Brandon Fraser’s comeback movie ‘The Whale’ had a serious impact on me for how original it was to dissect the mental health of a person who broke and conquered obesity. Understanding the finest crevices of someone’s haunting details is the work of an artist. A good one would, for sure, develop the originality to present the past and future even if both of them are married under so many circumstances.
Amit Ranjan’s recent book “The Knot of Juggernaut or The Mystery of (Miami Mambo) Vexuality” pierced me with the accumulation of its world that is as detailed as it can be, yet remains mysterious for a work of poetry. The identification of the Almighty with an offering is less blissful than a prayer which helps in making the Almighty a significant figure of relevancy.
Cate Blanchett’s musical drama ‘Tár’ is a work of brilliance. The part where Lydia Tár says: “I agree about the tension part. Now, you can intellectually contemplate or masturbate, about the felicity of the so-called atonal but the important question here is, what are you conducting? What is the effect? What is it actually doing to me? Good music can be as ornate as a cathedral, or bare as a potting shed, as long as it allows you to answer both these questions” majorly coalesced with the atmosphere of this book.
Something that all the characters of this book and majorly ‘the poet’ is working on is the path to reach multiple dimensions of a physical location. It also allows us to be the pervert of a good kind, for which, our access to the art of the poet and his Gods/monsters becomes easier for a reader.
The first part of the book (The Knot of Juggernaut) is a collection of poems on The Juggernaut (Jagannath as pronounced by the Colonialists), and they form a cascade in which every poem is a brick. Although some readers may have the opinion that one can start the book from any particular poem. But, for me, the necessity of obeying the chronology is fundamental to the book. It deals with many issues of our daily life by keeping the Almighty as the axis. Like in Amit’s poem “And Some Juggernaut Jokes”, the fate of a person who got arrested has been beautifully described with the audacity or bravery to correlate him with the God Jagannath (without being beheaded).
The poet writes:
“The prick collective saw a man
being handcuffed on his back,
so that on the front he looked quite handless –
much like our eastern god Juggernaut
who claims handlessness in all that is handled.
The second part of the book “The River of Grass” reminded me of Suzanne Simard’s ‘Finding the Mother Tree’ where she writes her life through the forests she holds inside and outside of her physical and metaphysical life. The poet is constructing a diary he wrote in Miami, with Miami, and away from Miami. It is not a hard thing to do if done with mediocrity but very few curators of memories live to take pride in their observation. When the poet writes, “I lived on the edge of verse – that’s how I’ve known the universe”, the flashy poet sprinkled all over me. Even though there was no absorbance, I can say that it’s adsorbity is going to stay. Sometimes, as a reader, engulfing the whole body empties the world before me. So, I keep the whole of it.
“It was too much mess
All that love, all that caress.
God bless –
Those who aren’t in the race –
To be photograph’s overexposed face.”
The poet’s ode to Dario Fo in the above-mentioned verse carries the baggage of an observer and experiencer of a peaceful world. What does it tell you? As a theatre actor, I can say that the proscenium stage teaches its audience how to be individualistic yet identify oneself as the part of an audience. The two-way communication between the performer and the audience is honest, at its highest level. The poet’s yearning to have a less competitive world with less mess, more of the core (of nature and inner self), and to know the boundaries is what this verse magnifies.
When the poet moves to the third section of the book “The Dark Hand of the Dead Waters”, he is migrating through simple worlds written for the connoisseur of love and tragedy. Its emptiness is wholesome, and indeed, that is what happens with the Juggernaut or Jagannath. The story and compassion of an imperfect God and all his imperfect devotees is well-documented through desires, love, lust and ceruminous metaphors.
“She didn’t listen
I didn’t listen
We remained unheard
In the utterance of the word.”
The dive of the poet from the world of magnanimity to miniscule moments makes these poems joyous of a kind that needs the right perspective (although most of them would be right only). The Temple of Tears forms the fourth room of the book where a philosophy finds its home. It is an amalgamation of many philosophies yet these poems speak about just one: the philosophy of forgetfulness.
We do not thank this particular quality even though it has helped us in the most important moments to not confront the bizarre heads. From destiny to loss; suffering to hunting; oppression to occupation, the part where we forget the memories often gives us the sad and happy tears depending on the condition and the metamorphosis of our mind.
Something spectacular, surreal and serendipitous happens in the short play, this book of poetry holds. A conversation that is enlightening but at the same time, can emit absolute nonsense (but human beings have a certain kind of greed to everything that doesn’t make sense). The gaps between the theme of one act to another is filled with a lot of accumulates, which may appear as unnecessary but the necessity of these concepts can fill the void inside our heart.
The characters of this play are intoxicated with curiosity, and the answers to their questions reach them and the readers like an immersion. The poet is a fine scribbler of prose, and knows to become intimate with his readers by maintaining the distance Herman Hesse did with Steppenwolf.
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The Knot of Juggernaut or The Mystery of (Miami Mambo) Vexuality is a sincere attempt by an important poet to create a few ripples since he is scared of the tides. The latter has the possibility to engulf the readers, but a ripple of his form wears and tears the existence like a surgeon who isn’t ready to stitch it back. It is a beautiful contribution to the realm of fantasy where the reality finds itself preserved like a subtle meaning or an underlined concept but it is there for us.
The views expressed in this article are that of the reviewer and do not reflect EastMojo’s position.
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