Descending Dark Stairs

Book Review: RAJNI SINGH

K.S. Pal. DESCENDING DARK STAIRS. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2007,pp 54, Price Rs.120/-, ISBN 81-8157-622-5

K.S. Pal’s Descending Dark Stairs is about hypocrisies, lost worlds, effects of modernization/urbanization, cultural dislocations, exile, homeless and identity. The word ‘dark’ in the title of the volume symbolically portrays the darkness at the heart of the so-called civilized men .It is also suggestive of the dark stairs of old age and unflinching desires.

Poems like ‘No Choice’, ‘Of Leftovers’, ‘Growing Old’, It Hurts’, ‘What is Left…’ ‘Reflections’ and ‘On Retirement’ are on old age. The poem ‘No Choice’ reflects on the hypocrisy of time. Man, a slave of time, in his youth is greeted even by the mirror and when old just becomes an object of abuse-“Leave us alone, you old parasite”(p.10). The image of ‘parasite’ is employed to depict the insignificant existence of old people. Touching upon the same issue in ‘It Hurts’, the poet says-

It hurts when-

you are finally an old man,

confined to a cornered cell,

fed on monosyllables

of busy sons and their wives,

and on crumbs of visits

of distant daughters. (p.23)

The poems on age are stark slips- a critique of the moral bankruptcy in our society today. They also articulate the poet’s own anxiety of age and expose the psyche of young people.

Man’s rapacious nature of self-aggrandisement and its spiritual and moral bankruptcy have led to vacant ness in human relationships-

Now bright girls and boys

like dresses go on changing friends,

swapping for fun, and their marketing ploys. (p.18)

Man trapped between desires and fulfillment identifies success with possession. In his highly paradoxical piece ‘The Portrait of a Successful Man’, the poet says:

how he has worked

for a peacock tomorrow

and left

his present

to hungry vultures (p.27)

In the times of economic globalisation Man has become a mammonite He tries his best to escape reality but when faces it realizes the truth.

I feel like an amnesiac slave

who from the pit longs to go,

… … … … … … … …

For a few thousand dollars

I’ve mortgaged my soul,

my pride, even my goal.

I’m reminded of my date

with my little Lucifers

and the coming, tearing horrors. (p.47)

The poet vividly captures the diasporic experiences in ‘Among Aliens’, ‘Instant Revenge’, ‘What to Do?’, ‘Realization’, ‘Stirring Last Embers’ and ‘An SMS’.

Your hijab to me is nothing

but a burden of identity,

they don’t understand

They want us to change our shoes,

when we do, they still say,

we belong to a different land. (p.48)

Our black, brown bodies

can’t help stinking,

even if we name ourselves

Tom, Julie or Wilking. (p.49)

The gulf between the occident and the orient is unbridgeable. The shadow between us and them still remains and the poet sees them ‘more darkened and lengthened after 9/11’(p.51) and thus he says:

Parallel and charged lines

are not meant to meet,

and if they ever do,

they simply emit sparks. (p.49)

Let it be there, as it is.

Let us move on.

There’s enough light

to bask, and much left

to hang on. (p.51)

The poems are remarkable for their pungency and stark realism, under lining the social role of the poet. There is an ostensible ease in these poems. They simply come alive to the mind and heart of the reader.

Reviewed by:

Rajni Singh

Assistant Professor of English

Dept. of HSS

Indian School of Mines University

Dhanbad, India