ENLIGHTENED GUARDIANSHIP—A WRITE-UP BY PROF. HIMANSHU RANJAN

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Bihar University, India, Matthew Arnold, Muzaffarpur, Patna University, Second Anniversary Special, Sikkim, Writings on AKS

Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS Falling Today, 28th November 2013

 We are grateful to Prof. Himanshu Ranjan for sending us this write-up on AKS coinciding with the Second Anniversary Special Posts–AKS Centre

Once when I was about to light a cigarette, held between my lips, at a cigarette shop at Aghoriabazar Chowk, Muzaffarpur, AKS suddenly came up close from behind and asked the shopkeeper for a stick of Panama. The sound of his voice and his reflection in the mirror in the shop made me go numb from head to toe. He casually lit up his cigarette and moved ahead towards Kalyani.

I came home trembling all over and went to sleep under a blanket. About an hour later AKS returned, called out my name and asked if I had fifty paisa change for giving to the rickshawalla. I gave the same to him with downcast eyes and got busy with my studies. We even took our dinner together sometime later like any other day. Between then, when I was just a graduation student, staying with him and under his tutelage, and the time just before he breathed his last, he never mentioned the matter to me or to anybody else to the best of my knowledge. Why didn’t he do so, I often asked myself. He had all the liberty, authority and right to give me a dressing down. But his soft, understanding and large hearted approach to the issue engendered an enduring profound respect for him in my heart.

Conscientiousness

Once I came home from the movie ‘Bullet’ produced by Dev Anand. The time was of the infamous Emergency and the historic Sampurna Kranti agitations. I found AKS pacing up and down in the verandah in an obviously disturbed state of mind. As soon as he saw me, he asked, “where are you coming from?” I said I had gone to watch the movie ‘Bullet’. He said with a profoundly painful expression, “you know only too well what the condition of the country is, and yet you had the frivolity to go and see a movie like ‘Bullet’—clearly a worthless one?” It was a revelation to me that a private, simple person could be affected by the general state of his country. Later, he told me he wanted to discuss some of his ideas and feelings with me and was disturbed to find me absent. I was flabbergasted to realize that he wanted to share something with me—a mere graduation student! Needless to say, the small incident did wonders to my self-esteem.

Sense of Humour

Once AKS and myself were walking to Aghoriabazaaar Chowk. I was pulling along his bicycle by my side. Being busy in conversation with him, I did not notice a motorcycle coming from the opposite side. At a particularly narrow point near a big pothole, the motorcycle screeched to a halt right in front of me. The rider shouted at me in anger: “Couldn’t you see a ‘Bullet’ coming towards you? Are you not scared of being hit?” AKS thought something over in a flash and responded with a disarming smile: “Bhai Sahab, how can an army be scared of just one bullet?” Both the rider and myself gave uncomprehending looks towards him. Then AKS slowly pointed towards the brand logo on the front portion of the frame of the bicycle: it was ‘Army’. All of us suddenly burst into a fit of laughter before going our ways.

Various compulsions relating to my job in Sikkim did not allow me to complete my Ph.D on Matthew Arnold under his supervision. I failed him, could not give him the satisfaction of shaping me up in a much more desirable way, especially because I know he doted on me and had certain expectations from me. But then, life is a complex play which hardly ever takes a pre-judged path. AKS is there behind whatever, whatsoever I am.

Himanshu Ranjan (second from right) in the front row.

Prof. Himanshu Ranjan,  a senior Associate Professor in English at SHEDA, Deorali, Sikkim,  did his Graduation with English Honours from Bihar University, Muzaffarpur (batch 1976-78), and his Post-Graduation in English Literature from Patna University (batch 1978-80). He was one of the closest students of AKS., besides being a family member.

LOVE POEMS BY AKS-III

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Love Poems, Second Anniversary Special

Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS Falling Today, 28th November 2013

 

AKS wrote very few poems, and never sort of bothered to get them published. We are reproducing today as separate posts three love poems that we have been able to locate. While two poems are written back-to-back on  a piece of paper and are simply titled as ‘Poem (1)’ and ‘Poem (2)’. The third poem is just untitled. The dates of composition have been mentioned, which are being reproduced here below the each poem. It is, however, possible that one or two of these love poems, had got published in a journal ‘KAVITA INDIA’, which used to brought out by the late Prof. A C Sahay of Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, one of the senior colleagues of AKS at Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur–AKSCENTRE

UNTITLED

I want to love you like an animal,

But when I sit with you, talk to you

You make me feel like an angel,

And I become useless.

 

I know you want to remain pure,

My coming to you, unto you, will be

Perhaps, an act of infamy,

Then I feel kicking,

Your, mine, the whole world’s angelic face;

Then all resurrections appear pointless.

 

Thought itself is soul-satisfying—

Thoughts of stars born and unborn,

Thoughts of times passing and yet to be,

of songs waiting to be mouthed.

Of you, and me cautious and you careless.

(Composed on 22-23 August, ’94)

 

–Arun Kumar Sinha

LOVE POEMS BY AKS-II

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AKS Writings, Love Poems, Second Anniversary Special

Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS Falling Today, 28th November 2013

AKS wrote very few poems, and never sort of bothered to get them published. We are reproducing today as separate posts three love poems that we have been able to locate. While two poems are written back-to-back on  a piece of paper and are simply titled as ‘Poem (1)’ and ‘Poem (2)’. The third poem is just untitled. The dates of composition have been mentioned, which are being reproduced here below the each poem. It is, however, possible that one or two of these love poems, had got published in a journal ‘KAVITA INDIA’, which used to brought out by the late Prof. A C Sahay of Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, one of the senior colleagues of AKS at Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur–AKSCENTRE

Poem

(2)

Yes, it is love because it can’t be anything less

Because it was immeasurably full and simple;

Neither the eyes bled with tears

Nor were there reminders of age-old fears.

 

If it was not love, the way we walked

Between trees and through thoroughfares,

Touching by not touching, wayward as wind,

If it was not love, what else could it be?

The quizzical heightening of the eyebrows,

The busymen’s stare and the priests chanting,

The olies of the scholars, the pride of the rich–

I have suffered them all and seen them thinning

Like so many falsenesses into the air.

 

Love, help me believe it were you.

 

(Composed, 6 June ’89)

 

–Arun Kumar Sinha

 

LOVE POEMS BY AKS-I

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AKS Writings, Literature, Muzaffarpur, Poetry, Second Anniversary Special

Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS Falling Today, 28th November 2013

AKS wrote very few poems, and never sort of bothered to get them published. We are reproducing today as separate posts three love poems that we have been able to locate. While two poems are written back-to-back on  a piece of paper and are simply titled as ‘Poem (1)’ and ‘Poem (2)’. The third poem is just untitled. The dates of composition have been mentioned, which are being reproduced here below the each poem. It is, however, possible that one or two of these love poems, had got published in a journal ‘KAVITA INDIA’, which used to brought out by the late Prof. A C Sahay of Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, one of the senior colleagues of AKS at Langat Singh College, Muzaffarpur–AKSCENTRE

Poem

(1)

Crowning glory of life it was

To have found you come like a dream

Into the parlour of my desire,

To have filled it and furnished it.

To have to be at only one place,

To wish to be there when one has to be here,

The compulsion to be noble and honourable,

The daily business of living and the still,

Regular chiming of the time,

The frozen angels on the mantlepiece–

Endless are the waiting hours, endless

The tasks and responsibilities

Before I could attend to you wholly

In the parlour of my desire.

(Composed on 6 June ’89)

-Arun Kumar Sinha

A Poem for Bhutto–Written by AKS on the Very Next Day of Bhutto’s Execution on 4th April 1979

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AKS Writings, Bhutto, Execution, Father, Poem, Second Anniversary Special

Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS

Today, 28th November 2013, falls the Second Anniversary of the demise of AKS. To mark the occasion, we are privileged to share four poems of AKS–three are love poems, while the fourth one is on the hanging of the Pakistani leader and former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) by the Military ruler General Zia-ul-Haque–which was widely seen as rather unjust end of a popular democratic leader. This poem on Bhutto has, as far as we know, remained unpublished. It was written the very next day of Bhutto’s execution on 4th April 1979, and thus carries the powerful sentiment for the tragedy of the democratic leader among the intelligentsia and democratic activists in India and elsewhere. Bringing it before the reading public nearly 34 years after the poem was composed by AKS, who himself passed away two years back, gives us mixed feelings.–AKSCENTRE  

—–

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

A POEM FOR BHUTTO

Remembering you after you are no more

Seems to be a sin

I can’t help.

For I see my doom

Coming to take me from my bed—

Oh Lord, hold the sky,

It’s toppling all over the place,

While my father eats off my flesh

And does not say sorry.

 

Lord wherever and whoever you are

Take care of me

And

My man in heaven

Arun Kumar Sinha

Composed on 5^th April, ‘79