Adarsh Ajit
Dejected with the rotten and immoral social fabric, politics at the lowest ebb, exploitation of the poor and the innocent, proud culture going into the gutter, and above all humans becoming carnivorous animals, K L Tiku in his book of poetry Yes and No has bundles of complaints against the various systems. The poet wants to revolutionize the whole but feels helpless in the world of tyrants, rogues and sycophants. Whosoever raises his voice against every damn thing is tortured till death. The poet feels so frustrated that he grumbles:
Where you blind
to give me the eyes?
Do you know?
For seeing
eyes are torn out,
for voicing
tongue is chopped.
Tiku has a diverse ways of explaining beauty. He has resolute attraction for the beauty of heart and soul. Physical gadget doesn’t tempt him. Ugly scars are hidden behind the beautiful faces and ugly faces have beautiful back up. Beauty may be disloyal and illusory whileas ugliness may be an image of a saviour. Tiku has craftily used ‘cyst’ and ‘mole’ which divulge multidimensional beliefs with respect to the existential veracity.
The cyst
on your black face
is more attractive
than the mole
on her beautiful face
It is not easy for the virtuous to sprout and blossom. Hurdles and blockades are raised to fail the attempts of a fighter to reach his target. The selfish are always waiting for opportune time to strike and rob whatever is valuable for them. In a reference to a beautiful bud the poet warns every righteous person to be careful as the enemies are lurking to gnaw all.
Beauteous bud,
beware of thorny paths…
watering mouths will nibble you.
Efforts, hard toil and the learning process have failed to launch the poet on the spiritual flight. Life seems a waste now. Ignorance, bonds and human shackles have made his mind blunt and have cracked the spindle, his endeavour to meet his aspired devout ambition. The more he tries to concentrate, the more he gets entangled in the mundane dealings.
Unable to spin now
Threads get entangled.
Love is the basis of Tiku’s poems. Whether it is the waning moon or the rising sun, the poet’s love is beyond the borders. Poet’s love needs not any communiqué. Language is no bar. Religion is no prerequisite. Financial stability is a trifle. His love is unique. His beloved is dumb who wants to narrate her sorrows but cannot. Poet represents one window while his beloved is the other window. In fact two windows have been immortalized that have accommodated eternal love, with or without form:
Dear, the window is witness.
Tongue will be mine,
voice yours.
In various poems Tiku has tried to explore histories, find loopholes and begin to search for solutions. In Identity he tries to decode the rise and fall of civilizations. Beyond Time is a tribute to Jagjit Singh. Kashmir turbulence compels him to say that right to have rights devoured his rights. Similarly in Power he tries to awaken the countrymen to demolish the attics of power, crush the perverts and restore the glory of Ram and Ramayana. In a poem Slippery Path, the poet uses all natural and scenic backdrops that magnetize humans and they too begin to drench themselves in emotions and ecstasy. They are lost in dancing in a drunken demeanour. The poet advises the youth not to fall prey of false and temporary tastes that will leave them finished as the tender tend to slip any time and ruin themselves.
Whenever it rains,
paths become slippery
and the
sizzling youth slips.
In another poem Water Tiku asks a drop of water what it actually is. Anger, enmity or grudge, music, love or charm, pious, noble or serene? And he also asks what sin a drop of water has committed that it fails to wash the stain when it becomes brackish. In Himalaya, the poet pays obeisance to Himalaya that gives birth to Ganges but he is ferocious against dumping of illicit children, carcasses, refuse, etc that defiles not only Ganges but raises fingers against Himalaya which is the witness of many civilizations, their rise and their fall.
Written wittingly or unwittingly, some of the poems of Tiku are full of puns and knots. They have enriching philosophical worth and force the reader to have a deep bisection on the poetic philosophy. On the face value they look simple but after solemn scanning the philosophical backdrops are outspread. Everything, living or nonliving, has a specific property and should be used in a mould of its potentiality. Whenever it distances from its centric rationale it hurts:
Ordinary or precious
scissors are scissors.
They cut and separate.
Ordinary or precious
needle is a needle.
It stitches and joins.
Blunt needle or blunt scissors
give pain.
The poem Flute is a beauty. The poet has made the flute a living entity. Its pain is relieved when somebody blows it. Its happiness and sorrow is directly related to its blower who through his breaths conveys his warp, woof and happiness.
More mosques
more temples and churches
more walls.
In the environ of subversion, militancy, restlessness, economic insecurity and the worries of price rise, Tiku has not receded in romanticism in his own way. His warmth of romance sets snow on fire:
Dancing snowflakes
whiten the whole,
stimulate her rosy cheeks.
Her plaits swing
like icicles.
We shiver
and embrace.
The warmth
sets the snow on fire.
Unlike other poets who have been writing for twenty-three years and living in displacement Tiku’s concept and content is away from the pangs of exile. All the fifty poems contained in the book are the mix up of various topics and universal feelings. The poems reflect his deep understanding and concern on the degrading political, religious and socio-cultural values. Unfortunately some qualified reviewers are equating zeroes with the heroes thus blocking their ability to improve. Publicizing an ordinary literary human being as a Bard of Avon is a virtual literary death. As for as Tiku is concerned he has improved considerably from his last publication The Track. He is still evolving as a poet.
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