“THE HILL” By Nissim Ezekiel

This normative hill
like all others
is transparently accessible,
out there
and in the mind,
not to be missed
except in peril of one’s life.

Do not muse on it
from a distance:
it’s not remote
for the view only,
it’s for the sport
of climbing.

What the hill demands
is a man
with forces flowering
as from the crevices
of rocks and rough surfaces
wild flowers
force themselves towards the sun
and burn
for a moment.

How often must I
say to myself
what I say to others:
trust your nerves–
in conversation or in bed
the rhythm comes.

And once you begin
hang on for life.
What is survival?
What is existence?
I am not talking about
poetry. I am
talking about
perishing
outrageously
and calling it
activity.
I say: be done with it.
I say:
you’ve got to love that hill.

Be wrathful, be impatient
that you are not
on the hill. Do not forgive
yourself or other,
though charity
is all very well.
.

 

The poem has some very nice images. I particularly like the image of the wild flowers that burst out of the rock crevice to burn briefly. The metaphor of the hill runs throughout: the hill is normative ; the hill is for the sport of climbing , not for musing on from a distance and in the end ,you flow into another kind of time which is the hill you thought you always knew. The image of–flowing into another kind of time  does not seem to jell with the idea of  flowing into the hill unless one imagines our consciousness entering the hill like a kind of stream flowing through the hills. The last lines are very rich :

 Do not rest
in irony or acceptance.
Man should not laugh
when he is dying.
In decent death
you flow into another kind of time
which is the hill
you always thought you knew.

 

 

“Selling The Sky” by Chandrkant Sheth

I once had been to a narrow lane
to sell the sky.
The residents of the narrow lane
took me for a lunatic.
I was made fun of,
I was manhandled,
I was pelted with stones.
My clothes were torn off.
They tried to make me unclench my fist.
But could the sky ever be in one’s fist ?

Poor people of the narrow lane !
They don’t know
that the sky could never be kept
in one’s pocket, in a carpet bag, or a trunk, or a fist.
I was merely going to lift their drooping eyelids
and show them the sky !
They were going to get the sky free !
The selling of the sky was but a ruse !
But the residents of the narrow lane—
they drove me away
and went to sleep,
burrowing their faces deep in their pillows.

Once again I dragged myself
and kept hoping that the sky will be sold
tomorrow, if not today,
and kept breathing deeply, with determination.
Well to begin with
these residents of the narrow lane
and, what’s more, the selling of the sky—
the transaction
couldn’t possibly have been over that soon .”

The poem is a translation from its original Gujarati version,written by a famous Gujarati poet Chandrakant Seth. Shorn of complicated imagery ,the poem is a delightful take on the lives of the urban people who live in their narrow lanes without turning their gaze to the vastness and the freedom of the sky .The beauty of the poem is not so much in rich lines or in exquisite imagery as in its starkness and irony. The typical Gujarati family lives in its perpetual concerns of money making, staying huddled in claustrophobic houses. They do not try to come out of their narrow lanes to enjoy their freedom of open spaces and the blue sky. The entrepreneur in a Gujarati tries to sell even a fistful of the sky! The poet is trying to sell them the sky because that is the only language they understand .

“Father Returning Home” -by Dilip Chitre

My father travels on the late evening train
Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light
Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes
His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat
Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books
Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age
fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.
Now I can see him getting off the train
Like a word dropped from a long sentence.
He hurries across the length of the grey platform,
Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,
His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.

Home again, I see him drinking weak tea,
Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.
He goes into the toilet to contemplate
Man’s estrangement from a man-made world.
Coming out he trembles at the sink,
The cold water running over his brown hands,
A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.
His sullen children have often refused to share
Jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep
Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming
Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking
Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.

The poem speaks about the inner loneliness of the poet’s father, the utter alienation he is experiencing in the twilight years (man’s estrangement from a man-made world) as he ceases to matter to his children who no longer share anything with him. All the while he is trying to evoke, through the racial conscious, the invisible connection with his ancestors who had entered the sub-continent through the Khyber Pass in the Himalayas in some distant past (the allusion is perhaps to the migration of the Aryans to the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia). The poet uses some fine imagery to describe the pain and misery lurking in the old man’s soul as he travels in the local train .His bag stuffed with books is falling apart refers to the state of the old man’s mind which has turned senile after all that knowledge it has acquired through years of dedicated study.

A wonderful image is used to describe his getting down from the train: Like a word dropped from a long sentence .The uniqueness of the image lies in the highly evocative visual picture of an old man dropping off from the train as though he is no longer relevant to the train which will now move forward with other people to their destinations .The old man is just a word in the syntax of life. The sentence that is long enough to carry several words forward each contributing to its overall meaning now drops off one stray word, which is no longer required.

The other interesting image is the eyes and vision, which occurs in the poem again and again. The suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes is a pretty image. The second one is his eyes dimmed by age fade homeward.

Above all we may look at the dexterous use of words to convey the “twilight” atmosphere in the poem : evening train, yellow light, unseeing eyes , his eyes dimmed by age fade homeward ,gray platform.

‘MY SON’S TEACHER”-By Kamala Das

My son is four. His teacher swooned on a grey pavement
Five miles from here and died. From where she lay, her new skirt
Flapped and fluttered, a green flag, half-mast, to proclaim death’s
Minor triumphs. The wind was strong, the poor men carried
Pink elephant-gods to the sea that day. They moved in
Long gaudy processions, they clapped cymbals, they beat drums
And they sang aloud, she who lay in a faint was drowned
in their song. The evening paper carried the news. He
Bathed, drank milk, wrote two crooked lines of Ds and waited.
But the dead rang no doorbell. He is only four.
For many years he will not be told that tragedy
Flew over him one afternoon, an old sad bird, and
Gently touched his shoulder with its wing.


The wind was strong/the poor men carried pink elephant-Gods to the sea that day/ She who lay lifeless on the road.Her new skirt flapped like a green flag and her existence announced by the green flag drowned in the cymbals of the God’s procession. The poet’s four-years old son   bathed ,drank milk,wrote two crooked lines of Ds and waited .The dead rang no door-bell. A tragic experience from the poet’s own life. Poetry of the personal kind.

Imagery is effectively used , like the green flag of her skirt  fluttering in the wind announcing  death’s minor triumphs .Minor because it made no difference to the world which went on with its procession of God with cymbals drowning her death in its sound.The child wrote two crooked lines of D’s ,perhaps of the triumph of Death’s crooked ways ,like the way in which a young woman’s life has been  cut short on her way to the poet’s house .The old sad bird ,tragedy ,has touched him on his shoulder briefly and the child will not fully understand its implication for many years to come.Tragedy has swooped down on him like a gray bird touching him briefly but he does not understand it fully at this age.

“POEM” By Gieve Patel

What is it between
A woman’s legs draws destruction
To itself? Each war sees bayonets
Struck like flags in 
A flash of groin blood.
The vicious in-law
Places spice or glowing cinder
On that spot. Little bird-mouth
Woman’s second,
Secret lip, in-drawn
Before danger, opened
At night to her lover.
Women walk the earth fully clothed,
A planetary glow dispelling
The night of dress,
A star rising where
Thigh meets belly: target spot
Showered
With kisses, knives.

The poem talks about destruction inherent in the human condition,the inevitability of love and regeneration leading to death and destruction.Little bird-mouth,woman’s second,secret lip,indrawn before danger,opened to her lover . For a brief while,after wars and domestic violence, born of the power games of nations and homes, love prevails.The planetary glow of the archetypal woman dispels her night of dress and a star rises where thigh meets belly but the target spot is showered with kisses and knives.

I like the poem for its tautness of construction and the amazing economy of words which make the poem sound  almost classical.Some very rich lines like little bird-mouth…,bayonets struck like flags in a flash of groin blood ,a star rising where thigh meets belly,target spot showered with kisses and knives make the poem a memorable one.

“The elements of composition” by A.K.Ramanujan

Composed as I am, like others,
of elements on certain well-known lists,
father’s seed and mother’s egg

gathering earth, air, fire, mostly
water, into a mulberry mass,
moulding calcium,

carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,
into a chattering self tangled
in love and work,

scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,
only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things

like Stonehenge or cherry trees;

add uncle’s eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister’s face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map,
of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there

after the riots, downtown Nairobi,
that a friend carried in his passport
as others would

a woman’s picture in their wallets;

add the lepers of Madurai,
male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth
can move —

I pass through them
as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,

millennia of fossil records
of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
a legend half-heard
in a train

of the half-man searching
for an ever-fleeing
other half

through Muharram tigers,
hyacinths in crocodile waters,
and the sweet

twisted lives of epileptic saints,

and even as I add
I lose, decompose,
into my elements

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.

I like this poem a lot. Composed as I am like others of elements on certain well known lists is a pretty way of beginning the poem. The poem is about the elements of composition and talks about the Hindu ideas of the five elements (pancha bhuta),the earth, the fire , the wind, the water and the sky ,which is one such list , the other list being the 100-odd elements that the chemistry books talk about. The poem begins with talking about composition and ends with decomposition (the caterpillars, eating and being eaten) .All the elements like gold, magnesium, calcium etc. are gathered into a chattering self, tangled in love and work.

“Capable of eyes that can see,
only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things”

A beautiful thought. The eyes can see, only by moving them constantly, the constancy of things, like the Stonehenge or the cherry tree. The physical eyes can see the beauty of nature or a great work of art only by moving them constantly. One should watch things which are in a continuous state of flux over a period of time to grasp the inherent beauty of nature and a great work of art.

”add uncle’s eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again”

A lovely reminiscence of the poet about his uncle’s dexterity in shadow-play using his eleven fingers to create fascinating images of kings ,cats etc and sounds like hissing and the transformation of the shadows to fingers again !

His sister’s fear of an impending tragedy just before her wedding :

“ the look
of panic on sister’s face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map,
of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there”

The horrific existence of the mutilated lepers of Madurai against the exquisitely ornate stone sculptures of goddesses of dance in the majestic Meenakshi temple:

“add the lepers of Madurai,
male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth
can move —“

All these are the very elements of which he and they are composed . They pass through him as he passes through them :

“I pass through them
as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,

millennia of fossil records
of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
a legend half-heard
in a train”

The whole poem is about what we are composed of , the different forms in which the elements combine , the impact of time on the composition ,the process of the decomposition (the Madurai lepers) and finally death and destruction (eating and being eaten).

A fascinating poem.

GREYBIRD “- a poem in Tamil by Revathy translated by N.Kalyanraman

The tree’s shadow
Sat still beneath its canopy

Like a Greybird

As if she wished to snatch and carry away even
The protracted silence of the street,
A girl came down sweeping

It was here that
He’d asked me to wait,
Had asked my love too

The sweeper-girl
Went away long ago, taking
The silence with her, while she kept
Turning back to stare at me

Darkness has now begun to stream down
Like tears. Enchanted and fearful,
Like a body ready at last to arrive
At its own flowering, I wait

Here . . . he walks in from afar,
Like a laden cloud about to unburden
Itself of rain
At this unbearable joy,
Red stars have begun to spring in my body

The tree, though,
Is still; not perturbed in the least-
Like a Greybird

Comments:
The tree’s shadow sat still beneathe its own canopy like a grey bird .It is as though the wind in the tree is playing with its shadows which are the autumn leaves of yesterday’s thoughts. The tree cannot even do this because the girl came in to sweep away the dry leaves No longer is silence of the streets.It was here he came like a laden cloud about to unburden its rain .Darkness came down in streams . The tree remained like the greybird.

The poet uses exquisite imagery reminiscent of the romantic poetry.Images like “the grey bird “, “red stars spring in the body” “like a laden cloud unburdening itself of rain” are skilfully crafted usages which would surely be even more pretty in the original Tamil version.

“The Sight”-A poem by Mahim Bora

The whole rainy evening
My eyes sat on the plinth.
The evening spread on the grass
Of my plinth.I was stunned
Green lightning struck still
On the eyes, carrying the hunger of Durbasa
My glance stilled on my eyelid
In delight
In shocked silence
The ecstasy of the first wedding night

Many a beauty fare have I passed, many a
Market have I roamed!
Wearied by endless bargaining
Despaired customers in shops
Today in my plinth
Hidden from all glances
A beauty enraptured
Shyness in the ugly, annoyed eyes
A very comely darling
Hidden behind a veil;
Beauty has shown itself
In the cracks of the earth.

No eyes burnt this way
In Kaziranga or Dabaka
… today in my plinth
With all the world’s grace
Silently sat a slimy toad
With stripes on its back.

A toad is a toad, it has no other identity
Even if it has wonders in life.
Then we are friends! Let there be friendship
And exchange of dreams between us.

[ Translated by SN ]

“A toad is a toad,it has no other identity/Even if it has wonders in life”-beautiful.Feel the empathy the poet has for the toad and his invitation to share dreams .”No eyes burnt this way/ In Kaziranga or Dabaka”,which ,though ugly or annoyed ,held beauty enraptured. The toad has come out of the cracks of the earth ,sitting on the plinth (of an unfinished building ,I suppose) as the evening spread on the grass of the plinth. The poet has pursued beauty all over the place,in the markets and on the streets ;beauty has eluded him everywhere till this rainy evening when the toad appears on the plinth.

As nature poetry the poem excels in the way in which it captures the sight of a toad on a rainy evening. The imagery has none of the complexity such as you would find in modern poetry but has a certain charming grace at once captivating and memorable. A part of the charm is on account of the “exoticism ” found in such translations from the Indian languages and can be better felt by an Indian reader familiar with the nuances of the Indian languages.

“While she slept like Vishnu” -a poem by Neha Viswanathan

 

 

The Ganges is alien to those who
eat rice of the Cauvery delta, he
says. She says she doesn’t care.
She just needs her starch. White
cotton, snakes its form with the
midnight wind. All is a deep shade
of somnambulist blue.

The cats near the Ghat are dazed
by the final flames. The milk in
their stomach curdled, and their
paws kicking dust into the winter
regret. This man, and this woman,
they have gone past the first ten
days of lovemaking.

From tomorrow they will share their
childhood. Their purest parts, the
dirtiest clothes, the smelliest aunts.
Superlatives traded for memories. He
looks wistfully at his new lover, she
sleeps on her palm that rises from
the elbow, slanting.

He will tell her, on their eleventh day
“My dear Kannamma, I will eat even
dirt with you. But rice is preferred.
But you must know this, last night,
I stole a little of you, while you were
sleeping like Vishnu.“

1. Ghats: The term ghats refers to a series of steps leading down to a body of water in many parts of South Asia [From Wikipedia] [back]
2. Kannamma (Tamil): Term of endearment, used for women/ children. [back]
3. From some vague link, an explanation of Vishnu’s reclining pose. “Some Puranic literature refers to him as the eternal, all-pervading spirit and associates him with the primeval waters believed to have been omnipresent before the creation of the world. So regarded, Vishnu is depicted frequently in human form, sleeping on the great serpent Shesha and floating on the waters.” [back]

“White cotton snakes its form with the midnight wind” is a beautiful image.It refers to her long drawn out saree against “somnambulist blue” of the Ganga. “Cats near the ghat are dazed by the final flames” refers to the funeral fires of the dead on the river steps of the Ganga in Varanasi .The most beautiful image is the woman “sleeping like Vishnu”.Vishnu is the primal God responsible for the preservation of the Universe and he sleeps on the folds of the snake in the ocean of milk from where He controls the world. On the river ghat ,witnessing the cremation fires she sleeps like Vishnu,who controls life preservation ! He of the Cauvery belt ,a rice-eater comes here 2000 kms to this ancient city to experience its intense beauty and its spirituality .

“Love”-A poem by Hrishikesan

My mother never told me
Love is a bottle of mango pickles
She used to put in my cotton bag
Every time I leave my home town

One day
Her season of mangoes ended
And never returned”

A simple poem on a very simple theme ,very effectively used image .Those of us who know what mother’s mango pickles signify for a son who is studying in a different city will understand this.

Heart-rending is the “season of mangoes never returning” .

A Malayalam poem in English ! That is what he says in the other poem

Thinking somewhere …

The bus conductor
Pushed me out
As I was leaning on a foot board
For support
In an open public bus
Going somewhere
In Mumbai city
In the early
Twenty first century
Thinking about
A Malayalam poem
In English.

Indeed ! Here is my poem on the subject of a mother . A Telugu poem in English ?

My mother’s brocades

My mother’s moth-balled
Brocades , a whole lot of them,
Are lying systematically stacked up
In her ancient wooden cupboard
They smell of her ,the smell
That belonged to a slice of her life.
This yellow one which she wore
Just once in her life had wrapped
A coy twenty-year-old bride
Tentatively setting her dainty foot
Into the hesitant bridal home .

Somewhere in the backwoods
Several industrious silkworms
Had spun miles of salivary yarn
In the foliage of the mulberry tree
To make this gorgeous five-yard saree .

The rustle of the silk drowned
The wails of the boiling cocoons
These worms died that beauty would live
In their plaintive cries lay new bridal hopes .
My mother, the coy bride of yesteryears,
Is now as non-existent as the worms
That had ceased to exist spinning
The smooth silk for her bridal finery .
Her bridal fragrance lives on among
The delicate folds of these gossamer silks
That the worms had died weaving
Death is so fragrant and so memorable.