“Uncollected poems and prose A. K. Ramanujam” - Edited by Molly Daniels- Ramanujam and Keith Harrison.

     I have issued “Uncollected poems and prose A. K. Ramanujam” from the central library of University. This book is edited by Molly Daniels- Ramanujam and Keith Harrison.

    

       Here I have shared a poem which I like from the book; the poem is about the concept of “waiting”. In our life we always wait for something to happen or someone to come and make us happy rather than being the reason of our own happiness.

Waiting 

Waiting for a friend from Milwaukee

to pick me up on Sunday

I looked out the window.

A family of four, young bearded father,

tall mother slim in white shorts,

son practising imaginary baseball

on the sidewalk as he walks ahead,

and daughter, small and busy, trying

cartwheels on the strip of new grass

between sidewalk and the car-

ridden road. They were waiting

for nothing, while I waited, as always

for someone to arrive from somewhere

and take me somewhere else

As I watched them

turn into 57^th street, I too waited

for nothing for a moment.    

        This poem looks like a short story. Ramanujam has presented the prosaic poem. A very short incident of “Waiting” is described by him. Waiting is a painful process and we don’t even know what would we get after waiting or are we waiting for the right thing or not? We don’t know that.

       

       In this poem we can feel the loneliness of a poet. While waiting for his friend, he saw a family of four people. All are working together and happy. As per poet they are not waiting for anyone because they have the company of each other. On the other hand, poet is quite lonely and when there is holiday, he waits for someone to come and take him somewhere.

      Poet wants to get free from the loneliness and waits for someone to come and give him a company. The another fact is to enjoy this loneliness or we can also say ‘solitute’ and at last poet said,

“I too waited for nothing for a moment”

      This theme of waiting for “nothing” recalls me the nothingness of “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. In that play of two act there was a dialogue by both the characters,

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's  awful!”

     But the process of waiting is important. As the poet in this poem says that, if you are complete with yourself you don’t need others to complete you. Waiting for nothing is waiting for yourself and feel complete.