Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
Existential Angst in Charu Sheel Singh’s Terracotta Flames
Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh
Abstract
India is mostly the country of the unsung heroes as well as heroines. It lacks no hand, no mind,
no soul, and no courage, but the thing that it needs is to take a mega exercise to explore and
identify all those unknown and unsung heroes and heroines who did their best in their respective
fields for the prestige and progression of the country. It is not only annexed to Indian history—
The Great Struggle—but also to Indian literature—Hindi, English as well as others. Angst as
Conflict is common and omnipresent in the literature of the world. English literature is also one
of them. When this fact is observed with the aim of exploration in English writing in India,
especially in verses, it becomes quite clear that it is as clear as mud. The verses of Tagore,
Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, Nissim Ezekiel, Kamla Das, Jayanta Mahapatra, Gieve Patel, Keki
N. Daruwalla, and A.K. Ramanujan are brimming with angst in varities. In contemporary India,
in the field of English writing, many versifiers who are trying their hands in versification, are
highly with angst. Charu Sheel Singh is one of them who have tried their hand in this field.
Present article aims to examine the showering of angst scattered throughout his Terracotta
Flames going through the Etymology as well as tense and sense of the angst. Additionally, it
examines the types of angst—ancestral or hereditary and contemporary or environmental angst—
found in this magnum opus.
Key Words
Angst, Ennui, Existentialism, Terracotta, Tabernacles, Spectrum, Weltschmerz, Oeuvre.
Etymologically, the term ‗Angst‘ is chiefly derived from the German origin, standing for ‗fear‘,
‗anxiety‘, or ‗anguish‘. It has the same German root as well as the Latin along with the same
definition and spelling conveying the similar meaning as ‗anguish‘ and ‗anxiety‘ It belongs to
Proto-Indo-European root and has been in existence since 8th century, but it has been in a high
currency since 19th century with the translation of the works of Danish theologian, philosopher,
poet, social critic and religious author Soren Kierkegaard and Austrian neurologist Sigmund
Freud into English. In English Language, it was introduced from Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch
word angst and the German word Angst. The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of
anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity (web.). Philosophically, being a paramount feature of
existentialist philosophy, it is a part and parcel of an individual‘s suffering that foregrounds
dissatisfaction in him/her—a complaint about the ways of the world as well as the way the world
is–meaninglessness as well as purposelessness of life and the absurdity of the cosmos. Generally,
it substitutes, fear, anguish and anxiety without any clear justification.
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 24
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
It was Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who first of all explored the concept of
‗existential angst‘ in his book Begret Angest, or The Concept of Anxiety in 1844. To him, as it
seems, it is a condition of dread and anxiety that is caused by the confrontation of human choice
and absurdity of the universe or cosmic absurdity. The telescopic study of the existentialism as
well as of Kierkegaard clears that that life is meaningless and each and every individual tries to
make it meaningful in his/ her own ways with the help of his/her free choice that either makes or
mars his/her own life—One thus has the freedom to choose any action, as well as the
responsibility of accepting the consequences (effects) of that action. It is precisely this freedom
and responsibility that causes existential angst. One fact that needs here a clarification is that it
does not always cause despair. Sometimes, it causes happiness. It makes possibility for an
individual to set limitations for making moral choices. Such types of choices sometimes bring
happiness, and sometimes despair. But probability is more for despair.
To the philosophers of existentialism train mainly to Sartre, existential angst is nothing but a
natural consequence of freedom to make horrible choices. To him, life has no overriding
meaning or order, except what is created by an individual. His par excellence play No Exit
involves the people trapped in a grim afterlife as a result of their poor choices. Hitherto, he,
indirectly not directly, declares that ‗existence precedes essence ()‘—what an individual is, is the
result of his/her choices rather than the reverse—so s/he has no predetermined nature
(freedom/responsibility). To him ‗time is of the essence‘—each and every individual is time
bound creature—but unlike the measurable clock time, like the lived qualitative time—differing
in meaning and value. To him, ethical considerations are paramount—evaluation of the
authenticity of man‘s personal life as well as of his/her society. No individual can escape from it.
History whether it is political; history whether it is social, or economic, or cultural; history
whether it is of the emperors, kings or great men; history whether it is of a nation, its citizens and
denizens; history whether it is of literature—whether of English or other— all, all is brimming
with the passions and emotions of angst.
In English Literature, the stream of angst is sometimes as a rivulet and sometimes as a river,
sometimes as a lake and sometimes as an ocean. It has its own existence with differing shapes,
sounds and tone. It has been moistening the literary terrain for ages and ages. No doubt, in
Modern age, especially, in war poetry and fiction, it assumes the shape of a tornado, but whether
it is Middle age or Renaissance; Restoration Period or Romantic Age its gusts or auras can be
felt. Victorian Era as well as Post Modern Era is not aloof from it.
English writing in India is also in the grip of angst. It also has its bleak shadow. All the literary
genres of English writing in India—whether it is prose or poetry, fiction or drama—visibly
present its existence. All of them depict modern man as hovering thing between the poles of
sordid despair and verdant delusion. They tend to show the futility and hollowness of the so
called civilized society which is full of the causing characteristics of angst such as hollowness,
snobbery, loneliness, deprivation and disintegration. For instance, the works of Raja Ram Mohan
Roy does not only deal with the angst related to the discrimination of the Indian societies but
also with the angst related to the British Rule. In Tagore and Aurobindo it is visibly related to
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 25
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
spirituality. A few novels (especially The Serpent and the Rope and The Cat and Shakespeare) of
Raja Rao deal with the philosophical angst of illusion and reality along with the angst of the
philosophical encountering of the thoughts of East and West. The novels of Mulk Raj Anand are
also with the angst related to the class and caste—chiefly untouchability. The angst, that is
found in R.K. Narayana, is related to village and town life—chiefly Malgudi. In Nissim Ezekiel
we find the angst related to urban life—metropolitan cities like Bombay. None can forget the
oeuvres of Kamala Das that are the epic of patriarchal angst. The novels of Bhabani
Bhattacharya, Arun Joshi, and Kamala Markandaya also do lots with it. The essays of Nirad C.
Chaudhuri also echo the angst of mundane life. This line of angst does not come to an end
hitherto. The poetry of a number of poets of present India—C.L. Khatri, Akhil Katyal, Tishani
Doshi, Sonnet Mondal, Arundhati Subramaniam, Sujata Bhatt, K.V. Dominic— is also with
angst.
As conflict is a common thing but chiefly in the plays and short stories, in the same way, angst is
a common thing but chiefly in verses. But the angst that is found in the verses of Charu Sheel
Singh is something different from others. As it is not merely angst but existential angst that
hover over the questions of the purpose of birth, meaning of life, identity formation of the
individual through the help of choices—good and bad, and validity of one‘s actions in the
process of molding his/her essence. Most of his collections of poetry have such an everlasting
flame of it that has been attracting the scholars for a long time. In the ‗Introduction‘ of Charu
Sheel Singh‘s ―Collected Poems (1975-2003)” says O.P. Budholiya:
―Charu Sheel has deep under currents of Buddhism and existential-phenomenology
within himself. Both are evaluative movements in the history of religion and philosophy
as opposed to other movements which are expository in nature undermining crucial forms
of textual critique (p.xii).‖
Before examining the existential angst in Charu Sheel Singh‘s (1955-2021) Terracotta Flames,
there is need to present his poetic journey in a nutshell. He started his poetic journey with a verse
publishing in Aligarh Muslim University Magazine in 1976. His first collection of poetry,
Tapascharanam: Sukadev Ki Pida, dealing with a mystic‘s journey from the world of time to
eternity, comes out with 108 verses in 1986. Songs of Life and Death (1989), with a lament on
the loss of equilibrium in life, is his second poetry collection. The Indian Hero (1993), his third
collection of poetry, is with a philosophical spectrum representing the universal validity of
human emotions and the cultural quintessence of India through a variant of Lord Krishna figure.
Dealing with the myth of earth, Creation Cocktail (1997), his fourth collection of poetry, is par
excellence in poetic imagination. Terracotta Flames that appears in 2003, continues the theme of
meaning in life inaugurated by Shukadeva in Tapascharnam. Besides these five collections of
poetry, he versifies other more collections—Scripture on Stones (2006), Etching on the Edge
(2007), Kashi: A Mandala Poem, Golden Chariots (2008), and Legacies (2010)—in which the
third is outstanding. Born Across Millenniums (2011) and Ten Mahavidyas (2016) are the
collection of poems which he versified in the last phase of his literary career.
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 26
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
Terracotta Flames, the fifth collection of C.S. Singh, containing 51 verses, presents an inner
sense of hollowness of the culturally exiled inhabitants through the various metaphoric
representation, but chiefly through ‗empty house‘. Besides extending the tradition of
meditational poetry as found in Upnishads, Tagore and Aurobindo, it explores the process of
one‘s wrestling with life in which one knowingly or unknowingly invents a way to make one‘s
own identity for a meaningful life—life itself is meaningless. In this process one passes through
various bitter and sweet feelings and experiences—especially bitter—which give birth to angst,
ennui, and weltschmerz—a feeling of melancholy and world weariness. Such feelings are caused
by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state within. The absurdities of the
world or cosmos—man‘s proposing and God‘s disposing, world‘s lacking of higher purpose, and
inadequacy of man‘s intellectual power to comprehend the cosmic rule as well as power—
inherent chaos of the universe, and the chaos within the body and soul of the man unitedly bring
angst in man due to which a man remains detached, depressive, obsessively worried,
overwhelming, completely restless, and forlorn without any motivation and energy. One
becomes the victim of existential crisis feeling uneasy about meaning (of life and birth), choice
(of good and bad faith), and freedom (what to do and what not to do) in life. One longs for
molding the meaningless life meaningful, but the boundaries and shackles of one‘s limitations
and delimitations—miseries and death, the absolute truth of the world of the mortals—check
him/her bringing a complex phenomenon. Life becomes burdensome and ways cumbersome for
him/her. Even though a little nugget of wisdom that one possesses, causes a wrinkle in one‘s
time. Directly or indirectly all these mentioned things are seen and observed by the scholars in
the Terracotta Flames of Charu Sheel Singh. It seems impossible to comprehend the everlasting
flame of the existential angst in present collection without mentioning the ―Foreword‖ of
Aristides Falcon Paradi from Columbia University to it. As he writes:
Terracotta Flames by Charu Sheel Singh, reminds me in some ways, of his earlier book
of poems Songs of Life and Death. It has an ancestral as well as a contemporary anguish
(angst). Not only one feels contemporary despair, but also the existence of hope burning
in each phase. The fifty one poems of this collection, one by one, shells out an agonizing
skepticism. Their critical and corrosive stare meticulously unfolds our contemporary life.
The poetry reverts itself stirring up concerns and questions. It becomes in total
existentialism. Its images offer an astonishing admonishment, such truth that perhaps
none of us have conceived. They palpate and ache. The recognition of ourselves in the
poem propels an Aristotlean catharsis, a state of shock that illuminates, Koan that
lacerates: ―Ganges change their/ temporal routes into/ the crystal purity/ of tears (p. 219).
No doubt, Terracotta Flames is the song of the angst of mortal‘s life and the ultimate truth of the
world—death. Its (angst‘s) glimpses that are found in this collection of C.S. Singh, is generally
of two types. The first one is ancestral angst that stands for such an angst which is sculpted by
familial bloodlines or heredity, and which stir anger, wrath, violence and negative response in
the individual, while the second one is contemporary angst that stands for such an angst which is
caused and faced by an individual while discharging the duties of his/her mundane life, and
which stir the individual to make his/her birth purposeful, his/her life meaningful, and his/her
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 27
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
identity authentic, with the help of his/her good or bad choices. Additionally, the hollowness of
life, the snobbery of fashions and passions, the craziness of traditions, cultures and civilizations,
the ways of the world and its populace—man, flora and fauna— also causes contemporary angst
in which man is lost forever. Seeing this, the poet writes:
In a lack-luster
World, kaleidoscopic Views
Are lost to the
Empty regions that
All of us are (V.21.p.229).
When the things come into the concern of the ancestral angst, it becomes clear that it is related to
heredity—the hereditarian traits of mind and traits of heart. Whatever one inherits, inherits from
one‘s forefathers with less or more change. Although both heredity and environment unitedly
mould the man, sometimes heredity plays a crucial role. The Terracotta Flames of Charu Sheel
Singh is brimming with references related to it. The first thing that comes in it is spirituality that
has been the core of human life from the time immemorial. But the more man advances, the less
spirituality he has. The things that spirituality gives can‘t be bought at any cost. None can buy
peace of mind and happiness of heart by money at any degree, at any rate. The things—anger,
greed, wrath, aggressive thoughts, and negative response—that one treasures and carries
knowingly or unknowingly in one‘s cellular memories are the result of one‘s genetic
composition. Traditions, cultures, and civilizations have lots to do in this context. It is one‘s
ancestral memories within that set one‘s relationship to the world. They control one‘s freedom,
identity, responses, and responsibilities in their terms. One is never free to do any deed with
one‘s self or will freely. Everything to one is conditioned and measured, and conditioned and
measured things never give happiness, except angst, anxiety, nausea. Something like this has
mentioned C.S. Singh in The Terracotta Flames.
Seismographed and seasoned
Locomotives harness
Caricatured pools of
Energy in a bewitching
Glory of filamental
Tears and fragmented
Woe (V.9,pp.223/24).
The spiritual hallowness of the denizens or citizens of this worldly wasteland causes existential
angst in them. The worshipping places such as temples, mosques and churches etc., have their
existence but man is internally detached from them. They have become the things of the bygone
days. Having been detached and disinterested, man does not get their little shadow. What they
get with a weired majestic conscience, is only chaotic darkness, equinoctial sighs, fragmented
woes in various forms, and subliminal knot of diseases—anxiety, dread, and angst. The world of
spirituality has become too afar for them. This is the very reason the poet writes:
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 28
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
Creations are not
Plural to begin with
But monistic tombs
Of palatial ideas.
Architectures of churches,
Temples, mosques are
Nothing but forms
Of an aftermath—a
glory of the gotten
but a song of forgotten (V.8,p.223) !
Since, ancestral angst is related to one‘s ancestors or forefathers, it can be a source not only of
the hardships but also of the remedies. Each and every time one does any type of deed, one
passes through the hazy ancestral chasms which may be and bad. This is why one always needs
awareness in handling any type of deed. And this awareness also brings angst. Religious interests
and religious responses along with humanitarian choices that one lacks are also responsible for it.
In this context, C.S. Singh writes:
Festival of conscience
Loom large in pooled
Cavities unfathomable
In genealogical terrains
In quest of mercy.
Themes of a Jesus‘
Astronomy are born
Anew while tentacles
Of flesh are broken
Into the freedom-gears
Of a Krishna whose spaces
Yield not but liberate though
Insatiate chromo-zones
Of a mongoose man (V.15,p.226).
Upon a little time, one‘s tradition, being a belief; culture, being a creation; and civilization, being
a transition, that belongs to one‘s ancestors also play great role in causing angst. As they refer to
the ideas and social behavior of particular people and his/her society, they can‘t cope with the
contemporary situations. The result is angst. These things sometimes directly and sometimes
indirectly are also visible in C.S. Singh‘s this collection of poetry. In this context, He writes:
Culture is not
An apodictic city that
Makes and meshes itself
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 29
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
In frictions of
Statued energy. It
Is a difference
Between the raw and
The cooked that
Malleates itself shapes
And sides in a bi-polarity
And figures who
Put on the garb
Of clownish landscape
On the surface of
Articulated seasons (V.24,p.230).
When the thing is concerned with contemporary angst there is need to clear that it is related to
environment and may be called environmental angst. It is known to all that both heredity and
environment unitedly affect the man in the formation of his/her essence—identity, validity and
authenticity. But environment affects more highly than in comparison to heredity. Environment
whether it is spiritual or economic is presented well in The Terracotta Flames. When one comes
to the contemporary angst that, generally, may be called the environmental angst, one finds that
it is chiefly related to the meaning and purpose of life, to the essence and identity formation
through the help of the various good and bad choices, to the conditioned freedom and the burden
of the responsibilities in the terminology of existentialism. Seeing all this, Aristides Falcon
Paradi, belonging to Columbia University, writes:
―Terracotta Flames also offers a peculiar interpretation of the contemporary human being,
his ongoing confusion, the precariousness of life in our time, in a here and in a there,
regardless of the national frontiers or designations of West and East, much less aligned
alienated, towards any religion in particular, all are with its architectures ―nothing but
from/ of an aftermath-a/ glory of the gotten/ but a song of the/ begotten (p.219).
Undoubtedly, this collection of Poetry chiefly deals with the contemporary angst of the
contemporary man who is always busy as bee in earning his livings nights and days. Everyone
who goes through this collection of Poetry finds as what Albert Camus has written in The Myth
of Sisyphus about the contemporary angst. His notable lines come as—
―It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the
factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm…But one day
the ‗why‘ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement (p.05).‖
The thing that Camus writes about the monotonous deeds of the mass in The Myth of Sisyphus,
something like that Aristides Falcon Paradi, from Columbia University, while writing the
‗Introduction‘ to poet‘s The Terracotta Flames says—
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 30
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
―Terracotta Flames is a bridge, a crossroad. It is a radiography of the contemporary
world. It is not in a being here but in a being everywhere where anguish is alike. It does
not present a unique being but a being without differences that we all are. That in the
Heidggerian sense dasein is open to the world in the direction of historic temporality. But
paradoxically, it is entrapped in his existence ―Life is an eternal nothing (p. 220).‖
As Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus not only presents the absurdity of human life but also reveals
such secrets of mundane life that give birth to angst in human beings. It seems that nothing but
monotonous deeds that give birth to the cacophony of disinterest and detachment in man from
the deeds of mundane life, make his/her life bleak bringing angst profoundly. About the stillness
and stagnancy of life, the poet C.S. Singh, also describes with the help of a few heart-touching
lines as-
Life stood still
While cartoon imbroglios
Smiled in a cacophony
Of tears. He and she
Rolled themselves into
Rudimentary lessons
That confisticate human
Shouts into the limits
Of death and those of paradise (V.02,p.221).
The man with flaring angst within is the man detached from life and its interests. The choices
that make or mar the individual, creating his/her authenticity, identity, and validity make his/her
life tasteless, boring and burdensome. The things for which the individual was pining for before
leave their charm and attraction with the passage of time.
He and she vacantly
Gaze into the
Cerebral depth of
Infinite skies that
Make man a canvas
And earth a colourful
Dye (V.13,p.225).
Next come freedom. In reality, it is prejudiced freedom, because none is free at all, also causes
contemporary angst in man. Sartre‘s utterance that ‗we are condemned to be free‘ also causes
angst in man. The reason behind it is one‘s irremediable realization of doing and being anything
forgetting the limitations of life, knowledge, and power. It is nothing but the romanticizing of
prejudiced conscience that we (man) think ourselves better than other animals. One forgets that
one is none or nothing but an agent or object, in charge of what awaits us. One is so helpless that
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 31
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
one simply and honestly can‘t make a choice. Here, one feels that s/he is trapped in the
mousetrap and waiting for final consequence—death. Feeling such thoughts, the poet writes:
It is the gloss
Of death written all
Over that we mistook
For life. What else
Could man do for
Want of better sacrificial
Coating that displayed
Fissures in complete
Disguise (V.27,p.231) ?
It is nothing but existential angst that makes him feel the ambiguity of life. It is the duality and
ambiguity of life that it is for some a paradise and for some a hell. Seeing all this, he writes—
Life is a little /Lullaby that one/ Blushingly sings while/ Being in a hellish/ Paradise
(V.38,p.237).‘ Further he redefines it under the terminology of choices—especially bad choices.
To him—‗Life‘s budgeting menaces / incorporate individuated/ patents into a/choreography of
self-made sins (V.43,p.239).‘ Once again, he tries to define it in the present collection of poetry
in the terminology of the existentialism. To him—‗Life is an eternal nothing/ whichever
consumes/ spherical jinx into/ a society that/ always shrinks (V48,p.243).‘ It is to say that the
appearance of the complexity of life makes him define it again and again. Although life like
existentialism is hard to be defined, he tries hard again and again to define it through the various
angles. As he writes:
Life is a bizarre
Song which recoups
Itself till the
Clouds drain out
Their rain into the
Lightening nothingness
In vain for an
Inconsequential sunshine
And the loss of gain (V.36,p. 235/236).
The cause behind the each and every angst is also its origin and its existence. All the ideas are
invented. They are man-made. They have no eternal existence, but only essence. This essence is
man made so they have no innate value. Nothing has permanent value. This is the very reason
our desires are invalid and inauthentic, and without permanent values. And the deeds that are
done with these invalid, inauthentic, and valueless ideas give birth to ceaseless angst. Such is
with science. In which if an experiment is done on the base of the wrong ideas, it gives no fruit,
no invention, but only angst and anxiety. The result, in the words of C.S. Singh, is—
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 32
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
What good is it
To cry hoarse
When bloody pigs
Have become pricks
Of conscience.
Life has taken
Myriad turns yet
Twists appear again
To wait for the
Heavenly seven (V.25,p.230).
One waits and waits like waiting for the Godot for the turning of and in life. But nobody comes
to help. Nothing, except angst, happens.
Life marches like
Heroes who have
Always lost wars
Yet keep on digging
Trenches avoiding
Exclusive self—
Surrenders of ancient
Pillars of sacrifice (V.25, p. 230).
The burden of the bone breaking responsibilities also gives birth to the contemporary existential
angst. While discharging his/her pseudo-responsibilities, man sacrifices his/her best. Singing the
wry song of sacrifice, on the altars (of sacrifice) goes on and on the man‘s life. Finally, he comes
to feel in existential terminology that sacrifice is the second name of life. And at last, being
helpless, man sacrifices his best in angst. To existentialists, every individual must have a duty to
select or choose for the rest what the nature of humanity will be. None can escape it. In this
context, Sartre says: ―In this duty, humans are in anguish (angst). All humans lie at the some
points in anguish (angst) because they must choose at every moment what humanity will
become, since humanity has no essence (p.352).‖ As it seems that seeing, feeling, and knowing
all this, Charu Sheel Singh writes:
Dry leaves gathered
Like falling hairs
On rococo-styled
Polar bears smashing
Self-made window
Panes or climbing
To extinctual catharsis
Who knows (V.10, p.224)?
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 33
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
It is only and only existential angst—both ancestral and contemporary—that forces him to utter
such notable lines as—
………….Growth
Surrogates death in
A marriage of convenience.
Sanctity plays foul
In a catapulting game
Of insentience !
A swollen house
Empty though, struggling
Under the debris
Of history inhabits
Poor people-cultured-
Yet exiled (V.2/3).
In brief, it can be concluded that the existential angst whether it is ancestral or contemporary is
scattered vividly throughout this collection of poetry. It is the sprinkling of angst that makes
Terracotta Flames unique and heart touching. The world knows angst only as an evil causer, but
realty is beyond human computation. As the ways of the man and the ways of the world become
easy, if man understands its reality. No doubt that this world will miss Charu Sheel Singh for his
handling of it unbeatably. For, he knows it as an indistinguishable part of human existence. To
him, it is the path maker for the man. Whether it is ancestral angst or contemporary, if they are
applied in controlled conditions, they become a boon for the man for bringing success, happiness
and peace of mind as well as peace of psyche in the same way as C.S, Singh has validated it.
Works Cited
Sartre, Jean-Paul. ―Existentialism is a Humanism.‖ In Existentialism: From Dostoesky to Sartre.
Trans. By Walter Kaufman. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1988, Essay First published
in 1946.
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Trans. By Justin O‘ Brien. Vintage
Books, 1991.
Paradi, Aristides Falcon. ―Foreward.‖ Charu Sheel Singh‘s Terracotta Flames. New Delhi:
Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark. The EMC Master Series. Access
Edition. EMC/Paradigm Publishing St. Paul Minnesota, 1998.
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 34
Episteme: an online interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary & multi-cultural journal
Bharat College of Arts and Commerce, Badlapur, MMR, India
Volume 11, Issue 1 June 2022
Budholiya, O.P. ―Introduction.‖ Charu Sheel Singh’s Collected Poems (1975-2003). New Delhi:
Adhyayan Publishers & Distributors, 2008.
Consulted Work
Singh, Charu Sheel. Collected Poems (1975-2003). New Delhi: Adhyayan Publishers &
Distributors, 2008.
Web Sources
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/angst. Retrieved on 16 March 2022.
https://my.wlu.edu/Documents/mudd-center/journal-Vol-2/consequential-existentialism.pdf.
Retrieved on 12 May 2022.
https://amp.listennotes.com/podcasts/womens-power-to/episode-26-practice-to--jbj3-
2rhD8/amp/. Retrieved on 10 May 2022.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angst. Retrieved on 8 May 2022.
Bio:
Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English
at MHPG College Moradabad, affiliated to MJPRU Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, The Republic of
India. Creative writing along with critical writing is his passion. He can be contacted at
[email protected].
BCAC-ISSN-2278-8794 Page 35