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What stands out in Ajay’s poems are his village and his childhood. The nostalgia that haunts a displaced person manifests itself in his words, sometimes indirectly. The images of coastal, rustic Malabar comes across subtly in sentiments and strongly in images.
It is quite obvious that Ajay observes; not only nature but people too. He also dares to turn and watch himself in his surroundings and takes time to record it, which is commendable in this age of speed and modernity. His style is a fine balance between the poetic and the prosaic. But I would also add that he not only speaks through numerous metaphors that make you see the micro view without effort, but also coaxes you to see the macro-world through images that are open to interpretation. Another admirable quality in his poetry is Ajay’s attempt to see not just a piece of the sky, but the whole of it. This is what makes him a better poet than many.
Ajay’s poems do not make easy reading; especially to those not familiar with the flora and fauna of rustic Kerala. The images are intricately woven with the obvious impact of his childhood in Malabar on his whole being. Nature is a vibrant presence in his pen. There are several recurring images but each repetition lends its own flavor to the image, which means there is no redundancy.
The hibiscus is an ever-present image in Ajay’s poetry. This tropical flower brings a wild beauty into interpretations, yet it has a home-grown image too. He calls it ‘a fickle beauty’ in one, ‘red inertia of the hibiscus’ in another, ‘the angry hibiscus’, ‘swollen hibiscus’ and ‘The hibiscus droops and sheds some of its red anger’ in others. The image of ‘the white hibiscus’ tones down the tempo of feelings associated with some of the angry images.
The periwinkle, the haystacks, drumstick leaves, paddy fields, mayflies and above all, sea and rain, recur in a regular pattern in Ajay’s imagery. Any person who has spent some time in Kerala will understand this fascination for the rain. Rain manifests itself on the landscape of the region in many moods. It pleases, coaxes, satisfies, threatens, ravages, and even destroys, just like a passionate lover. The ponds turning green in the rain or the venturing out on a small wooden boat stored in the kitchen loft are reminiscent of a household in rustic Kerala, though I found one glaring absence in his imagery; the coconut tree.
Ajay’s childhood comes out strongly in his images of home. The teak doors, the wooden stairs under which the cat and kittens live, the demon gods in the attic, the straw heaps fresh after harvest, and later soggy in the rain, the lily pond and the kingfisher that lives nearby, the jackfruit trees and the paddy fields and the winds that blow across it take you to the ancestral house he is obviously nostalgic about. You can see the young boy watching his grandmother going about her tasks and the camaraderie they shared in his delicate etchings of the past. The adolescent who watched his grandfather going out on his last journey in an incense scented ambience has probably stored the bouquet of those moments in his young heart.
Ajay has turned many a phrase in a rare display of brilliance, though he fails to carry the promise he shows to the end. I believe he is one of those poets who love his poems just as he created it, without trying to fine-tune them. The lack of finishing touches sometimes shows up painfully in the face of so much promise. I would like to quote a few personal favourites here. ‘ Green zones where your childhood resides casually’; ‘waves that cleave open the ocean’s secrets’; ‘third eye of bigotry’ , ‘the disobeying cow ( meaning Time which cannot and will not turn back) and where he speaks of the sea as ‘ an ancient creature that returns to speak.’ Another unforgettable description is that about the home as ‘that wishes away all things miserable’.
Romantic love is not his topic by choice, in spite of his young age. But love does leave an indelible mark in his later poems, where the companion comes in silently. This subtlety, is to say the least, very sweet. “The Four Letter Word” and ‘Secrets like Fallen Flowers’ have the flavor of the presence of the loved one. Again the obvious hands-off approach to the female form is also rare.
Images of carnal love and sex are not the poet’s favorites. In spite of the labyrinth of such images available in nature’s images, Ajay has restricted himself to obvious imagery in these seventy-three poems; “sun’s frozen semen’ in ‘mantelpiece doctrines’ and a mention of wet dreams in ‘wet’. Of course any imagery and metaphor are open to the interpretation of the reader.
Communism, the basic tone of public life in Kerala almost does not touch Ajay’s imagery, but disillusionment with it does show up, in the poem, ‘The elegy to the last revolutionary’. The play on the words ‘marooned ‘and ‘red turned to maroon’ has just the right bouquet.
The title poem ‘Facsimile of Beliefs’ is of course the poem that towers over the rest of them in stature. But I have my personal favourites in ‘This year the clouds were darker’ and ‘Buttoning shirts wrongly’; which I found myself reading again and again just for the joy of it. The book is a pleasure. In short, something to keep by your bedside, but treat it like a favourite cousin, whose small deficiencies you would overlook.
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