The Poet in Dr. Chowdhary

Dr R L Shant

Dr. K.L. Chowdhary has in his poems (KS: 12/ 94) come up in his brilliant best. These poems speak of the excellence he has reached in expressing himself in an appropriate medium. Though Dr. Chowdhary is no mean prose writer, yet poetry seems to come to him more naturally. Those who know him personally find him more poetic than 'prosaic' in his life and work style. His visionary countenance lends credence to his bold and unconventional yet simple approach to the problems of his patients too. This is more credible in view of the general belief that medical doctors as scientists are prone to go 'prosaic' vis-a-vis their patients' mechanical action and reaction to medicine, leaving no scope for any emotional relationship with them. Dr. Chowdhary stands out as a brilliant imaginative poet if we care to watch and study his creations in the wider context of contemporary Indo-English writing. I recall his poems published in some monographs, pamphlets, literary and non-literary magazines, besides "Koshur Samachar'', I think we would do well to evaluate and recognise the talent, rather the co-existence of seemingly diverse talents in a creative genius of our society that he is.

The greatest quality in Dr. Chowdhary's writings (poetry) is that he enters into an informal emotional relationship with his subject and entertains no pretensions of pedantic snobbery. The best thing in a creative piece of writing is demonstrated when we react to that by saying that was exactly what we should have thought about the topic. The three poems, on the preliminary study of which I am establishing my premise, are points in question. The feelings we have, the reactions to events that we suffered, the dialogues we heard and were pierced by relentlessly, the situations that left us in convulsions, a world with which we are so conversant but which we have not been able to formulate in systematic writing comes so naturally and precisely to us in Dr. Chowdhary's poems. We feel as if our own loud thinking has been overheard and given the shape of poems.

Dr. Chowdhary's command over his language is remarkable. He does not falter where some better known Indo-English writers do, for they suffer from a tendency to contrive expressions. Most poets, whose mother tongue is one other than English i.e. their language of writing, betray a lurking desire to emulate English slang and syntax that can hardly express the nuances of Indian thought process and expression. Dr. Chowdhary makes the best of the limited vocabulary available to Indian writers, as well as readers, come to them as secondary material from books. His sentences are small but aptly placed and framed. Thus they look and work like short punches in a long scroll. They communicate the urge and spontaneity of reaction to peoples and pressures of our milieu. Take for example the following passages from his poems under review.

In the lines quoted from his first poem the judicious use of some otherwise insignificant words and phrases strengthens communication processes easily:

Success knocks at the door

Else martyrdom or heaven for sure....

The phrase-knocking at the door-does the whole magic in the lines. The dramatic effect it produces on the addressee can well be imagined. The neo- militant couldn't but have been moved to charge at his soft target, the Kashmiri Pandit, on visualising how Miss Success was amorously and impatiently waiting for his small move.

Similarly, in the second poem, the under- mentioned lines are notable for conveying the irony so present and yet eluded by clever militants:

You did not have to care

When we were with you there

Not get a scare

By a few threatening letters....

Here the use of the verb in the first line speaks volumes about the poet's instantaneous yet very effective style of composition.

In the following excerpt from the third poem: "Scene: A KP refugee camp in Jammu": powerful expression has been given to the inherent cheating and deceitful terrorist-turning-politician:

In that flight from that hell

Your intellect preceded you well

As ours goes pell mell....

Here, the word "preceded" is noticeable. It carries more than one meaning and points at the possible scheming aspect of the speaker's mind. Again "pell mell" is another cover under which the militant- turned-politician hides his real intention of carrying his credulous listeners away. This discourse speaks more of the clever and analysing mind of the militant than his sincere feeling.

Dr. Choudhary's effortless composition represents his mind that delves deep into human behaviour, specially in the arena of the suffering man's agonies and deprivations.

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Courtesy:- Dr. R.L. Shant and April-May 1995 Koshur Samachar