Will Not Wit And Humour, Their Use And Application Turn Me Into A Joker? Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Will not my wit and humour turn me into a joker, a joker of Indian English poetry,
Joking and smiling all the times,
Never learnt to be serious,
Always smiling,
Never learnt to keep quiet,
To shut up the mouth?

As always, sitting on the last benches, whistling,
Like the old and ageing student, a senior and big brother,
Mustached and old, cracking jokes with his smaller batchmates
And making the old teacher beat others
And he the Paglet and disciplinarian teacher
Threatening to come with a date cane
To quell the common and furore.

The photographer asking to keep quiet, shut up your mouth
And he giggling,
From the sweet smile breaking forth to bursting into a laughter
And a guffaw
Without rhyme or reason
And the photographer in the usual and professional habit of saying,
Smile please,
Asking him to go outside to smile and laugh please
Heartily as much as you can
As for to be sit quiet for a pose to be taken.

My art of wit and humour, I have learnt from the rustic clowns and circus clowns,
Saying, My Name Is Joker,
An Indian juggler juggling with the caps,
Two into four
And vanishing,
A nomadic acrobat dancer dancing on the rope
Set in between two makeshift poles,
My art of wit and humour I have from
The monkey-man, the bear-man and the snake-charmer,
I have my art from the band party and the male but powdered nautch girl,
Shaving the moustache,
Playing the role of a female dancer,
Powdering and wearing a strange frock and blouse
And dancing strangely at the beat of the banjo and the drums and the musical bands
And all these, the source of my undefiled humour.

And want I nothing from you, just clap you and that too if not, my little ones
Are there, my little son and little daughter to it
As they have always admired the potential in me,
The potential of being a folk dancer
As I have not any training from any of dance schools,
So dance I naturally in my own,
Own style and way of performance,
A classical dancer I cannot be,
What can I be is folksy,
Whether you know it or not,
Just call it, call it folksy,
A folk dancer
And that, really that am I,
A folk dancer as a small poet before you.

I know it that my critics will not clap even if they want to
As the credit will go to me,
A nondescript man instead of the media savvy,
The paparazzi-propped, newspaper-flashed men
Or the diasporans,
But I not to any of these,
A simple man reading and writing simply,
A simple man appreciating life in all its virtuosity,
A simple man admiring simplicity,
Simple living, but high thinking

Which know they not the urban critics,
Dyed and coloured,
Hollow and shallow men doing groupism,
I mean the pseudo-leftist-intellectuals
Striking at the stem of Indianness to fell it,
Blind to Indian art and culture, religion and philosophy,
Thought and tradition, morality and spirituality,
Ethics and metaphysics.

Those cataract-eyed schooled critics, hollow and shallow from within,
Know not greenery,
The exotic flora and fauna of India,
The art and culture of it,
The historicity of tradition and ethos,
The age-old myths and mythical traditions of it
Doing the rounds archetypally,
Ever present in our racial consciousness,
As they are of Bombay and Delhi, Madras and Calcutta
And will remain of these metropolitan and mega towns and cities
And their own hazards, hurdles and hassles.