Lost by Jayant Mahapatra (Summary)

 

Lost

by Jayant Mahapatra

(Summary) 

In this poem, Jayant Mahapatra talks about the feelings of a lover, which arise during the act of sex. He also studies the physical contacts of two lovers and he is aware of the consequences of the regular act of love making.

In the opening lines of the poem ‘Lost’ the poet talks about his partner that can be recognized by him from a distance. He says that even in a dim light of the room he can recognize her because she had been with him for a long time. The poet wants to know the problems of human relationship and also of love and sex. He says that he wants to know the pain and pleasure felt by his partner during the love making. He is ea-ger to know the secrets of the act of sex.

Jayant Mahapatra, in this love poem, watches the body of his partner carefully which is getting rid off the burden of the season. Her body is spread out under the poet’s breath. The poet is one of the partners but his thoughts are going in vivid directions –

“going nowhere”.

The poet gently touches the body of his partner and while doing so he feels, that the dreams of his past life are being fulfilled. He goes down in his memory and feels pleasure. He does not know whether the present physical or the pleasure of his memory shuts his eyes quietly.

The poet further advances the physical relationship between two lovers and says that in this relationship there comes a stage when these contacts become dull and boring because of familiarity and routine. When the poet finds his partner’s body shrinking, he loses faith in her, just as a child loses faith when some de-fect occurs in his mechanical toy. The poet does not know the consequences of this type of relationship. In the last two lines of the poem, he, with the help of a simile, says that in the darkness of the room he finds that his watch has been misplaced. He does not know where he was at the time when he lost it.

The poem ‘Lost’ is written in a free verse form and does not have any regular rhyming and rhythm pattern. The poet was greatly influenced by T.S. Eliot and his poems are also said to be in stream of conscious-ness. The poet gives a kind of force to his poem by asking a question in the last line of his poem. This po-em has symbolic importance too and has a current of love and sex in it.