INDIAN ENGLISH HAIKU AND R.K.

SINGH

Haiku is one of the oldest forms of poetry yet the form has recently been
discovered and embraced by writers around the world. It is believed that in 1970’s
haiku as a literary genre got highlighted internationally. Today, it is written in
English as well as in several different languages and enjoyed widely in nearly 50
countries. But the actual credit for this haiku boom goes to Paul Louis who with
the publication of his collection entitled Haiku, in the early 20th century,
revived this genre. And since then the popularity and internationalization of
haiku has kept on multiplying.

Haiku is short and light poetry with traditionally 5-7-5 sound syllables with a
season word. Historically speaking, this poetic form had its roots in tanka, a
kind of prayer/incantations to Gods by the Japanese. Tanka, with its 5-7-5-7-7
sound syllable count, its lofty ancestry and its shortness and ease for
memorization, later became the favourite poetical form of the Japanese Imperial
court. And from 9th to 12th centuries it reached the highest popularity and
brilliance. However, in the 12th century a new form generated out of tanka, with
the rival of an old Chinese form of linking tanka poems together in a novel way.
The poem was ‘split’ in half, allowing one author to write the first three lines
5-7-5 and the concluding lines i.e. 7-7 part to be written by another, especially
by men. This chain of writing did not stop there, again a new 5-7-5 was written as
an answer to the previous 7-7 links and this genre was called ‘renga’ (meaning
linked elegance). Renga became a fashionable form of poetry in the 14th century
with two main styles: a serious, courtly style and the comic style, especially of
the merchant class. Basho was a renga master of the comic style. This poetic form
was not as simple to write as it appeared. Writing a good hokku i.e. the starting
verse and haikai (any verse in a renga) was really a challenging task. Thus all
could not meet the standards of a good hokku/ haikai. The quality of the renga
tended to fluctuate with Buson and Issa and in the beginning of the 19th century
M.Shiki declared renga officially dead and also ended the ongoing debate on hokku/
haikai by combining the two names into a new one- haiku.

Haiku is the smallest literary form with lot many rules and it is difficult for
one to follow all the rules. Moreover, several of the rules are so contradictory
with each other that there is no way to honour them all at once. Say, for example,
the sound units of the three liners have a wide range of patterns-seventeen
syllables in one line, seventeen syllables written in three lines, seventeen
syllables written in three lines divided into 5-7-5, seventeen syllables written
in a vertical (flush left or centred) line, less than seventeen syllables written
in three lines as short- long- short, less than seventeen syllables written in
three vertical lines as short- long- short and writing in one breath (which nearly
covers 12-17 syllables). Second, the number of images and the kind of images which
again do not follow any fixity- a haiku with two images that are only comparative
when illuminated by the third image; a haiku with two images that are only
associative when illuminated by the third image, two images that are only in
contrast when illuminated by the third image and then the kind of images- images
that evoke simple rustic seclusion/accepted poverty (sabi), images evoking
classical elegant separateness (shubumi), images that evoke nostalgic romantic
images/austere beauty(wabi),images from nature, images not from nature, season
words (kigo), non-season words (muki), lofty / uplifting images. Third, the rules
of punctuation- no punctuation to attain ambiguity, all normal sentence
punctuation are also admissible- a colon (:) and full stop (.), a pause (;), three
dots for something left unsaid, a comma for a slight pause, a dash for saying the
same thing in other words, capitalizing the first word of every line or only the
first word as well as the proper names according to English rules. Next, the rules
of grammar-- eliminating all the possible uses of gerunds and adverbs, little use
of pronouns, ending the haiku with a noun, avoiding too many/all verbs and
prepositions. Finally, the rules of rhetoric-- avoiding rhymes/ bringing in rhymes
by rhyming the last words in the first and third lines, using rhymes in other
places within the haiku, using assonance and alliteration; and using puns and
paradoxes to attain levels of meaning in haiku.

It is quite natural that with so many options, a beginner of haiku might get
highly confused and find it difficult to start off with. But it is to be noted
here that rules are not written in stone. Thus, it can be said that there is no
one way to write a haiku, there is no one style or technique that is absolutely
the best. Every writer can work out for herself. In fact, the varieties in style
and technique of haiku provide enough freedom for the readers and writers of haiku
to expose, expand and to investigate.

Today one can notice new trends emerging in haiku from several countries,
including as well. Now, there is no strict adherence to the old, traditional
guidelines. Despite a small community of haiku writers in , the haiku form has
been widely experimented and written in several regional languages, including
English and Hindi.

In the traces of haiku can be found in the beginning of the 20th century. The
Indian Nobel Laureate, Rabindra Nath Tagore, is probably considered to be the
first haikuist of . His collection of haiku like poems ‘Fireflies’ was published
in English and Bengali. The names of Subramania Bharati, Prof. Satya Bhushan Verma
and Prof. B.S. Agarwala are also familiar names in regional haiku in . Among the
Indian English haiku poets the few familiar names are- Dwarakanath H. Kabadi,
N.V.Subbaraman, Angelee Deodhar, Kala Ramesh, K.Ramesh, Mujeeb Yar Jung,
I.H.Rizvi, Urmila Kaul, D.C.Chambial, Kanwar Dinesh Singh, R.K.Singh, Mahashweta
Chaturvedi, etc. Yet, not many people are aware of haiku or its intricacies
because of lack of literature and/or criticism in various languages in the Indian
market.

Haiku writers from all over the country, even though small in number, have
contributed their lot in promoting this poetic form in India and out of the many
contributors writing in English R.K.Singh as a haikuist stands apart. R.K.Singh
who has been known for economy of expression and brevity for the last three
decades has drawn attention of readers to his haiku, first published in trilogies
Every Stone Drop Pebble (pub.1999) and Peddling Dreams (pub.2003 in Pacem in
Terris), and more recently in The River Returns (pub.2006, a collection of tanka
and haiku). Abdul Rashid Bijapure seems right in his observation that “perhaps it
is the single-minded journey of R.K. Singh to press for brevity in expression that
leads him to devote his poetic energy to the three line haiku poems.” Even Singh
says “ a haiku is terse, dynamic and complete poetry, rendering the vital energy,
which animates not only an individual’s small world but also the entire cosmos.”
For Singh it is rather a self-disciplining spiritual exercise marked by living
moment ness of a moment, imagining a moment:

After morning walk

the trio gossip each day

fresh revelation

Each day of our life is full of happenings and one such is captured here with all
subtlety in the same fashion as a photographer clicks a moment.

The poem:

Ripe on the branches

 mangoes fall one by one

end of the season

is highly sensuous in appeal. The reader gets an immediate image of a season. The
ripeness of the mangoes can be seen and felt in the lines.

The lines:

The leaves sway

to fly like birds

free in the sky

evoke the image even before the eye blinks. Like the swaying of the leaves, the
lines appear soft, light and rhythmic.

Singh’s nature poems perfectly meet the traditional haiku standards:

Smell of Kamini

In front of my house excites:

hummingbirds mate

Or

The night queen fragrance

seeps from the window

my bedroom blooms

The naturalness of the lines instantly hits the sensory organs of the readers. The
two poems:

Shining from the blade of grass

a drop on earth’s breast:

tribute to sun

and

The mynahs

herald the day clamouring

for moths

reflect the honesty of the poet in creating the images. There is no artificiality
or imaginary renderings in these lines. With minutest details the poet constructs
a striking image and allows space for reader to create his own image and
interpretations.
Singh is not only a sharp watcher of the thinginess of the things in nature but is
also a keen observer of complex human nature. Running away from reality is human
nature and this hollowness of human beings is described in these poems with a
tinge of irony:

She hides the mirror

with rose and lipstick

and keeps her fiction

and

He closes the eyes

expanding inner space

a short – cut tour

Some of his haiku appear as if speaking directly to the reader. To quote:

Among the white hairs

a solitary black one

keeps her hope alive

and

She reads my age in

the synthetic dark of moustache

and whitening chest

Singh’s haiku have distinct local and Indian cultural flavour too:

Red oleander and

hibiscus calling morning

to Kali

The poet is unconventional in his form. He does not strictly abide by the
traditional haiku rules. The adjective in the following poem depicts the
unconventionality in the poet’s style:

After prolonged heat wave

sky watery explosion

earth lovely doom

The use of the adjective ‘lovely’ with the noun ‘doom’ is highly contrastive.

The poet’s experimentation with the syllabic pattern is again his break away from
the rigid rules. Some of his poems are in 5-7-5 pattern, while the others are in
4-6-4, 3-5-3 and 4-7-4 patterns:

No letters today

addresses of his dead friends

graying in diary

Monsoon shower

after a long heat wave

monotony breaks

My bedroom

a maze of cobweb

spiders breed

Seeking good news

I watch the lines on my palms

taking new turns

This experimentation with the syllabic structure is actually due to the

globalization of haiku and thus Singh alone is not to be blamed for it. In fact,
it is to be noted here that the varied syllabic structures do not mar the
haikuness of his haiku. His three liners, even though roped in different sound
patterns/breathe, evoke the images explicitly.

In haiku there is no place for didacticism or philosophy. But Singh tries out even
this trait in his poems. To cite-

He sweeps yellow leaves

or gathers years in a heap

burns to merge with dust

The first line gives a clear picture of the persona who is engaged in a task of
cleaning the garden. The second line is suggestive of aging or nearing of death or
the autumn of one’s life whereas the ‘yellow leaves’ of the first line suggests
winter i.e. death. Thus both the lines focus the temporality of all existence,
which further gets strengthened in the last line- ‘burns to merge with dust’. The
last line sounds philosophical and recalls to one’s mind the Biblical line-‘ Thou
cometh from dust and thou returneth to dust’. Moreover, the word ‘burn’ is again
related to Hindu rites where the body is brought to the crematorium ground to burn
on the funeral pyre. It seems that the poet was all set to bring in the
epigrammatic terseness in this haiku. It is to be remembered here that haiku
celebrates the beauty of the moment, the truth and minuteness of the moment with
clear images rather than witty and layered meanings.

Similarly, the following haiku is highly philosophical in tone:

Long forgotten

the beginning and the end

exist in middles

Except for the three-liner haiku pattern, the lines do not fulfill any of the
requirements of a haiku. Neither the reader gets an instant flash of the image nor
does he come to a clear idea. He is only left with an option of reading between
the lines. And if this is done to a haiku, it is then no haiku. The second line of
the poem--‘beginning and the end’-- is here, probably suggestive of the cycle of
life and death. And the last line depicts the mediocrity of people in the present
times. Man has forgotten the essence of his existence. He is only given to
materiality and his comfort zone is his ‘present’, which he never wants to leave.
This haiku is a poor one. In a book review R.K. Singh comments, “It often
depresses me to read in the ‘form’ of haiku moral commands, philosophical
teaching, sentimental reflections and didactic expressions. Haiku is not
epigrammatic poetry or short saying; nor is it intellectualizing, romanticizing,
or pedantry”. The poet fails to create a haiku in those three lines; he fails to
practice what he says.

Singh puts the first letter of his three liners in capital. Most of his haiku are
expressed in a concise and crystallized form, in present tense with a seasonal
word. The poems focus on “what is happening” at a particular moment with all its
freshness and truth.

Challenging/experimenting with established/classical rules requires a lot of guts.

Singh’s experiments with the classical rules of haiku and the dexterity with which
he handles his haiku are sufficient enough to define his poetic talent
/craftsmanship.

References:

1. Abdul Rashid Bijapure. “The Poetry of R.K. Singh,” New Indian English Poetry:
An Alternative Voice, edited by I.K. Sharma. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2004, p.161.

2. R. K. Singh. Book review. Deuce: Haiku Poems (: K.K. Publishers and

Distributors, 2001), Indian Book Chronicle, Vol. 28, no.4 April 2003, p. 5.

3. Catherine Mair, Patricia Prime and R.K. Singh. Every Stone Drop Pebble. New :
Bahri Publications, 1999.

4. Patricia Prime. “Secrets Need Words: Critical Essay on the Haiku and Tanka of
R.K. Singh,” New Indian English Poetry: An Alternative Voice, edited by I.K.
Sharma. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2004.

5. Urmila Kaul. “Indian Haiku and Peddling Dream,” New Indian English Poetry: An
Alternative Voice edited by I.K. Sharma, Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2004.

6. Angelee Deodhar. “ Haiku: An Indian Perspective,” http://www.haiku-hia.com

7. http://tinywords.com

8. http://ahapoetry.com,Lynx

Copyright:

Dr Rajni Singh,
Assistant Professor
Dept of Humanities & Social Sciences
Indian School of Mines
DHANBAD 826004, India