Adarsh Ajit
By reading the nazmas of Bal Krishen Sanyasi the receptive minds get the idea that the poet composes a mix of love, romance, nature, psychology and sex.
Under the circumstances when almost all the Kashmiri Pandit poets pour out pain, pathos, nostalgia, and woes, arising from the ghosts of militancy and exodus, Sanyasi does not let his poetry shadowed by these shackles.
Burning aspirations, catching a drop of tear without shedding it, melodious song of a bulbul in spring almost like an ode are the pivotal attributes of nazams like jang, lol, nazar batchavam, mae laj traesh and mandtchaan tchas na. Sanyasi can go anywhere, from the mundane to spiritual and make even the sun, moon, spring, Dal, rivers, trees, flowers, seasons, animals, waters, air and aroma tune romance and dance. Having tremendous potential and awareness of rhythmic terminology, he uses every aspect of nature, though difficult for the common readers but rich in sweetness and emotions:
yod tchane nazar kari vuni ti jigar/tika taar geundun heyi lola-dalas
The plane of imagination with a sprouting idea of the progression of Sayasi’s calibre is spotted in a desolated habitation where its guard pleads not to throw stones since he has glass arms. Keeping everybody’s safety in view in hay dai moodah the two entities converse with each other. The guard has mounts of responsibilities on his shoulders. He implores for a celestial cure. He is asked if God is dead. He rebuts how the questioner came to know about God’s death. He gets the answer had God not died he would not have been asking for a divine healing. However, the issue is if God is dead what does divine touch mean?
Creating an amazing scene in front of a big ocean in ba ta qaleena beyi ho zoon, the poet stays on the 25th floor of a thirty-storied building having numerous ships in the ocean in front. He is lost in a corner where a Kashmiri carpet is spread. The poet skilfully makes a collage of non-living and living things. The carpet and the poet suffer from acute nostalgia and melancholy. The full moon on the calendar instantly becomes a speaking character recognizing the multi-coloured wool of carpet. She reveals that she too belongs to Kashmir. She wants to swim in the Vitasta but recalls the changed course of the river reducing serenity to polluted rubbish. On seeing her undressed, she fondly visualises Manasbal, Anchar and Wullar kidnapping her. The displaced moon is a wounded emotion lacking the vigour of Kashmir.
Having multi-dimensional and stretchable backgrounds at its back the moon suddenly declares that both the poet and the carpet have been sold out by the treacherous Kashmir’s new philosophy. Oozing of blood is still afresh on the weaving fingers. Going emotionally bankrupt impassive traders sell their honour. Unravelling the pun, Kashmir’s scars are visible. Kashmir stands kidnapped through alien sponsorship. Being purnimashi the moon is to vanish from tomorrow. She would lessen her pain by playing with the tides of the ocean with all her might. She asks them to make the oceans boil and bring earthquakes. She shrinks back in the calendar.
Having a philosophical bent of mind Sanyasi mixes psychology with metaphysics. His ingenuity in nazams is understandable to creatively sharp minds only. In ahtijaaj he uses the symbol of the thunder as lust. Moon peeps through a window. Man and woman are shivering. Unbridled emotions make their heartbeats multi-hued. Similarity and conflict are at war. On the one hand, there is frenzy and on the other, there is lust. The flowing locks of the girl lure the boy. However, his lack of lustre confines him to sighs. It rains outside. The girl surrenders to the boy like a moth. Psychosomatic and existential pressures fail the boy to satisfy her. The climax is that the female herself melts and the process culminates in self-satisfaction.
Sanyasi provides every delicious food in a marriage ceremony in botchi tcham lajmatch. However, the proponent of love and lust licks the lips. He is frantically lured towards the bride whose beauty magnetizes him. Having latent universal truth a labourer pleads to God to respect his toil and tears in mae karzi ashis qadar. The poet uses a Kashmiri proverb nangas nendar prangas petth. Having nothing at stake a labourer can have sound sleep anywhere.
The poet is artful in framing the chiselled sentences in attractive network of words divulging the locale accounts in a veiled manner:
daayan garen kharis raaj/hewaan zafraanas baaj
lol ta jung is a nazam of a place full of terrorism, militancy and conflict. A woman describes her husband as a man of love, emotions, affection and care. But his innocence was blackmailed in the name of religion and separatism. His feet are now shackled like those of animals. His basic nature is thus stabbed. The loss of his original tendencies leaves his wife in warp and woof:
posha khota dil aveul oasus/kani khota sakh goas, yakh goas paan
The poet’s retina is imprinted with the scars, wounds, stabbed beliefs, fading colour of henna, murderous presence in ceremonial feasts, blockage of thought process, suckling of healing hands, piling up of huge arms and ammunition and human heads hanging from the hooks like sheep. Despite these, the poet goes on writing vaakhs:
ba zeth soi zaj samyan chov mae akh gol/namov saet maaji babi petth vaakh leekhem
While weighing the nazams and ghazals of Sanyasi the balance goes up and down. But under all circumstances he can be called a poet of nazams. His poetry is full of life despite existential hiccups:
mae dozkas andar bihith ti vuttch janat phabaan/zameen daz, zamaan dod, ba tchus palaan basaan
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