:: Books Plus

Romanticising mortality

Nawaid Anjum

My spirit is too weak;

mortality

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagined

pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die

Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.

Thus wrote romantic poet John Keats in his poem, On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time. Mortality has been romanticised in literature as much as immortality. Writer after writer has explored how death forms the cycle of life and how those who transcend death can revel in an immortal afterlife. Delhi-based freelance journalist, author and poet Sanjula Sharma draws on mortality (and immortality) for her third book, To Be Mortal, a collection of poems. Published by Writers Workshop, the anthology will be launched at the India International Centre in New Delhi on November 15.

The anthology, an evocative ode to the notions of mortality and immortality written both in rhyme and free verse, is divided into four parts: Life Alloyed, A Vulnerable Self, Towards Dusk and The Last Lap. Each part begins with a prelude that sets the mood for much that follows. According to the author, the sections have been designed to show the poems’ journey through life, vulnerability, death and, in the end, immortality. A look at these sections reveals just how these poems travel from one stage to the other.

In the high moments of Ecstasy

In that hour of triumphant Joy

Disquiet begins to mock me

So transient, this Life alloyed.

This is the prelude to Part I. The poet is aware of the fact that every ecstasy and joy is short-lived. She is aware of the temporal nature of things, of the impermanence of life. Part I, though mainly dealing with the "throes of pleasure" and "moment of perfect bliss", echoes an idea of the inevitable end:

In the midst of feeling mortal

I pause to wonder for a while

It must all end some day

Must we then grasp all things futile?

According to Ms Sharma, the section is also about the "dualities of life": defeat and success, pain and pleasures. Part II sets the landscape for the section (illness, death) with:

Vulnerable Man

You stand alone

Solid as a rock

Until Mortality wears you down.

The poet harks back to the sounds of death, to the approaching arms of that eternal robber. Life, to the poet, is a "vulnerable song". The realisation that decay is destiny dawns on her day in and day out:

I feel so vulnerable today

My health can just give way

This body, so fragile, decay

Into a heap of dust and day.

Part III (Towards Dusk) is about the dying of the light, the idea of the high noon of life:

I cannot let this hour go

It is only an infrequent visitor

Today I am in love with Life

And never has the consciousness

Of Death struck me so.

Death, the poet feels, is sure to "claim" her hand too:

In my heart I know.

One day I too must go.

Part IV (The Last Lap) makes the journey beyond death. The poet walks the "seamless shores" and having learnt "freedom" from her saviour (Lord Krishna), travels from "being a Being to not being one":

To cross from Mortal shores

Into the harbour of Immortality

To meet you at last, my Saviour

Only to realise you had never left me.

The communion has happened. The Creation has met its Creator. A life ends. Afterlife begins.

Ms Sharma says the collection was set off by the death of her family members. "I saw a bit of death around me," says Ms Sharma, who lost her cousin and brother to cancer. She worked around the theme and after a point, when she had a set of poems revolving around the theme, she felt she could "reach out" to her readers with the same. "It affects us all. None of us is immune to it," says Ms Sharma, who is influenced by the Bhagvad Gita and considers Lord Krishna as her saviour. "We live and die every day. We die many deaths while we are trying to live," says the poet about the universal human condition. Life, she says, has its own contradictions, but everything must pass. "Life is a battlefield. You have to work hard to make your life meaningful," says Ms Sharma.

The poet says that she writes both in rhyme and free verse as it gives her more variety. She has written some haikus too which have found their way in this collection:

In stealing my trust

You doused the fire of faith

Then Brutus, now you.

—(Trust "Worthy")

All the romantic poets, especially Keats, have been Ms Sharma’s favourites. The metaphysical poets (John Dryden, John Donne, et al) have also been an influence. While Tagore has been a tremendous influence, she discovered his poetry much later as Tagore, surprisingly, was not taught at Jadavpur University in Kolkata where she did her post-graduation in English literature from. She also likes Vikram Seth a lot.

A member of Poetry Society of India, Ms Sharma says that the organisation has done a lot to "promote poetry" by organising poetry readings and book launches.

Ms Sharma’s previous anthology, Collection of Poems (1992), was a meditation on love and life. Her other book, The Cameo Sheaves (2002), a collection of 10 short stories, was set in contemporary India and revolved around "love and heroism to war, terrorism and self-revelation".

Ms Sharma, who likes to experiment with different genres, is working on a 40-episode TV serial. "I don’t like restrictions of form when it comes to expressing myself, " she says.

When we are done with the interview, her 12-year-old daughter Sukanya, a student of Class 7 who is learning Hindustani classical music, joins her with their pet Baani (meaning word), a golden retriever. They stand together for the photo shoot. Dusk is setting. And the poet looks forward to the evening to weave another tapestry of thoughts.