என் எதிர்- இரங்கற்பா கவிதைகளும் சமகால உலகக் கவிதைகளின் போக்கும் — எம்.டி.முத்துக்குமாரசாமி

 

நான் “வெல்வெட்டில் பொதிந்த வைரம்”  என்ற கவிதையில், (ஆங்கிலத்தில் The Necessary Velvet என்ற என் கவிதை) 

“மீட்சி வலிக்கு அப்பால் இல்லை,

 அதன் நேர்த்தியான, நெஞ்சை சுக்குநூறாக்கும்

வளைவுகளுக்குள் தான் இருக்கிறது.”

என்ற  வரிகளை எழுதியிருப்பதற்கு கவிதைகளைப் பகிர்ந்துகொள்ளும் என்னுடைய ஐரோப்பிய நண்பர்கள் வாட்சப் குழுமத்தில் ஒரு இளம்பெண் கடும் எதிர்ப்பு தெரிவித்திருந்தார். நான் வலியை, துயரத்தை, துயருருதலை ரொமாண்டிச மனோபாவத்தோடு அணுகுவதாக அவருடைய குற்றச்சாட்டு. நான் துக்கம் உயர் கவித்துவத்துக்கு இட்டுச் செல்வதாகவும் (கோ யுன் முன்னுரை), துக்கம் அழகுடன் பிரிக்க இயலாதபடிக்கு பிணைந்திருப்பதாகவும் (காவபட்டா நாவல்கள் பற்றிய என் கட்டுரைகள்),  உடைந்த ஜன்னல் கண்ணாடியின் வழி கசியும் மாலை நேர வெயில், ஜூன் இரவுகள், ஸ்டிராபெர்ரிப் பழங்கள் (I do not praise your mutilated world என்ற கவிதை)  என அனைத்தும் துக்கத்தின் சாயல் படிந்திருப்பதாக எழுதுவதன் மூலம் துக்கத்தை புகழுரைப்பதாகவும் அவர் என்னிடம் ஆவேசமாக வாதாடினார்.

இன்று விநாயகசதுர்த்திக்கு வீட்டுக்கு வந்திருந்த என் கொரிய/லிசு பேராண்டி ஏழு மாதக் குழந்தை; அவனே ஒரு குட்டிப்பிள்ளையார் போல வசீகரமாக இருந்தான். அவனுக்கு இரண்டு அரிசிப் பற்கள் முளைவிட்டிருக்கின்றன. மேலும் பற்கள் முளைக்க அவனுக்கு நம நம என்று இருக்கவேண்டும். அவன் கையில் கிடைத்தது எல்லாவற்றையும் கடிக்கிறான்.  நான் அவனைக் கையிலெடுத்துக் கொஞ்சியபோது அவன் என்னையும் கடித்தான். அந்த இளம்பெண், என் கவிதைகளில் தொடர்ந்து வரும் மனிதர்களற்ற நிலக்காட்சிகளும், எல்லாவற்றையும்  காற்றின் போக்குக்கும் விண்மீன்கள் மரித்தலுக்கும் நிலவின் பிஸ்கட் துண்டுகளுக்கும் ஒப்புக்கொடுத்துவிடுவதும் துக்கத்தின் பேரலையில் நான் மடங்கியும் மயங்கியும் கிடப்பதாகச் சொல்லியது எனக்கு என் பேரன் அரிசிப்பற்களால் என்னைக் கடித்தது போல இருந்தது. 

நான் அவருக்கு நான் எழுதுவது எதிர்- இரங்கற்பா (Anti Elegy) கவிதைகள்  என்றும் அவற்றை அவற்றின் தொனியால் வாசிக்கவேண்டும் என்றும் கேட்டுக்கொண்டேன். 

இரங்கற்பா, அதன் செவ்வியல் வடிவத்தில், இறுதியில் ஆறுதல் என்ற அடித்தளத்தில் கட்டமைக்கப்பட்ட ஒரு வகையாகும். ஜான் மில்டனின் 'லிசிடாஸ்' கவிதையில் வரும் மேய்ச்சல் நில ஆறுதல் முதல், ஆல்ஃபிரட் டென்னிசனின் 'இன் மெமோரியம் ஏ.எச்.எச்.' கவிதையில் நம்பிக்கை, சந்தேகம் ஆகியன குறித்த போராட்டம் வரை, பாரம்பரிய இரங்கற்பா முறையானது வாசகரை துக்கம் தரும் இதத்தையும்  புகழையும் இறுதியில் ஒருவிதமான உயர்நிலையை ஏற்றுக்கொள்தல் ஆகியன மூலம் வழிநடத்துவதாகும்.     

இந்த ஆறுதல் குறித்த வாக்குறுதியானது போதுமானதல்ல என்பது மட்டுமல்லாமல், நேர்மையற்றதுமாகும்.   என் எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா என்ற எழுத்து முறை தீர்மானமான முடிவை நிராகரிப்பதன் மூலமும், மொழியின் எல்லைகளை கேள்விக்குட்படுத்துவதன் மூலமும், தனிப்பட்ட துயரத்தை ஒரு கடுமையான அரசியல் குற்றச்சாட்டாக மாற்றுவதன் மூலமும் இழப்பை எதிர்கொள்கிறது. 

எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா அதன் முன்னோடியிலிருந்து விலகும் முதன்மையான புள்ளி, அது ஆறுதலை உறுதியாக நிராகரிப்பதாகும். பேரழிவுகள், அமைப்பு ரீதியான வன்முறைகள்  சூழலியல் சரிவின் அச்சுறுத்தல் ஆகியவற்றால் குறிக்கப்படும் ஒரு காலகட்டத்தில், இழப்பிற்கு ஒரு நேர்த்தியான, மீட்பு அளிக்கும் முடிவு என்ற எண்ணம் ஒரு உணர்ச்சிவசப்பட்ட பொய்யாக மட்டுமே இருக்க முடியும். நான் ஆறுதல் அளிப்பதற்குப் பதிலாக, துயரத்தின் கசப்பான, ஜீரணிக்க முடியாத இயல்புக்குச் சாட்சியாக நிற்பதைத் தேர்ந்தெடுக்கிறேன். 

இப்படியான எழுத்து முறைக்கு உலகக்கவிதைகளிலும் பல உதாரணங்கள் இருக்கின்றன. அமெரிக்கக் கவிஞர் ஷரோன் ஓல்ட்ஸின்  'தி ஃபாதர்' என்ற தொகுப்பில், தனது தந்தையின் புற்றுநோயால் ஏற்படும் மெதுவான மரணத்தை, மருத்துவத் துல்லியமான, ஏறக்குறைய கொடூரமான நேர்மையுடன் அவர் ஆவணப்படுத்துகிறார். ஆன்மாவின் பயணத்திற்கான உயர்ந்த உருவகங்கள் அங்கு இல்லை; பதிலாக, சிதைந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் உடலின் கடுமையான யதார்த்தம் உள்ளது. 'தி கிளாஸ்' போன்ற கவிதைகளில், அவர் தனது தந்தையின் "உண்மையான விலா எலும்புகள், அவரது இடுப்பெலும்புகளின் விளிம்புகளை"ப் பார்ப்பதாக எழுதுகிறார். இது வாசகரை மரணத்தின் பௌதிக யதார்த்தத்தை எதிர்கொள்ளும்படி கட்டாயப்படுத்துகிறது. இது உயர்நிலையைத் தேடும் ஒரு புலம்பல் அல்ல; இது ஒரு பௌதிகச் செயல்முறையின் அசைக்க முடியாத பதிவு. இது வாசகருக்கு ஆறுதலை அல்ல, மாறாக கடினமான உண்மையை விட்டுச்செல்கிறது. கவிதையின் சக்தி, அது உற்று நோக்குதலி ல் இருக்கிறது ; அதன் மூலம் மரணத்தை அழகுபடுத்துவதையோ ஆன்மீகப்படுத்துவதையோ நோக்கமாகக் கொண்ட இரங்கற்பாவின் உந்துதலை அது நிராகரிக்கிறது.

 எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா அடிக்கடி துயரத்தை அரசியலாக்குகிறது, துக்க அனுசரிப்புச் செயலை ஒரு தனிப்பட்ட அனுபவத்திலிருந்து ஒரு பொது விமர்சனமாக மாற்றுகிறது. 

கரோலின் ஃபோர்ஷேவின் முன்னோடியான படைப்புகள், குறிப்பாக 'தி கன்ட்ரி பிட்வீன் அஸ்' தொகுப்பு, இந்த மாற்றத்தை எடுத்துக்காட்டுகிறது. அவரது புகழ்பெற்ற உரைநடைக் கவிதை, 'தி கர்னல்', ஒரு தனி நபருக்கானது அல்ல, மாறாக ஒரு முழு தேசத்தின் மனிதாபிமானத்திற்கான ஒரு எதிர்-இரங்கற்பாவாகும். எல் சால்வடாரில் ஒரு இராணுவ கர்னலுடன் இரவு உணவை விவரிக்கும் அந்தக் கவிதை, உணவுக்குப் பிறகு அவர் மனிதக் காதுகள் நிறைந்த ஒரு சாக்குப்பையைக் கொட்டி மேசையில் பரப்புவதை விவரிக்கிறது. இது போன்ற கொடூரங்களைச் செரிப்பதற்கு பாரம்பரியக் கவிதை வடிவங்களின் போதாமையை இது நேரடியாக எதிர்கொள்கிறது. கவிதை எந்தப் புலம்பலையும், புகழ்ச்சியையும், ஆறுதலையும் வழங்கவில்லை. அது ஒரு சாட்சியத்தின் பகுதி, ஒரு குற்றச்சாட்டு. அதன் எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா சக்தி, வன்முறையை அழகியல்மயமாக்குவதை மறுத்து, அதை ஜீரணிக்க முடியாத உண்மையாக முன்வைப்பதில் இருக்கிறது. 

இந்த பிரதிநிதித்துவத்தின் நெருக்கடி—அதாவது, முழுமையான இழப்பின் முன் மொழியே தோல்வியடைகிறது என்ற உணர்வு—எதிர்-இரங்கற்பாவின் மற்றொரு மையக் கொள்கையாகும். பாரம்பரிய இரங்கற்பா இறந்தவர்களை கவிதையின் மூலம் அமரத்துவப்படுத்த முடியும் என்று நம்பும் இடத்தில், எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா பெரும்பாலும் தனது சொந்த வரம்புகளைப் பற்றி சுய-விழிப்புணர்வுடன் உள்ளது. உதாரணமாக என்னுடைய  “எல்லாவற்றுக்குமான பிரியாவிடை” என்றகவிதையில் வரும் பின்வரும் வரிகள் மொழியின் தோல்வியைத்தானே சொல்கின்றன?

“உன் உதடுகளால் அவள் தோளில் வரைந்த 

கடற்கரையும் எல்லா தடயங்களையும் அழித்துவிடும்

என்பதற்கு அந்தியில் மறைதலை அறிதல்

விம்மலின் இலக்கணத்தில்

பெருமூச்சின் மொழியமைப்பில்

ஆழமான பயிற்சி”

கனேடிய செம்மொழியியலாளரும் கவிஞருமான ஆன் கார்சனின் 'நாக்ஸ்' இந்த வகையில் ஒரு மகத்தான படைப்பாகும். தன்னைப் பிரிந்து வாழ்ந்த சகோதரனுக்காக ஒரு இரங்கற்பாவாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட இக்கவிதை ஒரு பாரம்பரியப் புத்தகம் அல்ல, மாறாக ஒரு பெட்டியில் வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ள, acordeon இசைக்கருவியைப் போல விரியும் ஒரு பொருள், "[அவர்] உருவாக்கிய ஒரு புத்தகத்தின் பிரதி" ஆகும். அதில் கடிதங்களின் துண்டுகள், பழைய புகைப்படங்கள், ஒரு சகோதரனுக்கான பண்டைய இரங்கற்பாவான கேடலஸின் 101வது கவிதையை மொழிபெயர்க்க கார்சன் எடுக்கும் கடினமான, பெரும்பாலும் தோல்வியுறும் முயற்சிகள் ஆகியன அடங்கியுள்ளன.  'நாக்ஸ்'-ன் பௌதிக வடிவம்—நேர்த்தியாகக் கோர்க்க முடியாத துணுக்குகளின் தொகுப்பு—துக்கத்தின் ஒருங்கிணைப்பின்மைக்கு ஒரு உருவகமாகும். மொழிபெயர்ப்பில் அவர் படும் சிரமம், தனது சகோதரனின் இழப்பை முழுமையாக அணுகவோ அல்லது வெளிப்படுத்தவோ முடியாத அவரது இயலாமையைப் பிரதிபலிக்கிறது. இந்தப் படைப்பு ஒரு முழுமையான, மெருகூட்டப்பட்ட நினைவுச்சின்னம் அல்ல, மாறாக ஒரு தோல்வியின் ஆவணமாகும். ஒரு சிக்கலான இழப்பிற்கான உண்மையான இரங்கற்பாவை எழுதுவது சாத்தியமற்றதாக இருக்கலாம் என்றும், மிகவும் நேர்மையான பதில் என்பது துண்டுகளையும், மௌனங்களையும், அந்த முயற்சியையுமே முன்வைப்பதுதான் என்றும் அது சக்திவாய்ந்த முறையில் உணர்த்துகிறது.

 எதிர்-இரங்கற்பாவின் கூறுமுறை மனிதனைத் தாண்டி விரிவடைந்துள்ளது. கவிஞர்கள் மனிதரல்லாத உலகத்திற்காக—அழிந்துபோன உயிரினங்கள், இறந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் சூழல் மண்டலங்கள், சேதமடைந்த ஒரு கோளிற்காக—இரங்கற்பாக்களை அதிகளவில் எழுதி வருகின்றனர். இந்த சூழலியல் துக்கம் இயல்பாகவே எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா தன்மை கொண்டது.

தற்போதைய அமெரிக்க அரசவைக் கவிஞர் அடா லிமோன் அவரது 'தி கேரியிங்' தொகுப்பில் உள்ள 'தி லீஷ்' என்ற கவிதையில், தனது தோட்டம்  நாய் ஆகியவற்றின்  அமைதியான உலகத்தைக் கவனிப்பது, உலகின் பலவீனம் குறித்த ஒரு நிலையான பதட்டத்தால் சிதைக்கப்படுகிறது. அவர் "எப்போதும் இறப்பவற்றின், எப்போதும் பிறப்பவற்றின் பாடலைக்" குறிப்பிடுகிறார், ஆனால் அதன் தொனி ஆழ்ந்த அமைதியின்மையுடன், தற்காலிகமானதாகவும் உணரப்படும் ஒரு அழகிற்கான புலம்பலாக உள்ளது. இயற்கையின் நித்திய மீள்வருகை குறித்த எந்த வாக்குறுதியும் அடா லிமோனின் கவிதைகளில்  இல்லை;  மாறாக தீவிரமாக நாம் இழந்து வரும் ஒன்றைப் பற்றிய அமைதியான, வலியோடு கூடிய விழிப்புணர்வு மட்டுமே உள்ளது. இது ஒரு தெளிவான முடிவற்ற துக்கம், கைப்பற்றப்பட்டுக்கொண்டிருக்கும் ஒரு எதிர்காலத்திற்கான புலம்பல்.  

எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா என்பது துக்கத்தை நிராகரிப்பது அல்ல, மாறாக அதனைத் தீவிரமாக மறுசீரமைப்பது. இது நமது சமகால உலகம் கோரும் ஒரு கவிதை வடிவம்—எளிதான பதில்களை சந்தேகிக்கிற, அரசியல் உணர்வுடைய, தனது சொந்த வரம்புகளைப் பற்றி வேதனையுடன் அறிந்த, அறிவிக்கிற வடிவம். 

கடந்த காலத்தின் ஆறுதல்களைத் தவிர்ப்பதன் மூலம், ஷரோன் ஓல்ட்ஸ், கரோலின் ஃபோர்ஷே, ஆன் கார்சன், அடா லிமோன் போன்ற கவிஞர்கள், நெகிழ்ச்சியான, நேர்மையான  சக்திவாய்ந்த நினைவுகூரும் முறையாக ஒன்றை உருவாக்கியுள்ளனர். எதிர்-இரங்கற்பா துக்கத்திலிருந்து வெளியேறுவதற்கான ஒரு பாதையை வழங்கவில்லை; பதிலாக, அது தைரியமாக அதிலேயே வாழத் தேர்வுசெய்கிறது. இறந்தவர்களைக் கௌரவிப்பதற்கான மிக ஆழ்ந்த செயல், அவர்களின் இல்லாமையில் மெருகூட்டப்படாத உண்மையையும், அவர்கள் விட்டுச் சென்ற உலகின் உடைந்த நிலையையும் எதிர்கொள்வதே என்று அது வலியுறுத்துகிறது. 

எதிர் -இரங்கற்பா வகையினத்தை சேர்ந்த என் கவிதைகளும் ஆறுதலுக்கானவை அல்ல, மாறாக அசராத சாட்சியத்தின் சத்தியவாக்குகள்.

மீண்டும் “எல்லாவற்றுக்குமான பிரியாவிடை” கவிதையில் எழுதிய வரிகளை அந்த இளம்பெண்ணுக்கு  நினைவுபடுத்தினேன்:

“என்ன மிஞ்சுகிறது?

எளிமையான ஒன்று. 

தூய்மையான ஒன்று.

ஒரு பிரக்ஞை, 

ஒரு பார்வை, 

ஒரு சாட்சி

எல்லாவற்றின் விளிம்பில் நின்று,

அது தானென்று நினைத்த 

ஒவ்வொரு பொருளிலிருந்தும் உரிக்கப்பட்டதாக,

முற்றிலும், அற்புதமாக, சுதந்திரமாக. "

Introduction to Final Stroke: Lines of Memory In Memoriam M. Natesh (14.01.1960 to 20.09. 2024) Poems of M.D.Muthukumaraswamy With Drawings of M. Natesh

 Final Stroke: Lines of Memory
In Memoriam M. Natesh

(14.01.1960 to 20.09. 2024) 

———————

Poems of M.D.Muthukumaraswamy 

With Drawings of M. Natesh

For print edition call Indian distributor Thamzihveli 

Phone: +91 90940 05600

I promised Natesh that his exquisite drawings would accompany my poems in English. It is with profound joy that I see this promise fulfilled with this publication.

This volume, Final Stroke: Lines of Memory, is also  an offering, a gesture of remembrance for my friend, M. Natesh, a painter whose artistry and essence linger in every stroke he left behind. These poems were not originally conceived as a collection. They emerged at different moments of my life, written in solitude, observation, and reflection. Yet, as I revisited these verses with Natesh in my thoughts, they coalesced into something greater—an intricate maze of   chronicling the arc of an artist's journey: creation, unraveling, transformation, and legacy.

Natesh’s art was both visceral and cerebral. It was rooted in his ability to distort and redefine, to challenge what we thought we understood about the human form, nature, and the boundaries of perception. He had the rare gift of turning the grotesque into grace, of distilling the chaos of life into a form that spoke more truthfully than reality itself. To curate this collection of poems in his memory is to honour not just the man but the creative spirit that refuses to settle, even in death.

The poems in this collection are arranged into five sections, each mirroring a facet of Natesh’s life and works, as well as the broader arc of artistic existence. Through these sections, I invite readers to traverse not only the landscapes of my poetry but also the emotional and creative terrain of an artist who saw beyond the surface.

Lines Begin: Creation and the Artist’s Gaze

The first section of this volume reflects the genesis of artistry, the awakening of the gaze that perceives the world not as it is but as it could be shaped. The poems here capture the spark of creation, the process of making sense of the chaos and translating it into form.  

The section opens with "Final Stroke," a poem that speaks directly to Natesh’s life and art. It frames him as an artist whose work blurred the boundaries of human and nonhuman, the real and the surreal. It celebrates his ability to “sew reality back with crooked stitches,” a line that encapsulates his approach to his craft. 

Following this, poems like "The Clockmaker’s Apprentice" and "Under the Gooseberry Tree" explore the intricate dance between time, memory, and creation. These pieces delve into the act of crafting, where each tick of the clock and each whisper of the wind becomes a thread in the fabric of art. The whimsical yet profound "The Biscuit Moon" completes this opening section with its playful yet layered imagery, a nod to the way Natesh infused even the mundane with depth and meaning.

II. Unraveling: The Edges of Existence

Creation is not without its costs, and the second section ventures into the unraveling—the moments where the lines blur, where form gives way to formlessness, and the artist confronts the fragility of existence. These poems grapple with impermanence, doubt, and the tension between holding on and letting go.

"Scream Without Sound" and "Blind Pigeon Days" set the tone for this section, drawing us into a world where silence and yearning speak volumes. In "Shorebirds," hunger becomes a metaphor for the artist’s ceaseless search, while "Remnants and Departures" juxtaposes the emptiness of a house with the fullness of untold stories. 

The title poem of this section, "The Edges," captures the precarious balance of existence. Its imagery of cliffs and roots, of holding on despite the pull of gravity, reflects both the artist’s journey and the human condition. This is where Natesh’s spirit feels most present, in the lines that straddle creation and destruction, beauty and despair.

III. The Fractured Mirror: Transformation Through Art

The third section delves into transformation, into the ability of art to fracture and reassemble reality. These poems are deeply introspective, exploring how both artist and viewer are changed by the act of creation. 

"Marsh Memoir" opens this section with its mosaic of loss and renewal, its marshlands echoing the fluidity of Natesh’s strokes. In "Pomegranate Bursting," the scattering of seeds becomes a vivid metaphor for the dispersal and regeneration of ideas. 

The urban fragmentation in "Remix: City in G Minor" mirrors the disjointed beauty of Natesh’s work, where the chaos of the city reflects inner tumult. "Crow Questions" and "Knots of Pleasure" continue this exploration, probing the intersections of the mundane and the profound, the sensual and the sacred.

IV. Anatomy of Grief: Tracing the Lines 

Grief is an artist’s constant companion, shaping and being shaped by the creative process. The fourth section is a tribute to this anatomy of grief, tracing the lines of loss and remembrance.

"Posthumous Naming" anchors this section, grappling with the weight of memory and the act of naming as a means of preservation. "Nameless, at the Edge" and "The Glass Wings" continue this theme, evoking fragility and the longing for permanence in an impermanent world.

In "Rocking Horse, Abandoned" and "Cliff Face," childhood and nostalgia give way to the stark realities of time and decay. These poems resonate with the idea that art, much like life, is both fleeting and eternal, a paradox that Natesh seemed to understand deeply.

V. Becoming: The Infinite in the Frame 

The final section is a celebration of becoming, of the infinite possibilities within the finite frame of a life or a work of art. It reflects the enduring legacy of Natesh and the transformative power of creativity. 

"Marina Memento Mori" sets the stage with its meditation on the cyclical nature of life and death. "A Handful of Light" and "Sheen of Water" offer moments of transcendence, where light and reflection become symbols of hope and continuity. 

The collection concludes with "Fragments of Becoming," a poem that encapsulates the essence of this volume. It speaks to the perpetual state of transformation, of art as an ever-evolving dialogue between the self, the world, and those who remain to witness it.

VI. A Journey Through Lines

As you navigate this collection, I invite you to see it not just as a tribute to  Natesh but as a reflection of the universal human experience. The lines of these poems are like the lines of Natesh’s drawings—sharp yet fluid, fragmented yet whole. They invite you to trace their contours, to find meaning in their curves and shadows, to hear the echoes of an artist who, even in death, continues to shape the world.

Through these verses, may we remember not just Natesh but all artists who dare to pull apart the seams of reality and stitch them back with threads of imagination and truth. Alongside these poems, Natesh’s drawings accompany the text, serving as visual echoes of the collection’s themes. His works, much like the poems, traverse the fragile boundaries between form and formlessness, capturing the transient beauty of life and its inevitable unraveling. These drawings, rendered with a precision both stark and tender, bring a visceral dimension to the words, inviting the reader to engage with the lines, shadows, and spaces left behind by a masterful hand. Together, the poetry and art form a unified homage to the artist’s life and enduring spirit. May we honour the final stroke that lingers, unfinished yet complete, a tribute to the enduring power of art and memory.

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Introduction to "Unblinking Final Report on the Moon" Dramatic monologues and Dance Dramas- M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

 

For print edition call Indian distributor Thamzihveli 

Phone: +91 90940 05600

Illuminating the Unblinking Modernist Verse: Theatrical and Philosophical Explorations

As the author and translator of my own verse plays, originally written in Tamil and now rendered into English, I embark on this exploration with a dual perspective—both as a creator weaving intricate poetic worlds and as an interpreter tasked with preserving their essence across linguistic boundaries. These plays, presented in “Unblinking Final Report on the  Moon," traverse the realms of dramatic monologues and dance dramas, embodying the spirit of Tamil literary and theatrical traditions while engaging with universal human experiences.

The Dramatic Pulse of Verse: A Performative Medium

Modernist verse has always been a vessel for intensity—a form where language ascends to rhythm, cadence, and imagery, encapsulating layers of meaning. In plays such as Aravan, Matri, Moisture, and Dust, the medium of verse is not merely ornamental but an integral part of the theatrical fabric. Each line is imbued with performative urgency, inviting actors and audiences alike to traverse the spaces between spoken word and embodied action.

Consider Aravan's proclamation: “My name is Aravan. / A sacrifice for war, / A witness to war.” This declaration pulsates with self-awareness, challenging the boundaries of sacrifice and agency, echoing in the theatrical silence that follows.

The monologues unfold as dynamic spaces of reflection and transformation. In Madhri, the protagonist’s meditation on womanhood—“My fruit is neither Nakula nor Sahadeva. / It is my full realisation of womanhood— / The primal secret of this universe”—merges the personal with the cosmic, creating a textured interplay of voice and gesture. These lines demand a performative treatment that encompasses both the corporeal and the metaphysical, where every pause and inflection resonates with profound significance.

Dance Dramas: Embodying Myth and Movement

The dance dramas, such as The Sound of Moaning, The Gilded Twilight, and Come as the Wind, fuse the lyricism of verse with the visual expressiveness of movement. These compositions are rooted in the Indian aesthetic tradition where dance and drama coexist as intertwined forms. The choreography becomes a narrative device, translating the poetic into kinetic energy. 

 In The Sound of Moaning, the exploration of grief and memory unfolds through layered imagery: “You, I, the sound of moaning / You, I, fluidity, / You, I, memory.” The lines ripple outward, inviting an interpretation where the dancer’s body serves as a vessel for collective mourning.

In The Gilded Twilight, the interplay between light and shadow takes centre stage, mirroring the characters’ internal conflicts. The dance sequences evoke a twilight realm where emotions are amplified through gestures, mirroring the poetic invocation: “Through the mirror, / my aged form stares / at my youth— / a twilight gilded in gold.” Here, performance transcends language, grounding the abstract in the tangible.

Philosophical Underpinnings: A Dialogue with Existence

At the heart of these plays lies a philosophical inquiry into existence, identity, and transcendence. Drawing from Tamil literary traditions and Indian metaphysical thought, the narratives engage deeply with questions of selfhood and the human condition. In Moisture, the relentless pursuit of meaning finds expression in lines like, “Why must I keep running? / Why can’t I curl up in a corner and lie still?” The play confronts the tension between action and inaction, urging performers to inhabit the restless yearning that defines human experience.

Dust expands this inquiry into the cosmic, reflecting on impermanence and the interconnectedness of life: “Everywhere, dust pervades. / On parked vehicles, it settles thick. / You, with your index finger, / Write your lover’s name upon it.” This act of inscribing love upon transient matter becomes a metaphor for our ephemeral existence, rendered vivid through verse and performance.

Multiplicity of Voices: Gender, Identity, and Transformation

A recurring theme across these plays is the fluidity of identity, particularly in the context of gender and transformation. In Aravan, the titular character’s union with Krishna as Mohini becomes a powerful exploration of gender fluidity and divine ecstasy: “Ah, I must speak of that night of ecstasy— / The all-encompassing Brahman sought me / as Mohini.” This moment resounds with performative possibilities, inviting actors to embody the shifting boundaries of identity with both vulnerability and strength.

Similarly, in Madhri, the articulation of motherhood as a cosmic force challenges conventional narratives, offering a space where performers can embody the dualities of creation and destruction. The plays become sites of liberation, where gendered experiences are not confined but expanded, celebrated, and interrogated.

Temporal and Spatial Dimensions: Constructing Theatrical Worlds

The plays’ engagement with time and space is another dimension that enhances their performative qualities. In Swing Mandapam, the mandapam becomes both a physical and metaphorical stage, a space where past, present, and future converge: “Thousands upon thousands / Gather in the swing mandapam. / Where does balance dwell here?” The structure of the verse mimics the ebb and flow of a swinging motion, compelling performers to navigate its rhythmic duality.

In Moment, time itself becomes a character, elusive and omnipresent: “A moment is made of / Countless fragments of the elemental. / Once dispersed, / It is rare, nearly impossible, / To reassemble in the same way.” The staging of such a concept invites creative interpretations, where lighting, movement, and sound design collaborate to evoke the fleeting nature of time.

An Exploration of Cosmic and Elemental Themes

Expanding on this interplay, Unblinking Final Report on the Moon, Knowing the Ocean, Water world, and Therefore O Love People of the World delve into cosmic and elemental themes, anchoring human experience in the grandeur and mystery of nature.

Unblinking Final Report on the Moon contemplates the silence of the cosmos, positioning the moon as a witness to humanity's follies and aspirations. The lines, “Do you not see the shadows of our arrogance etched on its surface?” invite performers to engage with the reflective and accusatory nature of the narrative. This play’s performative potential lies in its juxtaposition of stillness and movement, where the unyielding presence of the moon contrasts with the restless activity of human lives.

In Knowing the Ocean, the ocean becomes a metaphor for knowledge and its depths, exploring the tension between discovery and destruction. The verse, “Each wave erases a part of us, yet carries forward our essence,” underscores the cyclical nature of human endeavours. Performers are called upon to embody the dualities of creation and erasure, using physicality to mirror the ocean’s ceaseless motion. 

Water world extends this theme, presenting water as both life-giver and destroyer. The play’s opening, “Water remembers everything— / The birth of continents, / The fall of empires,” sets the tone for a narrative that spans time and space. Performative interpretations can incorporate fluid movements and soundscapes, evoking the omnipresence and memory of water. The philosophical undertones challenge audiences to consider their relationship with the environment, urging a collective introspection.

Therefore O Love People of the World serves as a poignant call to unity and empathy, weaving together themes of love and interconnectedness. The lines, “We are but fragments of a single soul, / Searching for wholeness in each other,” resonate deeply, inviting performers to explore the universality of human emotion. This play’s lyrical and performative qualities make it a powerful piece for ensemble work, where collective movement and voice amplify its message of shared humanity.

An Act of Translation: Preserving Voice and Vision

As a translator of my own work, I approached the task with an acute awareness of the delicate balance between fidelity to the source and the demands of the new linguistic and cultural context. The transition from Tamil to English required not only a linguistic shift but also a reimagining of the performative elements that define these plays. The cadences of Tamil poetry, deeply intertwined with its cultural ethos, had to find resonance in English while retaining their dramatic essence.

This act of translation is, in itself, a performative gesture—a dialogue between languages, cultures, and artistic traditions. The philosophical and theatrical richness of these plays is thus rendered accessible to a broader audience, inviting them to partake in a shared experience of storytelling and performance.

 A Theatrical Invitation

The plays in “Unblinking Final Report on the Moon" are not merely texts to be read but invitations to be performed, experienced, and lived. They traverse the spectrum of human emotion, philosophical inquiry, and artistic expression, offering a canvas where words become action, and action becomes reflection. As both their creator and translator, I extend an invitation to actors, directors, and audiences to step into these worlds, to explore their depths, and to bring their verses to life. Through the interplay of voice, movement, and silence, these plays seek to illuminate the unblinking truths of existence, celebrating the enduring power of theatre as a medium of transformation and connection.

Acknowledgements

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Koothu-p-pattarai for staging eight of my dramatic monologues in their Tamil original, under the  direction of Kalaicholan. To all the talented actors who brought these monologues to life with such vigour and sensitivity, I offer my profound thanks. Your dedication and artistry made these performances unforgettable. I also deeply appreciate Natesh for lending his extraordinary paintings and drawings, which served as evocative backdrops, enriching the visual and emotional texture of the productions. 

My sincere thanks also go to Mirnalini Damodaran and her group of dancers, who performed the dance dramas in my English translation with such grace and precision. Their immaculate execution brought a transcendent quality to the works, bridging cultures and languages through the universal language of movement and expression.

The cover of this book is graced by a photograph of the Koothu-P-Pattarai actor Ajithkumar, captured in the midst of a powerful performance of "Dust" in its original Tamil, on August 23, 2022. Natesh's luminous paintings, bathed in light, conjure an illusion of fire upon the stage, enhancing the visual spectacle of the play. Under the  direction of Kalaicholan, "Dust" has garnered widespread acclaim for its visual artistry. This captivating image was skilfully captured by the photographer Susai Anand. I extend my sincere gratitude to all those who contributed to this mesmerising photo.

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Introduction to "On a Winter Morning Clearing"- M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

 Spaces in between: of naming and fearing the act of naming

—

 M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

— 

 

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---

In the quiet hours before dawn, when the world holds its breath, I find myself drawn to the spaces in between— between moments, breaths, and the known and the unknowable. It is here, in this liminal expanse, that my poems take root. Each line in this collection, "On a Winter Morning Clearing," is an attempt to capture the ephemeral, the fleeting whispers of a universe both indifferent and intimately familiar.

Poetry, for me, is less an act of creation and more an act of discovery. It is peeling back the veils of the everyday to glimpse the undercurrent of truth that flows beneath. In this collection, I invite you to journey with me through landscapes where silence speaks, where time folds into itself, and where even the smallest moment—a raindrop clinging to a terracotta edge, a deer frozen in the hush of dusk—holds an infinity of meaning.

The poems in this collection are deeply personal, yet I hope they resonate as universal. They are born from my encounters with nature, memory, and the haunting beauty of impermanence. They are shaped by a world where every fragment—a stray petal, a shard of moonlight, a fragment of song—carries the weight of the whole.

"On a Winter Morning Clearing" is a reflection of life’s contradictions: the tension between stillness and motion, light and shadow, presence and absence. It explores the delicate balance of holding on and letting go, of naming and fearing the act of naming. Through these poems, I attempt to map the terrain of our shared humanity, a landscape both familiar and strange.

I am profoundly aware of the interconnectedness of all things. The sparrows that lose their way, the flicker of a motorbike’s reflection, the worn hands of a grandmother selling coriander—all are threads woven into existence. My role as a poet is to gather these threads, to weave them into patterns that echo the rhythms of life.

The act of writing this collection was, in itself, a journey. It was a search for meaning in the fragmented and the forgotten, an attempt to articulate the inarticulable. Along the way, I confronted questions that have no easy answers: What does it mean to belong? How do we reconcile the beauty of the world with its inherent suffering? And how do we, as individuals, navigate the vastness of existence?

Through these poems, I have sought to offer not answers but reflections—a mirror held up to the world and to myself. The images and metaphors within are my way of grappling with the complexities of being human. They bow to the power of language to illuminate, to heal, and to connect.

As you read, I hope you find moments of recognition, where my words resonate with your own experiences, your own memories. I hope you feel the pulse of life that beats through these pages, a reminder of our shared vulnerability and resilience. And I hope, above all, that these poems inspire you to pause, to look closer, to listen to the silences that surround us.

This collection is not a destination but a starting point, an invitation to explore the depths of our shared existence. It is my offering to the world, to the beauty and fragility of being alive. 

Welcome to "On a Winter Morning Clearing.”

Acknowledgement

I gratefully acknowledge Artist Jayakumar who gracefully gave permission to  use the image of his iconic painting as the cover for this collection of poems.

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Entering the Labyrinth: An Introduction to "Fables of the Third Eye" (Drawings and Sculptures of K.Shyamkumar, Poems of M.D.Muthukumaraswamy )

 Entering the Labyrinth: An Introduction to "Fables of the Third Eye" (Drawings and Sculptures of K.Shyamkumar,  Poems of M.D.Muthukumaraswamy ) 

——

M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

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These poems, gathered under the title Fables of the Third Eye, did not arrive as neat pronouncements or carefully charted maps. They surfaced, instead, like objects found wedged between roots after a flood – strange, silt-covered, humming with residual energies. They are less declarations than they are echoes, the residue of journeys taken inward, through landscapes where the familiar dissolves and the self becomes a shifting architecture of paradox and perception. To call them 'fables' is to acknowledge their kinship with the oldest forms of storytelling, the ones that use the fantastic not to escape reality, but to probe its deeper, often unsettling, truths. And the 'Third Eye'? It signifies that other way of seeing, the inner vision – not necessarily clear or divine, but often fractured, intuitive, glimpsed in moments when the usual coordinates fail. It is the eye that opens when the physical eyes, or the eyes of reason, admit defeat, the eye that learns to read the “braille of his pulse” or perceives the world not as solid fact but as a “lexicon of ephemera stitching the void / into temporary nouns”.

This collection, then, is a threshold. It invites you into spaces where light might be “a bell that never stops ringing” yet remains unheard, or where the “wound is the lantern”, illuminating from within the raw, aching core of existence. It’s a journey into landscapes mirrored and magnified by the uncanny, potent sculptures and drawings of K. Shyamkumar, whose visual language resonates so deeply with the poetic explorations herein. His forms – part-architectural, part-biological, emerging from textured darkness like ancient myths or psychic structures [Image 1, Image 2, Image 9] – create not just illustrations, but parallel worlds that amplify the poems' mood, providing a fantastic, unsettling, and profoundly internal setting for these fables to unfold.

Fables of Inner Sight

Why Fables of the Third Eye? Because these poems often operate in the realm of myth, parable, and allegory, using narrative frameworks – however fractured – to explore the landscape of inner perception. They are fables not in the sense of simple morals neatly packaged, but as explorations of archetypal situations pushed into surreal or symbolic territories. The "Third Eye" is the lens through which these fables are viewed or generated – a perspective that transcends the literal, embraces paradox, and acknowledges the limits of ordinary sight.

Consider "The Blind Sage and the Hidden Light". In one version, blindness is “not blindness, but a second sight brewed in the cauldron / of his ribs”. The sage sees beyond the physical plague to the "knot in the collective retina", the inability of the villagers to perceive beyond their immediate fear, seeing "only the teeth of the wolf, never the moon / that silvers its fur". His cure involves teaching them to "unhinge their skulls, / to pour the night out like spoiled milk", an act of radical perspective shift, a forced opening of inner vision. The fable’s moral is elusive, “etched into the air, then promptly erased”, suggesting that insight is ephemeral, casting shadows as much as it illuminates: “To hold a torch is to cast two shadows: / one where you’ve been, one where you’ll bleed”. In the second version, the sage’s inner light is explicitly linked to suffering: “The light isn’t kind. It gnaws”, and insight comes from acknowledging the wound: “Look here— / the wound that outlives the knife”. Here, the third eye is not a serene portal but a source of painful awareness, a “blister” rather than the fire itself. Both versions are fables of perception, using the figure of the sage to explore how we see, or fail to see, the deeper currents beneath the surface of reality.

This theme echoes throughout. "The Mountain That Breathes" charts a literal ascent that becomes an internal one, culminating not in a summit conquered, but in an inner realisation: “Third eye, not vision, but knowing ripened, / in mountain’s breath, in mountain’s stillness, / revealing self as landscape, landscape as self”. The external world becomes an “echo of the inner ground”. The fable here is about the journey inward, where the ultimate discovery is the dissolution of the boundary between observer and observed. Similarly, "The Moon-Kissed Mind" presents the struggle for enlightenment not as a serene unfolding but a wrestling match within a “frantic marketplace” of the mind. The eventual realisation is subtle, a “quiet unfolding” where the moon, symbol of illumination, is found not outside but within, reflected in the flawed, “bruised” lily of the self [cite: 64, 82-83]. The fable lies in the acceptance of imperfection as the path.

These are fables populated by clockwork oracles, shadowless villages, fountains that whisper truths only silence understands, bells that ring time backward, and bridges made of smoke. Each scenario acts as a crucible, testing the limits of perception, challenging assumptions about reality, time, and selfhood. They are stories born from that space the third eye perceives – a space where logic frays, and metaphor becomes the most reliable vehicle for truth. The coherence lies in this consistent turning inward, this use of the fantastical or surreal not for its own sake, but as a lens to examine the often-invisible mechanisms of consciousness, suffering, and the elusive nature of knowing.

Language, Form, and Voice

These poems attempt to forge a language capable of navigating these internal, often paradoxical, landscapes. This involves several distinctive features:

Visceral and Synesthetic Imagery: 

The language often translates abstract concepts into physical, sometimes jarring, sensations. Doubt stains linen, silence has architecture, light gnaws, grief outlives a clock, shadows have teeth, and absence becomes palpable enough to hold us. We find skies like "cataracts", palms like "cracked lanterns", thoughts like "molten rivers" within the body, and silence vibrating like "unseen energy". This physicality aims to ground the metaphysical, to make the reader feel the shifts in perception.

Embrace of Paradox: 

The poems do not  resolve contradictions; they inhabit them. Light illuminates but also burns and blinds. Wounds are sources of sight. Silence speaks. Ascent is descent. Wholeness is found in fracture, and absence defines presence. Truth is found in the "swallowed," not the "seeing". This reflects the logic of the third eye, which operates beyond binary oppositions. The final lesson of the Clockwork Oracle is itself a paradox: “To hold me, you must let the wind / carry your watch away. / To know me, you must forget / how to count your own pulse”.

Narrative Instability and Shifting Forms: 

The poems often employ narrative voices that are themselves part of the fable – sometimes detached observers, sometimes participants caught in the strange mechanics of the world they describe ("I am writing this with hands that forget / if they were ever fists" ). The inclusion of two versions of "The Blind Sage"highlights the instability of narrative itself – truth isn't singular but multifaceted, a story that can be told in different keys, emphasising different facets (light as a gift vs. light as a wound). Some poems incorporate fragmented structures, interludes, codas, and even self-referential notes ("Coda 2 exists as firefly larvae in the author’s marrow. / To read them, hold this page to a match" ), breaking the conventional poetic frame and acknowledging the artifice, suggesting that the poem itself is a shifting, unstable entity, much like the reality it explores. "The Mountain That Breathes" uses short, breathless lines to mimic the thinning air and the effort of the climb, making the form enact the content.

Personification and Animated Abstractions: 

Concepts and objects are frequently imbued with agency. Time is a lung or a room painted blindfolded. Shadows have desires and histories. A fountain has a voice and swallows echoes. Clocks guard lies or tick in two worlds. Mirrors swallow worlds or hold alternate lives. Even gravity becomes something an artist can paint, influencing time itself. This animistic quality contributes to the fable-like atmosphere, suggesting a world where the boundaries between subject and object, concrete and abstract, are porous.

These features work together to create a poetic texture that is hopefully unique – dense, sometimes disorienting, but aiming for a kind of truth that lies beyond the reach of purely logical or descriptive language. It’s an attempt to find, or forge, the “liquid alphabet” needed to articulate the fables seen by the inner eye.

Recurring Motifs

Certain images and ideas resurface throughout the collection, acting as motifs that thread these disparate fables together, creating echoes and resonances across the poems:

Eyes, Sight, and Blindness: 

This is central, given the title. From the "cataract sky" and "second sight" of the Blind Sage to the "collective retina", the "Moon-Kissed Mind" achieving inner vision, the "Eye of Disintegration" woven from fireflies, the "Unseen Gallery" where viewers confront inner truths, and the "third eye flickering, ajar" on the breathing mountain – the act of seeing, its limitations, and its transcendence is a constant preoccupation. Sight is often paradoxical: blindness yields insight, direct gaze fails, inner vision is needed.

Light, Dark, and Shadow: 

These are rarely simple opposites. Light can be a destructive currency, a gnawing force, or equated with a wound. Darkness can be scripture, a space for growth, or the necessary contrast that makes sparks legible. Shadows are complex entities: they can be twins warring within, repositories of secrets, vital counterparts whose absence leads to a sterile flatness, or mutations that reclaim their flesh. The poems explore the interplay, the "Path of Half-Light", the twilight zones where meaning often resides.

Mirrors, Reflections, and Doubles: 

Mirrors appear as coffins, surfaces to be licked at dusk, deceptive waters, prisons for shadows, portals to self-recognition in mountain pools, tools of denial, things that swallow worlds, or gateways to alternate lives. Reflections reveal not just the self, but its hidden aspects, its potential splits ("his double splits into six" ), or its fundamental connection to the landscape. The motif explores identity, self-awareness, and the porous boundaries of the self.

Wounds, Scars, and Imperfection: 

Wounds are often sites of transformation or insight. The sage’s light comes from within his flesh, revealed by parting it like curtains; the wound becomes a lantern. A scar is a reminder of being a bridge. Fireflies script forgiveness "in a cursive only bruises could decode". The Moon-Kissed Mind finds enlightenment through a "bruised" lily. Perfection is sterile, even dangerous, as with the "Sword That Could Not Cut". The poems value the crack, the scar, the imperfection as places where truth or transformation leaks in.

Silence, Sound, and Whispers: 

Sound and its absence are powerful forces. A bell’s ringing can be light or a destructive backward force. Silence can be scripture, a deep vibration, a prerequisite for hearing truth ("a psalm only the deaf can parse" ), or the loudest prophecy. Whispers emanate from fountains, moths, oracles, and the wind, carrying fragmented truths. Voice itself is mutable – it can be lost, fossilised, stolen, or found in unexpected places.

Thresholds, Doors, and Paths: 

The poems are full of journeys and transitions. Characters cross thresholds into forests of echoes, approach doors to nowhere or unseen galleries, walk paths of half-light or bridges of smoke, climb mountains that breathe, or navigate maps of forgotten dreams. These journeys are often internal, passages between states of being or perception. The threshold itself – the door, the bridge, the path's edge – is a potent symbol of choice, risk, and transformation.

These motifs intertwine, creating a dense web of associations. A mirror might reflect inner light, a wound might grant passage through a door, silence might reveal a hidden path. They are the recurring elements in the fables, the symbolic language the third eye uses to speak.

Shyamkumar's Images: Mood and Fantastic Setting

The inclusion of K. Shyamkumar’s sculptures and drawings is not incidental; they are integral to the atmosphere and conceptual space of this collection. His works provide a visual counterpoint, a silent, parallel narrative that deepens and complicates the fables told in words.

Shyamkumar’s art creates an immediate sense of entering another order of reality. His forms are often monumental, yet intricate, suggesting ancient structures, forgotten deities, or biological entities from an inner dimension [Image 1, Image 3, Image 9]. The textures are paramount – surfaces meticulously rendered with dots, lines, and cross-hatching that give them a vibrating, almost living quality, much like the porous, breathing quality of the reality depicted in the poems. Look at the figure in Image 1: its vast, enigmatic head contains inner chambers, suggesting the internal landscapes explored in poems like "The Mountain That Breathes" or "The Moon-Kissed Mind." The strange, organic forms flanking it seem simultaneously architectural and natural, blurring boundaries in a way the poems frequently do.

The settings conjured are fantastic and dreamlike. Towers rise in barren landscapes [Image 2], strange creatures swim in tiled pools before imposing, glyph-like buildings [Image 4], and structures float on stems above patterned ground [Image 7]. These are not literal places but psychic spaces, resonant with the poems’ exploration of internal states, memory, and myth. The recurring motifs of doorways, stairs leading into darkness or ambiguous structures [Image 3, Image 4, Image 8], and contained inner spaces [Image 1, Image 13] visually echo the poems' obsession with thresholds, hidden realms, and the complexities of the self. The sculptures, like the mask in Image 13 or the figure in Image 10, often feel like artefacts from these fables – relics imbued with hidden histories and potent silence, much like the Clockwork Oracle or the Mask Maker's creations.

The mood evoked by Shyamkumar's work is one of profound stillness, mystery, and often a quiet melancholy or unease. The predominantly black and white or sepia-toned palette contributes to this sense of otherworldliness, a space removed from the everyday. There's a weight to his forms, a sense of ancient presence, even when depicting seemingly impossible structures or beings [Image 6, Image 11]. This gravitas provides a grounding for the sometimes wild, surreal flights of the poems. His images don't merely illustrate; they inhabit the same conceptual territory, offering a visual language for the 'fables of the third eye'. They create the atmosphere – that slightly tilted, deeply internal, myth-infused space – where a mountain can breathe, a clock can tick in two worlds, and a blind sage can find light brewed in the cauldron of his ribs. They are the silent guardians at the entrance to this labyrinth, their enigmatic forms inviting you into the strange, resonant quiet where these poems live.

Entering this collection is, I hope, like stepping through one of Shyamkumar’s rendered doorways [Image 8] or crossing the bridge of smoke – a passage into a realm where the familiar coordinates dissolve, and perception itself becomes the landscape. These poems are offered not as answers, but as echoes, as fragments collected on inward journeys. They are the fables whispered by the third eye, stories born from the fruitful tension between light and shadow, silence and sound, wound and wholeness. Read them, perhaps, not with the eye that seeks certainty, but with the one that recognises itself in the fractured mirror, the whispering fountain, the path that dissolves as you walk it. For it is often in the places where language fails, where sight blurs, that the most vital truths begin to stir. The rest, as the Blind Sage might say, is “silhouette and guesswork” – or perhaps, the quiet, ongoing work of the third eye, learning to read the darkness and the light. 

  

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Introduction to "Bones of Last Supper" - Paintings of C.Douglas and Poems of M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

 Where Brushstrokes Whisper and Words Resound

M.D.Muthukumaraswamy

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I The Genius of Douglas 

When I first encountered the paintings of C. Douglas, I was struck by their haunting depth—a quality that seemed to resonate far beyond the canvas, reaching into spaces of memory, emotion, and silence. His mastery lies not only in the physical texture of his work but in its ability to evoke textures of thought and feeling. Every stroke, every shade, carries a profound sense of humanity’s fragility and resilience. It was this quality that inspired me to create "Bones of Last Supper" as a tribute to his genius, an offering that seeks to extend and echo the worlds he paints.

Douglas’s work has a way of revealing the invisible—what lies beneath the surface of perception and what remains after the visible fades. His paintings do not just depict; they question, they suggest, they linger. I wanted my poems to do the same. Each poem in this collection is a response to his art, a reflection born from standing before his canvases and letting their power wash over me. At times, the poems attempt to amplify the visual themes he explores. At other moments, they challenge or reinterpret them, creating a conversation where the boundaries of medium dissolve.

This collection is, above all,  my way of engaging with the artistry of a painter whose work has deeply moved me. I hope the interplay between my words and his images offers readers a fuller appreciation of his genius. My intention is not to explain his paintings but to walk alongside them, to honour the mysteries they hold and to invite readers into that shared space of discovery and wonder. For me, this book is a dialogue,  a tribute to the enduring power of visual art to shape and inspire the written word.

II Organisation of “Bones of Last Supper”

Before you step into the intricate world of "Bones of Last Supper", let me guide you through how this collection unfolds. The book takes you on a journey across four thematic sections—The Geometry of Emotion, Textures of Time, Shadows and Silhouettes, and Echoes of the Unseen. Each section reflects a conscious dialogue between my poetry and C. Douglas's paintings, not as static counterparts but as dynamic interactions that evolve with each reading.

The title, "Bones of Last Supper", is a metaphor I chose with care. To me, it encapsulates both fragility and permanence, hinting at themes of communion, sacrifice, and the traces we leave behind. It’s an invitation to think about what remains when all else is stripped away—and how art can make that residue resonate. 

In 'The Geometry of Emotion', I begin by mapping out the raw, almost architectural nature of feelings. Poems like “Requiem for a Paper Toy” and “Between Skin and Sky” emerged from my engagement with Douglas's fragmented forms and stark contrasts, compelling me to explore vulnerability and resilience in equal measure.

'Textures of Time' is where my thoughts turn to memory and impermanence. I found myself drawn to the fading colours and fractured clocks in Douglas’s work, and these motifs seep into poems like “Time Crumples Like Coarse Paper,” where words mirror the visual erosion.

By the time we reach 'Shadows and Silhouettes' and 'Echoes of the Unseen', the focus shifts toward absence and the metaphysical. These final sections invite reflection on what lies beyond the tangible—the spaces where presence and impermanence coexist. Together, the sections form an interwoven textures that, I hope, will immerse you in the shared language of word and image.

III The Dialogic Relationship Between Poems and Paintings

In "Bones of Last Supper", we embark on a profound artistic exploration where my poetry and C. Douglas's paintings converse across mediums, creating a textured landscape of emotion, form, and thought. These works are not mere illustrations or captions to one another but intricate dialogues—mutually interrogating, enhancing, and sometimes contradicting each other. This interplay forms the heart of the book, an experiment in layered meaning where every line and brushstroke resonates with echoes of the other.

From the outset, the structure of the book suggests a deliberate journey, divided into thematic sections that reveal shifting moods and inquiries. Each section—'The Geometry of Emotion', 'Textures of Time', 'Shadows and Silhouettes', and 'Echoes of the Unseen'—presents a unique realm where the visual and verbal entwine, evoking a seamless flow of interpretation. The title, "Bones of Last Supper", itself evokes stark imagery, hinting at the fragile remnants of sustenance, communion, and sacrifice. It sets the tone for a work that contemplates human existence through its barest and most enduring elements.

Douglas's paintings serve as both the muse and the foil for my poems. In their abstract and emotive quality, his visual works provide a stage for poetic meditation. Consider, for instance, the painting that inspired “Requiem for a Paper Toy,” where swirling oceanic blues and jagged shoreline browns evoke a sense of both turbulence and decay. The accompanying poem, in its opening lines—

The ocean gnaws the shoreline’s bleached bones, 

Its hungry tongue lapping at my feet.

—translates this visual chaos into an existential reckoning. The metaphoric “paper toy,” fragile and disposable, becomes a vessel for contemplating impermanence.

Similarly, in “Smear of Purple Light,” a painting of indistinct shadows and a horizon smudged with violet hues inspires lines that oscillate between the concrete and the ineffable:

In the veins of time,


I hear a distant heartbeat,


faint, like an afterthought,


weightless sorrow blooming in the quiet dark.

Here, the visual and the verbal both suggest an otherworldly melancholia, where absence and presence exist in an uneasy balance.

IV Thematic Sections as Frames

The organisation of the poems into thematic sections mirrors the layered, fragmented nature of Douglas’s paintings. Each section acts as a gallery of interconnected ideas, yet the transition between them is fluid rather than rigid.

i. The Geometry of Emotion

This section lays bare the contours of human feeling. Poems like “Between Skin and Sky” and “Cardboard and Flesh” explore the boundary between self and world, flesh and abstraction. Douglas’s skeletal trees and fragmented human forms amplify this exploration. In “Between Skin and Sky,” I wrote:

I stand beneath a skeletal tree,
its branches twisted,
laden not with fruit, but chickens.
Their small bodies, feathered with shame and despair,
crowd the limbs as if invited to a macabre feast.

The grotesque imagery mirrors Douglas’s uncanny ability to render the mundane surreal, forcing us to confront the frailty of human and animal existence alike.

Ii. Textures of Time

Here, time is both subject and medium. Paintings depicting fractured clocks, faded landscapes, and eroded textures inspire meditations on memory and decay. In “Time Crumples Like Coarse Paper,” the poem draws directly from the peeling layers of one painting:

In this fluid reality,
where time bends and folds like coarse paper,
where emotion is a tense yellow spot
on the canvas of the mind…

The words attempt to echo the visual distortion of Douglas’s textures, suggesting a world unraveling under the weight of its own temporality.

iii.Shadows and Silhouettes

This section delves into absence and erasure. Douglas’s faceless figures, often rendered in muted tones, invite poems like “Faceless and Fragile,” which reflects on what remains when the visible dissolves:

The wood knows something—
bare and splintered,
where the memory of faces once was,
it holds
what it can no longer show.

These poems do not merely describe the paintings but engage in an act of co-creation, offering alternate narratives or emotional counterpoints.

iv.Echoes of the Unseen

The final section reaches toward the metaphysical. Paintings that depict spectral forms or liminal spaces—wetlands at dawn, half-seen birds—prompt meditations on the ephemeral. “Liminal Wetland Feeding” captures this interplay:

She is a demoiselle crane,
someone breathtaking
in her vulnerability.
A liminal time,
a time between things,
chastely erotic bird banding,
wetland feeding.

Here, the fragile elegance of the crane echoes the painter’s brushstrokes, both seeking to arrest the transient.

v.The Act of Framing

A central theme in Bones of Last Supper is the violence and tenderness inherent in framing—in choosing what to reveal and what to obscure. Both poetry and painting are acts of framing, and this book foregrounds that shared process. In “A Dark Field, Almost Near-Black,” I muse on the tension of this act:

What is this faith that moves me?


It must be something like this—


not belief,
but the act of staying in the dark field,


driven by a force I never asked for,


but have always been a part of.

Douglas’s paintings, too, seem to ask: What does it mean to frame a moment, a feeling, a life? The answers are never definitive but emerge in the spaces between brushstroke and stanza.

Bones of Last Supper is not a book to be consumed passively. It demands that we linger, return, and allow the interplay between word and image to unfold gradually. It is an invitation to see with new eyes—to read paintings and to visualise poetry—in a way that dissolves traditional boundaries. 

Together, Douglas and I have sought to create something greater than the sum of its parts, a conversation where each medium listens and responds to the other, amplifying the silence that resides at the core of all creation. 

In this collaboration, I find a profound gratitude—for the restless inquiries of art, for the tensions that refuse resolution, and for the enduring power of dialogue between image and word. It is my hope that readers, too, will find themselves transformed within these pages, as participants in this ongoing act of creation.

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Hunger and Sacrifice: The Lines and Dots of Selva Senthil Kumar- M.D.Muthukumaraswamy 

Introduction: The Aesthetics of Abnegation

This brochure accompanies the exhibition, Hunger and Sacrifice: The Lines and Dots of Selva Senthil Kumar, a major new body of works from the artist featuring nearly 200 paintings and drawings. Born in 1985, Selva Senthil Kumar earned his BFA degree from DMS LKMS college, Mysore in 2012. His figurative paintings have brought him early recognition for their haunting imageries. In his visceral and challenging works, the canvas becomes an arena for primal conflicts. His art, characterised by a raw, expressionistic energy, confronts the viewer with uncomfortable truths about power, survival, and suffering. The thirteen paintings explored here are a representative selection from this significant collection. Through a dynamic interplay of frantic lines, symbolic dots, and an earthy, elemental palette, Selva Senthil Kumar constructs a world where the boundaries between predator and prey, victor and victim, are hauntingly blurred. Each piece serves as a chapter in a larger narrative of struggle that is at once deeply personal and strikingly universal.

To navigate this difficult terrain, Selva Senthil Kumar has developed a highly personal and potent graphic lexicon, reducing his formal means to their most essential components: the line and the dot. In his hands, these are not mere technical devices but the fundamental constituents of a non-verbal script, a system of mark-making that gives form to the silent, interior experiences of his subjects. The line, often agitated and tremulous, traces the contours of anxiety, the nervous energy of a body under duress. The dot, deployed in dense, pulsating fields, suggests both the granular texture of the earth and the dissolution of form into a cosmic dust, a particle-state of being. This unique grammar, drawn from a deep and conscious engagement with the history of Indian art, becomes the language through which the silent scream of hunger and the solemn gravity of sacrifice are rendered visible and palpable.

II. The Figural Body: Between the Grotesque and the Sacred

At the heart of Selva Senthil Kumar's artistic universe is the human figure, rendered not with anatomical precision but with a raw, psychological intensity that pushes it toward the realm of the monstrous. These are not bodies of flesh and blood in the conventional sense; they are spectral, skeletal, and distorted, their forms pared down to an essential expression of suffering and endurance. Selva Senthil Kumar’s figures function as what cultural theorists have termed "monstrous bodies"—hybrid entities that are simultaneously abject and sacred, embodying the core thematic tension of the exhibition.1  They exist in a liminal state, caught between the degradation of the flesh and the possibility of spiritual release, forcing the viewer to confront the uncomfortable proximity of the grotesque and the holy.

The confrontational and raw figuration in Selva Senthil Kumar’s work finds a powerful precedent in the legacy of Francis Newton Souza, the rebellious co-founder of the Progressive Artists' Group. Souza’s paintings of grotesque heads and mutilated nudes were a deliberate assertion of an uninhibited, primal expression. Selva Senthil Kumar’s work can be read as a spiritual successor to this tradition of the grotesque, yet with a significant thematic shift. Where Souza’s rebellion was often directed outward, against societal and religious hypocrisy, Selva Senthil Kumar’s focus is more internal. He repurposes the aesthetic of the grotesque to explore the existential condition of hunger, a state of being that is less about active rebellion and more about a profound, gnawing lack.

This transformation of specific trauma into a universal symbol finds another crucial parallel in the work of Tyeb Mehta. Mehta’s iconic "falling figure" motif was born from the indelible memory of witnessing violence during the Partition riots of 1947, becoming a modernist symbol for universal suffering in post-Partition India. Selva Senthil Kumar, in a similar vein, seems to utilise his recurring figural types—the emaciated body, the hollowed-out face—to encapsulate a universal experience. His work suggests that the state of hunger, like Mehta’s falling figure, is not merely a social condition but an existential one, a state of precarity and vulnerability that defines the human experience itself.

III. A Grammar of Form: The Expressive Power of Line and Dot

The profound thematic weight of Selva Senthil Kumar’s work is carried by a formal language of remarkable discipline and expressive power. His chosen lexicon of the line and the dot is not a decorative flourish but a visceral, non-linguistic script that communicates his themes of hunger and sacrifice with a directness that bypasses intellectual analysis and strikes at a deeper, more intuitive level of understanding.

The agitated line in Selva Senthil Kumar’s paintings is an active, energetic force, conveying the inner state of his figures. In this, he enters into a compelling dialogue with the work of Jogen Chowdhury, one of the great masters of the modern Indian line, renowned for his use of cross-hatching with ink and pastel to convey "psychological unease and existential anxieties”. Selva Senthil Kumar’s line, while sharing this expressive purpose, often feels more spontaneous, a direct inscription of a fleeting state of being. It is the line of anxiety, the tremor of a body weakened by hunger, the tautness of a form held in a state of sacrificial tension.

Complementing this linear energy is his use of the dot, which connects his practice to the indigenous art of the Gond tribe and the revolutionary work of Jangarh Singh Shyam. The signature element of the Jangarh Kalam style is its intricate patterning of dots and dashes, rooted in the shamanic belief that the body’s particles disperse and merge with spirits. For Selva Senthil Kumar, the dot is a primal particle, a symbol of both matter and spirit. When clustered, the dots suggest a body constituted from the earth; when they disperse, they evoke a sense of dissolution, of the body breaking down and merging with a larger cosmic field. This makes the dot a perfect visual metaphor for sacrifice—a process of self-annihilation where the individual form is relinquished to become part of a greater whole.

In his synthesis, Selva Senthil Kumar creates a unique dialectic. He draws on the tradition of Jogen Chowdhury, whose cross-hatched lines in ink and pastel create texture and convey psychological tension. Simultaneously, he channels the spirit of Jangarh Singh Shyam, whose radiating dots in gouache and acrylic are rooted in a Gond shamanic worldview, symbolising the dissolution of the body into spiritual particles. For Selva Senthil Kumar, the line expresses the visceral, existential anxiety of "Hunger," while the dot invokes the primal, spiritual dissolution of "Sacrifice," creating a tension between individual suffering and cosmic connection.

IV. The Paintings: A Thematic Journey

The narrative of the exhibition unfolds across a series of thematic movements, tracing a path from raw, external conflict to a deep, internalised spiritual struggle. The thirteen paintings examined here serve as key waypoints on this journey.

From Predation to Puppetry: The Externalisation of Power

Painting 1: The Weight of Predation

The exhibition opens with an immediate and unsettling display of raw power. In Painting 1: The Weight of Predation, a monstrous, tiger-like figure, its body a vibrant cage of orange and black stripes, is perched heavily upon a dark, skeletal horse. This central duo forms a terrifying totem of subjugation, immediately establishing the core theme: the insatiable, brutal nature of hunger and the inevitable sacrifice it demands. Below them, two prone figures are trampled underfoot near three stark white, egg-like orbs—potent symbols of sacrificed potential. The aesthetic is one of raw, untamed energy, with frantic, scratchy line work and an elemental ochre-green palette that posits hunger as an existential force.

Painting 2: The Marionettes of Suffering

This raw, physical subjugation transitions into a more insidious realm of psychological control in Painting 2: The Marionettes of Suffering. Here, the sacrifice is the loss of agency itself. A large, horned beast looms as thin, black strings descend to manipulate two central figures—a woman and a skeletal man—turning them into marionettes in a grotesque dance. Their featureless faces signify a complete loss of identity. Below them, a blindfolded figure screams silently, a sacrifice of sight and truth. The palette shifts to a deeper, muddier brown, immersing the scene in an atmosphere of decay and artificiality. The work brilliantly expands the collection's central thesis: hunger is not just a physical appetite but also a hunger for control.

Ritual, Acquiescence, and the Siege of the Self

The narrative then turns inward, exploring how external power structures are internalised through ritual and psychological pressure. Painting 3: The Altar of Acquiescence plunges the viewer into a nocturnal, ritualistic space. The scene is not one of overt struggle, but of a solemn, ceremonial offering. A luminous, goat-like creature stands upon a sickly green altar, its posture serene and ambiguous. It is not a beast being hunted; it is a sacrifice being presented, witnessed by a stoic, bird-headed priest and a kneeling, skeletal supplicant. The use of a profound black void as the background creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic intimacy, suggesting that the most profound sacrifices are not those exacted by force, but those willingly given, born from an ideology that sanctifies death.

Painting 3: The Altar of Acquiescence

This internalisation becomes a chaotic battle in Painting 4: The Cacophony of Consumption, a swirling vortex of conflict. A monstrous, two-headed avian beast, its torso an open cage of trophies, attacks a screaming, blue donkey-like figure. The scene is framed by decaying pillars, suggesting a recurring battle within a brutal, historical arena. The complex, layered technique, combining meticulous cross-hatching with raw, gouged textures, mirrors the thematic density.

                   Painting 4: The Cacophony of Consumption

Painting 5; The burden of consciousness

          

Painting 6: The Oracle of Muted Screams

Painting 7 The Cage of Identities

The focus shifts again in Painting 7: The Cage of Identities, where the theme becomes one of imprisonment and surveillance. A luminous yellow feline, its expression one of wary intelligence, sits trapped behind the bars of a cage. It is surrounded by a gallery of spectral onlookers and disembodied masks. The conflict is now a psychological siege, the sacrifice being the loss of freedom and authenticity in a world that demands performance. The feline’s direct gaze challenges the viewer, implicating them in this act of watching.

The Fractured Self and the Weight of Being

The subsequent paintings delve deeper into the fragmentation of the self under the immense pressure of existence. Painting 8: The Doppelgänger's Dance strips the world of colour, presenting a stark, monochromatic confrontation between a man in a tiger mask and his demonic, skeletal alter ego. They stand on platforms made of enormous, disembodied jaws, a potent symbol that their very existence is built upon a history of consumption. The work is a graphic exploration of the idea that to survive, one must embrace the monster within.

Painting 8: The Doppelgänger's Dance

This psychological weight is given physical form in Painting 5: The Burden of Consciousness. A hunched, simian figure sits in weary anguish, a host to the world's demons. A horned beast perches on his back like an oppressive memory, while other creatures from Selva Senthil Kumar’s mythology converge upon him. Most compellingly, an owl-like figure to the right is rendered as a drawing filled with cryptic script, a symbol of logic and language trapped and unable to contain the primal chaos.

The theme of seeing and being seen is distilled into a disorienting, primal image in Painting 9: The Inverted Gaze. The world is turned upside down as an inverted, star-dappled creature descends, its head merging into a single, hypnotic eye that holds a vibrant green, skeletal creature captive. The sacrifice here is of logic and natural order, suggesting the ultimate struggle is one of vision and will—the power to hold another in your gaze and consume their very essence.

Painting 9: The Inverted Gaze

Apparitions in the Void: The Final Sacrifice

The final sequence of paintings takes place in an absolute black void, a space of memory, spirit, and dissolution. Painting 10: Apparition in the Void presents a fragmented, composite figure materialising from the darkness. It is a being of parts: a skeletal torso, a snarling canine head, a disembodied mask held aloft. It is a walking reliquary of past conflicts, a body sacrificing its own coherence to the consuming emptiness.

                    Painting 10: Apparition in the Void

This is followed by Painting 11: The Weight of Tradition, where a weary, primal figure collapses under the burden of its history. On its back rests a complex scaffold carrying the noble head of a sacrificial bull. The painting is a quiet, devastating critique of how traditions, however noble, can become an unbearable burden, forcing the living to carry the ghosts of the dead.

The journey finds a moment of precarious balance in Painting 12: The Divine Assemblage. Here, a mythological totem pole is constructed from the void. A reclining earth-god gives rise to a wise elephant, which in turn offers a bowl containing a fragile bird to a doll-like human idol. It is a creation myth where sacrifice is a nurturing, symbiotic offering between different states of being, though still watched over by the threat of a snarling predator.

           Painting 11: The Weight of Tradition

The series culminates in a final, mystical procession. In Painting 13: The Shaman's Ride, a serene deer carries a commanding, blue, bird-human shaman through the void. They move through a symbolic landscape containing the strings of a cosmic harp and a strange, potted plant. It is a vision of sacrifice as a sacred journey, a pilgrimage where the soul, carried by nature, must navigate the invisible strings of destiny and the strange growth of new, perhaps unnatural, forms of life.

Painting 12: The Divine Assemblage.

                            Painting 13: The Shaman's Ride

V. Conclusion: A Narrative of Contemporary India

Through a disciplined and potent visual language of lines and dots, Selva Senthil Kumar has forged a body of works that is at once deeply personal and profoundly resonant with broader cultural histories. His work finds kinship with the narrative figuration movement that gained prominence in India in the 1970s, particularly with artists like Bhupen Khakhar, who turned their gaze to the lives of ordinary people, telling stories of class, identity, and desire with empathy and wit. Like Khakhar, Selva Senthil Kumar is a storyteller of the margins. However, his mode of narration is not illustrative or anecdotal; it is elemental and corporeal. He does not depict scenes from a life; he uses the body itself as the primary text and his visceral marks as the script. The stories he tells are etched directly onto the skin and bone of his figures, narratives of lack and endurance, of physical decay and spiritual resilience.

Ultimately, the art of Selva Senthil Kumar offers an unflinching yet deeply empathetic commentary on the material and spiritual paradoxes of contemporary India and, by extension, the modern world. His paintings do not offer easy answers or political solutions. Instead, they create stark, unforgettable icons that embody the most profound questions of existence. The figures that populate his canvases are suspended in a state of perpetual tension—between the body and the spirit, the individual and the cosmos, the abject and the sacred. They are haunting because they reflect a universal truth: that in the experience of profound lack, in the very act of being stripped down to one's essential self, there exists the potential for a strange and terrible grace. Through his singular vision, Selva Senthil Kumar challenges us to look at the uncomfortable realities of hunger not as a sign of failure, but as a fundamental human state from which a unique and powerful form of sacrifice—and art—can be born.

VI. Works Cited

Bhagat, Ashrafi S. "Madras Art Movement: A Regional Study." Thesis, Stella Maris College, Chennai. dspace.stellamariscollege.edu.in:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1296/Ashrafi%20S.%20Bhagat.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Monster Theory: Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 3-25.

Flam, Jack, and Miriam Deutch, editors. Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art: A Documentary History. University of California Press, 2003.

Hoskote, Ranjit. Tyeb Mehta: Ideas Images Exchanges. Vadehra Art Gallery, 2005.

Perdriolle, Herve. Indian Art: Contemporary, One Word, Several Worlds. 5 Continents Editions, 2011.

Rubin, William, editor. "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. The Museum of Modern Art, 1984.

Shekhar, Amruth. "The Calligraphic Essence in the Words and Symbols Series of Paintings by KCS Paniker." International Journal of Factual and Molecular Research, vol. 7, no. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2025, pp. 41471-41476.

Souza, F.N. Words & Lines. Introduction by Jag Mohan, Published by Francis Newton Souza, 1959.

Tillotson, Giles. Primitivism and Modern Indian Art. DAG, 2019.

Vajpeyi, Udayan. "From Music to Painting." Native Art of India, edited by Sathyapal, Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, 2011, p. 33.