why does kalam have a kalam?

for the few still following his blazing trail across the fields of indian writing in english, our president has struck again. i was drawn to his latest masterpiece by curiosity. after all, its title, the life tree, was followed by the word ‘poems’. interesting, i thought. after vajpayee, another nominal figurehead dabbling in verse.

it didn't look terribly inviting. the sleeve promised readers "a walk, through anecdote and poetry, over the terrain of his life." and, to be fair, the anecdotes were many. pointless, but many. it was the poetry that was missing. "kalam's world is one of simplicity and beauty," the blurb continued, "in which nature figures prominently, as do human relationships and love for the country. there is also the constant, benign presence of god…" all true. the words 'creator', 'divine' and 'almighty' make their presence felt on every second page, as do the words 'bless', 'lamp' and 'knowledge'.

stifling the urge to shut it and run for cover, i swallowed, and turned to the first poem, song of youth:
"i am one of the citizens of the billion;
only the vision will ignite the billion souls.
it has entered into me…"

'billion' was, as i would soon find out, another of the president's favourite words. but what was he trying to say? what vision would ignite the aforementioned souls? what had entered into him? and why was he unleashing it on us, the unsuspecting billions?

in his foreword, atal bihari vajpayee believes "dr kalam shows a deep understanding of the problems of indian society, and attempts to find solutions to problems with compassion, detachment, forbearance and sympathy." he must know something i don't.

dr a. p. j. kalam was, at the last count, responsible for four books. he was project director of india's first indigenous satellite launch vehicle programme, chairman of the technology information, forecasting and assessment council, and recipient of the bharat ratna. i could be wrong, but i foresee few awards from the sahitya akademi.

back to the attempt at poetry. in dr kalam's special world, scansion does not exist. nor does prosody. the poem from which the book takes its title, the life tree, is solid proof:
"my little habitat, the star
where my race has lived billions of years
and will live billions of years more, till the sun shines."

i was taught that art ought to be mimetic. that it ought to teach us something about ourselves. that it ought to take the plain and reinvent it. in nature, kalam chooses to give us this instead:
"bright blue sky, at r.c.i. that day
my thoughts were soaring on freedom,
hope was their strand in radiance of peace,
hillocks were spotted in embracing clouds,
scientists were working, silently, heads down:"

the poem goes on to tell us how scientists prompted our president to search for god. he found the almighty, apparently, with the help of a robin on a bush somewhere. he ends -- yes, patient reader, it does end after a while -- with something called my national prayer:
"help all the leaders of my country to give strength
and bless the nation with peace and prosperity.
give strength to all my religious leaders to bring
unity of minds among all our billion people."

no art. no prosody. just the word 'billion' thrown about a billion times. and something every fourth 9-year-old has scribbled at some point for a school exam. would a publisher accept this if it were to come from someone else? would you or i stand a chance at getting something like this published or distributed by a big firm? being an able president is one thing; doing a bad job in an unrelated area, something else.

i turn to the cover sleeve one last time. "he always has time to spare," it tells me, "even in the midst of a busy schedule, to wonder at the beauty of god's creation."

i wish he had a little less time to spare.

on a more positive note, there's confronting love: poems, a pocket-sized anthology put together to "convey the myriad nuances of love." a lot of the poems here work, simply because they are written by accomplished men and women who have spent years honing their craft. the problems creep in with the few amateurs strewn across some of the pages. for these folk, poetry is a mix of abstraction and e. e. cummings.

the poets here that moved me -- vinay dharwadker (waking), agha shahid ali (leaving your city), tara patel (request), jayant mahapatra (of that love), jeet thayil (sailor's log), arundhathi subramaniam (vigil), ruth vanita (distance) and arun kolatkar (lice) -- were not the usual suspects. not for creators of love poems, that is.

i continue to hope that dr kalam will take a few notes from them. because, given the time he allocates to wondering at god's creation, something tells me he'll soon be back.