidents from the past, and across which move a number of personae like his grandparents, mother, father, cousins, wife etc. Bhagat Nayak remarks that, “It will be more appropriate to say that while the Hindu or the Indian milieu constitutes the ‘inner’ substance of Ramanujan’s poetry, the Western milieu shapes the ‘outer’ substance, and the two co-exist.”(Nayak, Bhagat. ‘The Axis of Hindu Consciousness in A.K.Ramanujan’s Poetry’, Indian English Literature Volume IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003. p. 5) The poem ‘Self-Portrait’ identifies this problem precisely when it suggests that the self is ‘more an absence than a presence’ (Dharwadker, Vinay. ‘Introduction’, Complete Works, Delhi: OUP, 1995, p. xxxiii) In the poem ‘A Copper Vat’ the memory plays the role of confusing the essential self:
Seen just In passing in a Boston museum Not even by me,
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But ten years ago by someone else Who today is someone else Again (CP, p.255)
The poet is hinting at the fact that in this modern world it is easy to resemble everybody but oneself:
I resemble everyone But myself, and sometimes see In shop-windows, Despite the well known laws Of optics, The portrait of a stranger, Date unknown, Often signed in a corner By my father. (CP, p.23) Bhagat Nayak feels that this poem “illustrates modern man’s concern with the self and provides the matrix within which self becomes relevant.” (Nayak, Bhagat. ‘The Axis of Hindu Consciousness in A.K.Ramanujan’s Poetry’, Indian English Literature Volume IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
The identity crisis in the poetry of A.K.Ramanujan escapes easy categorization. The writer who is born and brought up in the Hindu way of life and who has educated himself as a world citizen, the conflict between the inner and the outer forms the core of his poetry. The poet’s self is the theatre in which are staged a host of incidents from the past, and across which move a number of personae like his grandparents, mother, father, cousins, wife etc. Bhagat Nayak remarks that, “It will be more appropriate to say that while the Hindu or the Indian milieu constitutes the ‘inner’ substance of Ramanujan’s poetry, the Western milieu shapes the ‘outer’ substance, and the two co-exist.”(Nayak, Bhagat. ‘The Axis of Hindu Consciousness in A.K.Ramanujan’s Poetry’, Indian English Literature Volume IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003. p. 5) The poem ‘Self-Portrait’ identifies this problem precisely when it suggests that the self is ‘more an absence than a presence’ (Dharwadker, Vinay. ‘Introduction’, Complete Works, Delhi: OUP, 1995, p. xxxiii) In the poem ‘A Copper Vat’ the memory plays the role of confusing the essential self:
Seen just In passing in a Boston museum Not even by me,
229
But ten years ago by someone else Who today is someone else Again (CP, p.255)
The poet is hinting at the fact that in this modern world it is easy to resemble everybody but oneself:
I resemble everyone But myself, and sometimes see In shop-windows, Despite the well known laws Of optics, The portrait of a stranger, Date unknown, Often signed in a corner By my father. (CP, p.23) Bhagat Nayak feels that this poem “illustrates modern man’s concern with the self and provides the matrix within which self becomes relevant.” (Nayak, Bhagat. ‘The Axis of Hindu Consciousness in A.K.Ramanujan’s Poetry’, Indian English Literature Volume IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and