This surgeon is also a poet
By N.S. Tasneem

IT is not easy to know the mind of a person unless he communicates with others. The communication may be in the form of a dialogue or an epistle. In case it is done through poetry, the impact is all the more lasting. The feelings can indeed be conveyed through the medium of poetry in an impressive manner. Perhaps this thing has prompted Daljit Singh, otherwise a busy ophthalmologist, to take pen in his hand and unburden his mind in regard to the things he finds oppressive.

There must be some compelling reason for Daljit Singh to seek new avenues, particularly the dramatic monologue, for recording his resentment at the betrayal of the nation by the self-seeking persons. The common people feel outraged at the callous treatment that is generally meted out to them by bureaucrats. The prevalence of corruption in various forms and at various levels shocks him:

Unfurl the flags
and pull down the signals
a cortege is passing by
The Coffin is
full of currency notes
and packed with golden bars
besides the leaden presence
of the leader.
Pay homage
unfurl the flags in shame
pull down the signals
the passage be made safe
for its onward journey
(Homage)

Born in 1934, in the family of the eminent theologian and authentic commentator of the Adi Granth, Prof Sahib Singh, he received his higher education in Khalsa College, Amritsar, before joining Government Medical College, Amritsar for his MBBS and MS degrees.

The Partition of the country did not allow the revolutionary process, started by Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, besides others, to come full circle. Hence, the half-hearted measures adopted by the successive regimes to ameliorate the living standards of the masses have come to nothing. The nefarious designs of pseudo-revolutionaries, coupled with the unabashed indulgence of the so-called men of God in corrupt practices, have brought about moral collapse in the younger generation. As he says in The Price of Courage:

Now in this age of enlightenment
the man of courage
who rejects the custom of
saluting the rising sun
(as did Guru Nanak centuries ago)
is trampled upon and crushed
under the nailed heels of high boots.

Daljit Singh published his first collection of Punjabi poems, entitled Dharti Trihaee, way back in the seventies. Now his recent collection of poems, Sidhre Bol, has created a stir in the Punjabi literary circles. Most poems remind persons, who had compromised with the falling standards and degrading values, to redeem themselves. In a fit of remorse they may now resolve to play their role for the uplift of the aggrieved people as they had been doing before. The persons who sullied their names by indulging in treacherous activities must feel rudely shocked at their own behaviour. This book, in fact, is a manifesto, though a belated one, of a new dawn that will give the deprived persons their due.

No doubt the poet has accepted life as it is but not the ways of the world. He does not view life in a conventional manner. He has something new to say on all matters. He admits that God is in His Heaven but refuses to admit that ‘All’ well with the world. He thinks that man’s inhumanity to man is the root-cause of all the evils in the world. He believes in the existence of Hell and Heaven but their location is not in the higher regions or the lower ones but on this very earth. For some people life is heavenly, while for others it is hellish. His mind poses the question Why so? And all his poetry is a search for an answer to this question. Being a surgeon, he cannot help using the imagery peculiar to his profession. In Blood and Bug, he says —

In big hospitals

It’s possible

to cure many maladies,

But the doctors find it hard

to cure anaemia.

The blood

that the medicines produce in the body

is drained off,

openly or surreptitiously,

by the bugs

well-fed and well-experienced.

Irony and sarscasm are the core of Daljit Singh’s poetry. His heart bleeds when he sees around him multitudes devoid of human feelings. He wants to know if it is worthwhile to live in the world of today when there is so much poverty, squalor and disease all around. The living are envious of even the dead. How can the dead enjoy the peace and security of their graves, when the people have no roofs over their heads? Why not turn the dead out to make room for the living shadows. In Living Corpses, he laments .

If you have no means

to build a cottage of your own

then make your way to the graveyard

and raise up the dead.

Ask them

to vacate the graves

And mix up with millions

of living corpses.

He is unsparing of the guilty for the extremely slow pace of progress in all spheres of activity. This has sapped the strength of the country and rendered it vulnerable. He is in contact with scores of patients who visit his eye-hospital daily and knows the problems of the people at the grass-root level. Still he is in a persuasive mood and exhorts the persons who have lost faith in humanity and the goodness of man to come round for creating an ambience of faith and confidence.

How can your mind
Take to wing?
The fleas of your ideas
Are clung to the scabies-infected dog
Of the past ages.
My knocks of friendship
at your door
recoil unceremoniously
Brow-beaten and blood-stained.
I wonder
Why the dense cobwebs
of the times past
have pinned you down
Like the iron-clasps.
Why don’t you
Repose confidence in me
And push forward your pretty boat
At present stuck in the marshes
Into the open waters
Of love and faith?
(The Fleas of Ideas)