EEN (MODERN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH)
UNIT II: POETRY
RABINDRANATH TAGORE’S
“WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR”
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
GM MUKTIBODH’S
“THE VOID”
The void inside us
has jaws,
those jaws have carnivorous teeth;
those teeth will chew you up,
those teeth will chew up everyone else.
The dearth inside
is our nature,
habitually angry,
in the dark hollow inside the jaws
there is a pond of blood.
This void is utterly black,
is barbaric, is naked,
disowned, debased,
completely self absorbed.
I scatter it,
give it away,
with fiery words and deeds.
Those who cross my path
find this void
in the wounds
I inflict on them.
They let it grow,
spread it around,
scatter it and give it away
to others,
raising the children of emptiness.
The void is very durable,
it is fertile.
Everywhere it breeds
saws, daggers, sickles,
breeds carnivorous teeth.
That is why,
wherever you look,
there is dancing, jubilation,
death is now giving birth
to brand new children.
Everywhere
there are oversights
with the teeth of saws,
there are heavily armed mistakes;
the world looks at them
and walks on,
rubbing its hands.
AMRITA PRITAM’S
“I SAY UNTO WARIS SHAH”
Today I implore Waris Shah
to speak from his grave
and turn over a page of
the Book of Love
When a daughter of the fabled Punjab wept
he gave tongue to her silent grief.
Today a million daughters weep
but where is Waris Shah
to give voice to their woes?
Arise, O friend of the distressed!
See the plight of your Punjab.
Corpses lie strewn in the pastures
and the Chenab has turned crimson.
Someone has poured poison
into the waters of five rivers
and these waters are now
irrigating the land with poison.
In this fertile land have sprouted
Countless poisonous saplings
Scarlet-red has turned the horizon
and sky high has flown the curse.
The poisonous wind,
that passes through every forest,
has changed the bamboo-shoots
into cobras.
The cobras mesmerized the gullible people
and bit them again and again.
So in no time,
the limbs of Punjab turned bluish.
The songs vanished from the streets
and the thread of the spinning-wheel snapped.
The girls fled the trinjan screaming
and the resounding whirr of the spinning-wheel stopped,
Luddan let go the boats
along with the wedding-beds.
The swing has snapped
along with the strong branch of the tree.
The flute,
through which blew the breath of love,
is lost in bewilderment.
The brothers of Ranjha
have forgotten
the art of handling this instrument.
Blood raining on the earth,
Has seeped into the graves.
The princesses of the valley
called Love,
now weep in graveyards.
All the villains
now parade
as thieves of love and beauty.
Where shall we seek
another Waris Shah?
Today I implore
Waris Shah
to speak from his grave
and turn over a page of
the Book of Love.
(Translated by N.S. Tasneem)
LAISHRAM SAMARENDRA’S
“LET US CLIMB THE HILL TODAY”
Today, let us eat only the delicious, put-on only the finest-
After wearing the beautiful clothes
Let us climb the hill today
Do you prefer the flower Iris
Or put on merry gold
Or wear the lilies
Or wrap with the lotus
Oh, you look like the flower Ingellei!
Come on! come on!
Wearing the beautiful clothes
Let us climb the hill today
Bokul, Biren, Ho! Kulo!
Binodini, Thambalsangbi,
So beautiful so beautiful!
Come on! come on!
Oh, Rice smugglers, clothe smugglers
Blackmarketeers of Suger
Stockists of Salt,
Hoarders of potato
All of you come out today
putting on beautiful clothes
Let us climb the hill today
On the high hill top
Where it adjoins the abode of Gods
Let us play today as the children of God
Let us wear on the beautiful clothes today,
Eat only the delicious
Choose only the beautiful
Think only the beautiful
If we put on the beautiful today
We shall be beautiful for one year
If we think beautiful today
We shall be beautiful for one year
If we eat beautiful today
We shall eat beautiful for one year!
If we wish beautiful today
We shall wish beautiful for one year!
So, come out today all the brothers!
Oh, all of you brothers climbing high!
Oh uncle, Oh my senior brothers!
You look so beautiful
When looking down from the hilltop
Oh God!
Is the land so beautiful
Is the valley so beautiful
Is the khwairamband bazaar so clean
Is it so that the meiteis are so united
Oh! Unite all the Meiteis today
So that you be united for all the year round
Those living in the hills and living in the valley
Make friends today for having friendship throughout the year
Be honest today
So that honesty must be there throughout the year
On this day of Cheiraoba today
You put on only the beautiful!
Eat only the beautiful!
ELANGBAM NILAKANTA’S
“THE HOMELAND”
These years I have spent weeping
For my loving motherland
I laughed, wept and brooded
On the changing scenario of Manipur.
The earth didn’t weigh heavier
Nor was the sky higher.
But Manipur! you are
Just my beginning, not the ending.
Gradual understanding has dawned
After many a year
Having many a century rolled by.
I am but a pilgrim
Passing through series of deserts
Holding a walking stick
Towards the realm of light.
I have no name
No nationality
No identity
I am simply a human being
Nourished with nectar.
Mother Manipur, you are an inn to me
For me only for one night
I’ve to leave at daybreak
Leaving the burden of life
Without looking back at all.
Yet, mother! Please fondle once
On my head and bless kindly
For your son’s journey infinite
Empower your son, mother
Despite your loving care
Only for one night.
Let me then gaze once
At that parting moment
The visage of mother
Wet with tears.
THANGJAM IBOPISHAK’S
“DALI, HUSSAIN, OR ODOUR OF DREAM, COLOUR OF WIND”
My uncle from Wangu asked me:
How many bushels of paddy
Have you stored for this season?
I asked my friend Kesho again:
How many kgs of poems have you written for this month?
Write and then tear up, write and then tear up;
A cashier counts old one rupee notes
A rotten, mouldy bundle of notes
One thousand ...
Seven hundred ...
Only eleven ...
Spending one hour two minutes and fifteen seconds.
Then after the final count, washing his hands clean with dettol
He eats up the notes, one by one.
II
True, the poet says:
Leaves do not move without a fleeting wind.
True, I also say:
Even if the wind blows or not, even if it rains or not,
Leaves never move
If there are no leaves
On the bare tree.
III
One knows man’s thoughts from his speech
As for the mind’s words of a tight-lipped man
One can read them from his eyes;
That is why to conceal my mind
I put on dark glasses;
Again, so that even the glasses cannot read
I keep my two eyes shut.
(Men who close their eyes can be seen inside a lockup
Or inside a sacred temple).
I’ve never seen fish flying in the sky
But I often saw ducks floating on water.
You say: you are wrong
I say: I am wrong
The Vedas say: ‘In Brahma
Lies zero.’
You also say and I too declare: What they call ‘you’
Is never me.
IV
Which is more fragrant
The report of guns or the scent of flowers?
The sound of guns lies on the nose,
The odour of flowers on the tips of flowers.
Blind men see colours on voices.
A love letter
A horoscope of my grandfather
A radio which belongs to our mother
A pair of tweezers of my son
Ten bottles of rum flying in air
One brassiere which belongs to my grandmother
A pair of lingams
A bird carrying a bunch of keys in its beak
One whistle
Two butterflies
A cake of soap
A Shakespearean sonnet
A pair of clogs
Tied up by women’s hair. (What’s left?
Add some of your own).
An egg
Sinks slowly
Slowly, very slowly...
Piercing my sleeping teenage daughter’s
Hairless pate.
Then her two ears move lazily.
One day, wanting to own a peepal tree
I climbed atop a rich man’s tall building, and,
Entering his bathroom, looked for one.
(I like peepal trees very much;
I would like to see every citizen of Imphal
Walking with a small peepal tree
Growing on his head).
Then inside that bathroom
I found my wife leaning:
Half her body, waist above turning into a peepal
Waist below her body without clothes.
I was not surprised
I was not worried
I did not cry.
Girish Karnad,
My wife metamorphosed into your Chelluvi!
How can I claim now
That I like peepal trees?
© Translation: 2003, Robin S Ngangom
From: Anthology of Contemporary Poetry from the Northeast.
Publisher: North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, 2003
Chelluvi is the title of a Kannada film directed by Girish Karnad. The film was based on a
Karnataka folk tale. It is the name of a flower girl who turned into a flowering tree. The film
was produced by Doordarshan, and was released on D.D.1 National Channel in 1994.
