M.K.Naik As A Comic Verse Writer Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

People know them as critics,
V.K.Gokak, K.R.Srinivasa Iyengar, M.K.Naik,
But they are poets too
A few know it,
Had been before
Or have become after practicing it.

If this be the truth, the thing of reckoning
Then M.K.Naik too is a poet,
If not a major one then a minor one definitely,
A writer of Indian Clerihews,1989,
Indian Limericks,1990,
More Indian Clerihews,1992,
Writing under the pen name Emken.

As a light verse writer, he follows them,
I mean the masters,
Edward Lear, Ogden Nash and E.C.Bentley
As for his inspiration to derive,
Maybe it that he entertains the interval,
Taking a break from his routined studies
Of dull, blunt and bogus Indian English verse,
Copied, substandard, derivative, imitative and puerile.

His poetry-collections thinner and small,
Just like the booklets or a few pages stapled,
Short of matter,
But presented in a beautiful way
As P.Lal used to do away with trifle and trivial verses,
Himself too a petty poet,
A writer of trifle things, trivial verses.

The poetic tidbits, chits, slips of paper,
Used and unused thoughts,
Broken things of speech and sound,
The breaks and intervals from the load of studies
Add to his poetic vigour and fervour
To turn him into a small poet, if not a big one
As light verse is the neglected field.

The light verse writer is more successful in his clerihews
Than his limericks,
the clerihews are a pen-portrait of many a writer
Regaled nonsensically,
Mixing nonsense and the silly, the bits of knowledge and wisdom,
Of biography and autobiography, reading of books
To produce the cocktail.

The earlier Indian English poets have definitely pattered
On these, but the times were not in their favour,
Of pidgin-English,
Half-Indian, half-British hybrid stuffs,
Many liked it not the monkeyish humour,
Scolding to make serious and attentive
And Joseph Furtado was one such poet.

An inhabitant of Pune, M.KNaik served Karnataka Univ., Dharwad
As Professor and Head, Deptt. of English
And came to light with his writing of A History of Indian English Literature in 1982,
Brought out by Sahitya Akademi (The National Academy of Letters) , New Delhi,
Though many of the good and old scholars did not get the limelight
As they could not avail of and were disinterested
And not even after fame.