Keki N.Daruwalla As A Poet Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla as a poet is
But a writer of dramatic monologues,
Not the soliloquies,
Verbose and bombastic
In his phraseology, syntax and diction,
Sarcastic and sardonic in tone and tenor.

A Parsi poet, he is of the Tower of Silence,
The Fire Hymns,
The vulture, the hawk and the kite encircling around,
Hover over,
Perching upon the house
To feast and feed upon the dead body
Kept on the tower complex.

A police officer, he tells of violence, bloodshed and hatred spilling over,
Silence treacherous and conspiring,
Anger brewing,
The eyebrows looking tense,
The curfew clamped over,
The riot-torn areas;
Vengeance taking over,
Revenge on the anvil.

A poet of the morgue, the cholera ward and its depiction,
The patients being taken to,
Sanatoriums recuperating or sick with pale patients,
Murder, suicide or accident,
Criminology or conspiracy,
Plots hatched or nipped in bud,
The crux of the matter,
Adding to the suspense of mind.

A tragedian in poetry,
He derives from Aristotle’s Poetics,
Learning from and substantiating his stance
From allusions to Aeschylus and Seneca, Shakespeare and Webster,
A poet just like Robert Browning
And in the mould of Ted Hughes,
Not like Valmiki getting sentimental
At the sight of the shooting of the pair of cronch birds
By the native, cruel and aboriginal falconer
And the birds fallen in blood
Which the poet could not see.

A poet psychological and social,
He is satiric and commentative too,
Taking in his clutches the society and its order,
Adding to the experience
Through his postings and placements,
Landscapic viewings and their storage,
Cathartic and therapeutic like Ezekiel,
But not an alien insider
Though may be one born in British India
In Lahore and its suburbs.