Creation and Criticism

Anil K. Sharma was a poet, critic, short story writer, essayist, novelist and founder editor— Contemporary Vibes, Chandigarh. He has a number of works to his credit— Panch Dashak Ki Dastak (Hindi, 2004), Five Beat of Heart (Poems, 2005), Candid Confessions—36 Stories to Stir (2006), a novel— Vardhaman- the Conqueror (A Discovery of the Self, 2007), Translation— Karmavali - A Novel of Pathos by Kashmiri Lal Zakir (2012), Anil K. Sharma's Eighteen Select Essays on Divinity and Individuality (2013) and The Pilgrimage (Poems 2017). Though he served Chandigarh High Court as a Lawyer for years, he made a big contribution to creative and critical writings as well. In his email of dated Oct 16, 2021, celebrated author PCK Prem wrote to me, “It was shocking news when I heard about the sad and sudden demise of Dr Anil Sharma, the Founder Editor of Contemporary Vibes. Dr Sharma served literature as if it were a child and inspired many with zeal and passion he evinced towards literature, religious thought and philosophic deliberations. It is unbelievable and unfortunate for he was a kindhearted, generous and compassionate man who, not only as a writer and editor but also as a human being, was a saintly man - deeply religious and philosophic.”

Poems of Anil K. Sharma

1. Your Luminosity

Illumine me not.

I am afraid of

Your Luminosity.

I can see

Through

Half-naked,

Half-wrecked,

Half-tattered.

Sobbing,

Sagging,

Born out of womb of poverty,

Won't stand the rape

Of Your Luminosity.

The standing-mocking lamp-post,

Reminds me of my pigmy-self,

The sparkling bulb,

With saucer-hat hanging atop,

Looks to be an English man.

At night in pitched darkness,

Would have derisive laughter,

At my miserable plight.

Night is the solitary respite,

In the inequitable world,

When all beings feel equated asleep.

Sun also gives us,

A feeling of penury,

Wounds are not stitched

But breached widely.

If my writ goes,

If my wit permits,

The bulb of sun may break

By just throwing a stone in the sky.

Dark dungeon-beings

Engulf the world,

With total darkness,

So that, nobody can see through,

The naked dance of poverty;

Neo-luminous world of

Illumined-enlightened folk

May not gouge out the sparkling eyes

Of the prisoners of Bhagalpur.

Illumine me not.

I am afraid of Your Luminosity.

2. The Crystallized Tears

The precious moments of my life

Shed- soaked with earthen crystals

Burnt- bricked in a kiln

Wagered per hour

Now bidding for a price

In the markets of builders!

The Colonizers impulsively love

The blood splashed rectangular;

But love labour lost of the shelter-less

Is embodied in their crescent-huts

With dripping tears across corners

In thatched roof with mud-reed-greens!

The earthen crystals bear no stamp

Of my hard labour;

The warmth of my hands has no patent;

The fragrance of my sweat sans any TM;

But the hue of my blood-lets makes it pink!

Logo of the capitalists adorn

The earthen crystals of my make;

The crystal heaps are marked the

Mansions of heritage;

The chopped off limbs of labour

Constitute inheritance of the mighty.

All is lost in the inheritance of Time;

Ruins tell the tale of towers of victory;

Time re-engages labour to sweat- again;

And re-discover the heritage of mankind!

The lord of labour is wanderer- wondrous

The Creator of earthen crystals

Has no name to adore Tombs/ Temples

Roads and rivers are fate lines of the

Sons of the mounds of soil;

Spading-sickling-hammering

From sunrise to sunset;

Criss-crossing deadlines of the

Contractors of the mountainous spoils!

The toiling mass of humanity

Still breathes in hovels

To watch the neck-breaking towering hotels;

The tilling mass of mankind,

To live amidst crony capitalist-portals!

The swelled coffers are

Mounted bosom of the earth,

The knifed deep breaches are

Gulfed -gorges of depravity;

Nature has cradled the civilization

With unequal rocks of rearing,

The cronies have crystallized

The tears of poverty into marbles!

3. Stomach Fire

Stomach-fire is born divine,

It is puritanical and benign,

It performs karmic precision,

Augurs venture-adventure decision!

Pausing breath,

Breathing volcanic voice,

Empty-belly spoke to the Self!

Pauper spoke to the Lord!

Indigent spoke to the Master!

My stomach-fire knows

The sardonic laughter of the gluttons;

It knows sobbing in the slums;

It knows uprising and food-riots;

It knows slumber of the hapless!

O my Lord!

O my Master!

O my Employer!

O my Bread-bestower!

How do I skirt the flame-locks inside?

The painful sensation of starvation!

The nerve-convulsions, mental-moaning!

Should I die in harness sans set ablaze?

Why the fire wanders-wild in my belly?

Why the navel-cell has imprisoned fire?

Why the flame of life is fuel-starved?

I water the stomach-fire day and night,

I stir and sweat hard to fire-fight the life!

Still my breath is free of the shackles!

My mind soars in the horizons to usher:

The Growth Stories- GDP Graphics Upward!

My stomach-fire may be an instrument in the rows

Of races, regions, regiments, friend and foes;

But I am dubbed fatalistic in destiny to labour,

To be used for annexations!

To be employed for subjugations!

To inflame and engulf the human-hutments!

When stomach fire manifests outside,

Sky sees crimson fire-works hailing death!

Earth feels helplessly its calamitous heat!

Oceans find their stomachs ripped apart!

Mountains become restless to have caved in!

Sacred hymns watch my terrific leaps!

Consumption of ghee in tons fails to pacify

Human lapping tongues ever rising in greed!

Still stomach-embers emit its fragrance!

To goad the human race for food-security!

To satiate, gratify and enjoy the eternal-essence!

To quench the cry of hunger inhibit-universal!

4. Gangotri to Gangasagar

Melting with the kiss of crimson sunrays,

Taking shimmering steps on snowy peaks,

Playing zigzag and hide-seek in cave-tunnels,

Her springing limbs tossing on tipsy-tops,

Fell down like cascading string of white pearls…

Why and when Gangotri stepped out

Of the heavenly glacier abodes?

Man imprisoned her by dam-barrages!

Her lofty buoyancies stand incarcerated,

Her left right cuffed by sheets of concrete,

Her swinging gait has spineless treads,

Her booming waves have subdued-gush.

Bowing her head, she goes across towns,

Languishing as a prisoner beneath the bridges,

Sums up her remnants to save her existence,

The upstream- has lost all her play-ways,

She only wails silently sans soars and roars.

She gasps for breath to decongest at sacred Ghats,

Hails her devotees not to make her big bin of sins!

She beams not due to floating corpses- ashes,

Exhorts her devotees not to pour in town filths!

She cries foul with emitting smells being barren,

Hails her venerates not to deforest her tresses!

She snakes amidst huge human-garbage,

Hails her sacrosanct sojourns to have living face!

Gangotri merges with the sacred sea at Gangasagar,

Still hails her bubbles to be bountiful to human race!

5. The Transparency Bell

Ring the Transparency-Bell

Awaken the multitudes!

Gateway of progress isComing crashing!

Smash the shackles of slavery;

Be vociferous and demanding…

Set the dogmatic life ablaze…

Leap forward; be chief-in-commanding.

Energize with the sunrays…

Be descendant of solar race…

Identify with crescent moon:

To overwhelm in plenty always.

Summits of Himalayas remember

Your chivalrous fighters/roaders;

Perennial waves of Ganges beckon:

Chorus-chanting dives of billion-boons.

But shrinking glacier-grace of peaks…

Lurking trespass and intrusion of freaks…

Encasing and encashing of gushing waters…

Damning-greed to divest million-homes.

Common-man is a straw in the magnitude;

But may prove to be the last straw

In the game played with multitude;

Commoner is a dust to be kept at bay

But may prove to be lump of the last clay.

To demonstrate is right in democracy

Not always to demand a loaf of bread:

Not always to feed empty bellies:

Not always to seek comparative-comforts.

Do demonstrate humanity hidden in you:

Do demonstrate humility dormant in you:

Do demonstrate human values of mankind:

Do demonstrate human empathic mind.

A clarion call comes from the Transparency-Bell,

Spring from the inertia's blind deep-well,

Leap forward to shed soul-salvation-spell,

Break the iron-curtain of crony-capitalist cluster-cell;

To usher in India- a rich country; and now

Onwards…to be…

Inhabited by the multitudes of millionaires.

I, Abnish Singh Chauhan, with the team of Creation and Criticism pay my sincere tribute to this messenger of Generosity. May his soul rest in peace!