Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

Ketan Valand

Recently, i happened to simply peruse through some of the poems written by Indian poets. Known and otherwise. Of which one came striking and was powerful enough to have me sit and read it over and over again. The poet was a young man named Ketan Valand. His poems were in a class of its own, devoid of pretence and full of sound and fury glorifying everything from nothing, at times. His relationship with the English language and dominant delight over expression helped him shell out pieces like:

Days splatter away, hours cry and scream.
Minutes become breathless,
seconds burn out and dream,
of nothing but myself.
Myself means she
She is nothing but a distance,
A distance of time, flesh, desire,
blood and hope
A hope of our world,
Not hers, not mine,
Where there is only me and her
And our loneliness, which is divine;
But the distance exists, divinity does not.
Reality hits me and I’m caught.
In this fusion of distances
between me and her,
Hoping its only for now
and not forever.

Born on Sep 2, 1972 to Chimanbhai Somabhai Valand and Tarala Valand on the auspicious day of Krishna Janmashtami, Ketan was seen as a very mature and distinct personality from a very young age. His love for language and the written word started showing very early in his life when he penned his first poem at the age of nine. At the age of fifteen, he wrote

Tell me, tell me what Science has done?
Is it sorrowful, or is it fun?
Is it a flower or is it a gun?
Tell me, tell me what Science has done?

Tell me, tell me what Science has done?
To me Science is an art,
if you it within your heart
But if you it within your brain
It sometimes gives you a dreadful strain.

Apart from his interest in Arts, which he later on took seriously to pursue English Literature he also studied World History and Economics. He still continued to write poems in leisure, for that gave him great pleasure. As a kid, he is known to have felt pain and helplessness in seeing physically challenged children and child labour. Also later in life, his hatred for people who killed their wives and daughter in laws for dowry was lethal. Although no poems were written on it. His point of view, as I saw it was as common as every third person I’ve met. But he meant it.

He wasn’t married nor did he have a girlfriend. But he was waiting for a “down-to-earth understanding, unconventional, one who loved children, a bit sultry, a good sense of humour and above all a girl who loved him” kind of woman. He writes eloquently about his fantasy dream girl in “Burning the Passion”

To me, she’s no angel that’s for sure
But, this love as I know, has no cure;
Every hour, the feelings are there,
Burning desires and passions to bear.
Loving the smiles, laughter and dreams,
Sharing the tears and life as it seems,
Brushing away each other’s grief and sorrows
Touching each other’s present and tomorrow.
I can feel the fire kindle in her eyes
Now I know for sure there won’t be any more Goodbyes.

Now that we know the poet, lets try and understand the person he was. Ketan writes in his journal, which gives the world a keyhole insight into the mind of this poet in 38 points. He writes:-

I am KETAN
I came into this world nude.
The first thing I did as I was born was ask a date with the Nurse.
The earlier memories of myself are lifting skirts at the age of five or six and, getting slapped at 10, for doing the same.
Beauty to me is a “feeling” which is eternal, ecstatic, exciting, exhilarating, natural, soft, tender and that which has all the colours of life: like the sunset at the beach.
My most fascinating colour: Baby Pink.
I get turned on by one person only. Because I have lose practice of getting turned on by many.
One thing I did like to do the most is something that would make everyone love me, (though that’s impossible, ‘because “one” wouldn’t …’)
Handicapped children, child labour and death touches me. Deeply.
The only person I keep running back to is myself.
The last thing I do before going to bed is take my feet off the …
My favourite dress for myself is …
I like girls wearing anything…
The person whom I love to date is Madonna, because there would be thing to Cherish and to Justify My Love.
Dinner with Julia Roberts! Man, I wouldn’t have the guts to take my eyes from her. Forget about ordering.
The most fascinating female I have ever seen is Margaret Thatcher, for her whacky sense of Humour, which is a rare commodity in the female of the species.
I feel that I am an average looking guy, can attract a few glances on the street. I feel my biggest assets are my hair, my eyes and my lips.
Love to me is Love and Her.
Marriage is very necessary for me (I intend getting married on my 21st birthday) because it gives one stability, a goal and above all an Identity.
Seperation to me makes on feel the importance of the person you love.
Physical relationship before the ‘Knot’ should be limited and after, should be the first and foremost Duty.
My favourite accessory: rings, ear-rings and bracelet.
Love at first sight is only lust or infatuation.
Dreams to me are castles in AIR.
Nightmares are more realistic; because its everything about me in the past.
I love comedy, horror and Sci-fi.
Hindi-Amitabh Bachchan. English-Sean Connery, Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford.
Love Kishore Kumar, Phil Collins and Pet Shot Boys.
Movie-Ijazat Song-Hamein thum se pyaar kitna from Kudrat
My most worst habit lies behind the Bathroom Doors.
I envy the Afghan Father, he can have more than eight children.
I would be inevitably found in one place - Ladies Changing Room.
My friends are the closest ones.
My idols are Amitabh and in Constant Demeris, a fictitious character from the novel “The Other side of Midnight”
I am too frank for words.
I would have been a Goldfish or a Nightingale or a Penguin.
I can Resist Anything But Temptation.

*“Every age gets the literature it deserves. The poets of the 20th century have been writing poetry out of a conviction that poetry must get its hands dirty to take on the enemy and help preserve a liberal society and humanist culture.
Ketan has tried. His attempt to uncover life’s potential in a naturally tragic language, and his conviction that it is capable of expressing the full experience of its users, is a very deep one, deep in suffering and cruelty, yet drinking merriment and tenderness reflecting his awareness of the multi-cultural realities which he came across during his life time:”

Words are said and words are blown,
Some are felt and some unknown,
Beautiful ones are found in odes
Touching, caring and devotes
To all the hearts who dances
To the beloved’s smiles and glances,
With gracious moments and promises to keep
Through the summer heat and winter sleep;
Wish, everyone only could see,
Joyous hands and eyes of glee,
Flying to the sheltering skies above,
Tingling whispers on shoulder of love;
Wish life in not what it seems
Better in sleep and blissful in dreams;
Could anyone of us live,
Only to love and to give;
If that is so then I’m not dead
Far I could have never, ever been read!…

The following poems have come to be, what I’ve felt one of his best poems and my personal favorites. This one doesn’t have a title.

1.

Why?
Why are frustrations and expectations
Heaven sent with the first gasp of life?
Why?
Why do we live in bondages
And in bondages, shall we die?
Why?
Why is there a flight for every sky
And a sky for every flight?

Why?
Why is there light in every darkness
And a shadow in every light?
Why?
Why are there words that are never meant,
And yet we tend?
Why?
Why is there an end for every beginning
And a beginning for every end?
Why?
Why are we puppets in the hands of time and destiny?
Why?
Why do we kill and get killed by the hunger in you and me?
Why?
Why do there exist judgments that are chained by prejudices and by us?
Why?
Why is human an animal of carnal desires?
Why?
Why am I living for a dream?
A dream of an entity
An entity of a rebel
A rebel for the peace
The peace for freedom
The freedom, my ultimate vision
The vision that exists beyond
The past and the present
Beyond the Oblivion.

***
2. Somewhere

Somewhere, life is being pushed from
he warmth of the darkness of a womb
A foetus cries to the touch of harsh hands of
reality and the sight of its doom.

The silence that’s somewhere
somewhere within me!

Ketan Valand would have been 33 today. He died on Sept 28, 1993 while crossing the road in Marine Drive, Bombay. He was killed by a speeding truck. He was just 21 years of age. To think that a young man of that age write so beautifully had died young is a tragedy. But what is compellingly even more tragic is his poem that he last penned.

To know that he was going to die, sooner or later, he wrote this and showed it to his father.

Thou lives as thou has lived,

Human and the Dawn of a mere soul.

Its his birthday today and strangely I felt connected to his poems and the celebrity he was in his own little world, I am his fan. Hoping he was my friend, back then. Happy Birthday, Dude!

Credits
*Dr.M. Fakhruddin’s book “Contemporary Poets” that lists poets from all over the world. Most of them unknown.