Writer: Sukhinder
Gurcharan Rampuri is a well known Canadian Punjabi poet.
He had published his poetry collection ‘Agnaar’ (Fireplace) in 1993. Before that Rampuri had published ‘Kanakan Di Khusbo’ (Fragrance of Wheat), ‘Kaul Karar’ (Promise), ‘Kiran Da Alna’ (Nest of Rays), ‘Annhi Gali’ (Dark Cave), ‘Kanchni’ (Breakable), and ‘Katalgah’ (Lethal Chamber). He is active in the field of punjabi poetry writing since 1949.
Rampuri is a conscious progressive poet. As a creative poet, he is never in search of any metaphysical truth. He is only concerned with the joys, sorrows, wishes, hopes and frustrations confronting the common man in his life time. In his poetry, he makes fun of the traditional value system. In more explicit words it can be said that Rampuri is a Canadian poet writing poems which promote humanistic values in our society.
Majority of the poems included in the poetry collection ‘Agnaar’ are about the Punjab crises. Reading of those poems gives an impression that Gurcharan Rampuri is a mythological punjabi poet. He analyzes contemporary history with glasses of mythology on his eyes.
From 1985-1991 Punjab, a province of India, was going through a great upheaval. Majority of the poems included in ‘Agnaar’ were written during that period. This period was full of crises for the Punjabis. Selfish political rulers and misguided leaders were responsible for giving birth to this crises in India. During this time the people in power had given an opportunity to the religious fanatics to flourish so that they can use these people to finish their opposition. Religious fanatic forces with the instigation of the ruling class created such an environment of terrorism that common masses were feeling it hard to live in these times. In this situation common people were crushed from both sides. On one hand religious fundamentalist terrorists were making them target of the bursts coming from their AK-47 machine guns; on the other hand people were facing oppression inflicted on them by the police. Punjab police was inflicting oppression by making an excuse that these people are providing shelter to the religious fanatic terrorists.
To understand the poems of Gurcharan Rampuri written during this period we can start our discussion with his poem ‘Talk of Changhezs of our Times’ :
While criticizing the Changhez Khans of yesterday
dear comrades !
let us not forget the Changhezs our times
it is true that the history of
old oppressive times
is drenched in blood
but its not so much dangerous
as the Harnaksh Aurange of our times
to spill blood of the people
who initiate riots
in the name of color race
in the full day light
who insult the humanity everyday
Rampuri is a poet of clarity. Talking of mythology and history he emphasizes that we often talk of oppressors / assassins of old times; but we hesitate to talk about the oppression inflicted upon the common people by the vicious rulers of our own time. Today’s rulers are even more dangerous oppressors in comparison to the rulers of old times. They only care for getting into power. To keep their hold on the power they incite people to fight with each other in the name of religion, color, race and caste and spit rivers of blood of the innocent people. When the mentality of rulers is like that of murderers then how they can do justice with the people? In his poem ‘Dwarf Heads’ Rampuri has very beautifully portrayed the images of narrow minded and animal like criminals, sick with their ego, who are sitting on the power seats as rulers :
Hope of justice
in that court is not possible
whose judges can be bought
today’s juries, courts, conventions
dwarf heads are sitting in power seats
People sitting in the seats of power, merely for the sake of a momentary fun, incite people to get into feuds based on their religion, color, race, caste and they, even, put the security of the whole country in danger. Rampuri’s poem ‘Hanuman, Prince & Sarbokhad Mountain’ can help us to understand such kind of political corruption :
Today, on the seat of the judge
a murderer is sitting
that’s why in every city
daggers swords tridents
fake slogans and gun powder
are roaming, sniffing the blood
of the innocent human beings
It is a tragedy of our times that people with corrupt mentality and dwarf heads, in order to achieve their illicit aims, install corrupt people on the chairs of cultural and religious institutions. As a consequence, these protege incite the common masses in the name of religion, race, color, gender. To start riots they spread hatred by giving speeches like deadly poisonous cobras which are full of religious fanatic slogans.
Such religious fanatic goons are roaming without any fear in many provinces of India; but during the period of 1985-1992 the way such religious fanatic terrorists had terrorized the people of Punjab and the way people of Punjab had suffered no other province of India had ever experienced. Without any hesitation, Rampuri considers leaders of the ruling class at that time responsible for this pain inflicted on the people of Punjab. These criminal minded politicians incited a fundamentalist religious saint of Punjab to disturb the peace of the province. This religious fundamentalist saint in the name of religion and to murder innocent people of Punjab made alliances with goons, murderers and terrorists. These gangs of religious fundamentalist criminals and murderers murdered innocent people travelling in cars, vans, trucks, trains and walking on roads with the bursts coming from their AK-47 machine guns. By murdering thousands of innocent Punjabi’s these religious goons filled the streets, fields and roads of Punjab with the blood coming from the bodies of the people killed. Rampuri is brave and very explicit in his poem ‘Sinners’ when he shatters the masks of these political leaders who were responsible in criminalizing the politics of Punjab. Rampuri becomes very rigid when he points out such criminal minded politicians:
He is guilty
who put a fake jewel on the
head of a powerless snake
fed him milk
at higher places popularized him
arranged concert
poisonous cobra
made garland of his own neck
To understand majority of poems of the poetry collection ‘Agnaar’ one ought to have knowledge of the Indian mythology and political, social, cultural & religious happenings that took place in Punjab during the period of 1978-1993. By having such knowledge readers of Rampuri’s poems will be able to understand easily that when Rampuri talks about some very popular character of Indian mythology then he is giving reference of some political/social/cultural/religious leader or character who had emerged in Punjab, India during this time period of crises. Rampuri’s such poems are not of single layer. To understand these poems you have to get into the cellers of Indian mythology/history. You have to do a little bit dusting of times to recognize the characters buried under the dust and we have to recognize in what form these characters have taken birth in our times once again. To understand this fact Rampuri’s poem ‘Still Duryodan Is In Power In Hustanapur’ can help us:
Prince is telling the lies :
‘when the big tree falls
then earth experiences tremors’
saying this, he let out the wolves
after the innocents
the prince himself hiding in the palace
In his book ‘Agnaar’ Rampuri is not merely talking about the Punjab crises or political corruption in India; rather, he has initiated a dialogue on many other subjects as well.
People of Indian descent are very proud of their thousands of years old Indian culture. In present times, India has made great progress economically and in the areas of science and technology. But it is still backward in the social and cultural areas. For centuries Indian society has not been able to get freedom from the leprosy of caste system. Still in many areas of India, in the name of caste system, people of higher castes are terrorizing people of lower castes. They are burning their houses. Their wives, daughters, daughter-in-laws are gang raped. They are not allowed to enter the religious places. They are not even allowed to take drinking water from those wells which are used by the people of higher castes. This leprosy of caste system was spread in the Indian society by a man named Mannu. Today, rulers of India for the sake of show off can make as much noise as they like to proclaim that India is a free country; but the reality is different. Still today poor and lower caste people are trampled under the feet of rich and people of higher castes in the name of caste based divisions created in the Indian society by Mannu. India will not be able to call itself a free country until Indian society gets itself free forever from caste based divisions created by the ‘Mannuism’ by giving equal rights to every man and woman living in India. Rampuri has very effectively described such pathetic situation of the Indian society in his poem ‘Ashes Forward Mind Backward’:
Millions of creative hands are busy
progress has been made in thousands of ways
but still the impact of
four divisions in society made by Mannu
has not been reduced
ashes are forward but mind backward
there is hue and cry among masses
Rampuri believes that our society confronts such problems when people stop thinking themselves and they start trusting blindly each thing they hear. In our times, people are so busy in their day-to-day lives that they have no time to investigate the facts to confirm the things they hear. They have no time to investigate the facts presented to them. The root cause of many human problems in our day to day lives is the baseless propaganda of lies spread by cunning and opportunist people. In his poem ‘Let The House Think Again’ Rampuri tells these people as how they can come out of such a dangerous situation. His suggestions are certainly of great significance. That’s why after reading the following piece of Rampuri’s poetry, we get acquainted with the philosophical aspects of his poetry too:
Let this house to learn to think once again
teach him how to keep silent
tell him: search meditation and get into it
kick the crown throne power
sing songs of truth once again
‘Word’ has played a great role in the progress of human civilzation. Knowledge and science also spreads through words. We are able to get acquainted with the progress made during thousands of years of human civilization through the medium of words. By making wrong use of words some people have inflicted pain and destruction on the humanity. Nazis like Hitler and Musolini had used the medium of word for the wider propaganda of oppression. But thousands of years of history of the human civilization is a proof that great minds have always used the medium of words for the betterment of the humanity.
Gurcharan Rampuri’s poetry collection ‘Agnaar’ creates awareness on the political, cultural, social, religious, economical, mythological and historical level. It makes the Canadian Punjabi literature richer in many ways. For writing and publishing such a worthwhile poetry book, my best wishes are with Rampuri.
(Malton, September 21, 2008)
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