THERE’S an ironic texture to M.K. Kaw’s poetry which sustains your interest. It also surprises because its consistency is not predictable. There are simple poems narrating the poignancy of a human situation, as the poem to his daughter Iti, simply titled To Iti:1
You were in blue too...
...lightly resting your back
against my knee,
as yet oblivious
of the long years of absence
that would soon tear you away...
Such poems may be tucked between many others where a wry sense of humour constantly fli rts with the satiric. There are incidents from everyday life— a death, a change of season, an official meeting, sunrise and sunset— which are captured gracefully with a linguistic brevity that is commendable. There is in this long serving bureaucrat an eye for observation, a sensitivity to the external and a porousness to the emotional, which seems to have defied the impact of so many years spent disposing of files .
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Many poems deal with nature, the dignity of trees, birds, and of course, squirrels:
Life is a squirrel
chasing another
up the trunk of a tree,
down the trunk,
across the grass,
behind the rock,
around the mound....
My personal favourite is the poem On Hot August Evenings. Born in Srinagar, Kaw is a Kashmiri. And his poetry has passion when he writes about where he belongs:
But on hot, August, evenings,
when the skin oozes salt
and a clammy wetness usurps the air,
sometimes, suddenly
a doonga hovers on the lake
waves gently lapping at the bow,
the aroma of kehva is wafted
on saffron fragrance,
while a departing sun bequeaths
a voluptuous warmth
through flowered curtain.
