Writer: Sukhinder
Major Singh Nagra has made his entry into the Canadian Punjabi literary world with the publication of his first poetry collection ‘Everything Is In Danger’.
Majority of the poems included in this collection were written during the 1987-1992 period when Nagra was still a student at Chandigarh, India. This is the main reason that these poems are of very simple nature. You don’t have to put a special effort to understand any poem in this collection.
Poems included in the poetry collection‘Everything Is In Danger’ could be considered as a practice for writing more serious and well crafted poems by Nagra later in his life. In these poems, Nagra has expressed his anxiety on various issues concerned with the human existence in very simple words.
After reading Major Singh Nagra’s poetic collection ‘Everything Is in Danger’, I have realized that Nagra is a humanitarian poet. As a conscious poet he is concerned about the issues related to human existence. He doesn’t accept boundaries of religion, culture, colour, gender, race or even the boundaries of countries. Without any hesitation, he engraves a question on our foreheads - when we are living on the one same planet earth - in our bodies runs the same kind of blood whose colour is red; when there are common concerns of human existence in front of us - then why do we fight with each other and become jealous of each other. His poem ‘We Are All One’ written on this subject matter attracts our special attention:
We live on the same planet earth
we are all one as human beings
ram ram of a hindu
salam of a muslim
all have the same meanings
then why do we fight with each other
then why are we jealous of each other
and fight race wars
the colour of the blood
dripping on earth is same - red
our pains and sufferings are the same
our sorrows and feelings are the same
In our times man has become so selfish and greedy in his efforts of accumulation of wealth that he is running like a blind horse. He has only one motive of his life as how he can earn maximum amount of dollars in a short period of his life. And in order to achieve his goal, even if he has to use wrong ways, he will not hesitate to do so. Today’s man has become so much selfish that to achieve his political, social, cultural or religious goals he wants to move forward by trampling under his foot whosoever comes in his way of success. Due to his such mentality people are showing less and less affection for each other these days. We are not cooperating with each other culturally in our times of celebrations and at the occasions of some painful moments in our lives. But we have failed to find who is responsible for this whole crises we are in today? Even the ruling class is ignoring such plight of its people by not even talking about it. As if they have nothing to do about it. This thing Major Singh Nagra brings to our attention through a very simple but communicative way in his poem ‘Seasons’ and expresses his concerns about the fast changing value system of our day to day lives:
We have lost our love and affection
unity has become rusted
community, dignity are things of the past
why man is getting bankrupt?
who should be blamed
ruling times have become shameless
weather is fiercely cold
but why environment has become so hot?
Schemes we are making day and night to destroy each other instead of developing socio-cultural affection for each other is not a good news for all of us who believe in humanitarianism. Without any doubt, such things must be matters of serious concerns for all of us. Major Singh Nagra is also emphasizing the same thing in his poem ‘Festival’:
But why have we changed
our ways of celebrating our festivals?
why we are busy in fighting
wars of hatred
Through these poems, Major Singh Nagra is expressing his concerns as how the present day man has become so narrow minded in his thinking. In these poems, he also shows his concerns regarding problems and issues man is facing on the global level.
Nagra also feels that today’s fast changing ways of life are also responsible for many of our present day problems. Following stanza from his poem ‘Hunger and Earth’ increases our understanding on this issue:
I will eat earth
will digest everything
destroy my ownself
because i am a human being
with endless hunger
In the post-modern times, we are facing two major problems on the global level: problem of pollution and the problem of global warming . These two major problems are giving birth to many other problems. Earth’s environment and weather are connected with these factors. These things have deep relationship with the human existence on our planet earth. If environment of earth will be polluted then how can man be living a healthy life? New inventions of science and technology has certainly made our life very comfortable but we are paying a big price for these comforts. We can travel from one place to another through cars, vans, trucks, buses, planes and trains in minutes, hours or days. But smoke and poisonous gases emitted by them are polluting the environment. Poisonous gases emitted by the chimneys of the factories is making this industrial problem worse. Careless industrialists by dumping their industrial wastage in rivers and streams have made the resources of our fresh water as the messangers of doom. Major Singh Nagra has expressed such concerns in many of his poems:
1. Curse of science
is splitting earth
sobbing, longing, writhing
who will listen the request of earth
who will stop the pollution
everyone is lost in its own world
who will wipe tears of earth
who will wipe her tears, who will wipe
(Tears of Earth)
2. Man is deceiving himself
spreading pollution everywhere
with the help of industries
water is getting polluted
of every stream, of every river
it is in bad condition
every village
every city
(Environment)
Major Singh Nagra is a peace loving person. He knows that power hungery people send their armies to invade other countries and inflict all kinds of pain on them. After seizing power of such countries, they set up their protege governments and systematically destroy social & cultural fabric of those countries and continue looting of their rich economic resources for decades. In his poem ‘A Request’ Major Singh Nagra makes a wish that a natural miracle should happen so that characteristics of Iron should suddenly change and it becomes such a material that it could not ever change into something that could be used for making weapons for a war. Due to the destruction inflicted by the war mongers millions of innocent lives are lost for nothing:
O my god, it is my request
make iron some kind of dissolvable material
so that it is rusted easily
before it could reach in the
battlefield in the form of a
weapon of destruction
and iron should never become a weapon
Just like war mongers some other forces are also responsible for human sufferings. Among them come in forefront those selfish industrialists and traders who care only for their own profits and put the health and security of the common people at risk. Such a mishap took place in a gas plant in a city Bhupal in India due to the carelessness of a greedy proofiteering industrialist. Poisonous gas emitting from the plant and spreading in the environment killed several thousand people in a few days and several thousands fell sick with very serious diseases. Such people will never be able to live a healthy life henceforth. This epic tragedy has been portrayed in a very poetic and theatrical way in his poem ‘Rain of Death’ by Major Singh Nagra:
On that dark dreadful night
rain of death fell
there was no lightning
neither was there any thundering
of clouds
just the rain of death
started pouring
‘Everything Is In Danger’ being the first poetry book published by Major Singh Nagra, we do not see his commitment for any ideology in these poems. In this book, we also do not see a big variety of subjects discussed in his poems yet. Neither his poems show much depth while discussing any issue. In our times, life has become so complex that in order to discuss any issue or concern related to social, cultural, political, religious or philosophical aspects of life, we ought to have a knowledge of wide range of fields. Henceforth, unless a writer has indepth understanding of a problem he/she will not be able to talk about that issue very seriously or in depth.
I hope, Major Singh Nagra will write more serious poems in future after becoming aware of his creative limitations.
(Malton, September 14, 2008)
Major Singh Nagra has made his entry into the Canadian Punjabi literary world with the publication of his first poetry collection ‘Everything Is In Danger’.
Majority of the poems included in this collection were written during the 1987-1992 period when Nagra was still a student at Chandigarh, India. This is the main reason that these poems are of very simple nature. You don’t have to put a special effort to understand any poem in this collection.
Poems included in the poetry collection‘Everything Is In Danger’ could be considered as a practice for writing more serious and well crafted poems by Nagra later in his life. In these poems, Nagra has expressed his anxiety on various issues concerned with the human existence in very simple words.
After reading Major Singh Nagra’s poetic collection ‘Everything Is in Danger’, I have realized that Nagra is a humanitarian poet. As a conscious poet he is concerned about the issues related to human existence. He doesn’t accept boundaries of religion, culture, colour, gender, race or even the boundaries of countries. Without any hesitation, he engraves a question on our foreheads - when we are living on the one same planet earth - in our bodies runs the same kind of blood whose colour is red; when there are common concerns of human existence in front of us - then why do we fight with each other and become jealous of each other. His poem ‘We Are All One’ written on this subject matter attracts our special attention:
We live on the same planet earth
we are all one as human beings
ram ram of a hindu
salam of a muslim
all have the same meanings
then why do we fight with each other
then why are we jealous of each other
and fight race wars
the colour of the blood
dripping on earth is same - red
our pains and sufferings are the same
our sorrows and feelings are the same
In our times man has become so selfish and greedy in his efforts of accumulation of wealth that he is running like a blind horse. He has only one motive of his life as how he can earn maximum amount of dollars in a short period of his life. And in order to achieve his goal, even if he has to use wrong ways, he will not hesitate to do so. Today’s man has become so much selfish that to achieve his political, social, cultural or religious goals he wants to move forward by trampling under his foot whosoever comes in his way of success. Due to his such mentality people are showing less and less affection for each other these days. We are not cooperating with each other culturally in our times of celebrations and at the occasions of some painful moments in our lives. But we have failed to find who is responsible for this whole crises we are in today? Even the ruling class is ignoring such plight of its people by not even talking about it. As if they have nothing to do about it. This thing Major Singh Nagra brings to our attention through a very simple but communicative way in his poem ‘Seasons’ and expresses his concerns about the fast changing value system of our day to day lives:
We have lost our love and affection
unity has become rusted
community, dignity are things of the past
why man is getting bankrupt?
who should be blamed
ruling times have become shameless
weather is fiercely cold
but why environment has become so hot?
Schemes we are making day and night to destroy each other instead of developing socio-cultural affection for each other is not a good news for all of us who believe in humanitarianism. Without any doubt, such things must be matters of serious concerns for all of us. Major Singh Nagra is also emphasizing the same thing in his poem ‘Festival’:
But why have we changed
our ways of celebrating our festivals?
why we are busy in fighting
wars of hatred
Through these poems, Major Singh Nagra is expressing his concerns as how the present day man has become so narrow minded in his thinking. In these poems, he also shows his concerns regarding problems and issues man is facing on the global level.
Nagra also feels that today’s fast changing ways of life are also responsible for many of our present day problems. Following stanza from his poem ‘Hunger and Earth’ increases our understanding on this issue:
I will eat earth
will digest everything
destroy my ownself
because i am a human being
with endless hunger
In the post-modern times, we are facing two major problems on the global level: problem of pollution and the problem of global warming . These two major problems are giving birth to many other problems. Earth’s environment and weather are connected with these factors. These things have deep relationship with the human existence on our planet earth. If environment of earth will be polluted then how can man be living a healthy life? New inventions of science and technology has certainly made our life very comfortable but we are paying a big price for these comforts. We can travel from one place to another through cars, vans, trucks, buses, planes and trains in minutes, hours or days. But smoke and poisonous gases emitted by them are polluting the environment. Poisonous gases emitted by the chimneys of the factories is making this industrial problem worse. Careless industrialists by dumping their industrial wastage in rivers and streams have made the resources of our fresh water as the messangers of doom. Major Singh Nagra has expressed such concerns in many of his poems:
1. Curse of science
is splitting earth
sobbing, longing, writhing
who will listen the request of earth
who will stop the pollution
everyone is lost in its own world
who will wipe tears of earth
who will wipe her tears, who will wipe
(Tears of Earth)
2. Man is deceiving himself
spreading pollution everywhere
with the help of industries
water is getting polluted
of every stream, of every river
it is in bad condition
every village
every city
(Environment)
Major Singh Nagra is a peace loving person. He knows that power hungery people send their armies to invade other countries and inflict all kinds of pain on them. After seizing power of such countries, they set up their protege governments and systematically destroy social & cultural fabric of those countries and continue looting of their rich economic resources for decades. In his poem ‘A Request’ Major Singh Nagra makes a wish that a natural miracle should happen so that characteristics of Iron should suddenly change and it becomes such a material that it could not ever change into something that could be used for making weapons for a war. Due to the destruction inflicted by the war mongers millions of innocent lives are lost for nothing:
O my god, it is my request
make iron some kind of dissolvable material
so that it is rusted easily
before it could reach in the
battlefield in the form of a
weapon of destruction
and iron should never become a weapon
Just like war mongers some other forces are also responsible for human sufferings. Among them come in forefront those selfish industrialists and traders who care only for their own profits and put the health and security of the common people at risk. Such a mishap took place in a gas plant in a city Bhupal in India due to the carelessness of a greedy proofiteering industrialist. Poisonous gas emitting from the plant and spreading in the environment killed several thousand people in a few days and several thousands fell sick with very serious diseases. Such people will never be able to live a healthy life henceforth. This epic tragedy has been portrayed in a very poetic and theatrical way in his poem ‘Rain of Death’ by Major Singh Nagra:
On that dark dreadful night
rain of death fell
there was no lightning
neither was there any thundering
of clouds
just the rain of death
started pouring
‘Everything Is In Danger’ being the first poetry book published by Major Singh Nagra, we do not see his commitment for any ideology in these poems. In this book, we also do not see a big variety of subjects discussed in his poems yet. Neither his poems show much depth while discussing any issue. In our times, life has become so complex that in order to discuss any issue or concern related to social, cultural, political, religious or philosophical aspects of life, we ought to have a knowledge of wide range of fields. Henceforth, unless a writer has indepth understanding of a problem he/she will not be able to talk about that issue very seriously or in depth.
I hope, Major Singh Nagra will write more serious poems in future after becoming aware of his creative limitations.
(Malton, September 14, 2008)
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