Pravar? in Spate

In fact, under the guidance of Sri Aurobindo, several poets like Arjava, Dilip Kumar Roy, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, KD Sethna (Amal Kiran), Themis and Nirodbaran wrote spiritual/mystical poetry for a new readership. While some welcomed the avant-garde new voices and the new Muse, others like P Lal and Nisssim Ezekiel, in later years, decried such efforts as baneful influences upon the younger generation of poets. [Notably P Lal radically altered his views in his later years and welcomed spiritual and classical poetry in general]The early hostile critique of P Lal regarding spiritual poetry appears to be unfair going by the collection admirably edited by eminent poet-critic Vinayak Krishna Gokak. For, his anthology, aptly called The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry New Delhi: [Sahitya Akademi, first edition 1970: rept. 2006] lists the work of great many poets who composed in the pre-modern style and advocated an alternative modernity, anchored to the spiritual vision of life. Poets like Manmohan Ghose, Sarojini Naidu, M Sanyal, Prithwi Singh Nahar, Lotika Ghose, VK Gokak, Nishikanto all wrote in a variety of ways about life and literature based a vision that was antithetical to the modern-secular world view relying on the primacy of Reason and the empirical view of life. I would like to cite, in this context, a poem by M Sanyal, titled The Music of Earth: Fulfilled is my dreamO sustainer supreme!And now do I till my lands; I break the sail, Till and toil, And sow the seed; But thou dost know -Thou alone, O Lord, Thou alone -When the seed is sown, What meedI am destinedI am destined to receive in Thy hands!I but toil and till my lands. [From Gokak's Golden Treasury, p. 188]If one thought that the spiritual poetry of the above kind had outlived its life, one would surely be mistaken. For spiritual poetry has continued, despite the dominance of modernist trend in the West and the East. It is in this context that one welcomes the anthology Pravar? in Spate by RY Deshpande. Poet Deshpande, professionally a nuclear scientist of distinction, has been drawn strongly to the path of spiritual life environed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He has been writing and publishing spiritual/mystical poetry, over many decades, following the example of leading disciple-poets like Nirodbaran and Amal Kiran. Many of the poems that appear in this collection had appeared in print and some others in his blog. Happily, most are being brought together in one volume. These compositions follow the rhyme scheme.