INTERVIEW TATJANA DEBELJACKI VS RAM KRISHNA SINGH
DIOGEN pro culture magazine & DIOGEN pro art magazine
Januar / Siječanj 2016 – January 2016 Tatjana Debeljački vs. Ram Krishna Singh
1.
Can you tell us something about your
hometown and growing up?
Thanks for getting in touch with me, Tatjana. I come from a
humble family of Banares, now Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India.
(Recently, it has been in the news for being the constituency of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and visit of dignitaries from various countries, including the
Prime Minister of Japan.) For generations my forefathers had lived in the
narrow lanes and alleys of the ancient
city, and I, too, was born, brought up and educated there, partaking of a
culture which flourished on the bank of the Ganges that still attracts everyone, though the
uniqueness is gone, values, norms, beliefs and body politic have changed so
much that whenever I go home I find myself
out of place.
As my grandfather was a freedom fighter, frequently
imprisoned along with other Congress Party leaders in Banares, my father could
not have formal education. He learnt to survive by himself, learnt to read and
write and did many petty jobs before he could settle down in life as an
accountant. He recognized the value of
education. I was the eldest of his eight children who are all postgraduates and/or
doctorates and fiercely independent in
their views and thinking. When I was
hardly ten or so, my father ensured that during the summer vacation I should
learn some skills and earn too. I learnt
typewriting and worked part-time as a typist during the 1960s. The skill later
helped me type my postgraduate and doctoral dissertations, and manuscripts of
several of my books and academic articles for publication.
Though I started my career as a journalist, I switched over
to teaching, finding it more congenial, and now, away from my roots in the
interiors of Varanasi, I have been living in Dhanbad since February 1976. It is here, after joining Indian School of
Mines as a faculty, that I was married
in 1978, blessed with two children (who are now well settled, my son is Colonel
in the Army, and my daughter is Manager in a pharmaceutical company), and I
have been able to establish myself as an academic, and perhaps, poet too.
2.
When did you start to write and what
inspires you?
In the early 1960s, I think. I remember writing my first
poem at the age of 12 in 1962. The poem appeared in a Hindi daily, Aj, of Varanasi. My interest and
enthusiasm never waned since then: I dabbled in several poems and published in
newspapers and magazines. From 1965 to 1972, I even participated in a few ‘Kavi
Sammelans’ (Poets’ meet) also. I had
adopted ‘Tahira” as my pen name in
Hindi. I remember I used to do a column ‘Tahira ki Kalam Se’ (From the Pen of
Tahira) in a Hindi weekly. I also published over 150 journalistic articles as
well as about ten short stories in Hindi till about 1971-72. As I became aware that my articles were more
popular than my poems, from 1968-69, I started writing in English as well, and
produced a large number of third-rate verses. Probably the first poem in
English composed in 1968 appeared in the Deutsche Welle radio magazine. A couple of my early poems also appeared in Adam & Eve (Madras). It was a great
feeling to have been paid for those poems.
My teachers in Banaras Hindu University, where I was a
student of M.A. (English Literature) from 1970-72, dissuaded me from writing
poems in English but I persisted in my efforts at developing the art and craft
in keeping with my sensibility, and I am happy to discover that what I could
not do in Hindi (which is indeed now very advanced and comparable with
literature in any other language) I have been successful in doing in
English.
Before I try to answer the other part of your question,
what inspires me to write, let me look back to my writing in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. As the influence of the Romantic, Victorian and Modern poets in
English waned, this phase of preparation was completed with my attempt at
writing my ‘diary’ in verses from October 1972 to December 1973. My encounter in 1971-72 with the poetry of an
American poet-professor, Lyle Glazier, had a shaping influence on my poetic
sensibility. There was a lot to say after leaving the monotonous life at
Varanasi and moving to Pulgaon (Wardha, Maharastra), returning again and
visiting several places in search of a job(1972-73), moving to Lucknow (1973),
New Delhi (1973-74), and finally to
Bhutan, where from March 1974 to November 1975, I lived in the lap of Nature and composed almost a poem a day. I
experienced not only peace in the beautiful Himalayan kingdom but also found
the required dimension to my poetry and personality. I had plenty of free time and I could dream,
feel and think.
But soon loneliness began to haunt me and I started hunting
for a change. I came to Dhanbad in February 1976 and lost my peace in the
whirlwind to teacher activism, academic research, and uncertainties of all
sorts. My psyche was disturbed, but it
was in the mounting tensions that I could perform my best: I wrote my PhD
thesis, and later published it as Savitri:
A Spiritual Epic (1984). Intermittently poetry and sex came as a relief.
For many years, my dreamt dreams, personal experiences with
people, reading good writing, or seeing good painting (or work of art), have
inspired my creativity. Some part is
also played by the completely demotivating environment of campus life in
Dhanbad. Now any small, negligible
aspect of one’s behavior or attitude, any insignificant event, anything,
including sexual experience, can inspire me if it expresses ‘momentness of a
moment’ or become an imagery. Even
something read or heard in the past may get connected with something Now and
incite me into a poem.
I am also inspired by human body which is the best picture
of the human soul: I glorify it. We are
flesh in sensuality and there is divinity in it. It is ever refreshing to me to express love
and sex, the internalized substitute, or antidote to the fast dehumanizing
existence without and ever in conflict with my search for life. It helps me enlarge my self to the universal
sameness of human feeling.
3.
When did you publish your first book
and how did the success follow later?
As I said, Savitri: A
Spiritual Epic, an exploration of Sri Aurobindo’s massive epic in English, Savitri (1950) for PhD, was my first
book published by Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly (U.P.), India in 1984. Krishna
Srinivas (1913-2007), editor and publisher of the Poet, an international monthly and recipient of Padmabhushan award
(2004), was so impressed by it that he requested me to do a critical essay on
his poetry and sent me all his books. I
ended up doing a monograph Krishna
Srinivas: The Poet of Inner Aspiration, which he published from his Poets
Press India, Madras in 1984. He also gave me the much needed break by
publishing free of cost my first collection of poems, My Silence, in 1985. I also edited with an introduction a
collection of articles on his poetry, Sound
and Silence, published in 1986. There has been no looking back since
then. I have published almost a book a
year. These include 16 poetry collections, 13 English language related books,
and 11 Indian English literature related books.
In addition, I have published over 160 academic articles and over 170
book reviews. My poems and articles have also been anthologized in over 180
publications. (For details, pl. visit http://profrksinghlistofpublications.blogspot.in)
4.
Poems Have Been Translated Into National And International
Languages?
Yes, some of my poems have been translated into Indian
languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Bangla, Kannada and Punjabi, and foreign
languages such as French, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese,
Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Italian, German, Portuguese, Greek,
Farsi, Arabic, Albanian, Crimean Tatar, and Esperanto.
5.
A reviewer, critic and
contemporary poet who writes in Indian English, university professor with active interest in poetry and
English language interview?
Perhaps, you mean to say English language teaching? Yes,
professionally I have been concerned with English for Specific Purposes (ESP),
especially for science and technology for about three decades. Working at
Indian School of Mines, a technical university, I initiated ‘need-based’
English language teaching to the undergraduate and post graduate students of
earth and mineral sciences and engineering, even as personally I have been
practicing poetry, besides reviewing and/or critiquing new voices, ignored by
the media and academia alike.
6.
Haiku followers, one important reason
may lie in the power of kigo?
That’s why Gabi Greve devoted several years preparing a
list of ‘kigo’ words from different countries, cultures and societies,
including India.
Haiku is a difficult genre to practice. To me, it’s a
spiritual exercise, helping one to pursue what is true, fulfilling and joyous.
It took me several years to compose publishable haiku with native experiences.
Though brevity has been a prominent feature of my regular poems from My Silence onwards, and I attempted many
poems with ‘haiku’ stanzas, but genuine haiku with Indian kigo started
happening much later.
7.
With the reader who is also a poet,
especially a haiku poet, such effects can generate and offer fresh experiences
of the?
Sameness in differences? The snapshots of our living
experiences provide a sort of balance by other aspects – nature, time, seasons,
trees, birds, flowers, festivals, urban chaos, new technological developments,
in short, all that we see, feel or know.
We look outside to communicate the inside, the perception response, the
vision, you know. It’s a sort of continual dialogue within vis-à-vis the life
and world we experience without; it’s an inner communication, a process of
self-discovery, a spiritual experience, as I said. After this, there is only
silence, the briefest haiku.
“in silence/one with the divine will/growing within”
“on the river’s bank/his soul is lighted for
peace--/lantern in the sky”
“squatting/in the middle of the field/a woman with child”
“awake/alone on the house top/a sparrow”
“hitching up the skirt/she fills her pockets with unripe
mangoes”
“pigeons fly/for shelter through smoke--/blazing windows”
“wiping his face/under the umbrella/an old man with books”
8.
What can you tell us about your work,
prizes, journeys and friendships?
With the arrival of Internet, it became easier to reach out
to audiences in different countries. Otherwise it was only through the snail
mail I could contact editors and haiku practitioners. The editors and publishers
of Azami (Osaka), SGL (USA), The Tanka Journal (Japan), Ko
(Japan), Prophetic Voices (USA), Micropress Yates (Australia), Micropress NZ (New Zealand), Noreal (France), Kanora (Columbia), Manxa
(Spain), Vrabac/Sparrow (Croatia), HQ Poetry Magazine (UK), La Pierna Tierna (USA), Forum (New Zealand), Poet (Madras/Chennai), Creative Forum (New Delhi), Poetcrit (Himachal Pradesh), Asahi Shimbun (Japan), Paper Wasp (Australia), Simply Words (USA), Haiku Novine (Yugoslavia/Croatia), At Last (Scotland), Mirrors
(Canada), The Haiku Quarterly (UK), Lynx (USA) and scores of other poetry
journals supported my creative efforts in the beginning. Friends such as H.F. Noyes (Greece), Mohammed
H. Siddiqui (USA), Patricia Prime (New Zealand), Angelee Deodhar (Chandigarh), Dejan
Bogojevic, Marijan Cekolj, Zoran Doderovic, Ruth Wildes Schuler (USA) and
others actively helped me understand the warp and woof of haiku and helped me
reach out. My academic commitments won’t
let me travel to attend haiku poets meet in India or outside, but friends and
well-wishers have been helpful.
Though my collections, My
Silence (1985), Memories Unmemoried
(1988), Music Must Sound (1990), Flight of Phoenix (1990), and Above the Earth’s Green (1997) contain
many ‘micropoems’, including haiku and tanka , Every Stone Drop Pebble (New Delhi: Bahri Publications, 1999, jointly
with Catherine Mair and Patricia Prime) is my first haiku collection. Pacem in Terris (Trento: Edizioni
Universum, 2003, a trilogy collection of poems in English and Italian) includes
my second haiku collection, Peddling
Dream, translated into Italian by Giovanni Campisi. The River Returns
(Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 2006) is my next collection including both haiku
and tanka. I collected all the previously
published books and new poems, along with haiku, tanka and sequences in Sense and Silence: Collected Poems
(2010). The volumes that followed it include New and Selected Poems Tanka and
Haiku (2012), I am No Jesus and Other
Selected Poems, Tanka and Haiku, with translation into Crimean Tatar by
Taner Murat (2014) published by Editura StudIS (Romania), and most recently You Can’t Scent Me and Other Selected Poems
(New Delhi: AuthorsPress, 2016), which includes most of my new poems and some
haiku and tanka sequences.
I must admit haiku and tanka practice helped me register my
international presence just as awards and honors such as Ritsumeikan University
Peace Museum Award, Kyoto 1999, Certificate of Honor and Nyuusen Prize in
Kumamoto International Kusamamoto Haiku Competition, Japan, 2000 and 2008,
Special Award Diogen, 2013, Nazar Look Prize for Poetry, Romania, 2013,
Nomination for Pushcart Prize 2013, 2014, Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize,
Lebanon, 2015, Honorable Mention in 68th Basho Festival, 2014 and Grand
Prize in 69th Basho Festival, 2015 have been gratifying.
9.
Do you think you have outwitted the
expectations?
Hopefully, I have communicated well enough to last for a
longer time, at least in India, as an Indian English poet. I do expect an
academic exploration of my poetry for higher degrees (like MA/MPhil/PhD) with
learned articles in journals at home and abroad. I’m afraid the media and
academia in the country have ignored me despite my four decades of writing and
publishing.
10. How
do you manage all that with so much work that you do? Do you have time for
yourself?
Simply, I didn’t waste my time, doing nothing. I used every
minute of my free time. My wife managed
the home front, leaving me free to do the academic and other work in the
institution. My children didn’t bother me for tuition etc. Poetry happened
anywhere anytime. Publishers too showed interest in my writing for it’s
novelty. Things were smooth that way.
Now that I am retired, I would like to do certain things I
could not, for want of professional commitments, like research and teaching.
Now I would like to live for myself for a change. Let’s see how things shape
up.
11. Is
there anything that you could pinpoint and tell us about yourself between the
dream and reality?
First, I never wanted to be a teacher and I became one.
Second, I didn’t want to work or stay in Dhanbad and I had not only my career
in Dhanbad for over four decades but I also had to settle down here
post-retirement. And, finally, the way my father and sisters treated me, my
wife and children, we could not forget, though we have forgiven them all. We all seek familial affection among
strangers!
12. What
are your plans for the future creative work?
To publish a volume of letters received as editor, reviewer,
poet, writer, or academic from persons I never met but who reflected on my
work, relationship, decisions etc whereby some aspects of my mind, creativity
or personality can be gleaned. It is
intended as a memoir and tentatively, I’ve called it ‘Through Their Eyes: A
Memoir’.
13. Have
you achieved everything you have ever wanted to and if you could live your life
again would you be an artist again?
I have been a restless soul, very impatient, and hardly
contented. Though I notice a decline in my mental faculty—my forgetting is
faster than remembering, as I said once earlier, I think poetry, especially
haiku and tanka, will continue to happen, and one day I will be recognized for
what I have done as a poet. I already achieved the highest for my work as a
practitioner of ELT/EST. No doubt, I would love to be born again as an artist.
14. Is there
anything you would
like to say
that you think
is important and
that I haven’t asked you ?
Can’t say at the moment. I have already spoken too much in
response to what you asked.
15. It
was a great pleasure talking to you and you are always welcome to our houses
"Diogen" and "Maxminus”.
Many thanks for your probing questions. It’s been a great
pleasure talking to you. I value your support.
BIO:
Ram Krishna Singh, born, brought up and educated in Varanasi (U.P., India), has been writing poetry in English for about four decades. He has published over 160 academic articles, 175 book reviews, and 17 collections of poems, including the latest I Am No Jesus And Other Selected Poems, Tanka And Haiku (English/Crimean Tatar, 2014), New And Selected Poems Tanka And Haiku(2012), Sense And Silence: Collected Poems (2010), and You Can’t Scent Me and Other Poems (2016). Appreciated for his tanka and haiku, Dr. Singh's poems have been anthologized in over a hundred books. His poems have been translated into Japanese, Greek, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Hungarian, Albanian, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Slovene, Irish, Croatian, Farsi, Arabic, Serbian, Bosnian, Esperanto, Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, and Bangla. A member of several literary bodies and editorial boards, nominated for Pushcart Prize 2013 and 2014, and winner of Ritsumeikan University Peace Museum Award, Kyoto, 1999, Certificate of Honour and Nyuusen Prize in Kumamoto International Kusamamoto Haiku Competition, Japan, 2000 and 2008, Nazar Look Prize for Poetry, Romania, 2013, Prize of Corea Literature, Seoul, 2013, and Naji Naaman‘s Literary Prize, Lebanon, 2015, Dr. Singh recently retired as Professor (HAG) at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826004 (India). More at: www.rksinghpoet.blogspot.in
PR DIOGEN pro kultura http://www.diogenpro.com
TANKA
1
A tidal wave
touches the shore to wipe
my naked footprints
and leaves behind some shells
pebbles and memories
2
Love's spirit descends1
A tidal wave
touches the shore to wipe
my naked footprints
and leaves behind some shells
pebbles and memories
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
with salubrious top
turns rupturous
as she tamps her love
with watery lipstick
9
10
foam-maned waves
rise in the mind's hush:
sinking dome
living again
fountain on the hill top--
divine light
clouded super moon
and unseen shooting stars--
how to make a wish?
rises drowsily
after a sleepless night
a sick sun
warming together
on a ceiling fan's arm
two pigeons
drying on clothesline
teachers' bras and panties:
classroom windows
watching
the darkness between the stars
enlightenment
in the diary
searching phone numbers of
friends now alive
SPIRITUAL FLICKERS: A Tanka
Sequence
Plodding away at
season’s conspiracies
life has proved untrue
with God an empty word
and prayers helpless cries
I wish I could live
nature’s rhythm free from
bondage of clock-time
rituals of work and sleep
expanding haiku present
on the prayer mat
the hands raised in vajrasan
couldn’t contact God—
the prayer was too long and
the winter night still longer
the mind creates
withdrawn to its own pleasures
a green thought
behind the banyan tree
behind the flickering lust
I can’t know her
from the body, skin or curve:
the perfume cheats
like the sacred hymns chanted
in hope, and there’s no answer
unknowable
the soul’s pursuit hidden
by its own works:
the spirit’s thirst, the strife
the restless silence, too much
unable to see
beyond the nose he says
he meditates
and sees visions of Buddha
weeping for us
the mirror swallowed
my footprints on the shore
I couldn’t blame the waves
the geese kept flying over head
the shadows kept moving afar
the lane to temple
through foul drain, dust, and mud:
black back of Saturn
in a locked enclosure
a harassed devotee
seeking shelter
under the golden wings
of Angel Michael
a prayer away now
whispers the moon in cloud
not much fun—
cold night, asthmatic cough
and lonely Christmas:
no quiet place within
no fresh start for the New Year
--Ram Krishna Singh
DIOGEN pro culture magazine & DIOGEN pro art magazine -ISSN 2296-0929; ISSN 2296-0937
Publishers online and owners, Peter M. Tase and Sabahudin Hadžialić, MSc
E-mail: contact_editor@diogenpro.com / WWW: http://www.diogenpro.com/
Publishers online and owners, Peter M. Tase and Sabahudin Hadžialić, MSc
E-mail: contact_editor@diogenpro.com / WWW: http://www.diogenpro.com/
posted by Ram Krishna Singh at 6:02 AM
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