The life of man is a continual change of visions. As experiences come to a man one after another, it is as if he rises from one level to another as he climbs up to a mountain side, and therefore, his visions steadily change. As it is also well-known that man has two types of visions possible, one for the ordinary man of the world and other for the great ones; poets come within this ambit who like the true sages depict the sores of mankind and solutions for the malady. Poets like Baldev Mirza always convey the heart-stirring ideas blended with purposeful message. We know that scientists admit that all the aspects of nature and man are still undiscovered. Advancement of science has not succeeded in casting a brilliant light on the cause of man's existence and its relation to nature and the most thrilling phenomenon called love. Poetry alone has explored new milestones in this field and Baldev Mirza, the poet and researcher of man seems to have scrutinized much more than even scientists.
“Dr. Baldev Mirza,” says Oliver Friggeri, “is now well-known for his constant efforts to produce verse which is neither complicated nor inane and devoid of meaning.”1 Mirza's poems do not interpret man in terms of the knowledge of the external world, intellectualism, fantastic El dorado of imagination, or fake and false dreams but they voice the delicate feelings of a poetic heart well. He admits:
“I am not talking about hands/I am talking about feet that/Feel the warmth of earth/I am not talking about lips/I am talking about eyes that/Feed the emptiness lurking in me/I am not talking about me/I am talking about the heart that/ Never shuts its door.” 2
Man is too deep and too many-sided in terms of any physical science or attempt that the materialistic, mechanistic, chemical and biological conception of man is very superficial, partial and unsatisfying but the poetry of Baldev Mirza gives a deeper probe into man's quest of knowing himself. He asserts:
“I am the embodiment of darkness/Its soul is my soul/Its harvest I reaped all my life/Light is a trap I refused to accept/It inflicted wounds I carry in my soul/ This is the only truth I have ever known.” 3
Although, Man has a meager, shallow and vague knowledge of man, his constant search of inquiring the self and admitting the ultimate reality of man as the celestial entity and part and parcel of the divine indicates that man has reached on the pinnacle of perfection. And the poet, when admits the ultimate divinity trading alike omnipresent lord, it seems, he is hoisting his flag of perfection on the zenith of poetic satiety and his confusion of denying the presence seems right when he say:
“I do not know/Where/To throw away/The faded flowers/You seem to be standing/ Everywhere.” 4
Again, the worldly achievements seem to be a futile pursuit for the true Sadhaka (Seeker)
“Lord Krishna classifies the seekers of Truth in four types. One who is always worn out by ills that affect the body; is ‘Artha', Another is worried by the struggle for prosperity, property, posterity etc. He is the Artha-Arthi ,a third yearns for the realization of the Atma; reads the scriptures and sacred books, moves ever in the company of scripture Sadhakas a etc on the lines laid down by the sages as Sud-Acharya, and is always motivated by the eagerness to reach the Sannedhi of the lord. He is Jignaasu, the fourth is Jnani, immersed in Brahmattawam.” 5
Dr. Mirza seems to be the third type of person ever-ready to serve lord. Standing on the threshold of silence, the poet wishes and says:
“Life is both for winner and the loser/What ! if I have been a loser whole of my life/What if I didn't gave anything/I am trying to stretch myself/Beyond the boundaries/Of silence.” 6
But the fate of man is altogether different from what it approves to be from distance.
“There is nothing Divine about it/It is Man who rises to great heights but/Crumbles down like a muddy wall/Flows like nectar from here to there/From person to person.” 7
The poet, with brilliance and divination of the divine set-up always pines to obtain celestial happiness in future as well as he invokes his other self for or the (No-self) for the spread of illumination the almost corners of the earth. He sings with love:
“Let us grow/A silvery tree/Like moon/With leaves/Like stars/Then sit under it/Waiting for the birds/To come and peck/At the seeds of darkness.” 8
The spiritual manifestation of divine light which is inhaled by a true poet is same epitomized in poetry as breathes in a peculiar poetic way. Geoffery Hodson says,:
“Perhaps the most magnificent of all literature has been evoked by the contemplation of the Divine and attempts of authors, philosophers and poets to put into words the sublimity of That from which we came forth.” 9
Mirza also accepts the same truth of ‘Divine spring' and gradual development of Manhood to Godhood, the journey of man to God which is beautifully narrated in symbolic manner in Buddha My Love when he sings:
“I am an unsung melody of /hungry generations/ – the miserable / – the helpless / you strove to circumscribe / with your words carved out / of light / – a divine feet / people applauded and followed you / one day / you crossed the boundaries / of darkness / chased the light / and disappeared under the tree / you did appear again / but in stones, bronze, brass / to sit meditating eternally. ……” 10
Nature
Nature covers generally the outer elements like the sea, the woods and the forest or anything other then man and God or as the process of Eternity in which we exist. But Nature is on all sides of us, of which we are a part and which sometimes so dominates us that we feel utterly helpless before her. It is not what our modern scientists assume a mechanical phenomenon. C. Jinrajadasa, an eminent theosophist classifies four types of approaches to nature, by the worship of nature, study of nature, love of nature and the ‘Re-fashioning of nature'. According to him some poets or artists refashion nature:
“The artist is who is able to refashion nature and give us the thing as it stands eternally perfect and inseparable too from our own unending life. This is what mean by saying that the artist's work is to re-fashion.” 11
In this sense Mirza is an artist who ‘re-fashions' nature and revives its glory and magnificence in his poetic works in such a creative and artistic way that his word-pictures evince his permanency and unchangeableness, Mirza, like all great artists grasps the fleeting and reflects it as immutable and long-lasting or ‘Arche-type' as Plato would say. One such incident can be marked out as:
“Two pine trees/played merrily/With their shades/bathed in sunshine capered with the winds/lay down on the green grass fond sometimes/they extend their arms/to touch the feet of some passerby/and sometimes/recalled/silken touch/stared at each other/and wept bitterly.” 12
Another instance which can be compared to Wordsworth's famous lines ‘To me the meanest flower that blow can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears' evince the love of Mirza to nature and divine vision behind it:
“Trees are the eternal preachers /Their sermons are as sound as their trunks/Their verdure silence is like/That of a sage in meditation/Visions flow from them like the morning breeze/Beauty never falters from their orbit.” 13
Mirza mingles mental disposition, emotions and natural phenomenon remarkably in a picturesque way but before it he seems to have studied all the aspects of Nature from alpha to omega. His poetry breathes such kind of excellence where his medley of emotions high sensibility, susceptibility tenderness and sensitiveness with natural surroundings and entire macrocosm:
“The Distances vibrate/With the sounds of the dreams' footsteps/Memories drift like snow flakes/And stir the dead leaves scattered around.” 14
* * * * *
“The sea is a showman/who swallows the ball of fire/Everyday/and in the evening/goes to the shore/to get his reward/but the shore/Is blind and deaf.” 15
* * * * *
“Clung to the flower petals/we keep floating down the ill fated/paths running amuck/humming a song of stones/Soaked in blood/when thirsty/we get down to a pool/sip a drop or two/and joined the winds again.” 16
The verses of Baldev Mirza are abundant in mirror like images and transparency. Prof. Satish Kumar's comment affirms:
“The feel of words the concreteness of images and transparent clarity of language impart vividness to Mirza's lyrics.” 17
His deep kinship with nature, its components and man immortalize his poetry when he says:
“Listen to the chorus/Of the tired winds/Coming from the Jungles/Blown up by the men.” 18
And his gentle touch of words with climatic change in Environment suffused with myriad colour makes even ordinary phenomenon into an extraordinary one and Simple into a beautiful expression:
“Every Year/spring opens its casement/and watches the retreating/steps of snow/sunbeams mush out of the clouds/rollicking like children.” 19
One who has a divine vision of nature longs to make every child of God like himself. That is why all lovers of nature cannot separate themselves from man. They long that man everyman, too should be released, and those who love nature long to bring their inspiration into the city, into the slum and into every commoners' like as feebly felt by man, surge to its full through all their days. Baldev Mirza also can not remain aloof from man and humanity, it appears aright when he says:
“Have you ever know/The artist who paints/Faces Torn with pain and hunger/He observes during the day/And cries as loudly as he can.” 20
At another place he scribbles:
“While scribbling my fate/I wrote of the whole world/But every word turned into a volcano/Love flowing out of it/I cry from star to star./My earth is lost.” 21
But the most philosophical musing of the poet comes to limelight when he creates an analogy among important factor of nature and gives the hint of superiority naturalism:
He claims:
“Sun sea and Man/Are nothing but time keepers/All rooted in their spots/The old pendulum never gets rusty/It swings only within the triangle/Which stays where it is ever/The conflict goes on between the three.” 22
LOVE
Love forms a matrix of experience in the poetry of Baldev Mirza and he visions it from his early childhood days and blending with deft use and dexterous approach to poetry, draws it in a proper perspective. Dr. O.P. Bhatnagar affirms it:
“The poetry of Baldev Mirza is of private musings going back to childhood and states of growing with the self confronting the realities of the world outside in a personal way.” 23
Alike all love poets Mirza deals with love's Kaleidoscopic forms and tries to speak the unspeakable and impalpable but the most empowered phenomenon of world, the cause of creation, the essence of human life and heart and soul of poetry. His vision of love commences with a question to his love when he asks:
“Are you/A gust of breeze/Fragrance/Of a rose/Of a sweet memory.” 24
But, if remains no longer confusion, and he feels the omnipresence of love:
“I do-not know/How to sip/From the cup/Every drop/Reflects/Four image.” 25
The poet, in this ecstasy of love, finds his love thoughts getting puzzled even.
“When I think of you/Fairies of my thoughts/Get lost on the way/And knock at every door/Perhaps in search of you.” 26
But this rosary of love thoughts continues and he asserts in an altogether different way:
“Every moon lit night/A Taj rises/Out of/My thoughts/A Taj melts/Into my Tears.” 27
And he wishes to his lover saying:
“I went you/To get closer/With only moon beams/Melting between us.” 28
And adds further:
“With only/A tear or two/In your eyes/To tread/Your heart/With mine.” 29
Mirza's love-laden heart sometimes converses to his long and invokes him saying:
“Let us write a poem together/On the shut of love/In the lock/Of own blood.” 30
And out this furore he admits:
“Dear friends/Perhaps you don't know that/I am also a cage like you/Life wonder the barren tree.” 31
Baldev Mirza is not only a lover of passion but he also feels the deepest agony of a true lover which is his most precious jewel. His memories haunt him and create a potent nostalgia:
“Once again/Some Memory took to the streets/Hair disheavelled/Looking for the quivering lips/And wet eyes/Somewhere.” 32
Though Mirza admits the predominance of love yet his narration of his predicament is also worth-noting.
“You are unforgettable, my love but listen/Your memory is punctuated/By the Parrot repeating/Kill and burn/Kill and burn.” 33
The love of Mirza flows along the canyon fire of time and the gravity of it remains the same for love has been a bed-rock in Mirza's life and the source of ‘Amrita' to quench the thirsty heart:
“Year back/You appeared like a dream/Lit with sun-flower petals/Wet with dew/To quench my thirst.” 34
Down the valley of time lovers of Mirza flow to gather But all of a sudden a strange thing happens.
“The moment I spoke about/My wet soul/You became a flash of lightning/To dazzle my eyes.” 35
The monological poems of Mirza deal with the themes of love where he seems to have indulged in the dialogue of one soul to the other, eager to clasp into one. These poems are a divine revelation of a seer-poet desirous of merging not the body but the soul i.e., the candle light into ultimate light or the drop into ocean. His poetry, to a large extent, unfolds the mystery of life that tells us that all the majesty of the world is ours and its joys are some where hidden within us. With that divine vision of comes at-onement with man, and God and nature and the realization of that indescribable truth, that the ‘All' returns to the ‘All'. Certainly his poetry appears to succour man on the road to God; Like a fingerpost to a weary traveler hinting him to lead life celestially living in world beyond all experiences.
