Beyond the Sound and Fury : Conversation with Kisan Sosa

It was a hot mid-summer afternoon. The narrow, winding streets were deserted. Saiyadpura reflected little of the tremendous changes Surat had undergone during the last decade. From pranami mandir a street curved off to the left. Lining it were rows of jhopparrpattis which were in the process of graduating into more respectable lower middle class tenements. Kisanbhai was certainly very popular with his neighbours, but none of them knew what he meant for Gujarati literature, much less that the Gujarati Sahitya Academy award for the third time. But then all these claims made by tribes of poets- the crack about ‘unacknowledged legislators of mankind’ being , perhaps, the most hilarious , looking back from our point of time  have never been more than morale boosters!

KMS:	How do you react to your receiving the Gujarat Sahitya Akademy award for the third time? Does it make you feel you have arrived in Gujarati literature , that you have become established?
KS	As a rule, an award from the Sahitya Akademy is a token of acceptance to any poet.i have published five volumes of poetry so far. Of these, the last three have received awards from Gujarat Sahitya Akademy. But what really delighted and amazed me at the same time is the fact that one of them, Anauras Soorya contains only such poems which express, what I would call, the quintessential Dalit experience. That the Gujarat Sahitya Akademy could give dalit poetry the recognition it deserves despite the stronghold of certain execrable, parochial forces in Gujarati literature is certainly a remarkable achievement. I arrived long back in Gujarati literature. I don’t like the word, ‘established.’
Kms:	How would you assess your association with the dalit movement in Gujarati literature? How has it affected your creativity? Could you spell out some of the chef objectives of the movement?
KS	Right from the first sprouting of poetry in me, when i was not even aware of the word ‘dalit’, i could identify myself with the agony of the oppressed.This is not such a remarkable fact as it sounds, for i myself was born in oppression and suffering. i have drunk the bitter cup of life to the dregs, it was only natural that my first volume of poetry was titled sahara. In it i tried to recreate the devastation of the inexorable sandstroms of social upheavals which wrecked the lives of the insulted and injured. It is true that the ‘dalit experience’ found a voice in my poetry never before the dalit movement came off age. But it took a long time for dalit poetry to attain a form and temper of its own. The main reason is that a radical periodical capable of asserting the principles of the movement and of expressing the creative energy did not exist at that time.Gujarati dalit literature was still in its nascent stage. The rise of Naya Marg as a fortnightly committed to dalit literature and my association with   Indukumar Jani, its devoted and efficient editor proved to be a turning point in my poetic career. my  dalit sensibility discarded the frills of poetic traditions and emerged as the digambar, the naked uncorrupted self. I think the objectives of the dalit literary movement are too well known to need elaboration. In the widest sense, dalit literature aims to liberate the oppressed sections of the society from all forms of exploitation- economic, political, social and cultural. Dalit literature is a life force that goes deep down the earth and give sustenance to a thousand roots. within its horizons,it encompasses a vast spectrum of experience. from the massive struggles of oppressed humanity to the death –throes of the uninitiated dogs caught in the blind , ruthless onslaught of spreading traffic. of course , to a sensibility assaulted by the horrors of gas chambers, confronted by mountains of corpses , recounting the dark tales of dalit experience is a journey through the familiar terrain. Dalit literature is a sword that has been forged to kill the monstrous serpent whose venom is spread out over its thousand fangs.( Gandhiji called untouchability  a thousand hooded serpent.’). It has to go down into the subterranean den and retrieve the priceless gem,the sooryamani which has lain obscure for ages.
KMS	Would you claim to have brought out any qualitative changes in Gujarati poetry?if so, how would you  relatesthis change to the contribution of the dalit movement in Gujarati literature?
KS	In my poetry, it is always the context that determines the style and the tone.nothing is contrived , it is no more than a reflection of the operation of the dualities of agony, ecstasy and thought pemotion in real life.whether this is a qualitative change or not and whether it has any bearing in Gujarati poetry are questions best left to those critics who have studied my poetry. But for most of them, I am afraid, mum is the word! As for those who bother to open their mouths, their cynicism and hostility are too overwhelming to allow them to utter even left-handed compliments. Of course, there are exceptions, like oasis in a desert.  I am grateful to them for their unbiased analyses of the qualities of my poetry. Coming to Gujarati Dalit Literature, I have earnestly done my bit in widening the horizons, thought with only moderate success. Dalit poetry, which was once confined to a narrow strip of poetic experience, has now through its many practitioners, reached out to the vast, boundless plains of human quest and synchronized its voice with the tumult of struggling humanity. I have also made humble contribution in this development.
KMS:	I understand that traditional poetic forms like ‘ghazal’ and ‘muktak’ have been radically remoulded by Gujarati poets of the present generation. As a consequence, the thematic horizons of these forms have widened considerably. How significant is your contribution in this regard?
KS:	You can see that I have tried my hand at a number of poetic forms:’geet’, ‘ghazal’,’najham’,’achhandas’(free verse) and the Japanese form, tanka to name a few. I have found experimenting with new forms and new styles quite fascinating. But I am far from satisfied with the poetry I create. I still have miles to go.
KMS:	From the volumes of poems you have published, including the most recent one, Soorya jem doobi gayun harmonium , one can see that you are acutely conscious of the form of poetry you have neatly divided the poems into sections titled, ghazal, achhandas etc. looking back , do you feel that you were more preoccupied with form  more than necessary? Or do you think it is part of the poet’s regimen?
KS:	It was really done to make things easier for the reader. Of course, you can also call it the poet’s regimen. There is nothing unusual about it. On the other hand, if you scuttle the classification and print the poems at random, there is nothing unusual about that too. Perhaps it projects the versatility of the poet, his flair for metrical variety. But a poem is worthless trifle if it is just a pyramid of words between two pages enclosing only a ‘mummy’, a dead poetic expression.
KMS:	One often notices a celebration of personal experience in your poems. Full-throated expressions of agony and ecstasy strike the reader. At the same time , there are poems like, jeo,chhello manas and jhadpar, in which personal experience gives way to larger social concerns. The problem is that these two aspects of your poetic personality are not integrated. How would you explain it?
KS:	As I have already pointed out, it is the situation and the context that modulates my expression. I wrote in one of my ghazals: Dhime dhime chamdi phodine parsevo jhame Dost anveshak, kavita em uge che mane. (like swat through pores ofmy skin, Sprouts, my curious friend, my poetry.) The torrid summers of my past made me what I am. For a motherless child left to mercy of fate early in childhood, poetry has to be a personal experience. But like the waters of patalganga, the mythical subterranean river, the stream of my poetry remains the same whether it flows under the lush greenery of ‘lalit’ literature or under the wastelands of Dalit literature. What lies on the surface makes no difference to the human sorrow that flows in it. How can I understand the suffering of a society I live in, if I don’t suffer myself? My personal experience is inextricably linked with the collective experience of society. The whole of my poetry hinges on the personal and the social.
KMS:	Though you have shown little interest in Christianity as a religion, there is an abundance of biblical images and allusions in your poetry. How do you account for it?
KS:	Studying in a Christian Municipal school, I came in contact with the bible early in childhood. Many of my teachers were Christians. They were, perhaps, more generous and sympathetic towards me than their colleagues who belonged to other faiths. I owe much to them, especially to Mr.M.C.Benson. I think they had truly imbibed the humanitarian ideals for which Jesus Christ had fought all his life. In spite of this, what attracted me towards the bible were not the religious principles it embodied, but its value as an outstanding work of literature, its idiom, so refreshingly modern, its invigorating concepts and its vivid imagery. Christ’s identification with the poor and the downtrodden makes the gospel an egalitarian document. Who can remain untouched by it? In the Psalms, I heard the agony of the dalits. But I have no use for any religion, not even Christianity.
KMS:	What do you think of the friends in contemporary Gujarati literature and the general direction it is taking ? is Gujarati poetry passing through a phase of ‘post-modernist recession’ as is happening to poetry in some other languages?
KS:	A discussion on the trends in Gujarati poetry and the direction it is taking will necessarily be a long and complicated one. However, there is one thing which is crystal clear. Man, common man, has still not be cone the centre of Gujarati poetry. In the haydays of the Nationalist Movement led by Gandhiji , and the various social reformist movements allied to it , there was an element of compassion for ( even identification with) the poor and te downtrodden. Perhaps it was merely condescending sentimentally. But with the advent of what may be called ‘the age of Suresh Joshi’, even such condescending sentiments evaporated. Commenting on this directionless, suicidal trend in Gujarati poetry, Ramanlal Pathak, the revolutionary writer and original critic in Gujarati literature remarked: “in the age of Suresh Joshi, man who was expelled from the centre of poetry. It came to be believed that beauty in poetry was the outcome of a clever juggling of words. Similarly, in pursuit of te ‘man of the interiors’, human beings were divested of their external social life and were confined to the recesses of their mind. The mysteries of the human psyche became the only subject fit for poetry. Everything else was exiled from the domain: the bitter realities of human existence, the pain and suffering of everyday life, exploitation and deprivation. The writer was absolved of all responsibilities towards society.” This is the situation that still prevails in Gujarati literature. Yet , on the other side of this self-destructive tendency grows the counter movement of committed Dalit literature. It is rapidly becoming a force to reckon with. It is the voice of the changing times. In other languages, poetry may have left behind the period of recession, but not in Gujarati. Here one observes a proliferation of compositions going by the name of poetry, which are completely innocent of the social forces which will ultimately determine their destiny.
KMS:	What future do yu envisage fr poetry in an age dominated by the electronic media? Do you think poetry will ultimately be reduced to the concern of a microscopic minority and condemned to a precarious existence under a new ‘media apartheid dispensations’?
KS:	In an age dominated by the electronic media, a computer may write poetry. But , obviously, there has to be a human hand behind any computer! Through the ages, poetry has sprouted even in the impregnable fortresses of several ‘apartheid dispensations.’ It has survived into our times. Ezra Pound, shut up in his prison cell, could yet rejoice in ‘the sunbeam in the shadow of the worm.’ As long as man’s sensibility is alive, as long as he has eyes for the mystery and wonder of the universe, as long as he has tears in his eyes, there will be poetry in his soul. Who can say that the new ‘apartheid dispensations’ will not produce yet another kind of poetry, yet another revolution , yet another epoch making philosopher to inspire it? March , 1996