Poetry of K. V. Dominic: A Study
Prof. T. V. Reddy
K. V. Dominic, born in 1956 at the famous place Kalady, the place of
birth of Jagadguru Adi Sankaracharya, the exponent of the Adwaita philosophy,
is a significant voice in recent Indian English poetry and though he is a late
bloomer with his maiden book Winged
Reason published in 2010 his poems with their fragrance ensure his place
among Indian poets in English. He is at once a poet and a critic, a short story
writer and an editor who has published altogether nineteen books so far. He
retired as a Professor of English at Newman College at Thodupuzha in Kerala. He
is the Secretary of the Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics
(GIEWEC) and in that capacity he has been encouraging many promising writers in
Indian English. He is a writer with social consciousness and his poems often
express his impressions and views on contemporary social situations and
problems. He writes in the Preface to his first collection, ‘As a poet I am
responsible to my own conscience and I want to convey an emotion or a message
often through social criticism.’ So far
he has authored three collections of poems – 1. Winged Reason (Delhi, Authors Press, 2010), 2. Write Son, Write (Delhi, Gnosis, 2011) and 3. Multicultural Symphony (Delhi, Access, 2014).
Winged Reason happens to be
his first collection of thirty-nine poems covering a wide range of subjects
from childhood to old age, from pleasures and pains to cats, birds and animals,
from feasts to singers, from politics to economics. Unquestionably this book is
a social document presenting his social concerns in lyrical lines and
reflecting his active participation in the fabric of social life at large. His
poetry is an expression of his sympathy for the suffering sections of our
society, for the poor and the down-trodden, for the helpless women and the
aged. In clear terms he attacks corrupt politicians and government officials
and the callous apathy of the government to the poorer sections. He strongly
says: ‘Poor people are strangled through taxes and their governments do nothing
for their welfare. The government is always with the rich, caring for their
comfort and luxury.’ Though a Christian by birth in Kerala, known from ancient
days as God’s own land, Dominic says ‘I have respect for Hinduism and Buddhism
as they believe in Ahimsa.’ and his poems are a direct expression of his
unbiased and balanced attitude and catholicity of outlook.
As the book opens, the first poem
itself, ‘In Memoriam: George Joson’, an elegy written on his colleague who died
in a car accident, speaks eloquently of the writer’s spirit of intense
humanism. While he feels haunted by his absence, he reconciles himself with the
inevitable and ends with the lines –
The best is to resign
to what He ordains
in time and out of
time. (WR, p. 18)
In quite contrast with the opening poem, the
next poem ‘Long Live E. K. Nayanar’ is
politically inspired. Like most of the Keralites Dominic too comes under the
influence of the Communist ideology and he is very much moved by the death of
E. K. Nayanar, the thrice Chief Minister of Kerala who is still remembered as
the man of the masses. The writer bids ‘Lal Salaam’ to the leader, a true
Communist and patriot and an ‘epitome of Socialism’, who championed the cause
of the denied and the deprived and the downtrodden:
You are our polestar
who saves us from
Darkness. (WR, p.20)
The next piece ‘A Nightmare’ is a vivid
picture of the present social situation which is indeed a nightmare to any
observer with a feeling heart. It is a picture of terrible contrasts and
anomalies and horrible gaps that refuse to be bridged so easily – an overfed
boy whose mother beats him to eat more and a bony child crying for a crumb, a
lavish wedding feast in the town hall on one side and on the other side two starving
girls in rags struggling with the dogs at the garbage bin, two long queues –
one at the liquor shop where beggars too compete and the other at the ration shop,
two-storeyed edifices with luxury rooms and swimming pools on one side and on
the other slums and huts. ‘A Sheep’s Wail’ is an interesting piece running into
a dozen three-lined units giving an autobiographical picture of a typical sheep
whose piercing cry is in the nature of a plea and a complaint:
Man, you are the cruelest,
you are the most
ungrateful
of all God’s
creatures.
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
If a heaven is there
we will reach there
first
and pray to God to
shut you out. (WR, p, 25)
While the
piece ‘Anand’s Lot’ is a sympathetic narration of the heart-piercing
cries and sufferings of the kidnapped child Anand, a school-going boy, who was
beaten and forced to beg and give the collected earnings, the poem ‘Gayatri’s
Solitude’ is a moving description of the eighty-two year old widowed mother
Gayatri who is fated to live a lonely life in an old age home, though
well-furnished, in India although she is a mother of three sons and two
daughters as all of them live in the US:
The depth of maternal
love,
and the pangs of
separation
no child can
gauge.
(WR, p.32)
In ‘Tsunami Camps’ he narrates the untold
miseries of the victims of the natural disaster who ‘lost their dear ones / and
fight against destiny.’ Though the Government gave kits and boxes, they did not
contain essential things and their plea for boats and fishing nets and their
unending wails became a futile cry in wilderness; their piercing cry –‘It’s
better to kill us than torture like this’ (p.33) - failed to reach the deaf
ears of the government.
Now the poet tries to harp on his favourite subject of widening
difference between haves and have-nots in the verse piece of the same title
‘Haves and Have-nots’. This is a world where capitalism rules and communism
fails and the pity is even the so-called champions of socialism and communism do
not put their principles in practice. As such the writer says:
But power corrupted;
leaders turned
tyrants;
philosophy
failed. (WR,
p.37)
In the poem ‘I am Just a Mango Tree’ the
writer succeeds in painting the man in true colours and even the tree complains
to God regarding the inhuman nature and unlimited greed of man:
God, why is your
man so selfish and cruel?
Did you create him
to disturb this
earth’s balance?
The God sincerely regrets his thoughtless
action of creating this cruel man and expresses his bitter feelings with pain
and remorse:
My child, I created
him
in My own image
but he’s gone
astray;
My agony is
endless.
That’s the fate of
the Father everywhere.
I shouldn’t have
created this human species;
But how can a
father kill his sons? (WR,
p. 41)
‘Indian Democracy’ is a stark presentation of
the sordid reality of the existing state of our democracy. Though ours is the
largest democracy, ‘regionalism and parochialism devour nationalism and
patriotism’; election campaigns overflow with ‘fireworks of lies and abuses’;
holding of Parliament elections is ‘a several billion business’; ‘Criminal M.Ps
are brought from jails to prove majority on floor.’ The result is we have
‘Corrupt Governments / draining the blood of people’ (p.60-61). ‘In the Name of
God’ is an interesting piece presenting the bitter truth of all anti-social
activities committed in the name of God; the name of God is unnecessarily
dragged into all unethical acts . Criminal actions are done in the name of God
and history is a witness to the killing of millions in crusades in the name of
God. Now democracy gets diluted in the name of God. In the name of God
superstition survives, poison of communalism spreads, terrorists butcher
innocent people, teens are transformed into terrorists, higher castes indulge
in exploitation, secularism is destroyed
and corruption gets promoted:
God is dethroned
in the name of
God.
And human gods
are crowned
in the name of
God. (WR, p. 70)
The poet pays high tribute to the woman
teacher Kaumudi who is now no more and who is a role model and a guiding spirit
for all other women with her glowing spirit of patriotism, revealed in her
early age of sixteen when she donated all her golden ornaments to Gandhi for
the freedom struggle when he addressed a meeting at Vadakara in Malabar. She
was so deeply influenced by Gandhi’s message that she pledged to wear no
ornaments, followed his footsteps, taught Hindi in Malabar schools and led a
simple life till her death at ninety-two:
Kaumudi’s dazzle
dimmed
the dazzle of
all other women in jewels and ornaments.
Let’s bow our
head to this rarest gem.
(WR, p. 75)
His second collection Write Son,
Write, published a year later in 2011, has thirty-one poems with a Preface
and a Foreword by the contemporary poet P. C. K. Prem. In this second volume
the writer seems to continue his favourite theme of social reform and justice
aiming the shaft of his satire on corruption which has grown to monstrous size.
Finding fault with all-embracing materialism his sensitive heart grieves at the
loss of moral values in all the walks of social life. The first poem which happens
to be the title poem ‘Write my Son, Write’ is a lengthy verse divided into
twenty-one parts that run to seventeen pages with pictorial presentation.
Dominic declares in his Preface that “The opening poem Write, My Son, Write’ is
indeed the manifesto of my views and philosophy. Divided into twenty-one parts,
it declares my views on God, Man and Nature.” God created man with a purpose
and a mission and not for fun to fill the vacuum. As such this poem starts on a
solemn note with God’s words:
My son,
I have a mission
in your creation,
God spoke
to my ears. (WSW, p.21)
God asks his son to look at the tip of his
pen and tells him that he is the ball of his pen, the ink that flows on the
paper and asks him ‘Write till / I say stop’. He asks him to feel the symphony
of the universe and it grieves Him to see that his species seldom feel His
rhythm and they have become insensitive and in this respect plants and animals
are better than human beings. Part three elaborates the rhythm and harmony,
present in every molecule and in every atom. It is present in the majestic
tramp of elephant, in the dart of deer, trot of tiger, race of rabbit, lope of
leopard, swoop of swine, scud of squirrel, canter of kangaroo, tear of bear,
gallop of horse, bound of bull, dash of dog, dart of cormorant, plunge of
kingfisher, flit of swift, swoop of kite, plummet of eagle, buzz of bee wing of mynah, drone of mosquito, motion of
snake, march of centipede and millipede and movement of worms and insects. He
says: ‘Rhythm is there / everywhere / and creates / the perpetual / harmony’ (WSW, p.
23). Part Six speaks of the importance of co-existence and cooperation and
states the core of the message:
Your existence
depends on others;
all my creations,
useful and
beautiful. (WSW, p.25)
Part Ten finds fault with the cruel and
violent nature of man: ‘Who gave you right / to kill my creation?’ (p.29). The
writer is against the killing of animals, fowl and fish for their taste and
food, for their sport and fun. Part Fourteen deals with the limitations of man;
what we hear, see and know is very little: ‘What you hear / is little; / much
more lies / beyond your ears.’ (WSW, p.32). While Part 16 gives a brief sketch of
different types of mafia, religious, political and intellectual, Parts
17&18 deal with religious mafia, Part 19 with political mafia and Part 20
with intellectual mafia. The last part 21 is more or less a summation of the
lengthy verse reiterating the message that human beings can survive in this
world only when they allow other creatures, plants and animals to live in
harmony:
If they heed
they will be saved;
other beings
will be saved;
plants will be
saved
and the universe
as such will be
saved. (WSW, p.37)
The lines of the next poem ‘An Elegy on my
Ma’ are written in memory of his mother who passed away on 14th October
2010 and in this context it is good to remember that this book is dedicated to
his beloved mother. His mother was a symbol of the purest love, selfless
service and sacrifice and a source of inspiration and the poem has an
appropriate ending:
Ma, we will go ahead
boosted by your
divine words. (WSW, p.41)
After a poem it is followed by another piece
‘Massacre of Cats’ which is a sad reference to the poisoning of his four
favourite cats by his neighbour, a man of high rank in the society, and in the
poet’s words this death of his cats was as shocking to him as his mother’s
death. His materialist neighbours go to church every day, read the Bible every
day, but they have not learnt ‘to love other beings as fellow beings. ‘The next
poem ‘Aung San Suu Kyi – Asia’s Lady Mandela’ pays a glowing tribute to the
patriotic leader and champion of democratic rights in Burma whose name bears
the title of the poem:
Suu Kyi, the
epitome of valour,
showed her people
through her life
liberty is born
from the ashes of fear.
Her twenty years
of political life,
more than
fourteen in solitary cells. (WSW,
p.53)
Now Dominic the poet is enchanted by the
captivating sight of coconut trees which are seen in abundance in Kerala, and
in fact Kerala and coconut trees go together; the result is the short piece
‘Coconut Palm’:
A marvel to all
architects.
No human hand can
build
such a parallel
pillar.
Kudos to the
Architect of architects. (WSW,
p.56)
It is followed by an interesting poem ‘Crow,
the Black Beauty’ and the writer wonders why the black crow is neglected even
by poets while the white dove is extolled by all. The writer’s sympathetic
heart does not approve of this colour discrimination:
When will the
Black and the White
dwell in the same
house
and dine from the same plate? (WSW, p.57-58)
The verse piece ‘For the Glory of God’ narrates an incident reported in
a local newspaper The Malayala Manorama
Sunday Supplement on 25th July 2010 which is an instance of communal
harmony of Hindu and Muslim women in the midst of communal rancour, clashes and
killings. Chellamma, a seventy-five year old helpless Kerala Brahmin woman
receives help and shelter from a Muslim lady Resiya Beevi at a time when
religious extremists hacked off a Professor’s right palm with the intention of
killing him in that region. The verse
“Hunger’s call’ is more communistic in tone and tenour and it is a plea to
support the sinking life with soup and fight poverty the logical result of
‘hyperinflation and economic mismanagement’ the result of ‘the impact of
globalization, / liberalization and privatization’ (WSW, p.66). ‘Rocketing Growth of
India’ is a strong satire at our Government and at our so-called much boasted progress
which in reality is an eyewash. Of course the rich are growing richer and
poverty is growing and the gap between the rich and the poor is enormously
growing. The lines of the poem ‘To My Colleague’ are really heart-rending as
the piece refers to a shameful incident of religious fanaticism when the right
palm of a Professor of Newman College at Thodupuzha, a colleague of the writer,
was hacked off while he was returning home after Sunday Mass on 4th
July 2010:
India, my
motherland.
Land of
corruption, terrorism
and religious
fundamentalism. (WSW, p.84)
The poem ‘Train Blast’ is a description of
the poignant train blast, a heinous act of the Maoists, causing the tragic
death of a hundred and fifty innocent people. They think that -
End justifies the
means;
Utopian ends,
Diabolic
means. (WSW,
p.85)
Now the poet asks Lord Krishna why He is so
indifferent and questions:
Can’t you punish
these terrorists
as you punished
Asuras? (WSW, p.86)
‘Work is Worship’ is the last but one in this
volume and the writer rightly states the good old saying and reiterates it by
strengthening the message with good instances. God is with the person who works
and does his duty without wasting his time and idling. He says God whispers in
his ears:
‘My dear son, live
in Karma,
love all creations,
for I am in
everything’. (WSW, p.96)
The book closes with the piece ‘Lines
Composed from Thodupuzha River’s Bridge’ which is a picturesque description of
the river with the bridge across it that merges at last into the sea and the
lines reveal the influence of Wordsworth the famous Romantic poet of Nature
since his description of nature grows imperceptibly into philosophical
reflections:
Invigorating cool
water gushing through your vein
overflows my mind
with eternal realities.
Every second passed
in our lives
is irredeemably lost for
ever.
Invisible Time
flashes in meteoric speed;
(WSW, p.99)
In his third collection
Multicultural Symphony Dominic deals with a wide range of topics embracing
multiculturalism, global warming, environmental problems, and other social
problems such as poverty and unemployment, child labour and dignity of labour,
the deep-rooted system of caste which is the root-cause of all the social
problems and superstitions like blind belief in horoscope etc.
Thus Dr. Dominic is a poet with social awareness which fills almost all
the lines of his poems and it is no exaggeration to say that his profound
concern for the marginalized sections of the society forms the life force and
breath of his poetry. He tries to dissect corruption at all levels, political
or religious, social or academic and presents it in its true colours with all
the ugliness and monstrous greed. He says in his Preface; ‘Corruption has
become the hallmark of these leaders, and influenced by them the masses also
deviate from the right track to the evil track. And who will save this society?
My answer is: writers, particularly poets who are like prophets.’ Thus it is
quite clear that Dominic is a poet of the suffering masses and oppressed
sections of the society; moreover his poems are a strong testimony to his
socialistic ideas, to his leanings towards communistic ideology and to his
earnest zeal as a social reformer. His poems in general are more descriptive
and narrative than suggestive; though he does not make use of imagery, he is
richly imaginative.
Works
Cited
Dominic, K. V. Winged Reason. New Delhi: AuthorsPress, 2010. Print.
---. Write
Son, Write. New Delhi: Gnosis, 2011. Print.
Prof. Dr. T. V. Reddy
worked as Lecturer, Reader and U.G.C National Fellow & Visiting Professor,
and retired as Principal of Govt. Degree College in Dec. 2001. He is a renowned
poet, critic & novelist of international repute. His poems appeared in
French journals in Paris. M.Phil and Ph.D. theses have been produced on his
works. He has received innumerable national and international awards for his
poetry. He has authored and published seven collections of poems, two novels,
two books of criticism, and a book on grammar. He is the President of Guild of
Indian English Writers, Editors & Critics (GIEWEC).
