Reading Time: 4 minutes
A young News Reporter at CNN-IBN and News 9 shows how deeply he is affected by human trauma through a recent anthology of profound, powerful and deeply insightful poems. Samrudhi reports about a book launch, in New Delhi, for Different Truth.
A product of the famous Doon School at Dehradun, India, Ayushman Jamwal who has completed his education at the Cambridge University, U.K. works as a dedicated reporter at CNN-IBN and now News 9. I met the then 27-year-old Ayushman for the first time at a book launch event, way back in December 2016, where his debut poetry collection Chameleon Lights was launched by AuthorsPress along with several other book launches including my fourth poetry collection Communion.
Recently, his second anthology of poignant and strikingly evocative poems Silent Sun published by BecomeShakespeare was launched at Oxford Book Store, New Delhi on 19th August, 2018. And as one of the three guest poets of the event, I had a chance to have a critical insight into his vivid verses which have always fascinated me.
The poems deal with a varied range of themes, stretching across a wide spectrum of issues, human sentiments, feminism and tragedy. To quote the words of the poet:
“There is a celebration of the Silent Sun in all of us.
The countless voiceless tales beckoned to the Universe.
The spirit that elevates us above our primordial origins.
Find your fire between the lines”
The Foreword for the book, aptly penned by Dr. Lalit Mangotra, a Sahitya Akademi award winning writer and poet and President of the Dogra Sanstha in Jammu and Kashmir is an in-depth critical analysis of some of the poems. As a guest poet, I spoke about the unique writing style, the alchemy with words that this celebrated young poet possess. Going way beyond the mundane and ordinary, his penmanship shows a distinct evolution in the trajectory of words, the choice of themes and specifically the titles that make his poems worthy of reading and re-reading. He is, amongst this proliferating population of self-proclaimed poets and authors, someone whose poems compel the reader to stop and contemplate the deeper meaning of each line.
A deeper critical probe into the poems shows that this young man, unlike most journalists and media personnel, has a different side too – a positive and vibrant, nevertheless a restless spirit deeply saddened by the human condition and is in constant search for answers. In Bipolar Heart, the sixth poem in the collection, his writing paints a hues of the divergent personalities of a woman and at the same time ponders over the dilemma of offering her some love – would it be worthwhile or would it be rejected.
“Her passion is, divine and dangerous,
A fragile heart so fierce,
Black magic and whispers narcotic
Fearlessness of a spirit so careless…”
In another poem The Lost Artist, he talks of the famous Rockstar Chester Bennington, who committed suicide last year and asks the audience whether they still listen to Chester’s songs in the same way that they used to earlier? And the answer is a definite no. As he puts it himself, Anshuman says that now when he rewinds through those songs the realization hits him that while everyone was cheering and howling to his music, Chester was actually a man rigged in pain, his renditions, a silent plea for help that went unnoticed amidst the success and limelight where he was never at home.
“My words are heavy,
My truth, I struggle to carry,
Memories like a stifling collar,
Before this daunting dark, I only grow smaller,
I dive into this crowd with just my voice,
I cry, they rejoice”
As he narrates on stage about his conversations with a lady deeply traumatised a couple of days prior to the famous Supreme Court verdict on Triple Talaqah, he admits that her despair pierced his heart, turning his mind into a chaotic whirlwind of thoughts and that’s how the poem ‘Am I Not God’s Child?’ was composed.
“The union of two souls I thought,
Home for new life & love, I always sought,
Hoping for happiness, was I naïve?
He said it was God’s decree, he could abandon me & leave,
Discarded, a shroud of shame they wrap around me.
Do you think the Prophet would grieve?”
As a part of the event, I was asked to reflect upon one of his poems and I chose Neon Chaos, a poem he had penned down much earlier and I had had the opportunity to read, a poem that had left an imprint upon my mind. Here the poet grapples with trauma of having to live in a Godless world, devoid of ethics and morality and his anguish finds its release in verse steeped in a kind of ruthless irony:
“No King, Master or Crusader can make it depart,
Eternal sanctuary when God doesn’t have a heart,
In the Devil’s palace, fate remains a coin toss,
In the hurt, ecstasy & freedom of the Neon Chaos.”
All in all, this collection of 20 poems, each equally efficacious, makes this collection a unique and brilliant one, a magnum opus for the moment. Artists like Ayushman Jamwal are an inspiration to the creative community and deserve applause.
Other prominent poets and writers present at the launch were N. Srivastava (as a guest poet), Satbir Chaddha and Deepak K Choudhary. Speaking at the event, he said that there’s a shining sun inside all of us and what actually raised my respect for this young artist even more was the way he appreciated feminine power, taking into account the inflammable passionate spirit of all women he has known and seen, his mother, his friends and colleagues too. His achievements far out do his age and yet, the humility and encouraging approach that he possesses shows that even though his verse speaks for itself, he remains grounded, down to earth and it has been a real pleasure and an honour to have been a part of the launch, where not only the guest poets had critical discussions on poetry, but also the audience were encouraged to interact with the poet and ask questions and give suggestions. To put it in a nutshell, this book and the poet himself do have a luminous future and many more accolades to come.
©Samrudhi Dash
Photos sourced by the author
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