From The Book:

** A Critical Survey of the Poems of the Anthology 'Hidden Facts'

Dr. Krishna Chandra Sharma

Head of Central Dept. of English

Chairman of English Subject Committee

Tribhuvan university, Nepal

Reading the poems of Swapnil Baral in the anthology entitled Hidden Facts is an exciting experience. Each of the poems beautifully unfolds the panorama of poetic sensibility and keen understanding of the prime spirit of life. Baral does have sparkling ideas on life, love, nature and scientific facts. The ideas find lucid and elegant flow in the forms of his poems. These poems embody a colorful spectrum of life. The present collection consists of different sized poems which manifest varied moods of the poet. The reflective and meditative mood gets expressed in slow and serious type of long poems whereas exciting and emotional mood usually gets expressed in short, sweet, and intensive poems.

Entire spectrum of this anthology moves round the idea expressed in the poem entitled "Exactly the same",

Nature writes poems, I just copy them

Honestly I say, I copy exactly the same…

Nature is who teaches, she is our mother

So if I write from her, it should bother no one other

Telling I am not creative, I don't feel no sham

Honestly I say, I copy exactly the same

Some of  his poems  such as "Mother",  "Rose", and "The Telephone Rings", manifest deep poetic sensibility  and  some show  keen observation of  life as in the poems "American Life", and "Change" . Sometimes the poet speaks like an aged person, a tone of  preaching and suggestion as in  the poem "Conflagration", whereas here and there he is obsessed with different mood of  love. Some poems combine many facets into one. One of the poems that has touched me deeply is "Swapnil and His Mommy". It combines the fascinating content i.e. his profound feeling towards his mother and style of dramatic monologue. In many poems the  youth spirit: romantic mood and  idealized mood, are  visibly manifested: "Beautiful Girls", "Don't Get Stripped", "Holding you tight", " I Miss You Today", " Kisses", "Loving Each Other",  "Loving each other ( modified)", "We shrink together", "Will you keep on smiling?", "You will be with me", "I was Hurt", "Crazy Love", and "Wavy skirt".

Some poems apply satirical note like "Life is Beautiful?", "Sinful God", "In the Name of Love",  "Blue is not the ocean" whereas some poems have philosophical theme like "Lust",  " Silence", "The Eternal God". These poems: "Hidden Facts", "Will Vs Limitation", and "The Distant Sun" focus on science ideas/scientific facts. Two of the following  poems have friendship theme: "Stranger remains Stranger", "I Gotta say Goodbye" . The poems "Grapevine Lake" and "Devkota and Dickinson", note the impression of the poet. In case of the first his impression of  natural site  and in the second his impression about two great poets of two different cultures - Nepali and American are recorded. In my reading the anthology I find the following  poems are  of very trifling type so it would be better to  remove them from the list, such poems are:  "Not to Lie", "Rape me Again", "Speeding", "Tomorrow Never Comes", "Virginity", "You went passing by".

While reading these poems I have  noted carefully some of   major ideas  and issues that  transcend the structural frames of the poems.

American life

The poem categorically states about the gap  between American life and Nepalese life. American life is full of speed and spirit whereas Nepalese life is  fully lost in the attempt to solve the hand to mouth problem.  It is not easy to describe the American life. In brief it is the life of busy person "Busy always busy, always stress in the eyes/No time to stand and look at the sky. Work and work every time …' life's for working'. American value of life is to give more  importance to work than anything else ' work is always a friend, it says  hello, never bye.

The poem also has a note of irony about  American life in the following lines:

Rest? It belongs to heaven; I'll sleep after I die.

There's no time to stand at all, and to look at the sky.

The poem "American Life" highlights some of the major difficulties that Nepali students usually face  in the US. They are bound to overwork to order themselves in America.

Beautiful  Girls

The poet shows his gratitude to God for making girls so beautiful  and he wants to keep them in his eyes. He opines that beautiful girls are ' lovely angels' ' butterflies ' if they are around in time of   sad mood it is bound to change to good mood. The reason why the world is nice is in his opinion is:

World is    fantastic, romantic, and so beautiful

Thanks God for making them so beautiful

The beauty is a miraculous attribute of  God to the earth and in this poem, the poet is thankful to god for making the earth so wonderful by making girls so beautiful.

Change

It shows a u curve in the mood of  the  poetic persona, from the joyful and easy mood in the past to critical and difficult mood at the present. That's why  what rendered joy and freshness earlier renders just the reverse at present. But no reason is given why this change has occurred in the mood of  the speaker. Things which are supposed to bring fun and joy like birds' singing, flowers blooming, dreams and music no more give him any pleasure.

Conflagration

The poetic persona wants  to make the world a happy place to live and for that purpose he wants to conflagrate  to all the things that make the people  greedy and  selfish for example 'gold' money from the bank. The way he presents his desire to make the world  healthy and happy  is worth quoting:

Let's gather all these stuffs, all of our possession

And we'll spark a fire till we get conflagration

In that conflagration 'evil germs of  selfishness which cause robbery and  murder will die and humanity will once again thrive in the world. He opines that:

This conflagration is a revolution

Of  peace, joy and rest, it's evolution

Don't Get Stripped

The speaker seems to be tired of very mundane reception of  love in the west and so he  does not want  his love to be "Few moments of pleasure", "seasonal", "a mean"  but it is  to be "spiritual", "evergreen" and "unique", "Deeper than sea".

Enough is Enough

It focuses   on the misunderstanding between two lovers and  depression  is the consequence of  the strained  relationship. Just in contrast to "Don't Get Stripped". The poem "Enough is Enough" shows the speaker's strained relation  and  frustrated attitude. He sounds to be tired  and  even  good  and beautiful things look like bad and ugly.

 Summer breeze became dead icy freeze...

 red roses are all useless old stuffs

Exactly the Same

The poet believes that Nature is the true creator, a poet merely copies what nature has already created:

Nature Writes poems, I just copy them

Honestly I say, I copy exactly the same.

Hidden Facts

What  we understand about  the universe and objects therein as facts are not facts. For example whiteness of  sunlight, blueness of  sky , tiny size of  stars and flatness of earth. That's why the poet says:

Facts are hidden, false are given 

Holding you tight

It's a romantic poem. Lovers feel the warmth despite coldness of  rainy night. It has also sexual connotation:

In shuddering motion flows the warmth

 holding you tight around my arms.

I gotta say goodbye

It has the theme of friendship. A friend who does not feel  happy at all during the Christmas because his loving friend is away. The sense of  goodbye to his friend is too painful:

Far away ,I know, I won't hear your voice

…Everyone is happy except you and I

I miss you today

A  love song. The speaker wants to be together with the lover after a long  gap. Perhaps they were separate for a long time because of  misunderstanding and now he wants to cement the gap:

Lets get together baby

You and I forever baby…

Kisses

The speaker wishes to live a happy life. He invites the beloved to come near and kiss him and live a happy life before they pass away from this world. The main idea comes in this line of  the poem.

We shall live in smile, life is not for crying.

Life is beautiful?

The very question in the title suggests the reverse meaning. It has very pessimistic view of  life. Life is compared with 'a thorny red rose.' Life does not reach to any point. It is very difficult to understand the line 'Life begins after death'.

Loving each other

Loving each other is a paradoxical  poem. 'Loving each other', 'feeling each other' sounds natural but the expression 'telling each other' implies supposition and thereby the whole point becomes hypocritical.

Loving each other (modified)

The description of  love is in the  past tense gives it a nostalgic air. There was love earlier but now it has became the matter of  history.

We   were loving each other

….We were telling each other

Lust

The root of all creation, the sun , the moon and the cosmos, is nothing else 'but the lust'. Though the word lust is associated with negative sense but here it is presented in positive light.

Mother

The speaker has profound love, respect and thankfulness to his mother. She appears as a embodiment of  love and care:

Oh mother ! I 'm small part of you , my mother

The love you give me , I'll never get it from no other.

On the Plate

History is perceived as one time reality, having an organic content and message:

It is the emotion, feeling, experience and  a story

Rose

Rose is symbolically used as a sweetness of  life and as our  teacher to understand the life. There are very beautiful images in the poem for example: the rose in thorny cage is presented thus - 'the beauty is in prison'. There are many  quotable lines in the poem. Just two lines are given here:

She is a teacher, my darling rose

the rhyme of my heart , she is not a prose

Silence

According to the speaker 'Silence is the sweetest music of  god'. In modern life style vehicles, plane, house gadgets like fridge, fan and AC inside and outside the house all the time disturb the atmosphere of  silence. It is on this ground he says:

Silence it's so hard to get

Though every sound is mixed in it .

Sinful god: A logical poem

If  God  is  the creator of  this painful life he  has committed a  sinful  act.  All sweet and beautiful things are full of pains and temporariness as  roses are full of  thorns and spring lasts quickly:

God you are a criminal

for making the life so painful

Stranger remains stranger

When we make acquaintance with new person, we feel pleasure but when we have to separate from that very person we feel great pain. This sense of  pain of separation  makes him feel:

God your creation ain't perfect

Lookin at it, I hope you also regret

Every time to depart, I feel so much pain

Oops! I wont see that person again

The Eternal God

Different  levels of  religions and their scriptures  divide us  whereas true religion which demands believe not argument  helps us smile and being together. The real spirit of  the whole poem is expressed in the following lines:

Let's not argue ,lets believe in the eternal god

The only god who is same for all of us

Who allows us to smile together

And make us feel good for awhile together

The Telephone rings

It is a good poem as it combines the sense of  hope and fear. For the last forty days  a father is waiting eagerly to hear the voice  of  his soldier son  on the phone. The son in his childhood was of  peaceful nature but now he is in warfront, his profession is  just contrast to his nature. He hopes any time of day and night the phone might ring and he will hear the voice of  his son. And at last the phone rings but unfortunately it was not the voice of his son but someone officially informs about the death of  his son. The father  feels with the death of his son he is also dead.

I have been said that my son has been dead

I have been said that I have been dead.

We Shrink together

Personification is beautifully used  to show the relationship between, two lovers (you and I). They complement each other as they were blank paper on which both of them write, their eyes as filled bottles. Their togetherness is nicely captured in the following lines:

We've blossom, we've fallen

We were found, we were stolen

Separated land masses but underneath the ocean

We link together

Broken from the mountain, floated on the sea

We shrink together

Will Vs Limitation

The world has  dialectical  nature .The concept of  free will is a myth and myth is not a reality Action depends on ability in the chained space.

The idea of  free movement is a hallucination. There is always a conflict between:

The dream vs reality

The possession vs ability

The freedom vs suppression

The will vs limitation.

Our understanding and scientific factors are most of the time  conflicting.

Will you keep on smiling?

Even when an  individual passes away, there is no difference in the flow of river, blowing of  the wind, shining of the sun and blooming of  the flowers. Nature is not affected by individual incident. To the speaker, the value of  life and the world is associated with  the smile of  his beloved. No change will affect if  she goes on smiling. That's why the expression:

Let everything be the same, will you keep on smiling?

In the Name of  Love

It is addressed to a girl who  used to love him earlier but now she loves somebody else .In the mood of  rejection he feels very old "Older than the earth', His lover is expert in love pretension "Kill another life again/ In the name of  love". Her smile is to break the heart. The following lines represent the spirit of  the poem:

Some know how to hurt

Some know how to love

you are good at both

Do you know what is love?

I was Hurt

It is a poem in memory of  gone love. He is driving and assumes as if she is with him  smiling and talking but suddenly he realized she was not there. The memory was so powerful 'tears have been falling'. He summed up entire course of  life in the following two lines:

I was praised, I was cursed

I was loved, I was hurt

Crazy Love

The lover is crazy in his love and he wants to love her with  the same intensity until his last day of his life. "In the blankets of  clouds/ I will kiss you baby'  forever". The poem  has many quotable lines as the following:

Not all fingers are equal

All nights don't have full moon

Some love last forever

Some burst just like balloon

Some lives are so sunny

Some rain in the monsoon

Wavy Skirt

The poem dramatizes the scene of early morning when the wind constantly lifts the skirt of  a girl and she continuously put her hand on the skirt to avoid it to be lifted by the wind:

So beautiful  it looks

your hands on wavy skirt

The Distant Sun: It's a nature poem

The sun is personified as it tells its story of  every morning and evening. The color of the sunlight  is described beautifully in the following lines:

Redness of your color

Kisses the blue sky

In sky is the flower

The sun is the narrator of its life and experience.

Swapnil and His Mommy

It is a wonderful poem in the form of  dramatic monologue. The poem opens with mother addressing Swapnil  to get up and be ready for school:

Wake up wake up Swapnil

Get ready for the school

As a child how he used to respond his mother;

Umm mommy ok ok

Can I sleep for an hour

His appreciative tone is overt about his mother in this line:

My mommy is my world

In fact, he recalls how his mother used to  wake him up for going to school. Sense of  emotionality and reverence are interrelated.

Devkota and Dickinson

Both of them love nature and humanity. Poetry was integrated part of  their life. He appreciates them in this way:

Devkota and  Dickinson

Amazing words of  sea

Poetry of  delicacy Like water and the lily

It is very simple poem as no clear distinction  is drawn between the qualities of  these two literary giants but simply forwarded the impression of  them after reading some of  their Poems.

Grapevine lake

In the first stanza it is described   how the surface of  water of  lake shines under the light. It appears as a model of  beauty of  nature. Ducks' singing sounds as if  'singing of the happiness'. Ruffling of  water of lake is beautifully presented in the following lines:

The blanket of the water moves

Beauty is now awake

Tears of  the suddenness

All you can not take

Blue is not the Ocean

The speaker sounds  regretting for saying earlier the  blueness of  ocean but now he accepts what  the other wants him to accept 'ocean is  crimson red' and also 'the sky is crimson red'. Hypocrisy is the fashion of  the day. Cleverness is used to harm and kill  people in certain excuse. It is said 'killing is for  saving'. Philosophizing is  sometimes absurd as in the below:

Life and death is cycle

It's okay to be dead

The ocean is not navy

It's crimson red

There are many poems composed by Swapnil Baral. Overall impression on reading Swapnil’s poems is that the poet is quite capable of rendering due sound and colour in all the topics he has included. I have unreserved commendation for his sense of reception, sensibility and presentation in his poems. I do wish reading more poems in days to come and wish him bright future.

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