Brian Wrixon from Canada has brought out a number of anthologies published by www.blurb.com, In three of his anthologies published in the year 2012 he has accommodated my writings which express my literary forays after 25 years of estrangement from the world of English literature.

I am giving hereunder a short introduction  to my poems edited and published in three anthologies namely,

(1) Tripping on Words: A Literary Atlas
(2) A Poet’s View of Being
(3) Words on the Winds of Change

The background of penning down some of the pieces is being reproduced hereunder for better understanding of the same as they provide a clue to appreciate the rationale of such outpourings.

Tripping on Words : A Literary Atlas Poems are dealt with as thus –

i) Rama’s Exile – In April 2012 the All India Central Revenue Literary Workshop was to be organised at Bhubneshwar for which I had given an option. The topic of this literary Workshop was “Role of Translation in Multilingual Society”. Initially I intended to write a prose text dwelling on the issues cropping up in translating any creative work in making the translated text the apt vehicle of the tenor of the text in the native language. But I dropped the said idea and instead chose to do an original piece of creative writing in an attempt to communicate the poetic text of the great Ramcharit Manas by Tulsidas. For this I selected the events connected to the proposal of Rama’s coronation, royal maid Manthara’s role, Queen Kaikayi’s demand of the wishes and finally Rama’s Van-Vash. (Journey to the Forest). This piece is sought to be published with a new title "Heavenly Machination".

This was one of the most rewarding and satisfying experiences of my composition since I was well conversant with the said text pertaining to the subject matter in hand. This is because I had been listening to the LP (Long Play) records of Bal Kand and Ayodhya Kand being played at home when I was only 14 years of age.

ii) Modern Love – Modern love has been contrasted with the love of the days of yore. It dwells on how modern love leads to love marriages and finally is exposed to a disastrous end often resulting in slapping of cases of allegations of marital torture against the husband and the in-law’s family members of the bride, Section 498A of erstwhile IPC being the most lethal weapon. This led to this piece.

iii) Musings at Home- This piece also contrasts the present-day degeneration of the society with the past where these were utterly missing.

iv) Allier’s Tank- All the Hindu families of Chapra town used to assemble at Allier’s Tank (also called Allier Sahab ka pokhra by the locals) twice in a year- first in the month of Chaitra (usually April) and second in the month of Kartik (usually coinciding with second half of October or first half of November). As children we used to wait for this occasion for celebration. The visit to this pond located in the heart of Chapra town in BIHAR transports me back to my childhood days when we used to ride the wooden running horse jhullas manually pushed by a couple of men. This location triggered this piece.

v) A Hideous Scene- The heinous murder scene enacted before our eyes in 1977 when I was barely 16 caused the writing of this piece. Two innocent people - father and son duo who sold some confectionary items prepared by themselves in the Jyoyi Cinema Chapra on their hand cart were murdered by a robust person who reacted to the small dispute arising out of a quarrel between the children of the attacker’s family with those of the children of the victims family.

A Poet’s View of Being poems

i) Confessions- This poem deals with events occurring in my life in the year 1979,2009 and 2010. My younger sister Mickey aged 5 had met with an accident in 1979 and sustained burn injuries and was lying in bed in Sadar Hospital Chapra. I was invited by a family on the occasion of Holi as this festival was not celebrated by our family due to the said occurrence. She could not survive. In 2009 I had surgery of my son aged 20 at CMC Vellore for urethral stricture. I had made him walk for a short distance post-surgery though he did not feel comfortable. In 2010 he succumbed to the complications arising after 6 weeks of surgery. These events constitute the subject matter of this piece.

ii) Doubt’s Fight-The premature demise of my son in 2010 at the age of 21 triggered this piece and it is inspired by The Book of Job of the Holy Bible which I had studied in my MA (Eng) course in 1981. This piece is being published on boloji.com under the title "Modern Job's Doubts".

iii) A Father’s Celebration- The title is ironical. This piece is elegiac in content and death and celebration are incompatible ideas. This piece is an attempt to find solace in such a great loss through self-serving convictions.

iv) Reunion- Having been involved in the study of literary masters of English literature in my student days, I worked for 25 years using legal jargons in the process of drafting of Summons, Notice to Show Cause, drafting of Adjudication orders either confirming or dropping demands, drafting of Appeal before Higher fora relating to tribunals created for the adjudication of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax disputes, I had abjured using my figurative language involving taffeta phrases as legal documents don’t admit of use of figurative language. Though still in govt job in 2010, I ventured into the world of writing poems occasioned by the tragic demise of my son in 2010 to prop up my faith in life’s meaning and keep myself busy in some engagements at home.

v) What the Muse Said- It deals with what Art or for that matter creativity should strive for. It showcases my view of Art for Life’s Sake vis-à-vis Art for Art’s Sake.

vi) Alter Ego- A friend of mine who is my namesake and had gifted me one old hard-bound copy of the celebrated anthology “PALGRAVES GOLDEN TREASURY” in 1978. The said book was in my BA Hons (Eng) syllabus. I had underlined my poems which I had read myself as part of my syllabus or as part of my own self-indulgence in poems of the masters. It was my habit to put the specific dates of reading the same and on revisiting the same text after a few years, I was transported by, as it were, the Time Machine of my mind and got the associated memories revived and recreated once again. Nostalgic memories got enter-twined with all my old possessions including books. This book was lost during my train journey from Patna to Ranchi by Janshatabdi Express in 2011. The loss of this book triggered the penning of this piece.

CHASM-    In 2011 my father underwent surgery for hernia at Ruban Hospital Gandhi Maidan Patna at the age of 80 plus. On receiving the information received in the early hours from my younger brother that my father had profuse bleeding the previous night I got alarmed and hurriedly rushed to the hospital from my Shrikrishna Puri residence hurriedly on my 25-year-old Bajaj Super scooter. This is the backdrop.

Sceptre- A facebook friend of mine, a Japanese national named Gabriel Navaro was the Admin of a poetry FB Group which I had joined. On failing to brook my comments on his composition at one point in time he observed that he was the owner of the group. This resulted in this piece. It is interesting that when I posted this piece in the same group and gave the clue to its origin, he confided that he enjoyed that his remark occasioned such a literary exercise.

A Poet’s View of Being

i) My Love- This refers to a tragic incident of 1976 relating to the suicide by a running train by a young boy aged 16 or 17 when I was myself 15 due to refusal of his fiancée to reciprocate his love due to caste hiatus.

ii) Philistines iii) Poesy- Both these pieces are my outpouring of what constitutes the essence of poetry proper.

4) UNFAIR CLAIMS- When I was barely 10, I was amazed at the congregation of crows hovering over my chhat (rooftop). I was attacked by one of the crows when I approached the roof top. I was too innocent to know the reasons for their collecting at the rooftop. I was later told by my elders that the crows were lamenting the death of a crow who had been electrocuted on the electric pole passing standing close to my house. The response of the crows contrasts sharply with the modern man’s stoic response to the tragic occurrences of their close surroundings. THIS IS BEING PUBLISHED on this portal with a different title "Claims Forgone"

5) Interface- One occurrence relates to the year 2011. I showed my compositions to a senior departmental colleague. His suggestion to me was what he called “simpler words” in my compositions triggered its penning down.

A Poet’s View of Being

1) Beggars (I) – I was always shocked by the scene of street urchins begging at the Dak Bungalow Chowraha Patna. When the traffic signals were red at the said crossing the children rushed to the cars for alms from the car riders. This scene triggered it.

2) Beggars (II)- This shows how the beggars are richer than the richest since they have no pretense. They are roofless but the Almighty provides them the shelter of the open sky.

3) Misfortune’s Fangs- I had observed how some of the single beggar women go begging alone with small kids with them in their huts on the pavements or the railway platforms. I had been led to believe that such kids of single mothers did not know who fathered them. Such beggar women must have fallen victim to forcible physical contact at the hands of the male bullies who must have quenched their carnal thirst and left the women on the pavements/rly platforms with weeping children as their vestiges of past unsolicited acts of violence with them.

4) God’s Insecurity- This is a commentary on the modern society where there has been much rise in the number of devotees in the temples, mosques, gurudwaras and so on but the modern society is bereft of human values. There are frequent news items about the precious asht-dhatu idols being stolen from the temples. This is the background of the poems.