|
KABITA
I shall highlight here some prominent features of ancient Oriya
poetry, which is not different from other Indian poetry in its essence and spirit. For this I have taken into account the
poetry of fifteenth century to nineteenth century A.D., starting from Sarala Das of Mahabharata fame to the mystic
poet Bhima Bhoi. Strangely, almost all the poets of these 400 years were spiritual seekers; they belonged to one or other
path of Indian spirituality. They were seekers, saints, bhaktas, tantrics and mystics. But they did not express their
experience just as an intellectual or philosophical concept, they converted it to living poetry, full of vitality and beauty,
so that it could be received by the readers aesthetically.
Prior to fifteenth century, there were a series of poetical compositions,
called Charyapada, composed by Buddhist Siddhacharyas. They were practitioners of esoteric Tantrism of Sahaja Jana.
Here I am giving an example from the poet Kanhupad of tenth century :
Your hut stands outside the city
Oh, untouchable maid
The bald
Brahmin passes sneaking close by
Oh, my maid, I would make you
my companion
Kanha is a kapali, a yogi
He is naked and has no disgust
There is a lotus with sixtyfour petals
Upon that the maid
will climb with this poor self and dance.
Here the image ‘untouchable maid’ is used for ‘ shakti’,
it resides outside the city, i.e., outside the ordinary consciousness. Though she is untouchable, the bald Brahmin, meaning
the so-called wise man, has a secret hankering for her. But only a kapali or an extreme Tantric can be a fit companion
for her, because he is also an outcaste ; he is naked, for he does not have any social identity or artificiality. After the
union with the shakti both of them would climb on the 64-petalled lotus Sahasrara Chakra, and dance there.
Evidently, the poet had drawn images and symbols from existing social milieu,
social psychology, so that this deep realization could be easily grasped by the readers. This kind of poetry, full with the
mystery of Tantra, spread over the Northeastern region of India from the tenth to the fourteenth century, and its style of
expression was revived by the Oriya poets of sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
Oriya poetry with a distinct language started with Sarala Das of fifteenth
century who was acclaimed as “Adikabi” or the first poet. He is also a Shudra Muni, or a seer from
backward class. He had no formal education and did not know Sanskrit. It is believed that he got his poetic gift from goddess
Sarala (Sarasswati), and wrote Mahabharata as it was dictated by her. Among many of his poems and epics, he
is best remembered for his Mahabharata. Though he took the original theme of Vyasadev, he departed from it in many
ways and aspects. He visualized the Mahabharata in the atmosphere of Orissa, created many life situations peculiar
to Orissa. Here Kunti is called Koenta, Draupadi is Drupati, Yuddhisthira is Jujesthi, Duryodhana is Managobindai –
so that characters will seem familiar and closer to the imagination of common people. From many original episodes I give here
two examples, which are not found in Vyasa’s Mahabharata.
When Yuddhisthira lost everything, including his wife Draupadi, in the game
of dice with Sakuni, Duhsasana dragged her to Kurusabha, by pulling her loose, luxuriant hair. He wanted to make her a slave
and tried to take away her clothes. Fortunately, Krishna heard her prayer and saved her from this utter humiliation. But an
enraged and revengeful Draupadi took a terrible vow, that her hair would remain loose and unbraided till she could wash it
with Duhsasana’s blood. After killing him in the war, Bhima brought his blood for Draupadi, and she washed her hair
with it, licking it even as it flowed down her face. This is the image of Mahakali of Indian spirituality, who takes
delight in killing Asuras and drinking their blood. Thus Draupadi is painted here as a very strong woman, who believes
in defending her honour and dharma by destroying the Asuric forces.
Another episode is in the last phase of the Kurukshetra war. All
the Kauravas and great warriors like Karna, Drona, Sakuni are dead. Duryodhana, alone and panic-stricken, finds himself beside
a long, deep river of blood. Innumerable dead bodies are floating there. Duryodhana cries a lot, catches hold of corpses one
by one, and tries to sit on one in order to cross the river. But as soon as he sits, it sinks to the bottom of the river.
Finally, with the help of a solid, strong body he crosses the river. On the other side, he discovers that it was the dead
body of his son Laxman. Absolutely frustrated, he weeps, embraces his son’s corpse, remembers his glory and also remembers
how Laxman requested him to give at least five villages to the Pandavas. So he repents : “Now I promise to give them
half of my kingdom, please come back to life, my son.”
This incident makes one conscious of the consequences of an egocentric,
ambitious, self-assertive way of life. Besides these two, there are many more original episodes, which contribute a lot to
Indian culture.
The poet Jagannath Das of late fifteenth century was a scholar, philosopher
and a bhakta. He had given a new language to Orissa, which was almost sanskritised and it is presently spoken
and written by Oriyas. There is a story regarding the translation of the Sanskrit Bhagavata into Oriya. At that time
religious scriptures being in the custody of Sanskrit pundits, fees were collected from the villagers who wanted to listen
to their discourses. One day, Jagannath Das’s mother was denied entry to the discourses of Bhagavata, as she
did not have enough money. Greatly moved by the incident, Jagannatha translated it into Oriya for his own dear and Krishna-devoted
mother, thereby helping the whole of Orissa to enjoy the privilege of reading their most favourite scripture of Hindu dharma.
Afterwards, Bhagabata tungis or study circles were founded in each village of Orissa, where people of all classes would
come and listen : even the illiterate womenfolk and children were not left out.
Even though it is a translation, Jagannath made it quite original by his
poetic genius. It is composed in Nabakhari, which means that each line consists of nine letters. An example will show
the difference between the original and the translation. The original text in Vyasa (Chapter I, Book I) reads :
The fruit of Bhagavata has fallen from the tree of
Vedic literature
It is sweet with the nectar of Suka’s mouth
Oh, the men of great sensibility of the world
Drink this and attain Divine Delight.
As is well know, though Vyasa wrote the Bhagavata, his son Sukadeva
was its propagator. In Oriya and Sanskrit, “Suka” means parrot. Hence, the metaphors of tree and fruit are justified.
In the Oriya version, these four lines have been expressed in fourteen lines ; Bhagabata is read in Oriya in a melody
of this sort :
“All the Vedas became a tree
And bore a fruit in the vast space
As the fruit ripened, it fell down
Suka the parrot came
flying to the spot,
Leaving the company of friends
He drank the juice of the fruit
From his mouth flows it
Sweeter than nectar
Oh men of great sensibility
Drink this and attain Divine Delight.”
We can see how, without hampering the purity of the original, he had
conveyed more with fresh, pictorial images.
The chapter Rasa-lila in the tenth Book of Bhagabata is a
magnificent piece of poetry, just as in the eleventh Book Krishna’s message to Uddhaba, before leaving his body, has
become a masterpiece in Jagannath’s able hand. In a full-moon night of autumn, Krishna calls his devotees, the Gopis
with his magic flute. The Gopis, the married cowherd women of Gopa, come running, leaving their marital status and their home,
leaving all the barriers of society and tradition of ages. And Krishna dances in Brindavan, near the river Yamuna, under fragrant
Kadamba trees so lovingly, so passionately that each and every Gopi thinks that Krishna is dancing with herself alone
: 16,000 Krishnas appear to be dancing with 16,000 Gopis. Thus, Krishna’s devotees who aspired to get him as a lover
were delivered from earthly bondage by this love play. The entire scene of sensuous, love play has been transmuted into a
piece of beauty – it would not be exaggerated to say that by sheer force of poetry, Jagannath made the eternal Brindavan
descend on earth : it becomes real and vivid for one who reads with humility and devotion. On Sri Krishna’s birthday,
every Oriya reads the chapter Balalila and, on his deathbed, listens to the eleventh Book.
The theme of Radha-Krishna dominated the field of Oriya poetry for the next
300 years. A versatile poet, Upendra Bhanja of seventeenth century, was an exception who wrote epics and poems in new and
imaginary themes, such as his epic VaidehishaVilas, composed on Rama and Sita. Each line of the whole epic starts with
the letter ‘Ba” and is based on ragas, so that it can be sung and used in dance.
Then came the Vaishnava poets, like Abhimanyu Samanta singhar, Kabisurya
Baladev Rath, Banamali Das, Gopalakrisna and Bhaktacharan. Their poems are also a combination of song and dance. These are
called Odissi songs and are used in the world-famous Odissi dance. Students from abroad come to research on it and learn it.
Its significance lie in the deep emotion, of surrender, and ecstasy of union and pang of separation in Radha-Krishna’s
love.
In Bidagdha Chintamani, one of the best epics of the age, Abhimanyu
tries to give definition of this love through Bisakha, an intimate friend of Radha. Unable to bear the pain of separation,
Radha asks her friend about the criteria, quality and source of love. Bisakha replies :
“It is not fire
But it burns the body
It is not a weapon
But it pierces the heart
It
is not an intoxicant
But it intoxicates
It is not a fishing rod
But
attracts the fish of the mind.”
So, love, like Brahman of Indian spirituality, is “not this”
and “not that” – then what is it? Again she says :
“It is difficult to sustain this love
More difficult than climbing the sky
Than walking on the edge of sword
It is as if one tries
to catch air in a net
Or to hold mercury in one’s palm.”
It is a long and extraordinary poem written on love, which takes one
away from the limited to the limitless.
Expression of love has been more simple, refined with Baladev Rath, who
was honoured with a title of “Sun among the poets.” He is best in an unusual poetic structure, called Champu
– its first poem starts with the first letter of alphabet, “ka,” and it continues in that way till
the last poem, which starts with the last letter, “khya.” It is surprising to find such a beautiful dance
drama with a self-imposed regulation of form. Here is one of his poem, based on a raga, with a befitting rhythm or
taal, so that it can be used in dance :
In Bhakta Charan’s epic poem Mathura Mangala, through the Gopis’
love for Krishna, the poet proves the superiority of Bhakti Yoga to Jñana yoga After finishing a talking with them, Uddhaba
was overwhelmed by their sincerity, self-surrender and entire trust, and realized that Gopis had identified themselves completely
with Sri Krishna, so he is not worthy of consoling these enlightened souls.
Almost all the poets I have discussed here also composed many songs, as
prayers to their personal god or Krishna or to Jagannath, the presiding deity of Orissa. Indian spirituality never believes
God to be in heaven. God is one’s father, mother, teacher, son and friend. So the tone of all these prayers, or bhajans,
is very intimate. We see Balaram Das begging nothing from Jagannath except a handful of dust from his temple courtyard ; we
see Chandan Hajuri singing his glory, begging God’s grace, and Baladev Rath scolding him as much as he can ; by comparing
him with a poisonous snake – a Kala Sarpa who devours living beings – Bhktacharan exposes the crude reality
of the body’s death to make one conscious of the divine and transcend death. And there are also some heart-rending Bhajans
by a Muslim poet Selabega, which proves that at that time Bhakti for Jagannath was beyond religion.
But the mystic poets had no personal god, they were praying to a formless
being or void. The poet Achyutananda of sixteenth century conceived the creation of Brahman as such :
There was a place called non-void
It became the void in a strange way
In this void resides the formless
From the body of the
formless supreme Brahman embodied
Or, to express that state of Brahman experience, he says :
In the moonless night
Shines a full moon
In the eternal night a sun is seen
A lamp burns day and night here
And a wild wind kindles the lamp.
That is the kind of riddles and contradictory images which mystic poets
used to express their abstract experience and create situations full of ambiguity.
The last poet of this discussion is Bhima Bhoi of nineteenth century, who
belonged to tribal community – he is also called a saint-poet. His divinity is sunya or a formless, nameless
being called Anama, but sometimes he sees him as a renunciate, wearing yellow robes, roaming around the world in summer
and rain. He is never contented with his own salvation, he wants to uplift mankind to a spiritual height. At times he gets
very angry with the people for their folly, inertia, and ignorance, and at other times he becomes so compassionate that he
says :
“How can one tolerate the terrible suffering
and misery
of these living beings
Even if my life goes to hell
Let the world be saved.”
This is the ultimate message of Indian spirituality – to see the
Divine in his creation, to be united with it, to try to raise it – which is wonderfully expressed it Bhima Bhoi’s
poetry.
Have I told enough of my favourite and revered poets? I can now look back
to that age of 450 years ago, when there was no printing press, no electronic media and these poets were writing on palm leaves.
Some of them were uneducated, some were striving hard to earn their daily needs, some were dedicated Bhaktas or renunciates,
but all of them were highly talented, with a thorough knowledge of poetry, music and dance. They loved Orissa and its language,
they knew the people’s psychology and need, above all, they did not bother for name, fame or awards. They were immensely
popular, but never came down to the level of common herd ; instead, they touched their souls and lifted them to a higher level
of consciousness.
Should one not expect a little of this from modern-age artists, poets or
writers? Must art and literature be either for an enlightened few or be perverted and commercialized to have a widespread
mass appeal? It is a grave and serious point to ponder about. As stated by Sri Aurobindo :
“The greatness of a literature lies first in the
greatness and worth of its substance, the value of its thought and the beauty of its forms, but also in the degree to which,
satisfying the highest conditions of the art of speech, it avails to bring out and raise the soul and life or the living and
the ideal mind of a people, an age, a culture, through the genius of some of its greatest or most sensitive representative
spirits.”
Should not we want Indian poetry to become as great as it was?
Thank you.
THE AMBASSADOR
I have lost the accredition papers
My address is temporary
Any
house I live in
is my embassy under threat
Every man looks like a wily foreigner
For each language I ask for
a
translator,an interpreter
Every woman seems to be
a venom-maiden
How do I bathe,every river
vanishes at the sight
of my feet
The wind wafts past me
doesn't bring
the vintage scent of a country my own
Courts,benches,fields,camps
caves
and sanctums:
nowhere I meet my peer,
my "samanadharma"
Up there,perhaps,
the Master gets replaced
Who
really recalls the terms
of the last Treaty-of-Peace
Parleying over the new draft
I'm afraid
a Great War may blast
the
very next moment
I do not know the country
of which or to which
I'm the Ambassador:
an envoy-in-peril
At
every stride I get
more and more exiled
And every poem:
just a fragile pact
for a transient ceasefire
with
Time the Terrible
From BODHINABHA:THE SKYVISION
Smoke soars up
as water streams
down
it's natural
Not that smoke really uncapped
a bottle
and leapt into the shape
of a shrieking demon
all
of a sudden
it wasn't that way
Touching,patting,caressing
all-fingers
on the moving potters'-wheel
I was
playing
with moist clay
To shape the globe anew
grip over the hands
is a must
fire comes next
How
can art take birth
unless the hands waver?
Distortion
a cherished curse
Clay that enters a mould
and gets
out of it
remains mere clay
dead though shapely
I don't need moulds
Sweat,blood,sandalwood-paste
memory,being
and dreams
I blended into a dough
to keep the clay moist
braving the sun
Waiting for new distortions
of varied
ilks
My hands trembled
From the whirring wheel soared
a blue ascension
a lean column of incense
in cool
grace
Clay becoming smoke
who could have fancied?
Now I know
why the sky is blue
why sculpting
is so
cruel
Some day
the needletip of my blue smoke
will reach up to the sun
and,piercing it,
prick the sky to
etch
a new star
a red lone star
Had the colour of the smoke
been red
had the colour of the wet clay
been
red,ah,
at the beginning
of the beginning
THE SPRING
Halfknown,halfstranger
one
to the other
all of us
in spring time
Earth-crawling creeper
suddenly stands up
like a twisted goldstick
and
then shivers
The viewer gets numbed
Cruel her stare
like the breasts
of a girl in early teens
His eyes
get lowered
Buds of white thirst
sprout on tiny shoots
and yet
the root drinks fire
You,hot rock floor,
give
up your dream
of rising like a minar
melt and confess
the defeat
Thunder this time
shall not strike
though
sky
may collapse
Only a peacock-plume
dropping down and down
will touch tenderly
the tip of consciousness
of
the green shoots
at the top.
SATCHIDANDA RAUTROY
SEA My lost crown appears
to me
as I face the sea,
watch it rolling about on the sands.
And here my kingdom lies in shards,
enveloping me like a fortress
vast, and the limit's past.
I forget myself, forgetting my first name
in time to become my second self,
turning a stranger to myself,
aloof and unfamiliar.
In the sky of my own self
I lose myself, losing too
my beginning and my end:
the truth of all that was or wasn't, and is.
All words in an instant
turn wordless,
the word's past,
the unheard of what is heard.
All sounds seem meaningless,
the quest for all meaning futile.
Oh, if only these sounds unite
to become a signal, a sign or symbol
that would open
the entrance to a magical cave
at the touch of a finger...
To say, to know, to understand
Useless are these words and voices,
all the prepared prayers.
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra
GODDESS DURGA
She is the one who slays me,
moment by moment,
In the grove of casuarinas,
by the shores of the sea,
She is the one who slays me,
in the very last act of the play.
With every single gut of my blood
is woven a pattern of immense terror.
She is the one who slays me
hour by hour
In the white man's cemetry, or here.
She is the one who pushes me
down the abyss of death.
Drawing me with the beak of her gaze,
She slays me with the strands of her smile
Here within, or in some lonely river isle,
In an abandoned citadel.
And I live again, fall in love with her.
My Sumba-Nisumba existence only resembles her.
So she is a Goddess, for how else
Can she secure the slayed,
Death and love, with strings of slaughter;
Because love is death, her order ultimate.
And receiving and giving seem complete
when each other we annihilate.
She is the one who slays me
with eyes of murder,
Slays me in the cell of love,
Over a secret stairway,
or on some forgotten border,
For she is a Goddess:
truly she makes me hers
Under the pretense of worship,
each moment by moment
In every single act of the play.
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra
THE HOUSE
It's night.
It's cold.
What incredible fury of the blizzard !
An unbearable death
could break into this house
like a hungry wild cat.
Close the doors and windows.
It's better here,in this corner of the lounge
of this house.
The chairs, the carpet and the table do not talk.
Talk, sing, or do something
entirely petty and entirely unnecessary.
Or take a book, lie down, and do not speak.
Whatever you do today will have some meaning—
a mile-long sip from a teacup,
drawing in cigarette smoke and puffing it out,
the violin's sad melody—
whatever you do will have meaning,
whatever you do will clearly be better.
Close the windows and doors.
Let's build a pathway paved with echoes,
away from solidified mysteries,
and arrive at the abode that's our very own.
There, in that abode,
a single moment holds
the reflection of our whole familiar world.
In light's green effulgence,
and in darkness that contains
God knows how many layers,
the blue sky descends in dewdrops
into the abyss of consciousness.
Let's go then to the frontier
where all disquiet has ceased.
Let's go into the house
set apart for us
by God knows who.
Some day, however, those terrible paws
will break into the house.
Its doors and windows will fall apart.
Electricity will be switched off.
It will embezzle every single certitude
of my universe
and, then, disappear for ever.
This moment will be the moment
of all-devouring time
that has no beginning,
and no end.
Look, the black wild cat
is here once again.
Translation :
Ramakanta Rath
SATCHIDANDA RAUTROY
BIRTHDAY
Why must one live for one hundred years?
Bereft of the poison-tooth, defenceless,
and unable to lift one's own bow,
must one still live?
Why must one play host to one hundred autumns year after year
opening and closing and reopening and bolting again
the doors and windows?
Must one go on playing the same game for eternity,
keep on doing the same sum till infinity?
Who will be my witness:
the snippets of Vietnamese valour
from the pitiful daily newspaper
in between sips of milk-powdered tea,
that act like vitamins?
The old guileless photograph of the well-dressed
young man smiling with his bride,
preserved inside the glass cupboard,
that warms up one's strained nerves?
Or the "farewell-message"
presented with garlands of now-faded camphor
by the office-staff
on one occasion of a transfer from Bhadrak to Koraput,
displayed on the wall?
Thereafter the same formulae of multiplication
from one to twenty and from twenty to one,
framed photographs hung on dusty dark walls:
the eldest daughter donning the black gown and hood
and holding her diplomas,
the younger one doing her Odissi number.
And the picture, framed from a newspaper cutting,
of my dear lovabale son, unemployed,
arrested under MISA,
standing inside the police-cordon.
I can hear the bids of my daughters
trying their luck
in the matrimonial auction of the bridegroom-market.
What do they signify—
these basic ingredients of my world?
What do they stand for :
my tattered lungi and dirty vest and office-shirt?
A cake of soap is too costly, costlier is food;
it is only life that gets devalued day by day.
I do not want a boxful of birthdays, I don't.
One inch of life is all I ask for,
the inch-long life of a matchstick.
I feel I have all, yet nothing at all,
for the spark that ignites
is missing.
My wintry breath buries the cold sun
in the snow of slumber.
Still comes the heat wave,
and people die in Bihar
and people die in the north.
And people die of suicide in villages,
and they die without food.
But no one dies for the living.
No one waves his tattered shirt
soaked red in blood.
No one knows where food lies
except the rats and the intelligent ants
who dismiss humans as fools.
I begin my day with the steam
of the flavourless tea in the morning;
I retire at midnight with hollow dreams
in the much-mended mattress of silk.
Nightlong the lamp-post mocks at me.
In my courtyard blossoms the kadamba tree
from where my bicycle had been stolen
on a moonlit night.
Meanwhile I grow a day older
and wane a month upstream,
and then I drift through awakened slumber
towards the next birthday.
Why must one be so kind
to live for one hundred years?
And what does a birthday stand for :
to be or not to be
or non-being?
Translation :
Rajendra Kishore Panda
SEASHORE FAITH
The seashore of faith
is swept away
by the seven waves;
a speck of dust
is better than a vast void—
let the sand castle crumble
or its three shingle steps
be swept away,
the centre holds
life's magical flower,
faith's secret self.
Men may come
and then may go
but the primal truth
is left in footprints.
A sign
means a form
and also the formless,
the source
of soul and self
and the all-pervasive.
Translation :
Jayashree Mohanraj
GURUPRASAD MOHANTY
THE DOVES OF MY EYES
The doves of my eyes strike against
the steel of the sky,
and repulsed, return to earth,
where, each day you wait alone
to discover the many meanings of life and death.
When the words, with their little palms,
touch the body of the motionless sands,
running through the grey heat of noons
I seek ancestral memories in your flesh.
You whisper the secrets of leaf and grass,
of cliffs and woods, moss and shell,
in forlorn nights through the tatter of clouds
the myths of the moon sailing to its death.
As you retrieve the ruined body of April
drifting helplessly in the whirlpools of sand,
it seems you love me and want me to come,
but where is your soul? and where my body?
And when the doves of my eyes return,
ripping the sky's wrongs, it is time's river
that flows through the weariness of your flesh
and carries my dreams along.
Leaves fall, unheard, in the quiet noon,
and the sun respires in silence.
The pine forest pales like smoke in the sky.
And I don't remember when, the doves of my eyes
flew into Ujjain or Cuttack, pursuing you.
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra
LANDSCAPE
How could the gulmohur
preserve its redness
in the unceasing traffic
of automobiles?
At some nondescript moment
of some forever-lost century
this redness began its journey
from some first stirring of blood
to the April sunlight of today.
This summer day
heaps red dust on the road
meandering across the treeless hill.
Tyres of cars, buses, trucks and jeeps
and the chimneys of the steel plant
belch red dust all the time.
How then can the gulmohur
preserve its own redness?
I look out of the window
of the superfast bus
through my sunglasses
and try to comprehend
actual problems of the red colour
and its present-day motives and conduct.
Are my looks as stupid
as the look of
the superannuated old chairman
of the Enquiry-Commission
set up after the crowd
took out processions, burnt buses, and
was lathi-charged and fired upon?
From its origin in ether
the gulmohur's redness
has descended on the road.
How could redness continue to be red
amidst all this automobile traffic?
Where does this redness go
after the annihilation of its being?
Does it travel to a sad, disarrayed,
unsure and ravaged sunset
in some horizon?
Translation :
Ramakanta Rath
RAMAKANTA RATH
MURDER ON THE AGENDA
I know there is blood on my hands.
I further know my hands will be stained
with much further blood.
But to stand amidst the crowd
and throw bouquets on tyrants
was not my intention of coming here.
They will die someday. So will I.
And therefore, the restlessness of the night of unceasing rains
instils its wildness
into each of my days and each of my nights.
My life, clearly, is contingent on their death.
I shall no doubt die of the shame
of continuing to live unless they die quickly.
Unless they die quickly,
how shall I explain to the moon
the reason why my laughter has become a grimace ?
How shall I explain to that faraway woman
the reason why I turned into a stone?
If they kill me, they will surely manufacture a legend
to prove to people
that my death had become so necessary
that, as soon as I fell, voices in the sky
spoke, loudly and clearly,
their thanksgiving for the assasins.
Whether people believe them or do not
is for them an irrelevent matter.
They have never cared to understand
why citizens of this country pray everyday
that this life of theirs should be the very last
on this planet.
If, on the contrary, I kill them
it will be unnecessary to think up a story.
Even their own widows, in the course of their lament,
will never, never incite their children
to avenge the murder of their fathers.
And as soon as they die, I too shall go away.
But where? I have absolutely no idea.
Maybe that woman's face would lead me on like a star
to some place where the sword I had carried
to kill myself
would at once begin preparing itself
for someone else's murder.
Translation :
The Poet
A REQUEST TO THE DEAD
I offer this water to you,
my father, grandfather and great grandfather,
and to you, soldiers and generals
who fought for us and who fought against us
and who were killed by this war.
I stand here, on this battlefield,
and give this water and this rice to you—
you must be hungry and thirsty.
Ask for nothing
other than water and rice,
don't add to the long list
of things I was not able to give;
be content with this water and this rice
and return
to wherever you came from.
Consider this: the years
I have spent with you were many;
and this: it will not be long
before I join you wherever you sojourn.
Had I possessed things
other than this water and this rice,
would I have denied them to you
and asked you to return ?
Whatever I have
other than this water and this rice
are surely not appropriate offerings
for departed souls.
True, I traverse everyday of my life
with this baggage of witheld things,
but whenever I look at them
I disintegrate and cry out
with a voice that rends
the heavens
and the underworld.
Tears fill my eyes
when I make this offering
of water and rice.
I know, when my turn comes,
I shall have neither.
Look, the sun has almost set.
Now, go back to wherever you came from
with the little water and the little rice I gave you.
Look, I myself do not have
either any water or any rice.
Look, I have nothing except the few things
I didn't give
and kept with myself.
Translation :
The Poet
THE SOLDIER IN EXILE
Sometimes I wish I should return,
throw this body to the ground before the judges
installed in all the marketplaces of my country,
and tell them, come, hang it
on your gallows of prefabricated words.
Sometimes I wish I should stop hiding among rocks,
and feeding on the sunlight and on the wind,
sail across the ocean's nights and days.
I would then unload all my bones
into the arms of the soil smiling at my homecoming
and tell it I have no further part
in its future.
I however hesitate.
The shores of my country would be inaccessible
with stones dislodged by vengeance and counter-vengeance
and with putrid weeds of mangled interpretations,
all its green and proud forests would have been burnt
by loud proclamations of conquests that never occurred,
its body bleeding,
its railways and roadways and harbours shattered,
enacampments of imported mercenaries
all along the banks of its moist eyes.
All this notwithstanding,
I sometimes wish I should return,
but some other times I do not wish I should return.
Sometimes it seems all my love is a moon
rising every evening and setting every dawn
in the sky above wherever I exist.
Sometimes, however, I wish I should return.
Translation :
The Poet
RAMAKANTA RATH
SRIRADHA (19)
Come, take half
of the remainder of my life,
but fill every moment
of the half that is mine
with your infatuation.
Was the bargain unfair?
Then leave me with a single moment
and take away the rest of my life,
but like the sky,
fill the whole space
above that moment.
No, not like the sky.
Come closer and become the cloud
over my past, present and future
so that, when I touched myself,
I would touch the monsoon of your body.
Your sighs would breathe
the gale spewed by the despair
of a distant ocean
and, when I smile
and touch myself,
the gale would cease.
My lifetime,
unconcerned with its nearing death,
would everyday renew its pilgrimage
to the early years of your youth.
You would exist as a mass of blue
carved by my command,
or as the blue total
of all my known, partly known
and unknown desires.
Since I always dress in blue,
you too must be blue.
How can you have any other colour when
it would break my heart
if you had in colour other than blue?
Was the bargain unfair?
Then come, take away
even that single moment.
But do not bend down, look straight
into my eyes.
Meet there the impudent traveller
who has passed through hell after hell
and, at the end of the very last hell,
stands under a kadamba tree
and awaits your coming.
Translation :
The Poet
SRIRADHA (58)
You are the fragrance of rocks,
the lamentation of each flower,
the unbearable heat of the moon,
the icy coolness of the blazing sun,
the language of my letters to myself,
the smile with which all despair is borne,
the millenniums of waiting without a wink of sleep,
the ultimate futility of all rebellion,
the exquisite idol made of aspirations,
the green yesterdays of deserts,
the monsoon in an apparel of leaves and flowers,
the illuminated pathway from the clay to the farthest planet,
the fantastic time that's half-day and half-night,
the eternity of the sea's brief silence,
the solace-filled conclusion of incomplete dreams,
the dishevelled moment of waking up with a start,
the reluctant star in the sky brightening at dawn,
the unspoken sentences at farewell,
the restless wind sentenced to solitary confinement,
the body of fog seated on a throne,
the reflection asleep on the river's abysmal bed,
the undiscovered mine of the most precious jewels,
the outlines of lunacy engraved on space, and
the untold story of lightning.
You have, my dearest, always suffered
all my inadequacies with a smile.
I know I am not destined to bring you back once you've left.
All I can do hereafter, till the last day of my life,
is to collect the fragments of what you are
and try to piece them together.
Translation :
The Poet
LINES ADDRESSED TO HER NON-RESIDENT PRESENCE
I had thought
I had forgotten you entirely.
And then, one day, I quarrelled
with everyone—with wife, children,
with Government and God.
Before the quarrel ended, I walked away,
and stood near the window.
Outside the window
A moonlit fog extended
till the world's end.
You were there, draped in
Clothes made of the trees and the shurbs
on the river's banks.
A smile glimmered
on you melancholy skin.
In your eyes there was
a rain-wet paddy field that never ended.
Your uncombed hair fluttered in the wind
like leaves of sugarcane.
Your mouth, half-open and half-shut,
stood where all dialogue terminates.
Your legs rose from the dark depths of dreams.
Your body shook, and every single letter of your name
was written in the indelible ink of time past.
I knew you would leave soon.
How could you stay
Unless the time for staying came?
Wherever you go, a hand raised above shoulders
can touch the stars.
The steamer arrives every morning
to say good morning to women
who hold entire rivers in their eyes.
The earth and the outer space are one.
The eyes of eyes and the ears of ears
walk about in shaded coconut groves,
and gods and goddesses stand at your doorsteps
yearning for morsels of benediction
flowing from your meditation on yourself.
After your leave, what remains?
bare rocks, the moonlight's darkness
erasing all future,
several blood-stained years, dead soldiers
guarding unused gunpower on the sea-bed,
and the desolate road I must walk on
till the last day of my life.
Go, then, with so few days left to me,
a change in my condition can no longer be
the subject-matter of hope.
I now have fever almost everyday,
nerves from the waist to the heels ache,
and, if I rise up without proper precaution,
I feel I am descending into some bottomless depth.
The skin is loose and dry, the weight
has fallen, maybe someday now
my breath will stop somewhere inside the lungs.
I would have notified all this to you,
but then, didn't you and I discover long ago
that news of this kind was utterly useless
both for you and for me?
Translation :
The Poet
SITAKANT MAHAPATRA
THE COCKFIGHT
Armed from head to toe,
the two warriors are arraigned against each other.
Some anger enlarges
the dimensions of their narrow necks.
Battle drums announce
a face-to-face contest.
Hunting for insects has ceased.
Seeking refuge from hungry cats and hungrier men
has also ceased.
As battle cries rend the air
and carnage is due to commence,
the villagers leave behind their long history of cowardice,
and gather here.
The warriors do not know
what this war is about,
or who is whose enemy.
They do not comprehend
the clamour that rushes on this dumb village
like a bellowing sea.
The weapons they wear
strain their nerves.
And, suddenly, their blood is on fire,
feathers almost fly off their flesh,
and each cell of the body overflows with hatred.
The war is only a moment away,
and, when it arrives,
to kill to be killed will be all the same.
Evening descends
on a sky smeared with blood.
It's all over
in a moment.
Darkness erases all
the day's colours, the day's blood.
A day ends.
Carrying a handful of meat
that has lost its voice
the crowd returns.
The village is once again enclosed
by silence
breathing like an abandoned child.
Translation :
Ramakanta Rath
THE RUINED TEMPLE
On the mythic enchantress's open navel fall
the stars and the dew all through the night, silently.
On the steps of the temple's pond,
on the large shoulders of the wise Ganesa
are washed the greasy patchwork garments
of tradition and history.
Like the blind whimsical gods, or sometimes
like a sudden rush of wind, two or four bats
fly out from inside the dark along
the sharp lines of an indifferent sky
towards an uncertain tomorrow.
The long, unending afternoon comes to an end.
From some faraway place comes creaking
the sound of the bullock-cart's wheels.
It seems as though in a moment
time would stop—
over the distant untilled fields,
in the evening's lonely darkness.
Who calls whom—
so affectionately, full of desire and grief, greedily
(in this life, in the other life) ?
The smile on the water's broad and shining face,
like the gesture of a sudden wish, pulls
the temple's shadow and the rising moon
together, lovingly.
The long day ends, waiting.
The leprous beggar-woman begins to think—
if only some poor helpless worshipper should arrive
before she left the place
with her day's last weary yawn.
Translation :
Bibhu Padhi
SOUBHAGYA KUMAR MISRA
OF DEFERRED SPEECH
The sun has quite a few things to say.
But it hops from a bend in the river
to a downstream bathing place
where there are no bathers,
from there to yellow Aswattha leaves,
and then to malignant tumours in ovaries.
It thus squanders its time,
and when evening comes
it sets, without having said a thing.
The river has quite a few things to say.
But it flows on and on,
trying to inscribe the sun's wasted life
on the restless paper of its waters.
Its time terminates
in the incompetence of an obese ocean.
It's always impossible
to say even an infinitesemal part
of what one intended to say.
The soil, for example,
swells with the intent to speak
and, ultimately, disintegrates.
The day's light
hovers around the stamen of flowers,
around the raised hoods of snakes,
but in the end settles on the wings of a kite
and disappears into the immeasurable void.
This, probably, is the destiny of the poet.
Before he can relieve the mule of grammar
of sacks filled with intended speech,
crows descend and sit in a circle
around the cleansed wound.
Translation :
Ramakanta Rath
SIN
Afraid? Should I leave?
Heard from both sides, always—
and still no one comes near
from among those who ask and those who hear.
Do I stand in the interior dark
that I wouldn't feel fright or fear?
True, that on many disturbing mornings
I have noticed the alarm
in fresh tyre-marks on the wet earth;
just crushing the fruit in my fist
and admitting my hunger
have made me forgetful.
Such darkness that even the sky is invisible,
only innumerable stars
disclose how
they have slipped away
from that imperious cloud's hold,
the one who circles the leafless tree.
I don't wish to see anyone at all;
at a dangerous moment, certain words
are so full of arrogance
that they only strut insolently
in dark lanes.
Be seated wherever you are
by the window—
simply don't notice the sins I commit.
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra
THE SPRING
Halfknown, halfstranger
one to the other
all of us
in spring time
Earth-crawling creeper
suddenly stands up
like a twisted goldstick
and then shivers
The viewer gets numbed
Cruel her stare
like the breasts
of a girl in early teens
His eyes get lowered
Buds of white thirst
sprout on tiny shoots
and yet
the root drinks fire
You, hot rock floor,
give up your dream
of rising like a minar
melt and confess
the defeat
Thunder this time
shall not strike
though sky
may collapse
Only a peacock-plume
dropping down and down
will touch tenderly
the tip of consciousness
of the green shoots
at the top.
There's no horn,
no nail, no tooth,
no prick—
you, handsome one, debonair,
raise your eyes
you, innocent one !
Thirst is the pitcher,
It's drinkable, too;
take a palmful,
drink.
In gentle-wild anger
it gets injured—
the sitar in the lap.
Fire of root on the lips :
touch it,
taste it.
If a minar bends down
does a cannon
get born ?
From the root to the top
today it's all buds,
watery.
Even if a cannon bursts
today,
colours squirt through.
Today
it's spring time—
Even betrayal
is love
today.
JESUS CHRIST
You are so faraway,
and, yet,
I hear the footfalls of your breath
on the wind's corridor.
Remain faraway
so that my soul
that bought whole history with
a few drops of blood
may smile a little longer
on the crucifix.
In the end, of course,
I shall raise my body
on the podium of your unbelief.
And you, Jesus,
will be its keeper
when a new shroud is spread
on the indestructible coffin
of History.
Translation :
Ramakanta Rath
MASK : MY FACE
What shall I do now?
Shall water the day and
watch it melting away or
sleep inside the
fruit of our shame its
seeds hardening with fear?
The first night followed by
a million other nights I
grow old the killer's amorphous
quest sans quest locked
in the barrel, motionless, waiting
for the hours to dry and
the roots to unlock
the door on the mask
into my plain face my
secret harvest
Translation :
The poet
ASUTOSH PARIDA
I WILL BE HERE
I will be here
like the words made of bones
like a hill of metal
like an inscription;
I will be here
in every wound, every injury
in bleedings not dried up still.
So long as I am here
fire will not be extinguished,
eyelids will not droop,
words will not be silent;
so long as I am here
there will be no secrets.
I will be here
at the end of all the evolutions.
After all the crimes
have been committed
I will be here
as witness and proof.
Who can cover me up
with ash or mud?
Who can ever hide me
in a box or in the grave?
I will dump, in the debris behind the eyes,
all those illusions
daring to dazzle.
Amid the eddies of all streams
I will stand erect like a pole,
hardened though,
with tales not to be lost
interlining my heart.
Faces would be appearing with guises,
hands stretching like hooks,
the hawk will be demanding flesh,
the god will be demanding obedience.
Presuming me deaf
some will be indulging in obscene talks,
presuming me to be blind,
some will be dancing naked before me,
again, presuming me to be dead
some will be taking me in a funeral march.
I will be here.
If someone curses me dead
I will be getting born,
again and again.
I will not be burnt
in fire, will not
drown in water.
I will inscribe on my chest
all that has happened,
is happening
or will ever happen.
So long as I am here
there will be crops in the fields,
there will be flowers in the gardens;
so long as I am here
there will be blood-flow
in the veins of humans.
I will be here,
living, as long as
the world is there.
Translation :
Rabindra K Swain
THE UNTOUCHABLE
Could one confer it
or ever can :
the right
to walk on earth,
to touch the wind,
to look at the sun
to love the moon.
Could one confer it, or ever can?
But the time of my birth
was such that all the rights
had been looted.
What remained was
only a reddish body,
only left-outs, faeces,
vomits, sputum;
only defeats
accumulated over births and rebirths.
The day I started walking
an earthen pot was hung
on my chest where
I would collect my spit
and a broom on my waist
that would clear
all the way my feet travelled.
Who were you there
watching me?
Man or monster?
The walls without gates
looked like hills.
All the valuables of the world
were kept hidden from my eyes.
No human being was there,
except me.
There was no right
on land or water.
It was not there in the scriptures,
among the people or in the society.
What was there
was only defeat
of the flowers of the dreams
and heaps of corpses.
The right
was of touching those corpses,
of carrying them;
was of diving into the drain water
till one touched the hell
and the curse was there
to litter, to crawl like worms.
Where am I now :
close by or in exile?
in drain or with fire?
Do you search me
in the deepest wound
of the earth?
In the brute pages of history?
Do you search me
in some metamorphosis of humans?
Translation :
Rabindra K Swain
BANSHIDHAR SARANGI
PLUCKING FLOWERS
The blossoming of a flower
is not the end-all of things,
a day will come when someone will pluck it
to place it somewhere only he knows.
It seems perfectly worthwhile for us
to guard it, staying hidden somewhere,
or else no one will ever know
when this stealer of flowers
would come in stealth
to complete his mission.
For plucking a flower
is not such an arduous task
nor is it such a priceless object
that we'd worry about it so much.
Whatever you might say,
there is some mystery
behind the plucking of a flower,
and who can deny the twofold role
that exists between the flower's blooming
and its dropping to earth?
It's unbecoming to keep a watch
for the flower to bloom,
for who can tell the moment of flowering?
Can one say
that it will rain for certain
when clouds spread across the sky?
It's not easy to assert
there is a last word for everything.
Simply raise both your palms upward,
may be you'll find a flower
falling from somewhere.
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra
WIND
The tree sifts the wind with its clutch.
The wind leafs in someone's ribs.
A skeleton lies at close range.
Dogs and jackals hold a mass dinner
on your bones.
The wind remains.Dogs and vultures
remain. A corpse lies abandoned.
Whose it is ? Maybe some cow or ox.
In the distant bamboo grove rattles
the wind—the ruffian that beats down
leaves.
The hunter shot a bird dead with
his gun.Men were coming along the way.
The gushing blood dried up on the dead bird's
body.Who dried it up?
It is the wind.
Translation :
Harishankar Acharya
BHANUJI RAO
FISH
Dawn,
like the petal of drenched roses.
Six nude bodies
furtively glide forward
in the practised motions of some dance,
rippling the water's sleek body.
Slowly they close in towards one another,
cutting across the cries
of the kingfisher and the kite.
They move up, six torsos,
black and naked,
deepening the repose of snail and pristine toad.
And now the net is wound,
rising up
under twelve greedy, watchful eyes;
threshing bodies of mahseer and tiny fry,
brilliant as the sun.
POEM
When you tell the flower
to remain in bloom until you return,
I will weep then for the first time,
and the flower trembling in the spring breeze
will wilt in the sun like a memory in blossom.
The second weeping will take place
with the corpse of the day's end,
waiting for your return when the stricken flower
would see the evening come in.
Then perhaps, in the dark, the flower
would quietly come down from the tree
and be lost strangely somewhere.
I will weep for the last time
when in the blackest darkness
you will not return.
THE SNAKE I SAW
I didn't see it, dangling
on the bough bearing the forbidden fruit,
tempting
the nude, primaeval Woman
in God's garden.
Its coiled elegance, its bejewelled hood
I did not see.
I didn't see its fragile frame,
winter-struck,
in the dewy fields of November
inching its way
upto the farmer's hearth,
basking,
aroused again,
warmer and fiercer.
Nor did I see it, wafting
in a tame, enchanted game
like a wavelet of the unruly sea
playing around the feet
of the celestial fairy, Urvasi,
on a spring dawn.
I saw it
like the cold hand of Death,
I saw it slithering in dark
underneath the bamboo-grove.
And suddenly it sprang up
like a hot summerstorm,
upraised hood,
lightning-tongued;
Under its eyes a spread of desert
and thirsty mirages,
dancing.
I saw it :
a garland around the blue neck
of the Lord-of-Destruction:
Shiva !
Above the neck
gnarled, auburn hair.
Lips chanting belligerence.
Venom dripping
from the cracked urn.
And, beyond that I saw
the stream of white consciousness,
the eternal descent of RiverGanga...
I saw it :
I saw the snake.
THE LONG-HAIRED GIRL
Once, a long-haired girl had come to my room,
her breasts like melting light, hands wreathed
in flowers and death, two cool eyes in the rust
of her tears.
An actress of unforgiving love
and impassive blood,the pores of her skin excited
with envy, the glory of her lies bedazzling her youth
over and over again, the lines of her body in gleaming gold,
and on her face sin and prayer.
One day a long-haired girl had come to my room.
All alone. For a brief moment, and then was gone,
for I was away in some distant land; and in my house
a slave, an eunuch, stood on guard.
RUMOURS
It's true—and not a rumour—
that sometimes, after moonrise,
the night is as bright as the day.
The moon, too, as much as the sun,
throws out shadows.
It's true—and no rumour—
that sometimes dead men and women smile.
I have myself seen a young woman called Priyamvada
smiling after she hanged herself
on a full-moon night.
When they laid her on the hearse
she blew away, with a gust of her smile,
the face of the lover who should have come.
I had never seen a smile
so beautiful and so full of life
on her lips, in her eyes and, above all,
on her face
as long as she had lived.
It's true—and no rumour—
that sometimes darkness spreads like a fog.
Look at the child,sleeping quietly in the cradle.
He had raised quite a clamour
in his mother's lap just a moment ago.
Memories from some earlier life
come down in dreams
and settle on the face
that now looks like the inside of an ancient temple--
dark, except for the tentative glow
of an earthen lamp.
Practically everyone can
swim his way through a pool.
Crossing the wind's rough sea
is a far more difficult enterprise.
Not many can continue to be themselves
once they are face to face
with memory gushing down like a river in spate,
or arriving in inconsolable blasts
of a restless storm.
I shall continue to be myself.
I am no fool, and shall never believe
in rumours according to which
thinking about one who has gone away
always makes one very,very sad.
NOON PRAYER
Along with the flow of my blood,
through the body's blue cavern,
they come,
those millions of fireflies, stars and nebulae;
thousands of fish lift me,
like memories, from the ocean floor.
And, like a snake,
the twelve-cubit-long sigh of despair
rises from the small temple of my body
and crawls up its broken walls.
Drenched in rain
and in the anguish of moonlight,
many inert shadows
huddle about its burnt-out wick's smell,
and the newcomer who once left
returns through the open spaces in the leaves.
Morning brings back the body's distances,
with bewildered cries
night-birds swaying from its nerves fly away,
as the fortified morning
breaks through the chest-walls.
And I lose myself,melting away elsewhere.
Elsewhere,
my sacrificial fire's smoke rises into the sky.
|
