Review of the book ‘Beyond Heaven Beyond Hell’, authored by Jernail Singh Anand
Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma
“If we wish we can turn either into heaven
Or by our own deeds into hell” – Gandhi [1999, Vol. 96:361]
‘Beyond Heaven Beyond Hell’ is another pause in Jernail Singh Anand’s continuous epic journey exploring man’s existential Odyssey, conducting incessant inquisition into what forces men into amoral choices, what continues to haunt as evil and what could uplift man to a comprehensive acceptance of good in himself and his surroundings. Giving the benefit of a brilliant commentary on the dramatic epic, Mauro Montacchiesi, in the foreword, calls it a ‘moral seismograph’. Putting out his familiar range of Characters, Anand, once more, treats the eternal questions of good and evil, heaven and hell, free choice and ultimate destiny. Besides Yamaraj and Chitragupta appear on a loftier plane, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Narad and God himself, Prophet and Chorus, among others is brought in Anand, the poet as well.
The format is conventional, beginning with Invocation to the Muse whose ‘ mouthpiece’ he assumes to be, birth of truth is facilitated ‘from within and from above’. Not much choice, good and bad are ‘coterminous’. The poet says:
You are either in heaven or bound for hell.
Adam cannot but fall to the charms of Eve, and Eve can’t overcome temptations of energy activated as in a serpent.
Opening lines of Chorus, I should like to quote, for their beauty as also laying out the blossoming of matter as the Word:
The layers of grass always dream
Of getting together and forming a tree
Feelings in isolation remain in control
Until they gather momentum
And become philosophies.
The very titles of cantos offer the reader a key to the dramatic unfolding in that section. Opening canto is Intensive Care Unit of AI, and we enter, in the second canto, Realm of Violent Death. We encounter the morally dead, God and Craza, the Super Technocrat. Next we are in the Castles Built in The Air, see Prophet and man, and how catharsis remains ‘undischarged’. Thereafter, in Canto IV, we are presented with A Report Card of Humanity, where God and Brahma converse, how spiritual Icons like Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Nanak lifted mankind but were soon ignored and a meandering queue of self- righteous stands unending on the threshold of death.
What could possibly uplift is the subject of canto V: A Living Encounter: The Eternal Trap. Here in arrives Anand, the author, face to face with God himself. What do we have here? A ‘suspended animation laid asleep’, the reader is left wondering. To put the record straight, God clarifies:
We do not interfere
We only oversee the operation.
Canto VI has The Club of the Wise. Man builds shrines, will that in itself, turn him wise. Chorus hints it out:
If anyone ticks the wisdom button,
Send him straight to Hell.
In canto VII, we meet The Stone Image. God shares with Narad, communicator and messenger between the divine and the human, how men seek his blessings even for the evil they do. But, as Chorus sings out:
God is workaholic
And neither he rests himself
Nor lets his angels rest
God even keeps the demons
On their toes
Energy of the universe is ever at work. Raskolnikovs surrender for their good to the guilt within. Lear and his daughter Cordelia while away their time acting as God’s spies. Who’s in and who’s out remains a matter of time, that’s what, the Stone Image, the Sphinx speaks.
What’s left out is The Eternal Debate in canto VIII.
Are you not afraid of Hell?
Don’t you want to go to Heaven?
In his contented arrogance, Man replies:
I believe in the present.
I don’t think beyond this.
Chorus then confirms:
They don’t know anything
About good and evil.
Hereafter destruction is well-deserved: God’s couldn’t be held responsible.
In the Epilogue, the poet accepts the suggestion of a ‘clouded destiny of mankind’. Mental bankruptcy is not ruled out. The ultimate question is for the reader to brood over:
What’s money to a vehicle?
The nagging worry is: who will add value to this journey?
Poets and prophets cannot resolve the issue. They only strike caution, raise heightened awareness to probe within, for a glimpse of the cosmos of which we are a part, and indeed beyond heaven and hell, the existential endgame each man is engaged to play to the last breath of this corporeal frame.
About the Author
Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 books to his credit [20 epics] is a Chandigarh-based polymath, and a vital architect of the 21st century ethical literature whose seminal work ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ challenges the moral complacency of our era. Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czeck Rep] and Maxim Gorky [Russia] Soka Ikeda and Mahakavi Bharati (India) Awards, his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com
Read: The Language in the ICU
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Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma, a retired Principal from Dharmshala [Himachal Pradesh, India] is a bilingual poet, with nearly two dozen books to his credit. He is a poet, translator, columnist and reviewer. He was officiating Director, HPU Regional Centre, Dharmshala (August 2006- June 2008), Member of HPU Bodies like Academic Council & University Court, Member, NAAC’s Peer Teams. President, HPU Sports and Cultural Council, 2007-08. He was invited as a poet to IIAS, Shimla in November 1993. Attended and honored at World Poetry Conferences held in Bhatinda, 2019, and Chandigarh. He is a Fellow of the Jury of International Academy of Ethics and awarded by Internaitonal Academy of Rome.
