Adarsh Ajit
Kalhan Koul’s poetry is principally concentrated on three main premises: nostalgia, eternal love occasionally expressed under the camouflage of human relations, and the romanticism which has regrettably become indiscernible currently. But he has artfully adorned all the main subjects with the treasures of nature which he obviously owes to the picturesque Kashmir.
Believing in the theory of impermanence, the poet predicts that the human blood visibly stained on the virtuous surfaces will fade. Guns will silence down. The carnivorous will lose the grinding teeth. Olive branches will prop up everywhere. Roses will release the aroma of amity. Remorseful eyes will shed the tears.
achan daryaav sothen vaapas/sotun yeli zore sahlaabas/cha pachtaavkh ta osh traavakh/ratakh andaaz meonai vuch(The rivers will retreat, the floods will recede, you will repent and shed tears. You will change in my mould).
For the poet, the greatness of God is that He can be unveiled to anybody, He likes, without judging his empirical obligations. The difficult paths of theology to achieve permanence and perfection are just hallucinated attitudes, as the poet, practices these. Startlingly, by chance, he calls Him once, all of a sudden and he is sanctified and gets all as a boon.
teuth kya cha mangaan zahido vuni chui na deevaanai/alagaph kuni krakh dicham daamaan barith aas(What is the big thing you are asking for and as such you don’t get? I suddenly called him once, and he gave me everything).
The poet’s mind-set takes off to elevated echelons sometimes and desires to address all the grumbles of a flying bird but feels powerless as the cutting of the mesh is not within his reach. At times, he believes ‘whole’ as ‘un-whole’ and ‘un-whole’ as a ‘whole’. He labels the main architect as a deficient commander. For the poet, even the creator is under the management of nature and whispers if he had been all powerful, all would have been joyful.
rozi hay maa baana teli holkol kahen/pane paanas taam kraalas aasihay(If the potter had everything within his reach, no pot would have become irregular).
Some couplets of Kalhan are surpassing and transcendental. They need idealistic profundity and deep insight to unknot the backdrop they indicate. History, legacy, black thunders, the lightning, fumes and fires, floods, peace, mystic touches, are told in a matchless cascade.
mot yus az taam varaanan manz kankani gare gare thaavaan oas/sobhai deuthum vati peth katren kyathaan lekh lekh thaavaan oas/yami basti hind chukedar aavare, yami shahrek ghaatel khaamosh/dek sai chand dith sothi peth paagal vethi kun kyathaam haavaan oas (The eccentric, who, was chiselling the stones in the barren lands, was today seen writing on the pebbles/earthen pieces in the early morning. The concerned of this habitation are busy in their selves and the clever of this city have maintained silence. Striking his forehead, the mad man, was showing something towards Jhelum from the embankment).
Recognizing the victims of exodus and their sense of homelessness, he boldly challenges the explorers to find their existential marks, not only in the essentials of the nature, but also in the unexposed layers of human mind. He declares proudly:
dalas volras karakh yeli paaz /labakh ada raaz meonai vuch (When you will de-silt Dal and Wullar, my secret will be unfolded to you).
Sunken and drunken deep in nostalgia, Kalhan aspires for taking a long breath in the shade of a Chinar. His every night is spent with a hopeful morning that will bring the news of his return. But when his eyes fall on the morning newspapers, they sadly tell him the other side of the story and his dreams get smashed. The endeavour of the poet is all about spending the huge amount of ink on the paper, bisecting the historical puns and knots, and wishing someone like Bad Shah to come, who would listen to his aching verses. He complains that his tormentor did not feel his wailing:
naar dina vizi aar maa aavui che van/soor sapdakh choori roozith kya karakh (You didn’t take pity when you put me on fire; you will burn to ashes. Why are you hiding?).
Making accusations, registering grievances and criticizing lack of concern are the usual trends in the poetry but the projection, elocution, and the procedural correctness of the assonance of Kalhan Koul makes him a dissimilar. Criticizing the colony of friends where they are in search of the blood of one another like a cat is after the rat he says:
tot maeni hateuk rath su vozul naar chuyaa yaad/hay katl karan waali katen daag chalith aakh(Did you recall my red hot blooded throat, O, the murderer, where did you wash your stains of blood?).
Instead of censuring those who kill their conscience by trampling the beauteous buds, Kalhan blames the bud itself:
az maeni andake lukh chi puchaan toore wattan peth/ wane maeni gulo sonta sulee kyaazi folith akh (My fellow brethren are smashing the blooming buds, O, my beloved flower, why did you bloom prematurely?).
In the absence of thundering and lightning, the poet, charges the nature of being numb. He questions how long will dogs under the masks of men go on licking? Has anyone given the boon to the icicles? Has any seer cursed the Jhelum and its flow? Despite all this the poet urges not to be desperate and advises to keep on changing the targets to reach the final destination. Curved surfaces will not tire, if, one marches forward fearlessly with hand in hand. The icy feet will feel warmth. agar meon bozakh athas thaph karith naere/kadam tul paden faeri paanai vushnare (Your feet will feel warmth if you proceed hand in hand with others).
The intensity of wistfulness and sentiment of dislocation have not marred, anyway, the roots and richness of love and romanticism in Kalhan Koul’s poetry. Romanticism is a bonus point for him. In the era when guns roar, pollutions multiply, concerns cease, and materialism flourishes, Kalhan wants to describe the winy eyes of his beloved. He wants to measure the rosy complexion of the cheeks and the amorous plaits of his beloved. He desires to model her in a verse so that she will be immortalized and played on the instruments: cha bath banithai naten khasakh/ada vanai me chonui amaar kotah(After becoming a song you will be played on the instruments. You will gauge the depth of my love).
It is not that Kalhan is artful in chiselling, rhyming, choosing words and bonding them into a lingual flow, only in ghazals, but he is on the right passage for achieving fertile deliverance of nazams also. Among other nazams his shaaph, dasgah, inquilaab, khwaab, kothish ta kathkosh and aahi are affluent in substance and technique.
Kalhan Koul is not only a representative poet of youth in displacement but he is also giving a contest to those poets who are already established, whether on this side of the tunnel or across it.
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