Contemporary Literary Review India | eISSN 2394-6075 | Vol 3, No 1: CLRI February 2016
Poems by Dr Dalip Khetarpal
Earthly Morphs Into Ethereal…
I saw a metaphor perfect,
For metamorphosis, for growth,
For life, even after death,
When I saw
A caterpillar morphs
Into a butterfly.
The exquisite transformation
Of stubby, furry crawler
Into a winged beauty,
Into an airborne fairy,
Is not a miracle,
It has a basic biological urge.
There is also a spiritual science, a divine urge
Behind the exquisite transformation
Of an ordinary mundane mortal
Into a saint.
Like a caterpillar
That stuffs itself with leaves
To grow, change and fly
As a butterfly,
An earthly mortal also
Stuffs himself with food divine
To grow and fly
Into ethereal skies,
Much like an angel.
Every earth crawler can rise and fly
To regions ethereal
By simply feeding on diet ethereal,
By turning away from life material,
By refining cruder passions.
But it is hard to relinquish id,
Man’s inherent basic constituent,
That keeps him tied down
To things earthly
And prevents him
From heavenly flight,
Making true saints scant.
Smashed in- between-ness
In the womb of melting pot
Dances meme of sorts;
Meme that sullies pristine psyche with mire,
That had also earlier affected our sire,
That annihilates like wild fire,
That takes coffin to the bier,
And some, to the pyre.
Colonialism when leads to hybridized culture
Reversion then to pristine pre-colonial culture
Is, for sure, impossible.
Meme infestation, causing hybridization
Also breeds domination
By one culture over the other,
Breeds split in personality,
Breeds clashes betwixt
Calcified traditional parents
And pliable, but splintered
modern children, adolescents and adults.
Globalization that radiate colorful multiculturalism
Is doubtless, exquisitely multicolored and captivating.
It also projects the entire world as one family,
But ironically, has split many families,
Has created socio-psychological dilemma,
Dysphoria, psychic pangs,
Impaired outlook and vision,
Has put one’s country against the other,
Has robbed one of his innate spirit of nationalism,
Fervor for patriotism, for e’en one’s religion, culture
And native traditional values.
Inability to leave one’s own culture,
Failure to adopt the alien new,
Though badly shaken and madly attracted
By its razzmatazz,
Leaves the normal-turned-neurotics
Suspended painfully
Between the two opposing cultures
And spurs them into wooing
The third fabricated surrogate culture
Wherein gratuitous violence and T V shows,
Dance, clubs, parties, drink and free sex
Reign supreme,
Become their source of existence.
They may boast of total freedom
From family home, tradition
And all social responsibilities,
But actually lapse into
Loneliness, rootlessness and desolation.
Finally, when reality breaks in on
The third illusive world,
They are fated to remain
An aimless, stunned and traumatized gypsy
Groping in the triangular world
To which they could neither totally belong
And from which
They could neither extricate themselves.
Colonial hangover hangs
On one’s head at times
E’en sans abandoning one’s country.
Upbringing and infestation of alien culture
Is enough to hybridize a well-knit person.
I’ve seen Westernized boys and girls in Hindu temples,
Wearing jeans, eating burger, hanging crucified cross
On the neck, but chanting ‘Jai Mata Di’, ’Jai Shree Ram’
And the like
With abnormal vigor, deafening voice and enthusiasm
But they sing hymns in praise of Christ in their schools,
Leading to the clash of different Gods, as it were.
Gods never actually clash,
The clash lies within our psyche, our fractured selves
That generate fractured faith
Wherefrom pathetically springs even,
Polarization of Gods.
When one hand is delusively pulled
By a strong God of one religion,
The other by another equally strong,
One is bound to be torn between two faiths.
Though knowing and believing fully well that
God is one in number,
One still allows subsidiary Gods
To obliterate one’s vision
From the main Supreme, Principal God.
Further, one also ironically invests certain powers
With smaller Gods to take decisions on smaller affairs
While the main, for bigger ones.
Is this not a parody of faith and religion?
Man is ironically not even aware
That he is psychologically sheltered and protected
By the God created with his faith.
Strangely, God is also not perhaps, aware
That the endangered species of man
That he created
Would eulogize and worship Him
For his own advantage.
Whatsoever it be,
As enlightened educated beings,
Get enmeshed not
In issues obtrusive and inconclusive,
For the way we live, think and act,
The character we evolve,
Are far more important, meaningful
Productive, beneficial and impactful
Than what we believe in and worship,
Than the atrophied religious values,
Than the calcified social norms,
Than the ideology and philosophy we nurture,
Than all that we imagine, think, feel and see.
