Exploring the Quest for Truth and Meaning in Daud Kamal's Poetry

Daud Kamal, a prolific poet of the sub-continent instills a remarkable sense of quest in his poetry. The search that is traced in his work can be identified at numerous levels. The quest for meaning and purpose in life is pregnant with the quest for identity, strength, perfection and truth. Despite the brevity of his poems, they embody an ineluctable element of loss, despair and submission to fate. As a result of these feelings, the poet's inner development is shaped up.

The quest for identity and truth are explicitly showcased in the poem, The Gift. The title itself is a reference to the "brittle truths" of life which are revealed to human-beings when they depart from this world. Despite a "handful" of realities, "many thousand/of other truthe" exist in the world that are yet to be discovered. The poet claims to have tried to reach depths of his identity but the struggle is in vain as the quest of truth is achieved through the transcendence of identity.

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However, this unending struggle unswervingly connotes to the quest of meaning and purpose in life.

On the other hand, the poem Floods substantiates the quest for strength at intellectual level. The treachery of flood depicted in the poem is a comment on the ambitions of mankind. Excess of anything is associated with negativity. Therefore, at times one's ambition becomes so overwhelming that the individual's strength to love and endure grows faint. If the poem is viewed on a literal scale, it conveys the same notion.

The calamity of flood snatches away the purpose of life for the "bride-to-be" and her parents because the guarantee of marriage, that is, the dowry has been obliterated. Thereby, all hopes and dreams of matrimony have been wiped out with the flood. The quest for strength is overpowered by despair when in the initial stanza, the poet adopts a questioning stance and asserts: "How does one forgive...dissolving in the mud?"

Moreover, the quest for identity, truth and perfection resonates in Confluence. The constant struggle for these essentials in life stems from the acceptance of the variance: desert and the seas that breed within us; coupled with the fact that realization exists within oneself. The fact that awakening and acceptance come in adverse times is marked by the symbol of "cold wind" which jolts individuals so as to gear their passivity into activity. References to youth and old age are intertwined with ocean and desert. They illustrate that experience has its own price to be paid. Also, a quest for perfection is traced in the "grandson" who is inflated with zest and vigour due to the absence of experience.

Furthermore, in Prayer Beads, the quest for truth, meaning and purpose is accentuated which facilitates the idea of a true communion with the Divine Beloved. God is the All-Pervasive Reality and His presence penetrates through every creation. Therefore, one needs to sharpen his/her inner potential inorder to break the shackles of his finite approach. One must transcend beyond the physical screen and search for a vision which needs to be envisioned. It is in accordance with man's infinite approach that he attains truth and purpose in life.

It is to be noted that the poet's inner development is always veiled under his dominant imagery which strongly emphasizes quest in life. Beneath his profuse and realistic imagery, Daud Kamal's endurance to fate is an overarching concern. With a kaleidoscopic technique, the poet highlights various shades of human psyche. His deep-rooted connection with the past events and memories bring forth the idea of resorting to fate without wrestling with it. In Endurance, he explicitly succumbs to fortune through claustrophobic, gloomy and choking images of "winter sunset", "rain puddles", "black ice" and "narrow lanes." The sense of surrender is also pertanent in his other poems which accentuate his loss and despair. The poet's inner development does not have a very positive impact as his confusion eventually increases with the passage of time.

Similarly, Confluence suggests progression in the poet's thought when he states: "Night opening her mouth/to take the bite." The personification of night marks disillusionment and the idea that the poet is wary of some lesson of life taught by time. In the same poem, he refers to "obselete dreams" which typify his realization of fluctuating and changing nature of man's dreaming capacity. In the following lines, the poets inner development is indicated when references to "desert" and "sea" illumine mysticism thus, showing that happiness and sadness depend on the inner condition of man as they are inherent emotions of mankind colliding with each other. Each and every word of Daud Kamal's poetry echoes deep meaning. For instance, the word "wait" in Confluence connotes to the mature approach of the poet as his far-fetched vision compels him to discover happiness and sadness within. His blunt expression of the fact "We all die" further highlights his inner development and realization.

Time is a recurring factor in Daud Kamal's poetry. In Driftwood, the poet's sensitivity towards the fleeting nature of time is vividly showcased. It is time that tests an individual and forces him to go through thick and thin. It is the nostalgic memories of the past that haunt the poet's present. Nonetheless, it is characteristic of time that it stores significant events in minds of people. The poet is well-aware of the transient nature of time and its profound impact on human-beings. Yet, at the same time, he implicitly dwells upon the readers' minds by being implicitly didactic. As a matter of fact, his inner development has occurred which instills in him a deep sense of melancholy when he talks about the "hiatus" that can never be bridged.

The plight of Sisyphus, an ancient Greek myth, is reminiscent of Daud Kamal's poetry as a symbol of the human condition. Inspite of constant struggle, a person rarely if ever completes anything. Problems confront humanity all the time. Due to such fruitless effort, life seems to have little or no meaning. Simultaneously, Daud Kamal's subjugation to fate overshadows all efforts, suffering and agony in life. The wave-pattern of his poems highlights the anguish and despondency of his thoughts and emotions.

With all his idiosyncrasies, Daud Kamal was very much a product of his time voracious in his absorption of new ideas and surroundings. His poetry is emotionally and intellectually demanding. The depiction of suffering and hopelessness has a universal appeal to all people in grief and in all times. It is, nonetheless, worth every ounce of adulation.