A poet who bridged the gap between time and space

Kedarnath Singh’s demise is not simply the death of a great Hindi poet, but is also the passing away of a valuable period of the past for Hindi writers and readers. People who grew up in the sixties and after, have learnt a lot from Kedarnath and his contemporaries. This is a second major jolt to Hindi literature after the death of another great Hindi poet, Kunwar Narayan Singh. Kunwar Narayan, Kedarnath, Shri Kant Verma, Vijay Dev Narayan Saahi and Raghuvir Sahay were poets of the time when Hindi literature had already witnessed the progressive movement and the ‘new poetry’ movement. These poets were well acquainted with world poetry and the traditions and traits of Hindi literature. They were more confident and convinced of their modernity. During the phase of anarchy and disillusionment in the sixties, these were the poets who anchored poetic balance, moral and social responsibility in poetry. Perhaps, that was the reason why they proved to be a beacon for the younger crop of Hindi writers.

It was Kedarnath Singh, who influenced the later generation of Hindi poets the most. There is hardly a poet of the later generation who can claim that he was not influenced by Kedarnath in his writings. The spark in his writings, which springs from a fusion of the indigenous, lyrical and surrealist imagination at once reminds readers of contemporary Latin American poetry. That is why, his poem ‘Banaras’ always remains a favourite among the poetry lovers of Hindi. Kedarnath Singh believed in the leftist ideology and imbibed some of the wonderful elements of the progressive movement in his poetry but his literary understanding or interest never reflected ideological bigotry or narrowness. His works were translated into English and many Indian languages; in fact, he was quite popular among the Marathi and Malayalam readers.

The biggest and most significant contribution of Kedarnath Singh is that he proved conceptual or ideological commitment is possible without being loud and vocal about it; lyricism is possible in poetry without abandoning seriousness and good poetry is possible without being dull and prosaic. Perhaps he belonged to the last generation of Hindi poets who knew the classic tradition and crafts of poetry, the folk and classic literature and western literature. Hindi poets and writers who came after them know modern literature, but they are not well-acquainted with our own indigenous traditions of poetry. Kedarnath is among the writers through whose works we came to know about the Indian modernism. He was perhaps the last of his generation of Hindi writers who effortlessly bridged the gap between traditions and time periods. In one of his poems he writes —“where you have written love, write a road instead/ it does not make a difference/ It is the phrase of my time; it doesn’t make a difference”.

Kedarji was among those people who kept reminding that it does make a difference and it should make a difference.