Heavens of Poets and Politicians — By Prof. P K Sharma

Musing and wondering over the two words poetical and political, both beginning with the identical alphabet P, amazingly, I cannot help pondering over the word “imagination” in its true and varying hues.

The famous author of the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Lewis Carrroll defines imagination in this fashion: “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” Then Jean-Jacques Rousseau views it, “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

In the light of these aforementioned thoughts, poetical and political imaginations for instances cited here emblematize comparatively positive as well as negative, latitudinarian and dogmatic “blind” an outlook too.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah in his  recent controversial remarks in Rajya Sabha reflected in his  flights of fancy: “Abhi ek fashion ho gaya hai-Ambedkar,Ambedkar,Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar.Itna naam agar bhagwan ka ke lete to saat janmon tak swarg mil jata  (Thus he went on to sermonise repeating late BR Ambedkar’s name half a dozen times asserting that if they have taken God’s name so many times they would have got a place in heaven till seven births) simply forgetting we are living in an age of “instant” love and instant marriage style of the late1980s Hindi movie “Chandni, “not to be patient enough to stand in a queue till seven births after reciting Almighty’s name many a times.

Shah thus imagined concept of “heaven” guided by his pure  political and religious outlook .By dint of the power,might and authority vested in him for over a decade,he did not himself at all fancy spelling out how to turn this earth into everlasting heaven with a message of love,brotherhood, peace,humanity, harmony and co-existence? As the popular belief goes,”God created man in his own form” why human beings do not think of creating heaven on this earth itself instead of yearning for it somewhere else for seven births together?

Then an evergreen poet Padam Bhushan Gopaldas Saxena NEERAJ haunts in this context who in his verses brims with affection,mankind and optimism penning down these loving lines :

        “Bas Yehi Apradh Main

(I just commit this crime time and again

I wish to turn this earth into heaven in which a man should just live becoming a man) ultimately becoming 1969 Hindi Movie Pehchaan’s lyric too.

Contributed by : Prof PK Sharma* Freelance Journalist, Associate Professor of English (Retired),

Pom Anm Nest, BARNALA(Punjab)