Indian Book Chronicle : INNER JOURNEYS - City Times and other Poems by Vihang Naik is an anthology of his intuitive and philosophical poems. 'Love Song of a Journey Man' is more or less an inner travelogue. It is a Romantic's journey within his sensuous self. The poet approaches 'the edge/ of a dream' revealed to him through the feeling of ( a protagonist's ) love for a young women :
Your upholding
down-ward look,
dimpled shyness
warmer breath
transparent eyes
flickering flames.
ankle play....
It is a pity that this self-centered journey ( of the protagonist ) is skin-deep. -
The world
shrinks
within the boundaries
of flesh.....
It is a mode of tryst- a rendezvous - with the evanescence of physical beauty. It is like responding to the cry of a dying swan at sunset. The poem has an unfailing Keatsian flavor and is saturated with sensuous perception.
'Mirrored Men' are the urban people preoccupied with their follies, vices, deceitfulness and errors. They are conceited people who would mince words and indulge in ambiguous statements with their diabolic tongue. Every one of them has put on a mask as it were.
.... Truth is a mirror
he has lost...
The poet, therefore, thinks of 'spiders' weaving 'with precision splendid architectural snare'. It a device to prey upon other insects. It is a work of 'devious craft'. The poet thinks of the crabs 'walking crooked'. He emphasizes the crookedness of urban and sophisticated people through the multiple images of crabs, spiders, chameleons, crocodiles, and vultures. They share their sinister designs with other organisms instinctively. The conceited nature of man appears to the poet as a biologically programmed impulse. 'The Path of Wisdom' has its own mystique :
... You must not ask
God His name...
or....
Do not touch rainbow with reason....
God or beauty are abstract concepts. Their epistemology thrives on experience and abstraction. They do not tend towards intellectual formulations and definitions. God cannot be tempered with logic or arguments. He is not to be subjected to catechisms. He is beyond words- simply ineffable. God exists in the arena of what is experiential rather than what is cerebral or rational. He is neither far nor near. God effaces all boundaries of space and time. Temporal and spatial dimensions cannot contain Him. The poet echoes the metaphysical recurrent in T. S. Eliot's Four Quarters.
Vihang Naik knows that India is 'stuffed with wisdom'. What characterizes her is her metaphysical essence. The poet's imagination takes its flight from the launching pad of the physical reality of the world. The city is more or less the microcosm of tangible reality. The poet observes there the signal lights,. neon lights, bridges, towers, markets, trains, travelers, snaking streets, crossroads, calendars, flying kites, mirrors photographs etc. It is the world of sights and sounds : the world of the ear and the world of the eyes. But what matters here is:
Desire :
The octopus of desire stirs /
arteries and veins
The poems included in this slim volume can not be regarded as tentative. They cannot be categorized as 'experimentalia'. They are imagistic poems of perception and intuition. The poet has something up his sleeve to say beyond the appearances. He does not describe what things are, but what they are stirring to be, in his consciousness. Vihang Naik has proved his credentials through The City Times and Other Poems, and is a poet with a future.
- Dr. L. L. Yogi ( Head. Dept. of English , Government College , Bundi - 323001 )
Yogi, Dr L. L. “Inner Journeys.” Rev. of City Times And Other Poems , by Vihang Naik . Ed.B. Hooja. Jaipur , India : Indian Book Chronicle ( jour issue ) , July 1996 . p.12 & 15.
