Parallels have a common purpose
A discussion with my mother-in-law this evening led me to an interesting discovery. We were talking about Gujarati poetry. That led me to talk about a well known Gujarati poet Late Uma Shankar Joshi, who was one of my local guardian in Ahmedabad when I was a student of design during the Emergency days when my parents were in prison. My 90 year old mother-in-law immediately remembered a poem she thinks was written by him,
dungar keri kheen ma gaambhu naame gaam
kheti karto khant thi patel paancho naam
Uma Shankar Joshi was a friend of my father from the days he was a member of Parliament. I visited him a few times during emergency. If I remember correctly, he was the Commencement Speaker during my graduation from the National Institute of Design.
As I started searching for more information about Uma Shankar Joshi, I was amazed to find that though he was born half a century before I was born, some of his curiosities, his ideological evolution, and the inspiration for creativity parallels my own. I quote extensively from Wikipedia to share with you this amazing discovery.
“As a child, he had excursions to hilly areas of Aravalli and visits to colorful monsoon fairs in and around Bamna. This village life left a profound impact on his language and developed “lyrical vein” in him”. I Instantly remembered my four years in the boarding school Sanjeewan Vidyalaya, Panchgani, a hill station in Maharashtra where I found my first connection to nature.
Uma shankar Joshi’s first poem was inspired by his brush with nature. He wrote,
Saundar yo pee
urajharan gaashe pachhee aapmele
Drink (the cup of) beauty
Heart will, then, flow singing, automatically.
My first ever poem was inspired when I had a brush with a feather that brushed by me at the Grizzly Peak vista Point. Poem, “An Untucked Feather” released in me a stream of inspiration to write poetry that turned into my first book, “A window for a home without walls”.
Though Joshi was inspired to join India’s independence movement by Gandhi’s call for Quit India, he had his own perspective on Gandhi’s mission. “Joshi penned his first poetry work Vishwa Shanti in 1931 in the jail. Vishwa Shanti is a long poem and it “refers to Gandhi’s message and Lifework”. This work expresses the poet’s idea that “Even if Bapu’s visit to the west is directed towards Indian independence, it will bring more effectively the message of peace to the West than Independence to [Indian] Nation”.
This idea is so appealing to me. I have been a Wannabe Revolutionary since my childhood. Due to my parents’ participation in India’s freedom struggle and later in the socialist movement, I have always seen myself as a rebel with a cause, an anarchist dreaming about a society that governs itself without a government. Over time, I have realized that every revolutionary movement I have witnessed in India during my life, may have failed in achieving its stated purpose, yet it has nurtured in social imagination the values of achiving social justice and radical change through non-violent means. I have learned to embrace the concept of change through non-violent means as my design philosophy.
Joshi was also an active part of pan-Indian progressive writers’ movement. In 1936, he took active part in establishing “Progressive writers’ association”. the impact of Marx and socialism on him was emotional and evoked a strong feeling of equality and social justice. Along with Gandhian principles, Joshi’s poetry from the early 1930s also reflects his socialistic influences. Joshi considered Jatharagni (1932), Panchali (1932) and Mochi (1933) as examples of his poems that reflect Marxist influence. Dhirubhai Thaker has observed that Joshi “challenged the establishment in a restrained but a threatening tone.” In Gangotri and following poem exemplified it:
Racho racho ambarchumbee gumbajo…
Bhookhyaan janona jatharaagni jaagashe…
Khandernee bhasmakanee na laadhashe
Build, build, you may, the domes of skyscrapers,
when the fire of hunger of the hungry flares up,
will you not find an iota of the remnants burnt.
Although Joshi had a nationalistic background, his works also had themes of “Unity with the world and every human being”. He reiterated his belief about Unity of national identity and world mindedness by saying “What goes into the making of an Indian poet in the present-day world? His sharing the global anxiety and agony too. Paradoxically enough, the more world minded he is, the more Indian he will be, as one could see in the case of Tagore.”
As I was reading these words, I could picture the impact of my immigrating to the United States and travels around the world as and ethnographer of social imagery. More I travel and discover universal values and ideals, more grateful I become to my motherland and my identity as an Indian who was born in a family that fought for India’s freedom struggle and the movement for social justice.
“During Emergency in India, Joshi showed his courage and commitment to his principles by advocating free speech in such an oppression.” This is when I had the opportunity to watch him in Ahmedabad closely as a poet with revolutionary grit. I developed immense appreciation for his gentle, creative approach to championing the cause of social justice.
Today, when I reflected about Uma Shankar Joshi and his life, I feeel parallels in the evolution fo our curiosities, ideologies and creativity. Today, almost five decades after I first met him, Uma Shankar Joshi, I am overcome with a strong connection to his journey. I see him as a fellow traveller from another time. Our journeys have parallels with a common purpose. He was a great man. I remain an ordinary human with a purposeful journey.
I feel lucky and grateful that my father introduced me to his friend Uma Shankar Joshi through another of his friends Purushottam Mavlankar a member of Parliament from Ahmedabad.
