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The Onus Is On Us - Ambika Bhatt Ambika Bhatt is the Sawf Poetry Section Host. She has done her masters in English Literatur and is preapring to enter the Indian Administration Services Compitition exam. Travel, photography and writing are her passions.

A poet's world.

It's a strange world that we inhabit. A world where emotions and feelings are kings and queens. A world where the heart is inextricably joined to the head, and the self never knows any difference between the two. It's a world where every thought that comes is weighed and measured, appraised for its value or kept aside for its insignificance. Its also a world to which pain owes a very special kind of allegiance. Its also a world where sensitivity becomes so overpowering that each day sometimes becomes hard to take. It's a raging storm inside the self. There's thunder and lightening and heavy rain. Tumult and heart-wrenching sorrow. Then some words string themselves together one after the other in rhyme, words that arise from the depths of the same sorrow that created the storm, words form themselves on paper. The emotions, that were held up, are finally released, the dam breaks, a poem is born.

A poem, these delicate words mean so much, so often used, yet has not worn itself of its sensitive charm. A poem quivers under the draught of a breath, a poem aches for recognition. An entity in its own right, so akin to the creator yet when out of her, so distinct, so unique, a part of the cosmic pattern of the universe. A poem has a life of its own. A poem still bears the connotations of all the thousands of hearts that have soothed themselves through its means. All the love, the longing, the ache, the pain, the perplexity of the ages, the quests of the souls, all of it still reverberates in a poem.

Its not easy to be a poet. A poet somehow takes it as a responsibility to be more humane than the people she sees around her. A poet has to answer so many questions that go unanswered by so many. Its not easy to see the world the way it is and not feel the helplessness that accompanies the realization that there is so little that anyone can do. There is so much depravity, so much pettiness all around. The profane is abundant and the sublime so hard to find. Yet we search. For, there is no other way to live. We search and are full of this fear if this is all we would be doing all our lives, search. Its akin to death to become passive, to give up hope of finding what one is looking for. Its giving up life when one gives up this search.

Everytime that I encounter pain I want to feel it like I am going through it, and when I can't. I feel like there is something that I have missed out. Something that I have not been able to see. And that thought is the cause of a lot of guilt. If we cannot even empathize with those around us I feel our life is not as complete and meaningful as it should be. How many of us have the courage to get into the shoes of the person we see in pain and know exactly what he or she is going through? Even if that person is very close to us, we merely say some nice words and hope that they somehow create the desired effect, but nothing that is said superficially ever affects anyone. Empathy is a basic human quality that is unfortunately so rare. Words of encouragement are good to hear, but mere words are easily discernible from heartfelt well wishes.

If the poet has any message to give through her poems I think its that of sensitizing the world. If only we were sensitive to the many problems that the world faces today, we'd do something. But the modern man is apathetic. He is desensitized, he has anesthetized himself. So that nothing that is irrelevant, nothing that does not directly concern him touches him in any way. What can he do, a mere nobody, he thinks can his sadness change anything? He does not know that it's the awakening of the public conscience that is required. It was public awakening that led to all the major revolutions of the world and even now if there will be a social change it would come through this. It is not possible to dream of an ideal society when people still have sectarian and parochial views, when they are indifferent to the woes of their fellow men. It is an inner revolution that would lead to a revolution in the society. Society is nothing but the relationship between human beings, between you and me, what we are, that society is. If our personal relationships are confused, egocentric, limited and selfish, we project that and bring chaos into the world. What we are, the world is.

I may be sounding a little too idealistic here, but I know that what I dream of is not very big. Its very simple, it's a simple realization by my fellow beings that as human beings and as a part of this world we owe each other something. Even friends today do not know what is expected of them. Who does one turn to when one requires help and support? Even if it's just for emotional support? The world is very self-engrossed to even consider lightening up your burden. The world is only full of words. We have mastered the art of language and feel that with it we can get away with not feeling too deeply. In the midst of all these perplexities, somewhere in some quiet corner a poet tries to make sense of all this. He at least tries, he at least thinks. Poets and writers and philosophers have a very important social role to play, but somehow in the din of modern life, even poets have just begun to ramble. Even writers have no message to give and philosophers repeat the same old things rhetorically. Perhaps they know that they will not be heard.

We are all very simple beings. As children we were all very simple at heart, we all loved truly, we all knew and understood friendship and fellow feelings, we were kind and sympathetic and imaginative. As we grew so many of us kept losing all these inherent qualities one by one. And maybe have not even realized it. Someday it would hit us. And maybe by then it would be too late. We have stopped questioning things and that's what makes us passive. It's the questions that keep our search alive. If we know that each one of us is here for a purpose and if we do not fulfill that the world would have something to lose, the world would not gain enough to become emancipated. Each of us has a role in the cosmic scale of things. We must realize that. And even great revolutions began with change in one individual who sensitized his fellow men.

I feel strange having written this down, I know that the very spontaneous feelings become mechanical when they find expression, and are put down the way I have put them down, but I take that risk. I take the risk of expressing in the hope that perhaps just a minute fraction would get affected. If nothing, they'd at least give it a thought. We have to become sensitive, to social issues, to people around us, to even our own family, our parents, our children, we have to learn to reach out, because each one of us is waiting. Let us not wait for eternity.

Until we connect again....

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