An Ode to Ozymandias

One reason why I abhorred poetry was how open to interpretation it is. The more you submerge in it, the more you realise its multifacetedness. No wonder then that poetry is considered closer to other forms of 'fine' arts. Regardless, this greyness is the very reason I hated it. Parsimony and simplicity has always been my strong suite. And so, I never understood the fuss around poetry. I have long accepted my unpreparedness to appreciate this form of writing. Despite that, I have also realised over the years that there is still some kind of the free-flowing form which appeals to me. I will be unable to convey what about certain poems appeals to me (I wish I could wax lyrical :)), but maybe that's the whole point of poetry. That something undescribable is being described, and that creates ripples which are even more undescribable. 

In very general terms, if the writing makes me forget myself and makes me start imagining that specific milieu, that time, those characters, then that poet offers me a chance at an out-of-body experience. There are many a poets in India whom I love to death. My love for Sahir, Neeraj and Shailendra is amply displayed on this blog -- all masters of their craft, not only because of their ways with the linguistic jugglery, but because of how simple, accessible, and yet revolutionary they made this form to be. I think each of them was unique -- in the sense that each of them brought a very different structuring of the form that was absent in others -- that they revolutionised the discipline. Add to that, their punches were not gift wrapped in linguistic jugglery; it almost seemed as if they immolated in the fire of the unjustness of this world, and re-emerged from it with a steely determination, each in their unique ways, and articulated that so astutely, that they converted you into addicts, provoking you to consume more and more of their creations, taking you to newer and newer highs.

For example, read this one by Sahir:

जिन होठों ने इनको प्यार किया, उन होठों का व्योपार किया
जिस कोख में इनका जिस्म ढला, उस कोख का कारोबार किया
जिस तन से उगे कोपल बन कर, उस तन को ज़लील-ओ-खार किया
औरत ने जनम दिया मर्दों को, मर्दों ने उसे बाज़ार दिया
जब जी चाहा मसला कुचला, जब जी चाहा धुत्कार दिया...

these words...hurting you, hammering you, bringing you down piece by piece, knocking you down in submission in merely five lines...

This post, however, is not about Sahir. It's about someone else. If I have to choose one non-Indian poet, whose writings I gravitate towards, my unabashedly emotional vote will go to Shelley. I feel he was a true representative -- in his thoughts, creations and being -- of the Age of Enlightenment. Surprisingly, many things I dislike about poetry in general, e.g., subjectivity, I love about Shelley. His passion and the choice of words, his interpretation, his rejection of epics and odes to the gods and the rulers, and finally and maybe most importantly, his imagination, take his poetry to another level. It only helps that he was an atheist and rebelled against many social conventions.

One of the most lovely poems by Shelley is the sonnet 'Ozymandias'. Here is an example of how no pursuit, however cerebral or disconnected it may seem from the masses, exists isolated. One must read the background that prompted Shelley to write this poem. For Shelley to have written this poem at a time when kings and queens were no less than gods and goddesses, he challenged their very legacy in a mightily subversive manner. 

The poem goes like this:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart … Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!”

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Make of it what you may. In my view, at a personal level, nothing more humbling than reading this poem, especially every time your ego is acting up. At the societal level, I think the poem speaks about the tragic reality of imperialism. In a very meta-manner, this sonnet by Shelley, which rebelled against rulers for a more pro-people governance, must serve as a warning for all those very same democracies who ended their rulers and ushered in democracies (including the one which Shelley's sonnet helped in cementing), but ended up becoming inward-looking and myopic, by serving only their people and their land and their interests, at the cost to others, and to that end, they turned autocratic and parasitised, invaded and destroyed other civilisations. Shelley's sonnet should serve as a warning because it tells us, that this egoistic pursuit doesn't last in the long run, that this too shall pass, and a new order will arise. The lone and level sands will stretch far away once again...