DALIP KHETARPAL

DALIP KHETARPAL

Sculpt Psyche For Social Survival

Psyche loses

Its pristine glory and freshness

Whenever social hands, willy-nilly

Sculpt it.

All constituent parts of psyche,

Be it thinking, feeling, behavior, bodily movements,

Gestures, or even soul---- are sculpted chronologically

Whenever it involves

Some social norm, faith, or belief structure

Of a specific identity---

----mainly to suit occasions, socially acceptable.

Sculpting so much of nature's gift

Has led to forfeiture of all human attributes.

So, what is left of man?

Natural un-sculpted feelings, thoughts and ideas,

Get no expression; they don't also die,

But keep struggling, brewing in the psyche,

So, could be fatal or, at least,

Result in a sudden violent outburst later,

Having consequences, damaging.

Man, as an architect of his own destiny,

Sounds fine,

But, as an architect of his pristine thoughts, emotions,

Ideas and feelings, sounds silly.

Is not feeling, thinking, living naturally possible?

Does one have to improvise everything so much?

Does one have to sculpt all nature’s gifts?

Should not one completely own

One's own mind, feelings and soul

And wear them fearlessly?

Moving far from nature external,

Destroys nature, internal.

Since civilization emanates

From controlling or sculpting

One's wild instincts and impulses,

The poor struggling un-sculpted psyche becomes uncivilized

While ironically, sculpted, civilized.

Sculpt psyche then to be civilized

And be acceptable by the civilized.

But a psyche, as such, is unreal,

So, be unreal and get accepted

By the unreal world,

Or be real with un-sculpted psyche

And remain marooned and get totally rejected

By the same unreal world.

While rejection leads to ailments of psyche,

Acceptance, to painful de-individuation.

Either sculpt psyche for survival external

Or, maintain its pristine glory

By leaving it un-sculpted for survival internal.

Choose whatever, the amazingly resilient,

But doomy nonchalant sculpted world

Would trudge to its impending doom,

Ceaselessly, relentlessly.

Survival Conundrum

Every modern child

Is ceaselessly overfed

With diverse views and news

Subjects and projects

Percept and concepts

And endless formative and de-formative

Influences

Which he fails to absorb

But which combine

To become a catalyst

For conundrum

For confusion

Of outlook and vision

Leaving him confounded

In the broad daylight

Of science and reason.

Parents moralize children

Who, gripped only with survival issues,

When grow into moral individuals

Fail to attain social and professional

Prosperity and progress

As they desire.

But can they now dare

Oppose their previous selves

And reshape their children

With unfair lessons?

They know, but now

Fully realized that

The unscrupulous floats,

While the scrupulous sinks

Moral principles and comfortable living

Are also antithetical

Leave alone those born

With a silver spoon

In their mouth.

Parents often tend to conceal

The unfair means

Through which they have risen…

Hypocrisy is universal

As some children also

Though feign honesty

Slyly and furtively display dishonesty.

Parents nurture children

With the best of everything

But fail to conceive

That the kind of world

They would grow into

Is the worst.

Care taking often

Imperceptibly becomes

Risk taking.

Bad feeding and grooming

Is beyond their ken.

So which parental

Caring styles and vision

Should confused parents adopt

For their (made) confused children?

Will this ever remain a difficult conundrum

For parents and their own children

Who strive for peaceful moral survival?

With an eye also on Mammon!

A Poet Often Has To Strive For Survival

The prosaic world

Allows not an inch

For poetry to clinch,

Not a tiny room

To boom,

Not e’en a little space

To breathe.

Sadly, natural, virtuous and sublime

Thoughts, feelings and emotions

Have failed to hold the sway,

For the spirit of man is dead.

Nothing good can motivate and enliven him

In this world

Of money and profit,

Of epicureanism and opportunism.

Adding fuel to the fire,

Consumption of art and literature is poor

While the number of its producers, rich.

Strangely, one loves to hear music,

Watch T.V., go to theatre,

To fill the vacuum of his emotion

And imagination

With sweet melodies

And fanciful stories,

Heard, seen and enjoyed directly,

Though in poetry and fiction

These are galore, in a form superior,

And also fire one’s imagination fiercely.

And because imagination has an infinitely

Vaster range than reality,

Imagined songs appear

Infinitely sweeter than the heard ones,

And stories imagined, more captivating.

But when exquisite truths as such elude readers,

The illusion of poets and writers to be read and savored,

Is exploded to bits,

Making them live like a renegade, a recluse.

But to create a little space to breathe,

A little reputable status,

To experience a little warmth,

A little love, affection,

Sympathy, fellow feeling and company,

They strive hard to evolve

Their own aesthetic microcosm

In the vast and densely materialistic macrocosm.

Doubtless, it is a cosy, beautiful and bright world

To which one often gets addicted

Since boosting encomia more or less reign supreme.

It is so through media multiple and channels uplifting, viz.

Face-book, internet, critical appreciation,

Favorable reviews, eulogistic evaluations and mass media

That praises are generally levied

To sometimes, only please, but at times,

Highlight the true merits of the artist----

-----all done for the psychic sustenance of writers

Since their artistic abilities sustain not their life.

Surely, with most writers, writing is only a passion

And never a profession.

A writer at times,

Becomes self-opinionated and vainglorious

On getting undeserved praise.

But then at least he,

Though with some conceit, survives

Who otherwise would, perhaps, have been dead?

So, praises, compliments, accolades and awards,

Conferred even on the undeserving poet or writer also

Often become an essential fuel to run his life,

To boost their morale.

Such a poet generally is also

Unaware of the insincerity, falsity of the praise,

Wallows in the fake glory of a fool’s paradise.

Extricating himself from this rut is not only painful,

But suicidal also, for a self-glorified poet

Sees and knows not

What he really is!

But then ignorance becomes not only blissful here,

But also, more importantly, the basis for his survival.

Many dead souls are rather seen resurrected,

Depleted spirits, related

With life and vigour, renewed

By feeding day in, day out

Purely on the diet of sumptuous

And healer face-book or other sources.

What’s the harm if a less competent, but honest poet

Survives on the diet of false praise?

At least he lives, is alive!

The psychic substance of a poet

Is distinct from that of a layman.

Since potentials exist with varying degrees

Of creative ability,

A poet may not rise to Miltonic

Or Shakespearean heights,

But a poet still remains a poet

And will always remain a poet.

But pitiable and aesthetically tragic

That even a great creative artist,

With masterpieces innumerable

Has sometimes to live even in fool’s paradise

For most of the praises are levied

Sans reading or comprehending his works.

But, should he also have to strive for survival

By wallowing in illusions?

And the final naked and harsh truth, however, is,

The whole world survives and thrives on lies

Or half truths

That often hold their sway over immaculate truth,

That dismay even all Gods and heavens,

So, why an inferior poet who unwittingly strives for survival

Through redeemable lies, acting as a panacea here,

Should dismay anyone?

Striving For Survival Through Face-Book,

C/O Narcissists

Narcissists, in ordinary life are generally perceptible,

When observation is keen.

But even sans keen perception,

They could easily be perceptible

When face-book account is switched on.

As an idle mind is the devil’s seedbed,

Face-Book quite unwittingly becomes the seedbed

Of idle maniacs, releasing

A stormy wave of narcissists,

Of ego-surfers, to simply taste

Trivial fake ‘likes’ and empty praises

For even worthless achievements and works

Often with concomitant manipulative certificates

Of appreciation and commendation

Which they madly famish for,

Embellishing also their dreary slot

By feeding it with the superficial diet whereon

They also strive to survive.

Thanks to the face-book creator for infusing new life

Into infinite narcissists, promoting their inane cause

And becoming a source of their survival.

Strangely, equal praise is elicited

By both the ugly and beautiful,

The stupid and the intelligent,

Proving how ingratiating praises are also so false.

But the plethora of compliments and praises

Chokes the helpless, yielding face-book

That has become a means of survival for its depressed users.

Hearty thanks to FB for granting a new lease of life

To countless users

And also for resurrecting the dead.

Striving For Survival In Adverse Milieu

Milieu is born

Of forces,

Socio-geographical, historical,

Cultural, conventional and religious,

While nature of man,

Of biological, psychological

Socio-cultural, beliefs and faiths,

But the battle betwixt

The two rages

When one tries

To bend the other.

However, for peace,

Man and milieu

Must coalesce,

Having distinct identities

Both exist in their own right,

But a wince of pain is felt

When the two collide,

When the two

Do not fuse.

Shockingly, while fusion

Robs a man of his identity,

Collision curses him

With socially maimed individuality.

Forced fusion

Or forced division

Of the two

Is psychically cataclysmic,

Making man continually smart

From its pain.

When transforming milieu is tough,

Changing one's nature Is also a bluff

Ironically, blessed are those

Whose self-effacing drives,

Seeking peace

Are in accord with milieu.

And doomed are those

Whose evolutionary dynamics'

Preserving identity

Are in discord with milieu

Though perennially but vainly

Strive to survive in a milieu adverse.

DALIP KHETARPAL

Dr DALIP KHETARPAL: Author, poet, critic, reviewer, columnist and short story writer. Former Administrator and Academician. Generally known as an off-beat writer, Dr Dalip Khetarpal’s earlier poems as witnessed in 'Fathoming Infinity' (1st and 2nd revised edition) were psychological in nature and dealt basically with the human psyche and the unconscious and subconscious mind. But he later shifted his focus to other wider desultory areas of life, like psychological aspects of man-woman relationship, spiritual love, sex, deceptive myths, mysteries of life, human soul and God, but not without elements of humanism and sometimes, metaphysics as reflected in his anthologies: 'Ripping into consciousness', 'Refractions' respectively. The anthology entitled 'Sculptured Psyche' though consists of some of the cardinal elements of the previous anthologies, unravels an endless quest to comprehend and highlight the vagaries of deep-rooted complexes, illusions, delusions and false notions of various vital issues of life man has fostered since the dawn of civilization. 'The havoc such issues create raises some pertinent questions, which reflect the eternal conflict among the three components of the human psyche, i.e. id, ego and superego, a la Sigmund Freud. The anthology, ‘Weird Musings,’ despite integrating and highlighting all the aforementioned elements, is a powerful and trenchant attack on the socio-moral evils and almost all contemporary abuses perceptible in this grim scenario. However, his satire is not caustic, for he compassionately tempers it with wit, irony and humor. His latest anthology, entitled, ‘Confluence’, co-authored with Dr Maria Miraglia, was released in China.

Despite his own creative undertakings, Dr Dalip has been contributing his poems, reviews, criticisms, appraisals on the works of various prominent poets, novelists and short story writers to various reputed national and international journals and magazines. He received commendation from widely read newspapers and won laurels, certificates and awards of excellence from India as well as from other countries like USA, UK, Canada, Italy, Greece, etc, for his creative writings. Currently, he is working as the Editor-in-Chief of The Poetry Society of India (patronized by its Founder President, Late Dr Yayati Madan G. Gandhi), as the editor of 'The Contemporary Literary Review of India', an international journal, and also as the co-editor and columnist of 'Contemporary Vibes', the refereed journal of literary criticism and creative writing. He is also working as Managing Director of a reputed educational institution.