THE GREATEST MORALIST AND GREATEST IDEALIST OF THE 21ST CENTURY: DR JERNAIL SINGH ANAND

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, the Franz Kafka Laureate,  is the greatest moralist and greatest idealist of the 21st century, comparable with Daniel Defoe as a satirist as his sharpest. President of the International Academy of Ethics and Extraordinary Ambassador of SAPS, a Polish Organization for Unity, Peace & Equality, he holds the distinction of being the only Indian author during the last hundred years, to have been conferred the Honorary Membership of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade, after Indian Nobel Laureate, Sh. Rabindra Nath Tagore.  The sheer number of his works, 150, sets him apart as an author of great stature defying comparisons in living memory. 

EPICS 

If Shakespeare is remembered for his plays, Dr. Anand will be remembered for reviving interest in the genre of the Epic.  Epics were the creation of periods when ignorant masses believed in myths. In modern society, even drama is on the discard list, because Kings and Queens are a part of history. For common man, with his common problems, and lack of time, novel and short story are considered the fittest medium. Moreover, epic genre has been out of reckoning as international literary bodies recognize only fiction for awards.  Still, Dr. Anand authors 9 epics, reviving the dying genre. 

 ‘Geet: The Unsung Song of Eternity’ [a sequel to John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’],  ‘The Satanic Empire’ [sequels Dante’s ‘The Divine Comedy’], ‘The Plague: The Metaphor is Dead’ [ Camus.’s The Plague’],  ‘The Mahabharat: The War of Words’ wonders what use it was shedding so much blood, if evil was to return on such a spectacular scale. While ‘The Ganterbury Tales’ weave  Chaucer’s magic in ‘The Canterbury Tales’, ‘The Master: The Return of the Prophet’ reworks the memories of Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’.  

LUSTUS: THE MOST DISTURBING BOOK OF MODERN PERIOD

‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ is undoubtedly the most phenomenal and most disturbing book of 21st century.  Lustus, a young cousin of ageing Satan, is a Corporate of Evil, who wants to imperialize the world by disturbing the mental balance of mankind. His ‘homovid vaccine’ is meant to ‘humanize’ the non-human world with traits like deceit, hoarding, jealousy etc. He declares war on angels, and nearly defeats them, before Goddess Durga vanquishes him.  

The Book II, ‘The Dominion of the Netherworld’, depicts the working of Lustus’s powerful empire. Lustus again wins  an electoral battle against gods.   Finding that Lustus lives in the hearts of the people,  Avi [the god]  slays  half the population. Lustus is then exiled from the land.  In Book III, the Kalyuga comes to an end, and gods, instead of men, now anoint Queen Ultronia to reign over Ultronia, a neo-Eden. 

NEO-MYTHOLOGY

Dr. Anand here introduces a new term: Neo-Mythology. Mahakaal Trilogy is a mix of Eastern and Western mythology. Anand creates neo-mythological characters like Lustus who is a young cousin of Satan. Satan’s daughter, Amazinia, is also the creation of his fertile imagination. Similarly, Goddess of Greed, Greda, [also called ‘Chanchal Ma] is a neo-mythical character.  

NEO-EDEN & JERNOPIA 

Neo-Eden relates to Book III, ‘The Ultronic Age’, which heralds the celestial reign of Satyuga, after Lustus has been exiled. The neo-Eden is ruled by Queen Ultronia. The gods anoint a woman, because they think, men over the previous ages have caused havoc to the Kingdom of Gods. Lustus University which taught courses like Masters in Uncivil Engineering was dismantled. Women are 6 feet plus, while men remain between 5 and 6 feet. Women whether they stay at home or go for work, are paid equally. There is an SSIN, soul to soul internet network. They need not speak. Their ideas travel automatically to the person concerned. It is a highly technologized society, which venerates nature, birds, trees, waters and mountains. This is the onset of the Satyuga once again, as it is a crimeless society. There are no police stations. No one goes to sleep without food. The Village head is responsible for the education and wellbeing of each family. All have equal land holdings. If anyone falters in his duty, there are no courts to adjudicate. Only one punishment. Execution. Such revolutionary ideas make it a fantasy like ‘The Fairy Queen’, a fantasia, also called Jernopia. 

THE THEORY OF BIOTEXT 

Dr. Anand’s Theory of Bio-text was articulated by Dr. Roghayeh Farsi, from Neyshabur Univ. Iran, who wrote several articles on  Biotext.  Biotext says that every text is rooted in the biography of the writer, [a ‘literaria biographia’] and is impacted by the element of time as well. It orientates between the theories of Bakhtin and Deleuze.  A text when written is like a snap shot taken from a running car, which after a split second, will be entirely different because our consciousness is in constant flow. Writing is the firming up of just one version, while there are so many others which remain in the field of the possible.  In other words, in the next moment, the written word would be different. When it comes into the hands of the reader, the same theory applies. The meaning depends on the mental arrangement of the reader at a particular moment. In the next moment,  the mental arrangement may change and he may receive the same text in a different way. That is why, there is no finality about the meaning of a text. 

CONNECT WITH IRAN

Dr. Anand has a deep connect with Iran. In fact, for the first time, his work received international recognition from Iranian scholar Dr. Roghayeh Farsi, University of Neyshabur, Iran,  when she wrote a detailed article comparing his book ‘Beyond Life Beyond Death’ [2001] to T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’, followed by another article on  ‘Bliss: The Ultimate Magic’ [2007] comparing it  with Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’. She published two articles on Biotext and a book on Anand’s Creative Consciousness. Recently, Dr. Farsi headed a Research Project comparing Dr. Anand’s poetry with two Iranian Poets, Sohrab Sepehri and Forugh Farrokhazad. She also got his novel ‘The Broken Narrative’ translated into Persian. She has herself translated the great modern epic ‘Lustus’ into Persian. 

Another aspect of Dr. Anand’s Iranian connect is the translation of his two spiritual masterpieces, ‘Bliss’ and ‘I Belong to you’ into Persian by Prof. Nargues Mohammadi, Mashad University, Iran. 

INTERNAITONAL ACADEMY OF ETHICS:

Not only this, Dr Anand is at the head of a great revolution in the field of Ethics. He has established International Academy of Ethics, which is making waves worldwide, with a grand network of hundreds of International and national scholars on its Consortium of Scholars, World Ambassadors. The Academy is organizing Panel Discussions on various subjects of social, cultural, and intellectual interest, and these discussions are looked forward to by the international academia. They have plans to start courses in Ethics for the students. 

POETRY CONFERENCES 

Dr. Anand has organized four World Poetry Conferences, in which hundreds of poets, writers, scholars have taken part. He is President of World Poetry Conference, World Literature India, Aazaad Foundation and the International Academy of Ethics. 

THE CONNECT BETWEEN LITERATURE AND THE COMMON MAN:

Dr. Anand wishes  to keep writing and bridging the gap between literature and the common man. Presently, the writers turn into elite groups, and cater only to writers. Ordinary people cannot understand their scholarly jargon. In this way, the man in the street for whom they write remains unaffected by their high-flown theories. Literature must come out of the ivory tower and embrace the common man. In our poetry readings, a few general people need to be invited and told in plain language, what we are writing and thinking about their issues. It can help them understand their dilemmas better. 

HUMAN SUFFERING

According to Dr. Anand, humanity is suffering  because it has lost the ‘original intelligence’, and given the go by to simplicity, love, happiness, goodness.  Life has become toxic because of the disconnect with natural forces. Man, with his AI,  has turned inimical to the life-support systems. Man must regain his lost balance by returning to nature.  He has to unlearn so many things, and embrace the natural quotient [NQ] of birds and animals. 

EDUCATION & ETHICS 

Dr. Anand feels that present education system encourages dry intellectual aridity and is divorced from life. Education means the culture of the mind and training of the soul. The Universities, which work like Groups of Industries, have everything except a Dept. of Ethics. They have no faith in Poetry, History and Creativity. The International Academy of Ethics is trying to focus attention on the study of ethics as a compulsory subject in all classes. 

THE INDIAN SCENE: NEGLECT OF A GENIUS

It is really surprising that a poet who has been recognized and canonized in a country like Iran, with a great spiritual tradition represented by Rumi, Indian universities have evinced no interest in Dr. Anand’s work.  Even the Sahitya Akademy is blissfully unaware of his work which has taken the world by storm. The most intriguing thing is the absence of official recognition even from the Govt. of Punjab, a state which he has done proud, because no Punjabi poet was celebrated and translated like him in Persian, nor recognized by the western world in the field of English literature. 

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION:

Dr Anand, has received the highest recognition from The Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade, which has conferred on him  Honorary Membership.  Professor Emeritus at the European Institute of the Roma Studies and Research, Belgrade, he received the Franz Kafka Literary Prize, 2022. He was Secretary General of the World Parliament of Literature. World Union of Poets, Italy, conferred on him the Cross of Peace and the Cross of Literature. Art4Life Foundation, Beverley Hills [US] decorated him with Lifetime Achievement Award. He was nominated Extraordinary Member of SAPS, a Polish body of Artists and Writers of the World. Dr. Anand visited Italy to attend Kibatek 39 Poetic Festival in Feb 2016 and Nigeria in Nov. 2016 to participate in the Inception Ceremony of World Institute of Peace, Nigeria. 

Commenting on Mahakaal Trilogy, Dr. Maja Herman Sekulic, the great Serbian-US author, says:

Just to have such a grand vision and vigour to undertake a poem of such epic proportions is a unique accomplishment in the 21st century with no match today! We have to look for comparisons in classical epic literature or to turn to today’s cinematic epics such as “Star Wars” where good always conquers the bad as is projected to happen in the third part of Anand’s grand trilogy. 

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand is, as I stated before, the greatest poet among philosophers and the greatest philosopher among poets but I will add to this that he is also the greatest moralist and idealist in 21st century  world literature! He was recently awarded Franz Kafka prize that couldn’t be placed in better hands!

She goes on to add: The true moralists are always prone to be great satirists as he had already proven in “Lustus” where I dared to compare him with Daniel Dafoe at his sharpest.

Great seers, prophets and philosophers like Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorkhy, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth,  Kahlil Gibran, Walt Whitman – all have produced literature which transcends their times, and lives in the day to day thoughts of the men. I have seen such sweep of sympathies for the world of men and nature only in holy scriptures. The life-work of Dr. Anand, gives out the sacred scent of goodness which seeks welfare of the entire universe. I find all those enduring qualities in the work of Dr. Anand, the sage poet of the modern world, which lend a subtle grandeur to his persona as an author of all times, and he can be safely called the conscience keeper of the 21st century.  We have to agree with Dr. Tamali Neogi that   “the merciless satirist is perhaps the most honest lover of mankind”. 

[Dr. Shiv Sethi is a renowned author, critic and reviewer.]