A Mid-Aged Passionate Lover
POETRY for Anwarul Kabir is a set of dialogues with self or, with the beloved. His poems are, mostly, recollections in tranquility, and often from atonality with affinity. “Mohdhanno Kharai Tobu Ashey Prem” (Love Comes even in Life's Afternoon), Kabir's debut collection derives from such spontaneous dialogues or, monologues of varied complexities of middle age. If time is circular so is life, as Kabir puts it, marching towards the circumference of eternally cyclic revolution, trailing love and separation and all the myriad of feelings in between. Take the titular poem that comes with definite hint of passionate affair. Societal barriers are as if the barricade in the warlike conquest of love while the overpowering tide of sensuality cannot but overflow and the beloved and love turns synonymous. Meye Tumi ki Amar Kishani Hobe, (O girl, Will You be a Cultivator of My Heart) invites the reader in with freshness of modern diction and appropriate auditory images. In neatly written lines we find intimately precise sounds of glass bangles, light reflected back at the eye as love shines forth in brightened core of lover. The poem vividly captures the reminiscence of rural landscape left behind at growing up years. Amar Sathey Ari Niley (If you Part From Me) offers tight knitted lines with precision of visual images and gripping rhymed lines. Often the poet invites his beloved tenderly in Tagore's romantic strain while often he is metaphysical conceits capture forceful imagery of Armageddon, as Israfil calls upon, as if the lover is the final destiny. As for Kabir the poet is the lover, in passionate height the lover is as if godhead while making love finds greater urgency than all of life's good deeds meshed up to meet the judgment seat of the ultimate judge. Reliance on classicism is evident in Afsos Sudhu (Regrets Only). The ennui of unmitigated love that resides in the heart of lover is poisonous hemlock. While on another occasion, the lover is a crucified Nazarene, lover is stung in pangs of angst insurmountably. Take Nostalgiaey Kishorir Mukh, childhood romances found nature as the first beloved, with relishing simple late afternoon meals on sweet potato, counting srabon streams, making way through pathway of white flowers. The influence of the mughals comes across with Islamic terminology. Be it the Arabic strain or, the falling of Berlin wall, love finds poet's heart often strikingly. Scientific jargon such as algorithm and mythical figures like Arjun creeps in to convey deep speculation on Biraha or, heroic endeavours in love game. Consider the rhetorical question to start a poem, could the fragrance of Kamini be the scent of love, is it tranquil, real or, surreal? The whole poem is set to the quest. Could breathing the city air at midnight answer the poignant questions of lost love, lonesomeness? Often love-life is ever encompassing ennui, grappling over romancing while at other times love fails to drive out the ennui of modernity. Over cups of coffee, exchanges of desperate fire that can hardly be extinguished. Beloved, for Kabir, at other times is an oasis, a haven from the toxicated myre of making a living in Dhaka city. Her touch is like the buds of rose. Kabir surprises with gripping lines like this one – Gohin bukey chapa thakey sudhu dukho borof (Sorrow resides like a mine, hidden or, like Iceberg) beyond the mundane chit-chats, seemingly plausible laughter lies angst of a deeper kind. The quest continues, could love be the nirvana? Throughout the collection Kabir's view of woman can be summed up as patriarchal gaze, while woman mystifies or at times beguiles poet's mind. Epical heroes such as Arjun, Krishna comes in at times in the war of love and pronounces love as the only meaningful essence of life. A computer scientist by profession, scientific jargon like algorithm and progression flows into his poems as much as blended in Arabic, Hindi and English words. The lyrics hinting narcissism and post-modernist metonymies could be better executed. With precision of imagery and clarity of metaphors in Straight-cut Dhoro Haat (Just Hold My Hand), is one of the best lyrics. Projapati Mon O Fuler Shourov (Buttefly Heart and Flower fragrance) executes the sharpest kind of irony. Kabir's view of woman is quite traditional throughout the book until one reads the final poem of the collection – written as a dialogue with mother-in-law and a progressive daughter-in-law. The woman of two generation wages war over identity and liberty, over tradition bound customs where men are granted as bees to roam about in relationships and woman must be chaste, the idea is debunked with the logic that woman has the right to be butterflies. Love, for Kabir is synonymous to creative quest and whether or not, consummating, they hold the passion of English metaphysical poet John Donne. It is true that quite a few lyrics lack editing and economy of words, while the post-romancing unrest is quite evident, a better craftsmanship can be expected in his next collection. The cover could indeed be better for sure. Yet, any conscious reader will agree that the effort to pen-picture the strain of love and separation during the myriad afternoon of one's life is a commendable one.
Shomir Theo is a Lecturer at the Department of English in AIUB. He is a writer member of Brine Pickles
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