Author of My Religious and Spiritual Poetry
1. Congratulations on the release of your book, My Religious and Spiritual Poetry. How does it feel to share your work with readers?
Bijay Kant Dubey: My Religious & Spiritual Poetry is before you to see and go through if you truly love and enjoy poetry. Finally, my collage is here, featuring extracts from religious and spiritual poetry. The book is on the table, and I cannot say whether the readers will like it or not, but you will. Thank you for printing it and providing me with a copy sooner or later. The news itself is great!
2. Could you briefly tell us about yourself and your journey as a poet?
Bijay Kant Dubey: As a poet, I have struggled, suffered, and sacrificed a great deal. Grappling with these experiences, stumbling and shrugging them off, I have arrived here. I chose to remain silent and wanted to mark the dormant and lewd wishes of so-called hypocritical greats, whether from the proletariat, intelligentsia, or bourgeoisie.
I observed them from close quarters, with reservations, blue or red-pencilling my observations and marking the lines. I did not run after name and fame. I waited for them to come knocking at my door. People could not recognise me, as they were wearing goggles. But the statue of the unknown citizen, when viewed by a passerby, welcomed me. Wild blooms seemed to be humming songs.
3. What inspired you to write religious and spiritual poetry?
Bijay Kant Dubey: I was a spiritual man, I was a religious man, and I am still religious and spiritual. But, side by side, I am also a sceptic and an agnostic, living in a godless universe and questioning: Where is God? Have you seen God? Does God come to assist us in times of need?
God helps those who help themselves. But do not be disappointed. Take it that He is there, listening to our self-scrutinising, soul-searching existential questions.
4. Your poetic journey began in 1986. How has your writing evolved over the years?
Bijay Kant Dubey: Whatever evolved, evolved in 1987, and I equalled myself with Tagore’s Gitanjali. Again, I took to Chaucer and Langland to write in Middle English and succeeded too, but eventually abandoned it. I just published a thin collection of spiritual poems. The rest remained unpublished or were destroyed. My non-religious poems could not be brought out.
In the beginning, before starting the series of religious verses, I used to send my poems to The Telegraph, Sunday Colour Magazine, and The Illustrated Weekly of India. Instead, books were brought out intermittently from time to time. Publications did not stop.
My poems appeared in Debonair magazine in April 1989. M. K. Naik, C. V. Venugopal, Prema Nandakumar, S. Krishna Bhatt, G. S. Balarama Gupta, and others are some of the critics whose letters kept my creative spirit alive.
Sorry to say, none took note of what I wrote. My archives, too, betrayed me, and I could not maintain my shelves. None knew me. Even the Padma awardees could not know me. But the flame does not extinguish; it keeps burning, the flame of love, the flame of mystical love. Did you understand, gentleman?
In 1986, I had been following Eliot, Keats, Wordsworth, and Arnold. Again, Browning and Whitman snapped the reels. I moved to Langland and Chaucer. But Tagore’s Gitanjali made me pause. Side by side, I took to modern topics but did not publish them.
I published My Collected Poems, My Selected Poems, My Love Poems, My Father, and Chandramukhi.
Numerous publications, countless in number, lie scattered across a large corpus and body of texts, both published and unpublished, with some destroyed.
5. Why did you choose the relationship between the human soul and the Supreme Soul as a central theme for this collection?
Bijay Kant Dubey: The bonding between the Soul and the Supreme Soul, the Self and the Greater Self, is the thread that binds both of them inseparably. Atman and Parmatman, how should we view this bonding?
6. Your book explores Hindu mythology and divine figures such as Lord Shiva, Murugan, Mahakal, and Kalbhairava. Which of these subjects do you particularly enjoy writing about?
Bijay Kant Dubey: Mahakal-Kaleshwar Shiva, Kalbhairava, Nataraja Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshvara, Annapurna, and Jagadhatri hold a special charm for me, and I feel drawn to them.
Ravana, too, was a great scholar, and I like to worship him as well.
7. Is there any particular poem in this collection that holds a special place in your heart? Why?
Bijay Kant Dubey: I cannot single out any particular poem. I love them all.
Take to the dhol and cymbals and sing, Hare Rama Hare Krishna!
But when bored, think of Chandramukhi. Why is Radha fair and I somewhat dark?
8. How do Indian mythology and spiritual traditions influence your writing?
Bijay Kant Dubey: Mythology and spiritual traditions are what I try to bring together in a fusion. How to recreate? How to recreate the beats and rhythms?
I can see the Naga Sadhus sitting as Shiva; I can see little children acting as Radha-Krishna on a swing. A terracotta clay-model Buddha, a blackly sitting Mahavira, I love to see them.
Shiva seeking alms from Annapurna and her feeding him, the dog and the cat too. When disturbed, chant slowly, Hari Om, Hari Om, Hari, Hari. Pause a bit and loosen your body, closing your eyes and taking a break to revel in Om Shantih Shantih Shantih.
What mine,
What yours,
Everything but His,
Did you understand?
Empty-handed,
Bare-footed came I
And shall
Empty-handed,
Bare-footed,
Did you?
The Dalit Pujaran of Kali and The Yogini Sthana and the Dalit Purohita of The Wooded & Hilly Spot take the wings from as for to revel into territories far unknown. A Brahmin I am non-Brahminical, a socialist I am a non-socialist, a religious poet I am non-fanatical. My thesis is my anti-thesis and my anti-thesis my thesis.
9. What message or feeling would you like readers to take away after reading your book?
Bijay Kant Dubey: Try to learn from the intrinsic bonding that exists between Man and Nature. Try to read the Book of Life. Though materialistic values are necessary for survival, do not spoil your precious life in pursuit of them. Try to remain calm and complacent, and face whatever hardships come your way.
10. What advice would you give to aspiring poets who wish to write about spirituality and devotion?
Bijay Kant Dubey: A man learns and keeps learning. Keep writing, keep writing; something will definitely come out of it.
Under the shadow of Shyama Kali
I walking my way past
Under the shadow,
The shadow of
Shyama Kali.
Aghora Kamini,
Clutching the nocturnal blooms,
Where keep you going
Late into the dark night,
O celestial dream flower,
Blessed by a tantrica
To the childless couple
Approaching and looking in benediction!
11. Are you active on social media? How can readers connect with you and follow your literary journey?
Bijay Kant Dubey: You may activate and deactivate me on social media. The battery should be yours, but I am available.
12. Where can readers purchase My Religious and Spiritual Poetry?
Bijay Kant Dubey: My book is available on Amazon, Kindle, and Flipkart.
As poems are taught in Bangalore and Mangalore, I would like to relocate from there.
13. Thank you, Mr. Bijay Kant Dubey, for taking the time to answer our questions. We wish you great success with your book and your continued literary journey!
Bijay Kant Dubey: A visionary, I love to imagine Kali going as a dark daughter, Mother Kamakhya going as a girl-child, and a gypsy girl with a pink-red Ganesha in her lap, going door to door to sell it.
