The Person I Am Looking For: Hazara Singh

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

The Person I Am Looking For by Hazara Singh

If you do not get lowered in your own eyes

While you raise yourself in those of others

If you do not give in to gossips and lies

Rather heed them not, saying ‘Who bothers’.

You may be the person I am looking for.

If you crave not for praise when you win

And look not for sympathy while you lose

If cheers let not your head toss or spin

And after a set-back you offer no excuse.

You may be the person I am looking for.

If you accept counsel without getting sore

And re-assess yourself in the light thereof

If you pledge not to be obstinate any more

And meet others without any frown or scoff.

You may be the person I am looking for.

If you have the will to live and courage to die

You are a beacon-light for people far and wide

If you ignore the jeers and, thus, expose the lie

‘That virtue and success do not go side by side’.

You are the person I am looking for.

The Person I Am Looking For is one of the best poems of Hazara Singh dealing with a very moral and didactic purpose through which he instills a feeling of hope in us as well as tries to inspire and motivate  us in a positive way. This life is for something to do, something to achieve and stand by, not for sitting idle. We live in deeds, not in years, is the thing of deliberation. The poem is almost like A Psalm of Life. There is something of Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. A votary of Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, he writes the poetry of his type, epigrammatic and Baconian. His poetry is very didactic and inspirational as well as motivational and he seems to be under Swett Marden and Dale Carnegie. How to achieve the unachievable? How to reach your goal? How to be successful? How to be good and noble? How to cultivate the joy of living, how to pursue the art of living? He teaches about all that. His poem reminds us of the English prose-writers and their stuffs, as such A.G.Gardiner, J.B.Priestly, Robert Lynd and so on.

 Hazara Singh is a poet of his own right and apart from; he is a teacher, a freedom fighter, a thinker and a historian of some sort. As a poet, he derives and draws from nationalists, patriots, freedom fighters, national heroes, democrats, republicans, scientists, thinkers and so on to rebuild and recreate his poetic images. 

One should not get lowered before as for what the people will say. Why to humble oneself in such a way? The head should be held high. Why not to raise oneself in the eyes of others? The poet forbids to hear the gossips and to desist from giving an ear to lies as who likes to participate in gossips will idle away his time in doing useless things and as thus he will spoil himself finally. He will not be able to do anything in his life. He will just idle away passing leisurely time. This life is not meant for them who are inactive and uselessly talkative. This life is not for gossips. This is for action and work. Those who are serious and active talk it not too much without caring for the useless talkers and gossip-masters. Try to keep them avoiding. Who hears them? This should be the thing. Why to bother about? One must try to handle the awkward situation in this way. It is better to avoid them rather than hearing anything else from. Those who do like to remain sincere to their jobs and assignment and undertaking. The poet searches a person who can be as such.

Only they can who crave it not for praise and admiration as there is nothing in false praise and self-praise. What sympathy can they extend to if one loses in or keeps losing? It is not going to make a difference. If cheers come it not in hand, why to sit and repent? One should take the set back as a challenge for to renew the fight. Why to sit still? Why not to be prepared again keeping victory in mind? Even after the loss, one can win if one wants to make the efforts in the right way competitively. Success should be your goal. Wins and losses matter it not, count it not what you have won or lost. Just keep you practising, aspiring for, translating your dreams into a reality. The victory is yours. One who labours, one puts the efforts in wins. Those who crave for praise will not go up. Those who have won it does not mean that they will always. Offer you no excuse please. Just keep you busy with, just keep you labouring, striving for. This should be your target, this should be your goal of life, if you want to achieve something in your life. This world is not for them who sit idle and pass time. This world is for them who really want to work and translate their dreams into a reality.

If one accepts, follows advice without being hurt and tries to re-address oneself in the light of that, one may improve and correct oneself. If one is not obstinate enough and likes meeting others without scoff or frown, one may achieve the target. The poet means to say it that there must scope for correction and re-correction and one should try to follow others and learn from as long as one can widening his knowledge and wisdom, enriching with feeling and experience. We need not be obstinate and stubborn. If we turn crazy, we shall see the things crazily. We must pledge to be in the good direction. Without any frown or scoff, we must accept the things. One must be cordial in welcoming in heartily with open-mindedness. To be narrow and small-minded cannot be the goal.

If one has the will to live and the courage to die for, one can definitely do, but one should have the guts and determination to reach the goal. One can be a role model by sheer hard work, perseverance, nobility, courage and determination. This can happen only after ignoring jeers and exposing lies. To be virtuous and to be successful are two different things. Virtues, nobility, goodness and greatness have nothing to do with success. But one must try to combine them. One must just keep it doing and the act doing will make one big. Goodness does not come to it so easily and for it one needs to be good enough apart from being a man of action.

Who can say that you may not be the person the poet is waiting for? Why to speak of the poet? The world is waiting for? The main thing is to develop virtues in you. Try to be good and noble and ideal. If you are, the people around you will be good as they will come to learn from you. If you righteous and virtuous enough, your righteousness and virtues will automatically come up for a discussion. Do not sit idle. Aim at doing high, something big and the mere act of doing big will make you big. Talent or genius is in each of us, but it needs to be explored in all of its possibilities. If you can reach the target, achieve the goal, the world is yours.

A small poem, The Person I Am Looking For is very beautiful indeed as it can motivate and inspire us so beautifully. The poem tells us how to use our time, how to gain it from life experiences. There must a passion for living. We must know the art of living. How to live a happy life? How to think healthily? We must try to know what this life is, how the lessons it imparts and what it the key to success. The mantra of success is but hard labour. The mantra of success is good behavior and good thinking. If one keeps it not striving, can success come to one? The answer is ‘no’. How to be successful? How to be good? How to be noble? How to be virtuous? This is the thing of deliberation. It all depends on you how you take to on aim and ambition, on your ideal and moral, on your will to do it, accomplish and reach the goal. How to reach the target is completely yours.