The Making Of A Modern Indian English Poet Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Before the making of a modern Indian English poet,
Wavered he,
The gentleman in being a practitioner of verse,
Indo-Anglican or Anglo-Indian,
Indian poet in English or Indian English poet,
As written English served his purpose,
Spoken English learnt he laboriously,
Native mother tongue not, but alien?

An Indian English poet in the making,
In the aftermath of independence,
When the English left they India,
They thought of becoming Englishmen,
Going by the way of Gandhi,
Emulating the English in coat, pants, tie and boots,
Sticking a red rose in the coat button like Nehru.

When left they India, thought they of becoming
Complete Englishmen,
Putting off their moustache and beards,
The clean-shaven personalities
But hollow from within,
Putting off their dhoti, kurta and pagadi
And the thin towel on the shoulders
And for to be English poets,
Learnt they as how to wear the English dress.

The cigarette on the lips and they taking puffs,
The villagers marking them,
The trails of smoke rising,
Ashes shaken into the trays,
The butts and stumps thrown,
Another piece lit on
And poetry coming to,
Great stanzas of it not,
But the tidbits and gossips, chats and broken stanzas
Of it making a way to.

The poets as the modern Indians trying to go
To the cinema halls to see the pictures,
Learning as how to say,
Goodbye, please, thank you, bye-bye,
Hi-hello, good night, see you,
Learning more about the parks, evening walks,
Picnics, holidays, tours and visits,
The theatres and the circuses,
Parties, bars and clubs.

Going to the airport, marking the foreigners
Doing hi-hello, kiss you, bye-bye, ta-ta,
See you again, good night
And saying to themselves, all that seen,
The girl wife questioning the things imitated
And asking their meanings in the vernacular
But the husband in the quest of an English memsahib.

Wearing the shirt and pants with a belt around the waist,
The goggles on the eyes,
The handkerchief on the mouth
As to show and save from dust and ugliness,
Scent sprayed on,
Face cream and powder applied on,
The hero going on
Seeing the watch on the wrist,
A modern man, an Indian country man in style.

The book fairs, art exhibitions polish him more,
Away from the countryside hamlet homes,
Indian life-style and mannerism,
He thinks of adapting to the Western one,
Talking of cafeterias, sipping of coffee,
Tasting cold drinks in astonishment,
With the burning throat for the first time,
Taking a lesson in modernity and modernism.

Tea parties, marriage parties, gluttons’ partying not,
But buffet system type,
Troubling the gourmets, the big takers from the countryside,
I mean the village guest complaining
Against the buffet system feeding and reception,
Honeymoons engaging the mindscape
And they trying to find explanations
And in every inch, they trying their utmost best
To be townsmen, citymen,
The people of the urban space.

Learnt he as to how to handshake warmly,
Admonishing all animosity and hatred within,
In an extension to warm friendship,
Acknowledging the acceptance of mistakes
Or errors be any,
Confessing before the Lord,
Going with the city time,
Calling themselves busy,
Not very busy as the conceited men say they today.

After reading Spenser, Wyatt, Drayton and Shakespeare,
Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Byron,
Tennyson, Browning and Arnold,
They feeling spirited
To be English poets,
Taking a cigar, not a cheroot,
Abandoning tobacco to chew and the leafy beedi to smoke,
An improvised local product,
They striving hard to be Indian English poets.