Songs of Sonority and Hope, “A Memento of Past Memories”:
A Critical Overview of DC Chambial’s Poetry
—Dr. K. Rajamouly—
Professor of English, Ganapathy Engineering College, Warangal
(A.P.): E-mail: rajamoulykatta@gmail.com
Poets vary from one another in giving
shapes to their imagination so that they let their feelings, ideas,
observations, dreams, experiences, memories and so on known to the readers in
their own ways. The poem is the result of both imagination and creation in
sweet synthesis. It is like the lovely lotus coming out of mud and water. The
lotus blooms and shines for the delight of the viewers sprouting from mud and
water.
The idea that arises in the poet’s mind
initially is crude but shapes into a beautiful one in the poetic process like
the caterpillar that is rough and rugged in the initial stage transforms into
the pretty butterfly. It gets the due poetic shape. Spurting in contact with an
object or the experience in an incident or event, it lurks in the poet’s mind
in the form of memory, launches its journey in poetic or imaginative process
and reaches its goal in the form of a message to the readers. The poem is,
therefore, the ripe fruit of imaginative or poetic process in the poet’s mind.
The poetic process is natural in the mind of a poet like the tides that touch
the shore to leave an indelible mark.
There dawned a poet with unique and
distinctive qualities in the literary firmament to offer his prolific
contributions to the world of readers. He is none other than DC Chambial, who
has put in rich experience as a poet, critic and researcher for about four
decades in the department of education and won several international and
national awards for his contributions to literature and criticism. Several
collections of poems gushed from his pen to draw the poetic attention of the
readers in the contemporary era. Songs of Sonority and Hope, (A
Collection of Poems written between 2010 and 2017), is the latest piece to
reflect his enormous achievement as a poet. It is resonantly beautiful for its ‘sonority’
and abundantly delightful for its ‘hope’ in the establishment of human concerns
and cordial relations between man and man. It is his poetic objective as a man
for man in the welfare of humanity and poet for his poetic sonority.
Chambial firmly believes in memory
resulting from his experience of events and incidents that got in sensory
contact like T. S. Eliot, Nissim Ezekiel, Wordsworth, Robert Frost, Philip
Larkin, and so on, who narrate their dreams, or memoires or experiences related
to the incidents, conveying all enlightening messages through their poems. In
his preface (Poetry, Memory and Dream), he admits the fact: “the poet always
banks upon his memory—personal as well as historical. As he gives shapes to his
daydreams—that a poem can be best called—he cannot help stop his memory, making
in-roads into his poem(s). ... [This] does not sprout from nowhere but has its
roots in one’s memory ...” (7)
For Chambial, time fleets ceaselessly
turning the future into the present and then into the past. The future that
serves as a mystery turns into dreary present. In time’s sojourn, the present
turns into the past to serve as a history with memoirs, in the poem “Temple”,
he writes:
Flag still flies,
waves and carries the past with
it.
A memento of past memoirs. (17)
And in “That Old Hill”, he expresses the
concept of the past to store memories:
The gorge still exists
under the canopy of thick
vegetation:
herbs, shrubs and trees
young again
Past: a history. (19)
The past, in Chambial’s poetry is
eventful but not “forgotten boredom” (The Less Deceived 17) as viewed by
Larkin. Its memories still cling in mind, establishing its continuity with the
present that was once the future as seen from childhood. The past is,
therefore, the fountain of memories rises like the ripples to spurt in a flow.
The past, the present and the future are interlinked and interrelated but not
just mutually juxtaposed and slightly separated. The past lives in the present
in the store of memories haunting and chasing the present ever as time past and
time present are not separate,
Whenever
past
interferes with the present,
creates tsunamis. (“Wall-Hanging” 125)
Whether the past creates tears, “tsunamis”,
or smiles, on one’s recollection in the present, depends on the experiences in
life, but, it can never sever its link with the present. The past, therefore,
exists in mind in the form of memories.
For Chambial, time: the past, the
present, and the future, is an experience. In the passage of time, one finds
the future with dreams to be a mystery, the present with happenings to be
dreary and the past with memories to be a history. Time builds experiences in
the form of memories since life flows through time’s course. He experiences
time as life that is rooted in time.
DC Chambial profoundly feels and firmly
believes that the poem dawns from memory in the process of both imagination and
transformation in fusion to turn an idea that the poet gets initially to shape
into a poem as it has “its roots in one’s memory”. The poem rises from “the memory of one’s past
life or lives, age or ages, which is termed as ‘Historicity’ or ‘Tradition’”
(7), as T.S Eliot calls it.
For T. S. Eliot, the eternal flow of time
enlivens the past as memoirs. For Chambial, memories related to the past establish
link with the present as it has its roots in one’s memory. Both the poets
believe in the sense of past to exist in the form of memories, histories or
traditions.
The past is neither past nor dead for
Chambial. Memories related to the past still lurk or cling in mind in the
present. He does not feel that the past is past as it makes him recall: “the
past, a history”. He is at the same time for the future. So, he eagerly waits
for it since it comes with all hopes as the harbinger of good fortunes to fulfill
his expectations.
For DC Chambial, memory is the source for
a poem to bloom in eminence and spread its technical brilliance and artistic
excellence. His concepts of the past and of the future are similar to that of
Eliot:
You shall not think the past is
finished
Or ‘the future before us’ (‘Dry Salvages’ Four
Quartets 41)
Like T S Eliot, DC Chambial believes in
the endless flow of time that is the eternity of time as suggested by revolving
sun, “the sun travels to west” (46). It is time to tick on like the hands in
the clock that tick on. It flees. One need not notice its endless fleet. This
view reflects Larkin’s concept of time: “Whether or not we use it, it goes” (Collected
Poems 152).
For Chambial, time is not an abstract
idea but a moving force and governing factor. The universal fact of time’s
ceaseless flow, “Time ticks on” (46) is the nucleus theme of his poetry. This
concept echoes Hans Meyerhoff’s concept of time in Time in Literature: “We
are conscious of every second ticking off” (6).
Life sails in the river of time as life
is rooted in the endless passage of time. Time as the moving force makes all
move or flow in its course:
In the river of time, flows the
upshot
Of whatever falls in its windy
current.
Nothing is static. (“Spark Survives” 140)
The concept of time in its inexorable
flow is in Larkin’s poem, “Days”:
Days are where we live
They come, and wake us
Time and time over. (CP 67)
Like Larkin’s concept of time, Chambial’s
is also evident in his other poems for its graphic depiction:
Time moves on
Without any nemesis,
Without concern for any one
Like the sage
Detached and poised. (“Unanswered Questions” 112)
The sun had
Set in search
Of new sun.
Sun and shower
in chase since
Eternity. (“Chase” 25)
The universal fact of time’s eternity is
that the day culminates into the night and the night, the day. The ceaseless
flow of time brings about cyclic changes in days and nights. He writes:
The morning sheen
seeped into
the dark of night. (“Butterflies in Wizened Skies” 33)
The seasons befall cyclic as in Larkin:
“Trees are coming into leaf”. Leaves fall as a sign of their woes: “Their
greenness is a kind of grief” (CP 166). In place of fallen leaves, there arise
new leaves on the stems as the yearly trick of looking new.
In the endless passage of time, seasons
change in the cyclic process as Chambial describes in the poem entitled “The
Sun Singes” (53). The seasons: summer, rains, autumn, winter and spring in
picturesque portrayals are cyclic in nature in the rein of time in endless
flow.
The concept of spiritual life and
eternity recurs in Chambial’s poetry. Birth culminates in Death and death
initiates life, the stage of rebirth as the life in eternity,
Life and death
Complement each other
Like day and night,
Morn and eve,
... ... ...
Let’s welcome both
With stoic stance of a seer! (“Stoic Stance” 110)
Chambial grows conscious of time and
deals with it and its powers. He uses various images: sun, moon, buds, clouds,
ocean, sea, water, sunlight, river, rainbow, trees, stars, wind and so on to
suggest the incessant movement of time that brings about inevitable changes in
life and nature.
Life is rooted in time. Time’s movement
is not measured but life is measured in time. Man’s life finds the stages:
birth, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, middle age, old age ultimately to
culminate in death. Life is, therefore, the yardstick of the stages of birth,
growth and death.
Chambial joyously describes the child at
birth that initiates life. Parents bring up their babies with all love. He puts
it thus:
Parents rock us in cosy arms
Sang sweetest lullabies for
charms (“Live with Winning Thunder”
59)
As a poet and man, Chambial fondly loves
childhood. He depicts it as “immaculate and innocent / a drop in itself” (56).
For him, childhood is the stage of innocence. He beautifully compares the child
to “a drop of water” that “weans solace and / Soothes lips parched, / mouth and
throat”. The comparison of a child with a water drop to give life to parched
throats and lands is indeed apt and befitting:
Child’s innocence:
the home of paradise,
full of flowery fragrance.
Soothing
solace,
flowery
fragrance,
restore
ecstatic bliss! (“A Drop” 57)
Everyone loves childhood, as it is the
stage enjoyable and preferable for recollection. Chambial is unique in the
depiction of childhood. He excels other poets like the Hindi poet, Subhadra
Kumari Chouhan in the description of childhood by her recalling it very often
to enjoy its bliss in “Mera Naya Bachpan”: “Baar baar aati hai mujhko madhur
yaad bachpan teri” [ckj&ckj
vkrh gS eq>dks e/kqj ;kn cpiu rsjh].
Chambial deals with youth filled with
verve and vigor, glory and glitz, liveliness and robust spirit, daring and
dashing and so on. He feels that God is kind to grant youth to man. He exhorts
the race of man to enjoy youth to the extent possible:
We got our prize ordained by fate
Lived life lively, no cause for
hate. (“Live with Winning Thunder”
59)
Youth is the stage to bestow on man sweet
memories, as it is the choicest reward bestowed on man. It is Spring, like
youth, in life to leave youthful memories for man in the words of John Keats:
... lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy
span
He has his Summer, when
luxuriously
Spring’s honeyed cud of youthful
thought he loves (“Four Seasons” 423)
Chambial also paints youth with the
lovely colors of his love for youth that is robustly delightful and memorably
beautiful:
Glow: full of youth, verve,
Heat, full beautiful; apogee—
Simmers fierce beauty. (“Melee of Memories” 79)
Man grows ultimately to culminate in
death to mark the end of physical life. Chambial believes in spiritual life.
From the spiritual point of view, life is with the stages: birth, growth, death
and rebirth. In fact, like the law of inertia, life is also energy and it never
dissipates; only changes shapes:
Death is sure for the born
one;
Let it come while serving the torn
men.
Thus, he served Allah by
serving his men. (“GMG: The Man of
Allah” 130)
For Chambial, life that initiates the
fate of birth culminates in death, turns into eternity in Time’s flow:
Death is the fate of birth, dusk of
the dawn,
Mirth slips into tears, night, of
the day.
Creation must end in destruction.
The wheel of Time goes on spinning
anon.
...
... ... ...
A spark survives in the ashes that fly
Urges recoiling souls to peaks beyond. (“Spark Survives” 140)
Chambial deviates from the concept of
spiritual life, the rebirth of life, the immortality of life with the soul to
merge with the other body when he comments on the transience of life:, “Life is
a nine day’s wonder” in both the poems, “Live with Winning Thunder” (59) and ‘Melee
of Memories’ (79). He advises man to “make hay while the sun shines” (79). In
“Live with Winning Thunder”, he writes:
True, “Life is a nine day’s wonder”
Live it, live with winning
thunder! (59)
Chambial feels that life is not a bed of
roses. He presents life to be the mixture of tears and smiles, ebbs and tides,
ups and downs, pains and pleasures, hells and heavens and so on. He aptly deals
with the truth of life:
Between
pain and laughter
lingers life silently. (“Pain and Laughter” 118)
The poet, Chambial, refers to his belief
in fate that governs life. It can make man suffer from “A fatal stroke of fate:”
in his poem “An Escapade” (20). Man, treading the wrong path in craze for the
spell of money in his poem, “Man for Man”, “Life’s is not money / Money
sustains life / Life for Karma” (55).
The essence of love is the tone and tenor
of Chambial’s poetry. It reflects his love for life, love for man, love for
woman, love for wife, love for nature, love for soldiers, love for motherland,
love for God and so on. The focus and fulcrum of his poetry is love. He excels
in the portrayal of love:
The life has been very kind to us,
Measured world to grow without
fuss.
God has been so kind to grant this
far last.
Let’s save it with sense: to our lot
cast. (“Live with Winning Thunder” 59)
and
Love, a sentiment of oneness:
comes unknown all at once.
Known to soul since eternity. (“Love Lasts Eternity”109)
In the poem, “Woman Is a Woman”, his love
for woman is apparent when he says that man and woman are complementary to each
other. He compliments woman for her “strength in her sinews / in her nerves.”
He extols woman for “She’s to show the way / to the WORLD / once again, anew /
and lead the world of MAN / from this Hell / to Heaven (120).
Chambial adores God for His free offers
like nature, youth, life and all others for the delight of man. He seeks the
divine bliss:
Seek solace at the feet of the
Lord,
Not to let my mind any malice
hold
... ... ...
In such an ambience of cosy bliss,
Let mundane senses kiss the divine
bliss. (“Divine Bliss” 94)
The poet enjoys solace and peace in his
meditation to God when he spells the most powerful mantra,
Om! Om! Om!
since eternity.
Solace! (“OM” 29)
For Chambial, life is the choicest gift
and rarest dream bestowed on man for human life and love for humanity at large.
He always wishes it to practice “values; human behaviour” (43).
Chambial’s poetry is multisided and
multifaceted as it marks a rich variety of themes. He, as a poet and man, loves
nature like the Romantics as it offers solace to him. His contact with nature
leaves indelible impressions and attractions, sweet memories and recollections
in him. He wants to become one with the beauty of nature to be away from the
stresses and strains of reality:
The tree beautiful
One has to care and love
To transcend tensions in peace. (“Harried Hurry” 63)
Moist air, Earth green
rife with music:
drip-drop, drip-drop.
Mellowed June air (“Simmering Song” 35)
Long to languish
in this bowl of Nature
and merge with it; (“Wingless” 30)
Chambial, as a poet, loves the sights, sounds and scents and other
sensuous gifts of nature. He loves to have contact with nature for its beauty:
charms, scent and music for his gaiety.
Let’s live by being closer
To descry
The beauties of nature
In upright stature (“Plunder the Thunder” 142)
The sweetest moment of life:
The star spangled sky. (“Sands of Oblivion” 97)
Sweet songs
stir the chords
of heart and mind. (“Wingless” 30)
The lovely music that soars with
the waves:
Sinks to bed, rises to the face
full in heat;
Lilts the loving hearts with the
airy beat,
With the symphony of its lovely
staves. (“The Symphony” 96)
I went up the hill: the hillside
green, decked with multi-hued
flowers
entice birds and butterflies all—
a gala of blush and sweet
smell. (“Tales to Tell”
48)
For Chambial, nature is the gift offered
by God to Man, His supreme creation, for his bliss. It is the heaven-like Eden
for Adam and Eve for their paradise. It, therefore, plays the benevolent role
for them. The poet gets engrossed in the beauty of nature to swim in the river
of bliss:
Look at
the green, smiling
leaf of a tree
... ...
...
I wept in happiness,
For His bounty: (“His Munificence” 136)
Looked deep
into the placid water
of noiselessly
flowing river.
(“On the Bank” 137)
A sweet and beautiful birdie
Hit by the flowery arrows. (“The Bliss”
22)
The colours,
tint the
Earth, Sky, Sea.
(“Beauties of This World” 31)
Chambial loves nature and the annual
seasons. His descriptions of the seasons: summer, “the burning sun” in waiting
for “Rain’s mirth”; rains to “mollify” the earth; autumn, “solemn in
enchantment”; winter, “shivering chill”, spring, “honeyed breath”; are vivid
and picturesque. He adores and celebrates spring in his heart:
Spring mellowed with honeyed-breath
stirs life:
A celebration of colours all
around;
Prickly chill left far behind in
life’s strife
To welcome the soft smooth breath
that surrounds. (“The Sun Singes”
53)
In nature descriptions, Chambial refers
to numerous objects of nature: sun, moon, light, birds, trees, rivers, oceans,
hills, flowers, showers, stars, myna, cuckoos, seasons and so on like
Wordsworth.
Chambial is a keen observer but not a
silent spectator of the contemporary society. In his observation, he finds it
full of evils. He has memorable experiences got in his keen observation of
society. He expects man to have social virtues and human values but he does not
find any as per his wish. He shares all his feelings with the readers, so that,
they feel them like him. The poet and man in him feels profoundly sorry for the
evils:
Heart is heavy
to recount and remember
the lapses made
undeserved and uncalled for. (“Remorse” 41)
Man has meddled not with morals
only,
Dug deep into the bowls of Earth
as well;
Has made vulnerable Earth, life, a
hell,
In his blind quest for Mammon
selfishly. (“Man for Mammon”
45)
A poet, without responding to social
evils and ills, trivialities and frivolities, injustices and irregularities,
inequalities and immoralities, vices and prejudices, etc, is not a poet in true
sense. Chambial is a poet whose heart aches for all social evils. He, as a poet
of social consciousness and moral awareness, responds to all those failings and
reacts vehemently protesting against all those in the welfare of the society,
he lives in.
The poet finds his land without ethics,
values and virtues in the poem, “We Are Living”. Instead, he finds in the land
debauchery, larceny, treachery” as “the order of the day” against his wish to
find “love and compassion”. He hates the plight in the land,
We’are living in a land
that abounds in
wolves, hyenas and jackals;
(51)
In the contemporary society, man has
grown over-selfish to have material matters. In the poem, “Man Prefers Matter”,
he opines, “Men prefer matter” in “changed values”. The man today wants to
become rich overnight “By fair or foul means” (43) without minding any loss and
deception to any fellowman as he feels that money is the source for all his
pleasures and luxuries. It is the means, for him, to solve all problems to
reach his goal.
Money is the sole subject
and for that
they cast lots to decide
who wins this time. (“Woman in Kitty” 39)
The riches sought in this lusty
world,
Overnight one longs to pluck the
brightest star;
(“This Lascivious World” 44)
In fact, God created man with His message
to him to have human concern and cordial relation for man, man-for-man, man’s
amelioration but he goes against the Divine will by craving for material
possessions and deceitful earnings.
By fair or foul means, one wants to
be rich
In no time. One seeks all troves
of Solomon,
Connives for this even with demon. (“Man Prefers Matter” 43)
Apart from foul ways of acquiring money,
the poet criticises man’s longing for power in the poem, “The Canyons of Time”:
“Ever hungry for power, can stoop to any depth” (133). He detests all
prejudices in “Heaven on this Earth” calling all the evils “The devils of /
Ego, desire, greed” (81).
Man has transformed the paradise-like
earth into a hell against the aims and objectives of an ideal society. He
cannot replace the hell-like with the paradise-like on earth. Man lost the
paradise due to his failings. He has to regain it by means of his virtues and
values. It is not possible for him to re-establish values and virtues, as he
has turned heartless: “Love is lost in human heart,” (“There Was a Man” 67).
Chambial loves to live and write for man’s
enlightenment, for quest of bliss in life. He wishes the world to be peaceful
and the people should enjoy peace as in paradise, doing good for the humanity:
The world is too good a place
Where all of us—the human beings
Should live as His happy and
sanguine souls
Removing the thorns on the ways,
Make them play with rivers of their
tears.
Let’s join hands in a chain
In the world to scatter the pollen
of chagrin
And usher for all into a new Heaven
of happiness.
(“Heaven of Happiness” 132)
Chambial feels that life is a boon
bestowed on man to live and enjoy. It is heavenly: the earth is a heaven for
man,
The life has been very kind to us,
Measured world to grow without
fuss.
God’s been so kind to grant this
far last.
Let’s save with sense: to our lot
cast. (“Live with Winning Thunder
59)
Like a patriot, Chambial feels that our
country is indisputably great as he has love for his nation. Here the poet’s
tone is satirical. He never wishes the people of his nation to be violent.
Hence, he never wishes the end of life due to violence or killing on the
borders in a battle. His patriotic fervor is apparent when he, with all
regrets, refers to the killing of soldiers on the borders. He hates violence in
the form of murders, rapes and other brutal acts:
Men are killed on the borders,
Women become widows,
Mother’s laps empty, eyes flooded
to tears.
Children without canopy to face the
blizzard.
(“The Canyons of Time” 133)
The valiant soldiers ever awake on
the distant borders:
They are men, who stand for truth
and suffer long,
Picketing against enemies and
charlatan hoarders,
They are the men: merit honour, make
the land strong.
(“The Wounds of Deceit” 146)
Politicians make promises assuring the
people of their honest rule for the welfare of the people, especially the
peasant community but fail to do so to prove that they are responsible for the
decline of values and the downfall of their nation. They prove to be traitors,
cheats, villains and so on in the mission of coming up overnight:
They are the real villains who
become ignorant too
‘East or west, home is the best’:
the true balming hand.
(“The Wounds of Deceit” 146)
Exploitation, coercion and all other evil
practices in the society surpass the limits to result in total devastation. The
poet expresses his anguish for the horrendous situation by the use of symbolic
images of fire and wind:
The wind turns into gale. The
fire—wild fire
when they join hands and move in
the valleys,
on the hills and mountains. These
dances
devastation. Revolution result (“Song of Sonority and Hope” 147)
When man has forgotten humanity, the love
for his race, the poet feels that the restoration of justice is the only
alternative to stop violence and bloodshed:
When exploitation and coercion
cross the bounds of humane
humanity,
it becomes must for Nature
to restore the natural justice. (“Songs of Sonority and Hope” 147)
The poet, as a lover of humanity, touches
all aspects of social relations with human concerns especially familial and
conjugal relations. Wife and husband are essential for the welfare of a family
in the way the wings are essential for a bird, for its safe flight. He refers
wife and husband as the two wings essential for life. The family has to develop
into a good society to enjoy man’s harmonious existence,
Life isn’t a one-winged bird:
It needs two to fly,
To rise to the sky,
To go past the hills and canyons
To taste the pleasures that lie
beyond. (“Plunder the Thunder” 142)
As a humanist, he loves his fellowmen and
wishes their welfare. He professes the sense of hope and faith for a welcome
change. In the light of optimism, there is new sunrise to shatter the thick
pall of darkness and to clear the way to evade ignorance resulting from
selfishness and greediness for terrestrial possessions. One finds light to lead
all to prove worthy as true human beings:
There is one light bright
beyond the hill,
in the dark, full of lilt
the perpetual home sans guilt
that all crave to own;
the highest good, life’s crown. (“’Beyond the Yonder Hill” 49)
The Earth, created for Adam’s
chastisement,
Can be easily transformed into
Heaven
If those living here below the
firmament
Follow His commands in this
haven. (“’Our Conduct” 96)
The poet ironically talks about the
perfidious actions of men in making existence a hell. Such wicked men are busy
in destroying the system that seeks to guarantee them comforts of life:
I marvel at their acumen and sound
Daring who make every effort and sweat
To raze the mansion thoughtlessly
to ground
That gives them their life’s
comforts as life’s treat. (“I Marvel”
148)
Chambial deals with time and its powers,
the past as a history in the form of memories and contemporary society. He sets
a model to the poets of younger generation by lashing and criticizing the
social evils with hopes of man’s transformation into an ideal one. The poet
teaches all ideals and principles for man’s harmonious existence.
Chambial’s poetry establishes him as a
poet of high accomplishment in the galaxy of contemporary Indian English poets.
His poetry is so profound that the reader has to read between the lines to know
the inherent thematic beauty in it. Through his poetic prism, he presents the
kaleidoscopic variety of themes. It is thought-provoking and soul-stirring with
its thematic affluence and artistic excellence. Through his employment of
poetic devices like images, similes, metaphors and personifications in Songs
of Sonority and Hope, he presents the snapshot details of all the poetic
scenes to the readers. The title is so appropriate that we, as readers, enjoy
in the bunch of poems the sonority of rhythmic beauty and the poetic vision to
reflect his hope in promoting values in the man of the contemporary socio-political
scenario.
Works
Cited
Chambial,
D.C. Songs of Sonority and Hope. New
Delhi: Authors Press, 2018.
Eliot, T.S. Four
Quartets. New Delhi: OUP, 1971.
Meyerhoff,
Hans. Time in Literature. London:
California Press, 1974.
Larkin, Philip. Collected
Poems. London: The Marvel Press:
1988. .
----. The Less
Deceived. Yarkshire: Marvel Press, 1955.
Keats,
John. “Four Seasons.” Poetical Works, edited by H.W. Garrod. Oxford
Paperbacks. London: OUP, 1973.
Chowhan, Subhadrakumanri. “Mera Naya Bachpan”. https://kavyaalaya.org/mera_naya_bachpan.jpg
