Kanwal Krishen Lidoo
For a broadcaster who has been trained in the best classical traditions of sound modulation, stress and pauses to create an effect of the situation, with special attention being given to the grammar of the language which he selects to communicate is no less than a drama unfolding on the stage.
Broadcasters are chosen few and dexterity over how to play with the sound comes naturally to them, the fact that they can dabble in writing also comes as a natural attribute. Perhaps, a by-product of vast interactions with great, exemplary or even ordinary minds. Broadcasters often find the need to pen down something and if they speak of the troubles and travails their life confronts on an emotional plane, the urge to pour it out becomes all the more intense. In Ramesh Marhatha, we see the same urge, perhaps a rush to get included in the exalted list of creative people he was himself surrounder with. With books and collections being printed day in and day out he has also scripted something that he finds closer to reveal the trails and tribulations of contemporary human existence.
Ramesh Marhatha has to his credit on already published work “Hatheli Ke Aayinea Mein” wherein he discussed the role of destiny. He had the guts to look into it, face it, watch it.
In his just released another collection “Tairte Baadlon Main Ek Sham” (Hindi) he has tried to imitate the mood of the sixties films, which guarantee a noiseless and laid back approach. Unfortunately even if that may exist in mind only who wants to deny it? Modern existence’s cup of troubles is already full and poetry of nostalgie in the present collection is an elixir or simply an antidote to that. Ramesh Marhatha has the resources to come up with collection like this which he considers a value addition to his previous poetry collection. He has a right to do that as in these times of cacophonous social media din, coming up with something that is in the mould of old world charm, should serve as a whiff of fresh air or simply emphasize a point. Poetry now-a-days may not have an audience, but there cannot be a better way to express oneself than that.
The poems are essentially a yearning for love; whose colours assume different hues and shades as life progress. It can be the mother’s love seeking over all protection. Then one comes face to face with what was termed as the love of one’s life to be however squandered immediately. Ramesh Marhatha’s evolution as is reflected represents an overage thought process without assigning any heightened pontification. In fact the point we have come up to can’t allow such pontification; but self discovery… yes.
Ramesh Marhatha has been profoundly influenced by simplicity of the rural folk who represent the essence and Sonum Bonum of life in contrast to those who have turned themselves contrived and twisted individuals. Having sensed all these contradictions, he consciously tries to forge a path that hinges on a value system that is no longer in vogue. That is why nostalgia assumes a paramount significance in his life. Ramesh Marhatha’s implorings however speak of a kind of deliverance from this obsolesces. The world however is yet to appreciate that.
The Book comprises of 123 poems that don’t strike to any meter. For understanding Ramesh’s poetry one has to unwind oneself. For example in his poem ‘Khwab Ban Kar” he mixes no words when he tried to understand the predicament of modern man. Somebody would make him revisit his childhood in a new dream, reintroduce him to his own self, but no body came, I could not sleep, years passed by and kept me waiting for eternity. The mood is unmistakably full of despondency, but the reaction too is somber. In fact, no reaction. This kind of meditative mood is reflected in most of his poems. For his friends, it is a proclamation that he too is capable of poetry and after a hard day’s work the can raise a toast to that.
The work overall does not claim to exist on a high literary pedestal but an expression nonethelsss on the Hyde Park of his mind, wherefrom he extends an invitation to all. The discernible reader has the choice to accept.
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