Nissim Ezekiel The Poster Boy Of Modernism Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Nissim EZEKIEL
As I have read, understood him
Falling sort of
Calling him
The father of modern Indian poetry in English
Is but a poster boy,
A poster boy of modernism
Posting and pasting
The placards
Of modernism
To display.

Modernism it was there
Before him,
Still it is,
But instead of
We keep calling
Out of ignorance,
What modernism is about
In reality,
When has it started
And who has,
None knows it
Before saying?

Had the radio, the watch, the cinema,
The theatre, the salon,
The dress materials,
The mirror,
Roads and rails, bridges and dams,
Medical facility and others,
Say you,
Had we been modern,
Modern really?

Nissim as a poet is but of Bombay,
A minority boy,
Grappling with the theme of Indianness,
A Jew feeling the identity crisis,
The quest for identity,
How far Indian is Indian English poetry? ,
Just like an alien insider,
Not as an Indian
And even if it is, but differently,
But his is too a stand
Which many reasonably blind people
May not understand.

Where to go leaving India,
India the place of his birth and nativity
And Maharashtrian the lost mother tongue,
The matter of genealogy and heredity
One of the stories shipwrecks and forlorn brothers,
So, why to re-search the unknown
Rather than resigning to dharma and karma,
Yoga and Zen a bit
To jog and to be free?