By Pankajbala R Patel
POETRY is my first love and after a long time I’m reading some soul-soothing poetry courtesy Amit Dahiyabadshah. Poets and writers can be intimidating and reserved before opening up but the Delhi-based Hayanvi Jat poet Amit-ji is a rare find. By fluke I was fortunate enough to say hello to him at Kishore Thukral’s amazing Blue Brick Wall cafeteria (down the Campal promenade) last week to pick up some of the cheese jalapeno poppers (they do some welcome eats here) to take home.
The Blue Brick Wall is growing into an idyllic cosy meeting place come lonely evenings. Alas, it was one of my ad hoc visits and wasn’t able to stay for the evening of poetry reading on the cards. Listen to the amiable Amit Dahiyabadshah who was there to read and hold forth from his new collection of poetry “Tiger Eye.” I’m in the midst of reading his poetry and can’t help thinking his poetry is much like the man himself, sensitive, insightful, warm and compassionate – his world view offers a broader canvas for his poetry.
Plus, here is a poet who makes his living from poetry alone or so he says, a most remarkable achievement! Of course, here is one very well connected man of life as it unfolds and literary matters. Amit Dahiyabadshah hails from an assorted background of being organic farmer and trainer, communication planner, outdoor survival instructor and as he says he is a “full-time working poet” with 20 anthologies and chapbooks, which have touched readers and audiences across USA, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Europe and Australia, elsewhere.
He is the founder of the poetry movement Delhi Poetree and Delhi Poetree Publications and hosts the long-running Thousand Poets reading series, he is recognized as Poet Laureate of the Senior Environment Corps, Center in the Park, Germantown, Philedelphia and is poet-in-residence of the Global Constitution Forum, Philedelphia, Pennsylvania. In a nutshell Dahiyabadshah leads the good life of being a secular poet, with a keen eye for the wellbeing of others, a concern comes across in several of his poems. His concern for environmental issues and the little creatures of Mother Earth makes for some powerful reading and I’ve taken a shine to them.
Amitji has many stories to tell worth listening to, another time maybe. In this lucky unexpected meeting last week I just had to pick up my order of cheese jalepeno poppers and rush home, missing out on what I hear turned out to be a most inspirational evening at the Blue Brick Wall.
This is to say “Tiger Eye, The Poetry of Amit Dahgiyabadshah” (published by Poetry Playhouse publications, Placitas, New Mexico, softcover, price unlisted) is worth discovering. It’s enriching poetry to beguile mind and body, heart and soul, oozing with fellow feelings for human and creatures of the wild in equal measure; he is the “tiger poet” for “something that survives on its own bloody will/and is still something that may be called me.” A man of emotions, keen intelligence, and he writes some wonderfully appealing poetry of the soul. Even if the subbing/proofing of the poetry could have been more proficient! Still, it’s a most handsomely published publication. You want to read the poetry.
Make time for Amit Dahiyabadshah, he comes across as a good friend to have in good times and bad times. Welcome to Goa Amit Dahiyabadshah!
I cannot do better than offer a selection of some of his poetry to mull over, the ones I love the most.
A selection of poetry from “Tiger Eye: the Poetry of Amit Dahiyabadshah…
Meet the Tiger Poet
A Writer of Half Poems
When all is written and said
and the sold book of poems
has become bread
none of it goes to my head
for I know I have written only
half the poem
for what is a poem but a throat trembling
with a secret or sacred truth
and an ear that is aching with
thirst for the utterance of that truth.
The resonance between the
trembling throat
and the thirsty ear is the poem ephemeral
as the ripple upon the water
blush upon the skin
the stillness in the excitement
of the weary evening
of throat and ear in resonance
coming together
like lovers
like two equal halves a
an hourglass with words
flowing timeless
Heat
It’s 48 in the shade
The bulbul is panting so hard near my gardening hose
I can almost taste the mash of beetles seeds and mulberries
on its breath.
I turn on the hose just a trickle for the bulbul
but it looks me in the eye and days go for it.
The heat has bridged the gap between species and we are communicating smoothly freely fearlessly our brains have ceased functioning we are now thinking with
our parched throats.
I bring a terracotta basin with a few cubes of ice and open
The hose full. The bulbul plunges in drinking bathing
splashing preening in the cool water slowly returning to life
When she sings her mate arrives then four young than a
dozen others.
I decided to leave the earth basin there permanently in the
shade of my family of palms.
The birds serenade my decision and I receive free singing
class and take it to a burning shower and a burnt breakfast
that invites me to try again.
Even at 48 celsius like is delicious and the day ahead
looks good.
The Last Will and Testament of the Tiger
When you have stolen my skin from my entity and removed
the roar from my life
O hunter wield that that skinning knife with some grace a little skill
For I too have hunted and killed many many many times
But each kill was a prayer in praise of the Creator
My movements were always quick clean and merciful
For such is the way of true believers
Do you now, hunter, slice slash and cut clean
I pray only that you leave no part of me behind to be eaten
by the jackal and the hyena
For I have ruled this forest on behalf of Creator himself
And there is no honor in a King becoming carrion
So take the sacred color from my coat
and send it back to the maker of sunsets
Take the darkness from my stripe
and return it to the shadows and the undergrowth
for that is where it was obtained.
Take the white from the fur of my belly and send it back
to a new ice age
that it return to avenge me
Send my roar back to my maker
that he fills the heavens with my rage at this shabby end
for a true king ordained by Goa himself.
Send my claws to the young of the highborn
to save them from their nightmares
Send my teeth to Tibet that their aspiration for freedom
find new teeth
Send my bones to China that they find a cure for the fear
that builds such great walls
Send my fat to Singapore so they make a balm that is mine
not merely in name
Send my shit to the alchemists for that is the only substance
They have not yet tried in their efforts to invent gold
Give my entrails to whosoever shall have them
But hang on to my eyes, you puny murderer, that your tribe
might know that you did not fell a creature beneath you
That I looked you in the eyes and did not flinch
when you shot me
Instead, I am turned away released from the cancer of your footprint.
II A Rural Childhood
Why No One Chops Onions Faster Than Me
KHushhhKhushhhKhusshh
Very few people sharpen a knife better than I
Slice chop dice
Almost on one chops onions faster or better than me
Ask the women in my life
My grandmothers, my ma,
my aunts, cousin sisters,
my friends my woman friends
my house helper
And while my cousins and uncles laughed
I chopped all their onions for
them ever since I was a little boy
You see I couldn’t bear the sight
of tears in their eyes
Of Bread & Rotis
Studied in government schools but went for a magical year
to a public school
my classmates were curious about me and when we broke
for lunch
out in the play field we opened our lunch boxes
to share lunch
out came 7 packs of sandwiches and two rotis
smeared with ghee and chutney
the friendly smiles turned to knowing sneers
and they drifted away
that day we became me and them
I stood my ground
learnt to stand alone
topped my class
became a good boxer
won the school essay competition
topped most subjects
developed the best handwriting
and got kissed by the prettiest girl in the school
learn to hug my mother protectively
all this from two rotis smeared with ghee and chutney
by a loving mother who didn’t know the difference
between Roti and DoubleRoti (Loaf Bread).
III. Terror Poems
Medley
Terror of the Rice Tin
It is the terror of the woman who married for love
and it did not last nine months
But the kids kept coming for four years until the day
he finally left
Now there is terror in the second week of the month
when she reaches into her
rice tin
and her cup comes up half empty
and her children’s eyes accuse her of marrying for love
IV. Pandemic Writings
Insomnia
The night has stretched her moon lit limbs
and torn the cocoon of her stresses
and sleep has turned her amorous face and refuses
to look me in the eye
like an unrequited lover I wake to the emptiness of the hours
the train of dawn is late again
And I wait upon the hard bench of sleeplessness upon an empty platform
alone at a station without a name
in my own bed.
A homeless man dreads house-shifting.
This previous house was not completely lived in
and too many signs of other lives in the next one taunt
and haunt his head.
And haunt his head
V. Odes & Benedictions
A Real Good Morning
The day opened like a long-distance parcel received from a Loved one. It opened with a blush of dawn, a champa-scented breeze and the sweet song of a madrigal of bulbuls.
I set out on my morning walk with a pocket full of presents.
The dog at the end of the lane whose leg has healed gets her half of my multigrain roll with a piece of buttered salami, she wags her god morning.
The one-eyed great black cat is snoozing in a patchwork
quilt of dappled sunlight, he gets a nice piece of fish from a south Indian biryani, he purrs his approval and allows me the privilege of tickling his head.
A brave mango sapling has taken root next to the colony gate protected by the folded panels of the
gate. He gets a splash from my bottle of water, I swear he stirs in approval,
ok ok it could have been a gust of sweet breeze.
The Champa near the gate gets a good deep inhalation of its scent.
There’s a stump of a little gauva tree someone tried to cut down behind the electric transformer and it has beaten all odds to grow leaves flower and fruit.
There are three ripe yellow guavas. I harvest two and leave one for the bulbuls and the parrots that must arrive any day now, for the guava ripening season across North India.
Shambhu Lal the arthritic old rikshaw puller, gets a half
tube of pain killer gel.
And then I begin my slow journey back home from this long long walk of 500 meters with a good living feeling
My neighbors’ tulsi blesses me with five leaves for my
morning tea, that’s her way of saying good morning.
(Note: “I have come from farming to poetry.” The eminent poet Amit Dahiyabadshah grew up in the rural North Indian state of Haryana and now lives in New Delhi. He is better known as “the tiger poet” of the oral tradition. He edited and published “Here and Now,”a 2-volume 900-page anthology of Delhi poetry (2008). He is also known for a much-viewed TED Talk and for reading his signature poem “The Last Will & Testament of the Tiger” on a very successful fundraiser for this endangered species on New Delhi television (NDTV) in 2010. He was nominated for two state poetry awards in the US – the Arizona, and The New Mexico Book Prize. He works include a book for children, “Murugan’s Trees” which has been translated into 23 languages. “Tiger Eye, The Poetry of Amit Dahgiyabadshah”is his 23rd collection. As founder of Delhi Poetree for ten years he has hosted one poetry event a day across the Delhi-NCR.)