Umal : A Collection of Poetries of Poverty, Personal Accounts and Painful Struggle

(Review of Umal ‘ a Garhwali , Asian Poetry Collection )

Critical and Chronological History of Modern Garhwali (Asian) Poetry – 51 B

                               Literature Historian: Bhishma Kukreti

      Poverty is an universal truth and human conscious poets create poverty and personal account oriented poetries as Confucius, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Dickens,David Olsen, Du Fu, Ernesto Cardenal, Frank Mc Court, Frederick Douglass, George Lamming, Gustavo Gutierrez, Julia Vinograd, Jelaluddin Rumi, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Michael Harrington, Maria Eugenia Lima, Miguel Hernandez, Mirabai, Muhammad Mahdi Mahdi al-Jawahiri, Muhammad al-Maghut, Pope Pius X, Ryokan, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell's , Wislawa Szymborska, Thich Nhat Hanh, Fred Taban, Robert Service, Robert Burns, Nissim Ezkiels, created very fine poems on poverty and struggle of poor people.

     Prem Lal Bhatt is famous Hindi poet, short story writer, critic and novelist. However, Prem Lal Bhatt published poetries in Garhwali language too. Prem lal bhatt wrote an epic Uttarayan (unique subject) and love oriented poems in poetry collection Kutgyali. Umal is unique in Garhwali poetic world but in the world literature too. All the poems of Umal are pertaining to poverty and experiences of poor people . We may find very rarely such volume of poetry collection in the world literature. Many Garhwali poets as one of the greatest poets of world literature Kanhaya lal Dandriyal wrote poetries on experience of poverty and poor people but even he did not wrote/publish all the poems pertaining poverty and poor man

      Each poem of Umal (published in 1979) is epic and provocative poem and stir the readers about doing something for eradicating poverty too .

Yes! Poverty is a fact and when a wealthy person who never experienced non availability reads the poems of Umal , he will also ask the God for creating this inhuman division among human beings that is depriving people for food available in this earth. .

Umal means to come out and Umal poetry collection is a experiencing hunger, deprivation , no protection from seasonal changes for the poor .

In a poem in this volume, poet tells us that i is not only hunger, extreme struggle for getting a piece of brad by the poor but there is aggression from rich people to poor people , there is oppression for the poor and the poor man cant do anything against the oppressions :

Me tain urkhyalai ki gahn si

Kwee dholi ge kwee kooti ge

It is paradox in this world that the human beings created a peculiar system that the producer can not taste his won produce because of poverty as explained by Prem Lal Bhatt:

yakh bhainsi palik bi kabi

Kyau minu chhau ghyu doodh mai

ghyu t ghyu rai byaj ma

Mayedu bi nasib ni hoi

The poet describes the daily life of a poor man through similarity or parallel that the day of a poor man is equal to sickness and night are as painful of an widow, the morning as weeping and evening as sucide. This author did not find any such poem in Garhwali language and even in Hindi explaining poverty in such emotional wording. The poet is master of wordings and figure of speeches

The poems of Umal prove that Prem Lal Bhatt is connoisseur of creating comparison or simile .

Such bhog ki ch pakin hisar

Bhala jog wala khana chhan

Inu kandu chubhi yeen karibi ku

Min khut bi ni alge saku

Though there is everything in this earth but due to discriminating and suppressing mentality, the poor is deprived from his fundamental right to have food, shelter and clothing.

Whenever a poor man gets anything but the poor does not have to capability to digest it or use it :

Kakhi gas giccha gai bi ch

Ghutun magar ai bi ni ch

The extreme poverty brings a hopelessness , a negative thinking that poors cant not think about rising from poverty and even the poor man forgets there is something luck or path for coming out of poverty:

Ky batalu bathu you jog bee

Jab bhuligyon hitnu hi mi

Myari thand ab ya kujog ki

Chup meri hadgyun ma baithi ge

There are challenges to the God from poor that instead of creting poor men , He should have created them animals that at least they (Poor) could not experiences of deprivations on every moment of life:

Jani kyoku you bhagwan bi

Kardu majak gareeb se

Mankhi ki surat de ki bi

Pashu hi Banyu kyau rani de

T

he nature and wealthier people torture, oppress, provide torment, harass equally to poor community and both do not have any kindness towards poor people :

Ju garib ch duchy vo bui

Dhan val bansi bajanu ch

Dukhdu dukhdu rai

Yakh you sanatan chaldu aye

Likewise, there are one hundred and fifty poems in this volume, which all are pertaining to experiences of poor people and there is no hope that any new rule of humanity will improve the situations .When a reader reads the poems of Umal, the readers experiences the emotions as grief, awe, detachment, remorse, fatigue, indolence, depression, agitation, anxiety, stupor, dejection, eagerness, disorder, terror, trembling, choking of voice, stunning, etc. Prem lal Bhatt expertly describes sadness in his poetries that the wealthiest readers will also feel the pinch of poverty and its emotions .

Prem lal Bhatt uses Garhwali proverbs, saying, symbols, images as words like-- gurmulya jog, apna bhujya bukkhan, hisarai danI, pichhnai ki rothi, palyun kutta kani ayee, ansi ma bi saunlu for creating the poems and therefore these verses are very much understandable .

The poet used Devprayagi dialects in his poems and used Hindi Sanskrit word very frequently in the verse of this volume.

The one hundred fifty poems of this volume state that the histrian of world poetry will always appreciate Prem lal Bhatt for creating such fine example of sad poems be relevant to struggle , pain, helplessness, hopelessness, deprived experiences, suppressed familiarity, oppressed situations of poor people.

Umal

Garhwali Poetry collection by Prem lal Bhatt

Year of publication: 1979Ad

Published by

Krishna nagar , Delhi-110051

Copyright @ Bhishma Kukreti, Mumbai, India, 2010

Umal : Exclusive Volume of Poetries Describing Poverty , Struggle of Poor

Umal: Experiencing the hunger, struggle for a bread piece by a poor woman

Umal : Challenging the God for Poverty and Inhumanly discriminations in the Earth