Poetry in Translation – Oct 15, 2018

Sugandhi delivered the veg cutlets KumKum ordered through her for the birthday feast – Hemjit was taken ill

This session was devoted to reading poems translated into English. The group sampled poets from various languages: Hindi – 3, Malayalam – 2, and 1 each from Marathi, Bengali, Spanish, French, and Chinese. Only one poet, in Hindi, was a woman (Subhadra Kumari Chauhan).

Thommo, Devika, Geetha in conversation before the reading

There are many theories regarding the translation of poetry. Here is what Vikram Seth, who brought out a volume titled Three Chinese Poets in 1992, has to say on the subject:

Readers follow on every sort of portable device

“There is a school of translation that believes that one can safely ignore many of the actual words of a poem once one has drunk deeply of its spirit. An approximate rendering invigorated by a sense of poetic inspiration becomes the aim. The idea is that if the final product reads well as a poem, all is well: a good poem exists where none existed before. I should mention that the poems in this book are not intended as transcreations or free translations in this sense, attempts to use the originals as trampolines from which to bounce off on to poems of my own. 

Birthday goodies for Oct born Devika, Joe, and Kavita

The famous translations of Ezra Pound, compounded as they are of ignorance of Chinese and valiant self-indulgence, have remained before me as a warning of what to shun. I have preferred mentors who, like the three translators I mentioned before, admit the primacy of the original and attempt fidelity to it. Like them, I have tried not to compromise the meaning of the actual words of the poems, though I have often failed. Even in prose the associations of a word or an image in one language do not slip readily into another. The loss is still greater in poetry, where each word or image carries a heavier charge of association, and where the exigencies of form leave less scope for choice and manoeuvre. But if it is felt that the limited access to the worlds of these poems that translation can reasonably hope to provide has been given, I will be more than happy.” (From the foreword)

Full Account and Record of Poetry in Translation held on Oct 15, 2018

We celebrated the birthdays of Devika, Kavita, and Joe which fell in the month of October. Sunil too has his birthday in October, but he has not attended for a while on account of his absence to look after a coffee estate in Kodagu.

Enjoying the birthday eats - cake, veg cutlets, chicken & veg patties

The next session will be on Nov 16 to read Graham Greene's novel, The Heart of the Matter. All selections of novels for 2019 should be firmed up and announced before the next session.

1. Priya Sharma – poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924 – 2018)

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Former Prime Minister of India, passed away on August 16, 2018 . He was 93

Being away to Kolkata for her daughter’s confinement, Priya left us a voice file of two wonderfully enunciated poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, poet and later, Prime Minister of India. The first poem was on the occasion of Independence Day in 1947 and addresses Atalji’s feelings. He notes the anguish for killings that attended the winning of freedom and states that freedom is only half won (आज़ादी अभी अधूरी है) and he is not therefore minded to celebrate. The translation (But the day is not far, when we shall see our dreamed Bharat) does not accurately reflect the penultimate verse:

दिन दूर नहीं खंडित भारत को 

पुन: अखंड बनाएँगे। 

Mr Vajpayee is dreaming of ‘Akhand Bharat’; most people in India today have never entertained such a dream. Especially glad are we not to have Pakistan as part of our country, for it has diverged very far from the path of tolerance and harmony among the multiple faiths who reside there, and has become  a sponsor of terrorism and shielder of terrorist forces. India has its own problems (separatism in Kashmir; rebellions by armed tribals seeking to protect their forests from mining in Chatttisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh; and autonomy-seeking indigenous people in Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, etc) – but we have yet to deviate officially from our secular Constitution. Except for militarised J&K, peace reigns over most parts.

Thommo said the Left parties in Bengal and Kerala have had a lot to do with maintaining a check on the unfettered power of the central government. Too long a hold on power by the Left has, however, messed up Bengal, but in Kerala, the first rule of the Namboodiripad government (1957-59) in the state and its enactment of reforms (which could not be undone by the Congress), meant steady social progress and a respect for the multiple constituencies in the state, while the poor were given a leg up. Thommo said the elimination of extreme poverty in the state of Kerala stands to its credit; the very poor and needy come looking for unskilled work from neighbouring states.

KumKum chimed in saying rich countries like Brazil and Argentina have wasted their resources, or have suffered from a scale of corruption that dwarfs our own in India. Joe thought the absence of civil war is a big blessing; we take it for granted. There can be no progress without peace. A large part of China’s progress can be ascribed to its careful policy of not undertaking large-scale interventionist wars abroad after the Korean War, which was thrust on China when the American commander advanced to the Yalu river border of North Korea and China. If one contrasts this with the reckless trillion-dollar wars the US has been engaged in almost continuously over the last seventy years, a lesson emerges.

The second poem was written on the occasion of Atalji being ejected from office after a brief 13-day stint in 1996. He is confident and hopeful, and not fazed by his defeat. It ends with the refrain

गीत नया गाता हूँ

Here is his own rendition of that poem from a library of poetic voices of South Asia stored in the US Library of Congress:

https://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/master/salrp/06306.mp3

Mr Vajpayee was a three-time Prime Minister of India and enjoyed a full five-year term from 1999 which marked many epochal events. He took poetry seriously and would have been a poet had he not been drawn into politics and consumed by it. His grandfather, Shyamalal Vajpayee, was a Sanskrit scholar, and his father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet in Brajbhasha (a medieval form of Hindi) and Kariboli Hindi (the more modern Hindi dating from the 19th century). Mr Vajpayee tried his hand too as a student and became a poet frequenting Kavi Sammelans. In his teens he joined the youth wing of  the Arya Samaj and espoused the ideals of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) of which he became a sevak for life.

His skill in language and oratory made him known to the leadership and he became an editor of party journals. His poetry receded when he joined politics, but his speeches were often laced with poetry, and the kind of rhetorical flourishes that could come only from a person with a sure feel for the language. The poetry he wrote has two facets; one is sensitive and humane, tending to express universal emotions such as love, separation, longing and so on. The other is the poetry of a fiery nationalist. However, his political career shows that when in power he tended to moderate his views and accommodate rivals, and if possible make peace with them.

His collected poetry is in a slim volume Meri Ekyavan Kavitayen (My Fifty-one poems).

2. Gopa – Poem Kana by Kusumagraj (1912 – 1999)

Kusumagraj, Marathi poet

“Kana is one of the best poems by my favourite Marathi poet Kusumagraj (1912-199)”, said Gopa, who grew up in Mumbai, although a Bengali by extraction. Her voice file of the recitation was sent from Bengaluru where she is currently resident, due to return next year to our fair city. The poet’s real name was Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar. Kana, meaning backbone, is a simple poem that captures the fighting spirit of the common man as he bravely faces life's challenges. The reader can enjoy the Marathi version and there is a wonderful translation by Gulzar into Hindi; the English translation is offered below.

Short Bio of Kusumagraj 

He is a well known Marathi poet, playwright, short story writer and novelist; he was much influenced by the socialist movement of the pre-independence days in India. He is also a popular screen writer and lyricist in the Marathi film industry. His well known play Natasamrat is soon going to hit the screens with Nana Patekar in the lead – the actor now accused of sexual harassment. The play was staged years ago by well known Marathi theatre and film personality, the late Dr Shriram Lagu. Kusumagraj is the recipient of many State literature awards; he received the Jnanpith Award in 1987, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1974 for his play, Natasamrat, and the Padma Bhushan in 1991.

Kana...pronounced Kuh...roll the tongue at ‘na’...meaning ‘backbone’ 

It is a simple poem that captures the never-say-die spirit of Indians braving the adversities of life in rural India. In the poem the Ganga has burst its banks and flooded the village, just as did the Periyar and its tributaries in Kerala in Aug 2018. Everything is lost. The protagonist visits his teacher and narrates his woes. When his teacher tries to help him financially, he gracefully declines the offer. He only requests a pat on his shoulder and words of encouragement to carry on...fighting....(ladha) against the odds.

3. KumKum – Two poems of Jibanananda Das (1899 – 1954)

Jibanananda Das was born in 1899 in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), and died in Calcutta (West Bengal) in a tram accident in 1954.

Tagore, who was a poet, novelist, short storywriter, playwright, children’s book writer, philosopher, educationist, painter, music composer and more, had a deep influence on the Bengali literature of the first half of the twentieth century. The quality and the volume of his output was monumental! Tagore’s language and sophisticated use of imagery, and his ability to express every human feeling in relation to nature, mesmerised the educated Bengali mind. Everyone fell for his songs and tunes.

Jibanananda arrived on this scene toward the last fifteen years of Tagore’s life. It was not an easy entrance. As a young poet Jibanananda sent his poems to Tagore for comment, but Tagore did not find them worthy of publication. The language was not smooth, the rhymes casual, and the imagery upsetting; all this probably ruffled Tagore’s disciplined mind. 

Fortunately for Das, a new literary group called Kallol, which was trying to break away from Tagore’s overpowering influence on Bengali literature, was active in Calcutta by then. This group was started by the new young poets of the time. Though Jibanananda never actively took part in this movement, they promoted his poems. Thus, Jibanananda got a measure of recognition among Bengali readers. This happened after Tagore passed from the scene; Jibanananda’s stature continued to grow after his own death in 1954. His output was meagre in his lifetime: just five slim volumes of poems. But, all of them are still very popular in Bengal, on both sides of the border. Many more writings were discovered after his death.

Jibanananda was born in Barisal, East Bengal, but he did his BA English (Hons.) from Presidency College, Calcutta. He got his MA in English from Calcutta University. He taught thereafter in City College, Calcutta, and Ramjas College, Delhi, later going back back to Barisal to teach in a College there. After the partition of Bengal he decided to live in Calcutta. Life in the mega-city did not agree with him. The partition itself caused trauma in his life, triggering a depression that persisted. His poems do not often convey a happy mood, and many are focussed on the past. Love, nature, rivers, and nostalgia for East Bengal are the themes of his beautiful poems. It is no wonder he is popular in Bangladesh too.

The translator is Chidananda Das Gupta. He was a friend of Jibanananda and knew all the young poets of the Kallol group. He was a journalist, film critic, and an authority on Satyajit Ray’s work. He translated Tagore and other well known Bengali novelists. He is the father of Aparna Sen, the film actor and director. It is not easy to translate Jibanananda, as his images are centred on rustic Bengal. Chidananda has done a wonderful job in translating some of the poet’s best known poems in the volume, Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems published by Penguin (2006).

KumKum said that a lot of Jibanananda’s poems were filled with colloquial names of animals, birds and trees, reflecting the surroundings in which he grew up. His mind was constantly there in Barisal even after he had settled many years in Calcutta. Urban life did not suit him. Joe added that the imagery in his poems is often from rustic East Bengal: ponds, birds, rivers, trees, water hyacinth, bathing in the rivers and ponds, and so on.

The first poem, Why do the stars, is a series of questions to make city folk ponder on the mysteries of nature that find no place in an urban or utilitarian set of values.

Why is the dust filled with the smell of earth

When it is kissed by the dew?

Why do kash flowers come out in droves (kash = long white flowers of tall grass)

Why do khanjana birds dance (khanjana = wagtail) 

The second poem is sheer longing for a beloved, clothed in fresh images, such as the one comparing the noiseless swoop of a bird of prey to the closing of eyelids. The woman is almost not there. It is all about how nature in its particular ways will react to such an unlikely, but longed for event, as meeting her again after twenty years. It is described by one who has invested nature with more observation than he has bestowed on the woman. The emotion well-hidden from view makes it a modern poem, quite evocative for all that.

Joe mentioned a famous poem of Jibanananda, Abar ashibo firey Dhanshirithir tirey, ey Banglay (I shall return again to the Dhanshiri’s banks). Joe's translation is linked here. 

Our PM Mr Modi cleverly used this poem to say farewell when he left Bangladesh after a two-day visit in June 2017. He is a practiced politician and has used the prop of famous poems to make a connection when visiting Iran, Israel, etc. in the native tongue of the host country.

Thommo said of this poem’s opening line that it sounded like General MacArthur’s famous speech when he escaped from the Philippines in Mar 1942 saying: ‘I shall return.’ Abar ashibo firey! 

4. Hemjit – Veena Poovu (Falllen Flower) poem by Mahakavi Kumaran Asan (1873 – 1924)

Mahakavi Kumaran Asan

Hemjit was taken ill and could not attend the reading. He submitted a translation of the powerful Malayalam poem Veena Poovu  written by Mahakavi Kumaran Asan. The poet spots a dead flower lying on the ground and uses it to illustrate the life cycle of humans. Kumaran Asan makes us aware that the laws of nature are applicable to humans. 

Kumaran Asan is said to be the poet of the cultured. He brought the romantic element in Malayalam Poetry to a high level of excellence. Veena Poovu was a literary classic. It created a sensation, a new movement in Malayalam literature. It is an allegory of the transience of the mortal world. Here he draws a parallel between our lives and that of a flower. It is also said to satirise proud people in high places before their fall. Kumaran Asan died at the age of fifty in a boating accident. The Kumaran Asan National Institute of Culture – a museum of his manuscripts and personal effects, was built in his memory in Thiruvananthapuram. 

Kumaran Asan National Institute of Culture

Kumaran Asan was a social reformer and philosopher, in addition to being a poet. He was born in the Ezhava community in Thiruvannanthapuram district. His father was a scholar in Tamil and Malayalam. He himself took up Sanskrit and pursued higher studies. His earlier poetic works were devotional. The short poem recited by Hemjit, Veena Poovu, became a classic. He has written elegies and poems which inveigh against the evil of caste discrimination; in this he was a follower of Narayana Guru who taught  “One Caste, One Religion, One God for man.” His epic poem Buddha Charitha, takes inspiration from Edwin Arnold. He died in a boating accident when his boat capsized in 1924.

For more on his life, see:

http://www.kanic.kerala.gov.in/index.php/asan-the-poet

5. Joe – Two poems of Du Fu (712 – 770)

The first poem here by Du Fu was written in 756 when he was being held captive in Changan; his wife and family were in Fuzhou to the north. It is a poignant poem of transported memory in which he imagines his wife also partaking in the same scene of moonlight far away, but with a chill because he is absent. It ends with the pathos of togetherness even in the midst of separation:

When will we feel the moonlight dry our tears,

Leaning together on our window-sill?

The poem belongs to a regular rhymed and metred form called lǜshi, containing eight lines of four couplets. The poem is complicated by the fact that its strict form requires parallelism among certain couplets, and a sequence of ‘tones’ among successive syllables. Tones are pitch directions (ascending or descending) and have no counterpart in other languages. Vikram Seth has maintained the rhyme and syllable count where he could, being expert in that area.

Du Fu’s statue in his thatched cottage in Chengdu

The second poem is a rare encounter among two poets who have long been friends, but the friendship though deep yields few occasions to meet. The lines that leave a mark on the reader are these near the end:

He urges me to drink ten cups—

But what ten cups could make me as drunk

As I always am with your love in my heart?

Short Bio of Du Fu

Du Fu, like his companion greats of Chinese poetry, Wei Ba and Li Bai, lived in the eight century of the Common Era during the Tang dynasty.  He was born into a commoner family; his grandfather was also a famous poet.He showed promise in his early years and took the exams for the civil service in his twenties, but failed, some say because his writing was too compact for easy understanding. He took the exam three times and failed, on the third occasion they took pity for his father’s having died and gave him a position, but he passed that on to his step-brother. We have to keep in mind that a conservative attitude of service to the emperor and the state was inculcated among people and gave life meaning. It was a Confucian tradition that still serves China well.

One of the major disruptions of life was the An Lushan rebellion when tens of millions died in the famines. He lost close family members, including his own youngest child. He had financial problems in the last decade of his life and appealed to well-wishers by writing poems. For five years he was in Sichuan province and wrote many poems there, peacefully living in a thatched hut. Living in semi-retirement, in the last decade of his life, he wrote over half of the 1,450 poems that survive. He sailed down the Yangtze  and lived in the vicinity of the modern Three Gorges dam for several years, suffering from old-age ailments like deafness and reduced eyesight. But in a late flowering he wrote almost 400 poems in a more tight style. 

Du Fu thatched cottage in Chengdu, Sichuan Province

He fell ill on the way and was forced to remain at Kuizhou for two years. In 768 he continued towards Henan, where he had been born; but in 770, while still travelling, he died.

During his lifetime his poetry made no great impression. But several hundred years later the appreciation of his poems brought him increasing honour. His realism and honesty, the richness of his technique and language, the moral force of his writing, his affection and concern for those around him, and the light humour, have conspired to take him to the front rank of Chinese poets of all time.

He wrote in many forms. As one critic states, Du Fu “employed every prosodic form available to the Tang Dynasty poet and, depending upon the state in which he found a particular prosodic form, either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples.”

6. Thommo – The Heights of Machu Picchu, Canto XII by Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

Pablo Neruda was probably murdered by the Pinochet regime

Pablo Neruda has been recited many times before, even this very poem way back in 2007. One of his most famous publications is a slim volume, Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) from which Joe recited a couple of erotic poems in Feb 2015, including Poem 1 whose opening lines in Joe’s translation were rendered:

Body of woman, white hills, white thighs,

lying in sweet surrender;

My rough peasant’s body ploughs into you, 

spawning an heir from the depths of your feminine.

which is more direct than W.S. Merwin’s translation:

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs 

You look like a world, lying in surrender. 

My rough peasant’s body digs in you 

and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth. 

Any opinion comparing them?

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

In the Nobel lecture he said: “I did not learn from books any recipe for writing a poem, and I, in my turn, will avoid giving any advice on mode or style which might give the new poets even a drop of supposed insight.”

Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions in various countries during his lifetime and served a term as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When President Gabriel González Videla outlawed communism in Chile in 1948, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in the basement of a house in the port city of Valparaíso; Neruda escaped to Argentina.

Neruda was a close advisor to President Salvador Allende who held elected office from Nov 1970 to Sep 1973. When Neruda received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 over 70,000 people gathered to hear him recite in Estadio Nacional. Allende was overthrown in a coup d'état instigated and supported by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and replaced by the dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Neruda was being treated for prostate cancer and he suspected that the doctor was trying to poison him on Pinochet’s orders, and fled from the clinic. Neruda died in his house in Isla Negra on 23 September 1973, just hours after leaving the hospital. 

The exhumation of his remains in 2015 found that Neruda was infected with the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, which can be highly toxic and result in death if modified. A specialist deposed that Neruda was definitely not in danger of imminent death from prostate cancer when he died only two weeks after the coup against Allende.

The Pinochet government installed by the CIA to take over was not in favour of a public funeral for Neruda, knowing his enormous popularity. But thousands of grieving Chileans disobeyed the curfew and crowded the streets.

Neruda was hailed by Gabriel Garcia Márquez as ‘the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.’

The poem exposes the slavery that was at the root of the monument building that resulted in the magnificent ruins of  Machu Picchu. The ruins were not revealed by locals to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the world until Hiram Bingham, an American historian, brought it to international attention in 1911. It was built  in the period 1450-1460 in the classical Inca style with smooth stone walls which are extremely closely aligned. 

Inca stone work at Saqsaywaman, Peru

Stones used in the construction of the terraces at Saksaywaman, which weight up to 150 tonnes, are among the largest used in any building in pre-hispanic America and display a precision of fitting that is unmatched in the Americas.

Machu Picchu from wiki, pic by Martin St-Amant

Joe asked if the slavery mooted in this poem was an indictment by Neruda of what the Spanish conquistadors did to the native Indians. Thommo said, No, it was the use of slave labour by the Incas to build their sacred sites and royal estates. The Incas lived in Machu Picchu only  about 80 years before vanishing, and are thought to have been decimated by small pox brought in by the Spanish invaders to other regions.

There is another view that it was not slavery that built Machu Picchu but a benign system called mit’a, which was more like a tax payable in the form of labour by every Inca in a certain age bracket; in its stead the person could pay a tribute. See:

http://www.machupicchu-inca.com/inca-mita.html

Shoba who helped Thommo enunciate the Spanish version said she is learning Spanish from Duolingo online, a free website where you can learn numerous languages by dedicating 15 minutes a day; even the Klingon language.

7. Shoba – Two Poems by Abdellatif Laâbi, born 1942 in Morocco

Abdellatif Laâbi, poet, writer, and translator was born in Fez,  Morocco, in 1942. He is a major francophone voice in Moroccan poetry. His reputation in the French-speaking world is established; he won the Prix Goncourt in 2009. He was a child  during the struggle for independence from France waged in Morocco in 1952-53. His parents were illiterate but their culture was vibrant. His father was a craftsman and his mother worked for the family, living in a house of two rooms. Laâbi appreciated how his parents toiled for their children their whole lives and accordingly he assigns them a place of honour in his poetry.

One motto in his life has been “Write, write, never stop.” Not even jail and torture has quieted that insistent urge in his life. He has written prose works, novels, essays, plays and volumes of interviews, besides poetry. He would approve of the words spoken by the Algerian poet and novelist Kateb Yacine, “We won the war. We’ll keep French as the spoils of war.” 

Laâbi wrote:

I truly feel myself located on this hinge of being between life and death..., between a sun that is dying and another one whose rising has been confiscated, between two planets, two humanities that turn their backs to each other, between the feminine part in myself and my status as a male (which however has no desire to change gender), between two cultures that don't stop misapprehending each other, two languages that speak themselves so continuously in my mouth that they make me stammer, between the madness of hope and despair's just returns, between a country of origin that dribbles away and another country, an adopted one, that isn't able to firm itself, between a "natural" tendency toward meditation and an irrepressible need for action, between belonging and non-belonging, nomadism and sedentariness... So many betweens!

Although Morocco attained independence in 1956 the country was afterwards led by King Hassan, a notorious abuser of human rights, who declared an Emergency and shot workers and students in the streets. Laâbi became an active opposition member in 1965. He started a magazine called Souffles for which he was arrested when it was banned in 1972. In the first issue he wrote:

Poetry is the only means left to man to proclaim his dignity, to be more than just a number, so that his breath will remain forever imprinted with the testament of his cry.

He joined a non-violent  resistance. In 1973 he was arrested and served more than eight years in prison for ‘conspiracy against the state.’ However, he continued writing poetry in prison.

Laâbi believed in a cosmopolitan culture that thrived in North Africa in spite of savage French colonialism and the equally uncivil Arab nationalism and authoritarianism that followed. The murders of mixed race populations in many cities (Oran, Tangier, Algiers, etc) led to the loss of a significant heritage from the past. In 1985 he left for France and continues to live near Paris, frequently visiting his country of birth. You can find more about Laâbi at a web site dedicated to his work:

http://laabi.net/index.php/en/website-of-the-moroccan-writer-abdellatif-laabi/

The first poem (In vain I migrate) is a cry of helplessness, the inability to leave behind the multiple voices and sounds as he goes from place to place; they follow him

I migrate in vain

The secret of the birds eludes me

The Elegant Sufi, is a satire on a Sufi saint who has been liberated by the creature comforts of existence, such as Eau de Cologne, genuine Zemmour rugs, and silk scarves. He then justifies a change of habit:

I will show myself neat and tidy in front of God, and I dare say my prayers will become purer. 

Persian miniature of Sufi saint and mystic Ahmad Ghazali (d. 1123), talking to a disciple

Joe wondered why this elegant Sufi didn’t think of becoming a godman. KumKum said that might be okay for a mercenary Hindu guru, but it would be blasphemy for a Muslim. Geetha said the only word she could understand from Shoba’s French reading was the word ‘Eau de Cologne’. As Thommo pointed out, words in the English language are for the most part of French origin, a legacy of the 1066 CE Norman conquest. But if you read Old English, words of Anglo Saxon descent predominate, there are no French words at all. When English came to India the spelling of most Indian names were distorted to suit their Anglicised ears, e.g. Cawnpore for Kanpur, Alwaye for Aluva, etc. But several thousand words from Indian languages have also entered English.

8. Geetha – Poem ‘Nellu’ (Paddy) by Chemmanam Chacko (1926 – 2018)

Chemmanan Chacko  was an Indian satirical poet from Kerala, India. Chacko died on 14 August 2018 at the age of 92 at his residence in Padamugal. Chacko was born on 7 March 1926, in the village of Mulakulam in erstwhile Travancore. His father was an Orthodox Christian priest. He did his early schooling in Saint Joseph's school, Piravom, and went on to receive his BA Honours in Malayalam literature with first rank from University College, Trivandrum. He worked as a professor at Mar Ivanios College and in the Department of Malayalam, University of Kerala. Chacko's first published poem was Munnottu (Forward) which appeared in a local weekly in 1946. The poem Kanakaaksharangal published in 1967 brought him popularity. Chemmanam is famed for using satire as a means of social and political critique. His poetic style has often drawn comparison to the early Malayalam language poet Kunjan Nambiar. His 1977 poetry collection Rajapatha won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. He was conferred with the lifetime achievement award for literature by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi in 2006. He received the Mahakavi Pandalam Keralavarma Award for Poetry in 2014.

Geetha reads the poem as Saras follows

Chemmanam Chacko’s ‘Rice’ (Nellu in Malayalam) deals with the plight of the farmers in Kerala who are forced to move from food crops to cash crops. It mourns the loss of paddy fields which have been replaced by commercial plantations.

The poet pictures the nostalgic feelings of the narrator who returns to his homeland after a long stay in North India. He has earned a doctorate on making toys with husk. While in the train, the bustle and excitement of farming in his homeland fills his mind. He is eager to have a meal of ‘athikira’ rice.

But to his great shock he finds that the place has changed completely. Tall rubber trees have taken the place of rich paddy fields. With the least sentiment and with great pride, his father says that they have stopped paddy cultivation as it is not profitable any more. “Only fools would turn to cultivating rice,” he says.

The narrator sarcastically concludes the poem commenting on the Chief Minister who flies high above the cash crops to New Delhi to demand allotment of more rice from the GOI. He pathetically asks himself whether the state may also get some husk (ummi) from the Centre too. This provoked laughter among the readers

Geetha could not find an English text translation on the Web, only a spoken recitation, which she sent off to her son Rahul in Mumbai and he returned it with a conversion from speech to text! Joe mentioned a poem of Chemmanam’s  called Aal-illatha-kasara (Chair without the man) to satirise his visit to government offices and finding people absent from work for trivial reasons.

The translator is Dr. K. Ayyappa Paniker, sometimes spelt “Ayyappa Panicker” (12 September 1930 – 23 August 2006); he was an influential Malayalam  poet, literary critic, and an academic and a scholar in modern and post-modern literary theories as well as ancient Indian aesthetics  and literary traditions. He was one of the pioneers of modernism in Malayalam poetry, where his seminal work Kurukshethram (1960), was considered a turning point in Malayalam poetry; the essays Ayyappapanikkarude Krithikal and Chintha were an important influence on the playwrights of his generation.

Here are some interviews with Chemmanam Chacko who is always lighthearted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0jTchkZPGE

Interview with Manorama. Talks about his early life, how he got his name, and reading everything available in his village of Mulakulam. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIDWj-nPKU&t=514s

At minute 10 he speaks about the inspiration for writing Nellu. He is attached to the poem even now. His induction over time into the Vimarsha Hasya Rasa as a way of capturing events that would entertain and instruct, led to satire as his accustomed mode of poetry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RAXe53XEy8

Celebrating Christmas at age 91 - cakes and singing. Songs he wrote. Appam and kozhi erachi curry. The origin of of his poems, starting at 6:40. He composes in the early hours between 1 and 4 am. TV and computers have reduced the taste for poetry. Aal illatha kasara (Chair without a man), a poem he wrote on going to a government office and being asked to wait, watching an empty chair for the official to return from an extended lunch – would not have become popular but for Accountant General James Joseph who pinned it to a general circular he sent around saying ‘here’s what people think of us.’ 

There is also an Obituary at The Hindu.

9. Kavita – Poem ‘Agneepath’ by Harivansh Rai Bachchan (1907 – 2003)

Kavita chose a poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, named Agneepath. The surname came from his name at home, ‘Bachchan’, meaning a kid. He is best known for his poem Madhushala that has been recited by his son, Amitabh Bachchan, the actor. 

Thommo said of Amitabh, that his voice is his greatest asset and it is used to good effect in documentaries he has made on Gujarat. Of his acting, Thommo commented that he overacts. He earned more criticism from the reading group for his silly ads about bathroom fittings, paints, cement, and so on for which he is considered the ‘brand ambassador.’ Thommo said AB is like the Tata Group, selling everything from salt to steel. In these days of branding the supposedly brainless Indian public are expected to follow the imagined purchase habits of their favourite cricketers and film stars.

Harivansh Rai Bachchan studied at Allahabad University and later at Benares Hindu University. After teaching English at Allahabad University from 1941 to 1952 he went abroad to study English Literature at Cambridge University and obtained a Ph.D. on Yeats. On his return he worked at the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. He became a major translator of works of English literature into Hindi (Macbeth, Othello). In 1973 he received the Padma Bhushan award for services to Hindi literature. He died in 2003 at the age of ninety-three survived by his activist wife, Teji (died 2007), and two sons, Amitabh and Ajitabh.

The tippler didn't forget the tavern even after death

He is best known for his poem Madhushala (1935) sung at the site linked by Manna Dey to music composed by Jaydev. The poem is inspired by his earlier translation of  Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat into Hindi. Another work of Harivansh Rai Bachchan is the Holi song Rang Barse in the Hindi movie Silsila; it was sung by his son, Amitabh, to music composed by Shiv-Hari. 

In the poem Agneepath the poet admonishes the reader not to seek the shade of a single leaf, even if the tree be huge and dense. Instead

Walk the path of Fire, walk the path of Fire, walk the path of Fire

…

You shall never tire

You shall not turn around

You shall not surrender

Make that promise

10. Devika – Poem ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (1904 – 1948)

Subhadra Kumari was born in Nihalpur village in Allahabad District, Uttar Pradesh on 16 August 1904 into a prosperous family.

Subhadra Kumari had a special attachment and interest in poetry since childhood. Her student life was spent in Prayag. Subhadra's first poem was published at an early age. Subhadra and Mahadevi Verma were childhood friends and poets. Subhadra Kumari was married to Thakur Lakshman Singh of Khandwa (Madhya Pradesh). She joined Mahatma Gandhi's movement with her husband and started writing poems on love of the motherland. In her short life she brought up five children. She wrote in Kariboli Hindi. The Indian Coast Guard has a ship named after her.  She died in a road accident in 1948.

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan - Indian Coastguard Fast Patrol Vessel, Pennant No. 233, one of 7 of the Sarojini Naidu Class with a top speed of 35 knots and a range of 1,500 nautical miles

Her first poetry collection Mukul was published in 1930. Her selected poems have been published in the collection Tridhara. The best-known composition by her is The Rani of Jhansi.

Subhadra Kumari is not only known for her poetry; she also actively participated in the national movement and after her time in jail three story collections were published which are as follows:

Bikhare Moti (1932)

Anmadini (1934)

Seedhe-Saade Chitra (1947)

Devika chose the famous poem  Bundele Harbolon.....on Jhansi ki Rani that every Indian kid studying Hindi in school has to learn. Rani Laksmi Bai is remembered in this fitting description: 

Khoob Ladi Mardaani Woh to Jhansi Wali Rani Thi.

Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, born as Manikarnika Tambe –

An equestrian statue of her in Solapur, Maharashtra

The poem is quite long, fervid and nationalistic, retelling the whole life history of the Rani of Jhansi and specifically the situations that led to the mutinous war of 1857; and how Lakshmi Bai emerged as the greatest fighter and biggest hero of that ill-fated struggle.

The Poems

1. Priya Sharma - poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

पंद्रह अगस्त की पुकार

पंद्रह अगस्त का दिन कहता:

आज़ादी अभी अधूरी है। 

सपने सच होने बाकी है, 

रावी की शपथ न पूरी है॥

जिनकी लाशों पर पग धर कर

आज़ादी भारत में आई,

वे अब तक हैं खानाबदोश 

ग़म की काली बदली छाई॥

कलकत्ते के फुटपाथों पर 

जो आँधी-पानी सहते हैं। 

उनसे पूछो, पंद्रह अगस्त के 

बारे में क्या कहते हैं॥

हिंदू के नाते उनका दु:ख

सुनते यदि तुम्हें लाज आती। 

तो सीमा के उस पार चलो 

सभ्यता जहाँ कुचली जाती॥

इंसान जहाँ बेचा जाता, 

ईमान ख़रीदा जाता है। 

इस्लाम सिसकियाँ भरता है, 

डालर मन में मुस्काता है॥

भूखों को गोली नंगों को 

हथियार पिन्हाए जाते हैं। 

सूखे कंठों से जेहादी 

नारे लगवाए जाते हैं॥

लाहौर, कराची, ढाका पर 

मातम की है काली छाया। 

पख्तूनों पर, गिलगित पर है 

ग़मगीन गुलामी का साया॥

बस इसीलिए तो कहता हूँ 

आज़ादी अभी अधूरी है। 

कैसे उल्लास मनाऊँ मैं? 

थोड़े दिन की मजबूरी है॥

दिन दूर नहीं खंडित भारत को 

पुन: अखंड बनाएँगे। 

गिलगित से गारो पर्वत तक 

आज़ादी पर्व मनाएँगे॥

उस स्वर्ण दिवस के लिए आज से 

कमर कसें बलिदान करें। 

जो पाया उसमें खो न जाएँ, 

जो खोया उसका ध्यान करें॥

The Call of Freedom 

It is August 15 and freedom is half won, 

The oath to the Rabi is incomplete, and dreams are unfulfilled 

Freedom was wrested after trampling on bodies of men, 

Their sad spirits, like gypsies, roam in grief 

Ask the people who live on the footpaths of Calcutta, 

The meaning of this freedom 

And if the sorrows of the Hindus grieve you, 

Go across the border and witness the murder of culture 

There humans are traded; civility is bought 

There Islam weeps and the dollar smiles 

The hungry are fed bullets, the naked clothed in weapons 

Parched throats are forced to take the call of Jihad 

Lahore, Karachi, Dacca are sunk in sorrow 

Pakhtoon and Gilgit are steeped in slavery 

Therefore I say, freedom is half won,

So how can I celebrate? 

But the day is not far, when we shall see our dreamed Bharat 

And freedom will be celebrated from Gilghit to Garo  hills 

For that golden day, let us begin our sacrifice, 

Let us not lose ourselves in half won freedom, 

Let us focus ourselves, on what we have not won.

((Written on August 15, 1947)   

2. गीत नया गाता हूँ|

टूटे हुए तारों से , फूटे बसंती स्वर.

पत्थर की छाती में उग आया ना अंकुर,

झड़े सब पीले पात, कोयल की कुक रात,

प्राची में अरुणिमा की रेत देख पता हूँ, गीत नया गाता हूँ|

टूटे हुए सपने की सुने कौन सिसकी,

अंतः की चिर व्यथा, पलाको पर ठिठकी,

हार नही मानूगा, रार नही ठानुगा,

कल के कपाल पर लिखता, मिटाता हूँ|

गीत नया गाता हूँ|

I Sing a New Song 

New voices break from broken stars 

New shoots sprout in the heart of stone 

Yellow leaves fall 

The cuckoo coos at night 

Sunrays break out at dawn 

I sing a new song 

Who listens to the sobs of broken dreams? 

Who senses buried grief rise to the eye, 

I will not accept defeat, 

Nor let hurdles come in between 

I write on the forehead of time 

I erase 

I sing a new song  

(written after the fall of  his 13-day old government in 1997)

https://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/master/salrp/06306.mp3

Hear Vajpayee recite Geet nahin agatha hun

https://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/atalbiharivajpayee.html

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, born on December 25, 1926 in Bateshwar in Uttar Pradesh, is the Prime Minister of India, a Hindi poet and an orator known for his spellbinding eloquence. Vajpayee's poetry is marked by nationalistic fervor and human values. He believes that poetry should awaken a sense of duty and social responsibility in people. He is inspired by Hindu mythology and his poetry is rich in religious symbolism. Simple in language and imagery, his poems extol the heritage, history and destiny of India. Ideas of cultural nationalism inform his vision of India. According to Bhagwat S. Goyal, the man who translated Vajpayee's poems into English, Vajpayee believes that "Politics and literature do not belong in separate compartments. Rather they enrich and refine each other. When a litterateur gets involved in politics, his politics gets more refined. Similarly if a politician has a literary background he cannot ignore human feelings and emotions."

Prime Minister Vajpayee has occupied a number of distinguished positions during his long and illustrious political career, including those of the Leader of the Opposition and the Foreign Minister, before he took office as India's Prime Minister on October 13, 1999. He has received many honours and awards including the Hindi Gaurava Award and the Padma Bhushan.

The Library of Congress has in its collection twenty works by him and fourteen books on him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee

2. Gopa - Poem of Kusumagraj

Kana is one of the best poems by my favourite Marathi poet Kusumagraj (1912-199), real name Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar. Kana, meaning back bone, is a simple poem that captures the fighting spirit of the common man as he bravely faces life's challenges. You can enjoy the Marathi version and there is a wonderful translation by Gulzar into Hindi; here it is in English!

Short Bio of Kusumagraj, pen name of Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (1912- 1999): 

He is a well known Marathi poet, playwright, short story writer and novelist; he was much influenced by the socialist movement of the pre independence days in India. He is also a popular screen and lyrics writer in the Marathi film industry. His well known play Natasamrat is soon going to hit the screens with the actor now accused of sexual harassment, Nana Patekar, in the lead. The play was staged years ago by well known Marathi theatre and film personality, the late Dr Shriram Lagu. Kusumagraj is the recipient of many State literature awards; he received the Jnanpith Award in 1987, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1974 for his play, Natasamrat, and he Padma Bhushan in 1991.

Kana...pronounced Kuh...roll the tongue at ‘na’...meaning ‘backbone’ 

It is a simple poem that captures the never-say-die spirit of Indians braving the adversities of life in rural India. The Ganga has burst its banks and flooded the village. Just as did the Periyar and its tributaries in Kerala, a few months back. Everything is lost. The protagonist visits his teacher and narrates his woes. When his teacher tries to help him financially, he gracefully declines the offer. He only requests a pat on his shoulder and words of encouragement to carry on...fighting....(ladha) against the odds.

English

He came in the rain and said, 

“Do you remember me Sir?” 

His clothes all too muddy, 

And his hair was full of water.

He sat for a moment and then smiled, 

And then he spoke all the same, 

“In my nest she lived and left, 

When as guest Mother Ganges came.”

“Like a married daughter back home, 

She danced around in the house, 

Never to return empty-handed, 

She just spared only my spouse.

“The walls fell and the stove drenched, 

She took all that was to bear, 

And for the blessings of goodbye, 

She left in the eye only the tear.

“With my wife by my side, 

Sir I am now fighting it all, 

Am clearing up the sludge, 

And building the broken wall.’

Asudden he stood up with a laugh, 

When for the pocket went my hand, 

“No money Sir, no money”, he said, 

Just felt alone from where I stand.

“Shattered to pieces is the life Sir, 

But my spine still holds its might, 

Place your hand on my back, 

And just say, ‘Go. Fight.’ ”

english version by http://sponts.wordpress.com

Marathi

ओळखलत का सर मला?’ पावसात आला कोणी,

कपडे होते कर्दमलेले, केसांवरती पाणी.

क्षणभर बसला नंतर हसला बोलला वरती पाहून,

‘गंगामाई पाहुणी आली, गेली घरट्यात राहुन’.

माहेरवाशिणीसारखी चार भिंतीत नाचली,

मोकळ्या हाती जाईल कशी, बायको मात्र वाचली.

भिंत खचली, चूल विझली, होते नव्हते नेले,

प्रसाद म्हणून पापण्यांवरती पाणी थोडे ठेवले.

कारभारणीला घेउन संगे सर आता लढतो आहे

पडकी भिंत बांधतो आहे, चिखलगाळ काढतो आहे.

खिशाकडे हात जाताच हसत हसत उठला

‘पैसे नकोत सर’, जरा एकटेपणा वाटला.

मोडून पडला संसार तरी मोडला नाही कणा,

पाठीवरती हात ठेउन, तुम्ही फक्‍त लढ म्हणा!

3. KumKum - Two poems of Jibanananda Das

1. Keno Michhey

কেন মিছে নক্ষত্রেরা আসে আর? কেন মিছে জেগে ওঠে নীলাভ আকাশ?

কেন চাঁদ ভেসে ওঠেঃ সোনার ময়ূরপঙ্খী অশ্বত্থের শাখার পিছনে?

কেন ধুলো সোঁদা গন্ধে ভরে ওঠে শিশিরের চুমো খেয়ে-

                                          গুচ্ছে গুচ্ছে ফুটে ওঠে কাশ?

খঞ্জনারা কেন নাচে? বুলবুলি দুর্গাটুনটুনি কেন ওড়াওড়ি করে বনে বনে?

আমরা যে কমিশন নিয়ে ব্যস্ত- ঘাটি বাঁধি-ভালোবাসি নগর ও বন্দরের শ্বাস

ঘাস যে বুটের নিচে ঘাস শুধু- আর কিছু নয় আহা-

                                 মোটর  যে সবচেয়ে বড় এই মানবজীবনে

খঞ্জনারা নাচে কেন তবে আর- ফিঙা বুলবুলি কেন উড়াউড়ি করে বনে বনে?

(https://poetandpoem.com/Jibanananda-Das/keno-miche-nokhotre-ra)

Why Do the Stars

Why do the stars come my way

Why does the sky come alive in blue

Why does the moon set itself afloat

Like a golden boat behind the banyan branch

Why is the dust filled with the smell of earth

When it is kissed by the dew?

Why do kash flowers come out in droves (kash = long white flowers on grass)

Why do khanjana birds dance (khanjana = wagtail)

and bulbuls and tuntunis fly around in the woods? (tuntuni = tailorbird)

If committees are all we need

To prosper in the cities and ports

If grass is only what is trodden underfoot,

If autos are all we need above,

Why does Khanjana dance

Why does the bulbul fly around in the woods?

(from Agranthita kavita)

2. Kuri Bochor Pore

আবার বছর কুড়ি পরে তার সাথে দেখা হয় যদি!

আবার বছর কুড়ি পরে-

হয়তো ধানের ছড়ার পাশে

কার্তিকের মাসে-

তখন সন্ধ্যার কাক ঘরে ফেরে-তখন হলুদ নদী

নরম নরম হয় শর কাশ হোগলায়-মাঠের ভিতরে!

অথবা নাইকো ধান ক্ষেতে আর,

ব্যস্ততা নাইকো আর,

হাঁসের নীড়ের থেকে খড়

পাখির নীড়ের থেকে খড়

ছড়াতেছে; মনিয়ার ঘরে রাত, শীত আর শিশিরের জল!

জীবন গিয়েছে চলে আমাদের কুড়ি কুড়ি বছরের পার-

তখন হঠাৎ যদি মেঠো পথে পাই আমি তোমারে আবার!

হয়তো এসেছে চাঁদ মাঝরাতে একরাশ পাতার পিছনে

সরু সরু কালো কালো ডালপালা মুখে নিয়ে তার,

শিরীষের অথবা জামের,

ঝাউয়ের-আমের;

কুড়ি বছরের পরে তখন তোমারে নাই মনে!

জীবন গিয়েছে চলে আমাদের কুড়ি কুড়ি বছরের পার-

তখন আবার যদি দেখা হয় তোমার আমার!

তখন হয়তো মাঠে হামাগুড়ি দিয়ে পেঁচা নামে

          বাবলার গলির অন্ধকারে

          অশথের জানালার ফাঁকে

         কোথায় লুকায় আপনাকে!

চোখের পাতার মতো নেমে চুপি চিলের ডানা থামে-

সোনালি সোনালি চিল-শিশির শিকার করে নিয়ে গেছে তারে-

কুড়ি বছরের পরে সেই কুয়াশায় পাই যদি হঠাৎ তোমারে !

(https://poetandpoem.com/Jibanananda-Das/kuri-bochor-pore)

Twenty Years Hence

If I should meet her again

Twenty years hence

of an autumn evening

As the crow wings its way home

As the yellow river lies down

Besides the white flowers

Amidst the sheaves of rice

Or perhaps the rice has fled;

The bustle of harvest over;

Under the bird's nest

The hay has spread itself;

And in the home of the singing bird

The dew and the night's cold condensed;

If I should suddenly see you

Walking down the path amidst the fields.

Perhaps the moon will wink

From behind a filigree of leaves

With fine black twigs of the tamarind tree

Across its face.

If I should see you again,

Twenty years hence

When your memory has faded,

Perhaps the owl

Will crawl down to the field

Hide itself in the lanes

And windows of the trees

Silent as the eyelid coming down over the eye

Golden kites descend —

The owl is claimed by the dawn.

What if I should find you again

Across twenty years of a misty curtain?

(from Banalata Sen)

4. Hemjit - Veena Poovu (Falllen Flower) poem by Mahakavi Kumaran Asan

The Fallen Flower

 Ah, lovely bloom! once thou didst shine 

 High like a Queen! 

 How sad thou liest now in dust 

 Shorn of thy sheen! 

 Inconstant is Fortune on earth, 

 Impermanent is Loveliness. 

 Dearly the creeper gave thee birth 

 And tended thee 

 Within its leafy bosom soft 

 So lovingly, 

 An' stirred by the gentle gale the leaves 

 Lisp'd low and long thy lullaby. 

 Bathing in the milky moon-light 

 Full heartily, 

 And sporting in the morning sun 

 Serene, care-free, 

 Daily thy childhood thou didst spend 

 Amid the blithesome buds and bright. 

 Thou learnt'st the songs of birds of morn 

 With deep delight, 

 Thou learnt'st Life's secret upon earth, 

 During the night 

 Lifting thy eager little head 

 Toward the twinkling crowd of stars. 

 And growing thus thy features showed 

 Charms exquisite; 

 Thy countenance did slowly change, 

 Thy cheeks were lit 

 O Flower! with a new-born light, 

 A new-born smile through them did flit. 

 Lovesome loveliness, purity, 

 Meekness and sheen, 

 Such fleckless attributes of Youth 

 To things terrene 

Do they compare? 'twas a sight to see 

 Thy glorious state of golden prime. 

 Alas! alas! my darling bloom, 

 Upon thee Death 

 He placed His pitiless hands and froze 

 Thy perfumed breath; 

 Doth a hunter i' the wood-land reck 

 A vulture or a dove he kills? 

 The lustre of thy lovely limbs 

 Grew faint and fled, 

 And o'er thy shining visage sweet 

 A pallor spread; 

 Life's oil dried, fast wither'd thou 

 Life's flame in thee fticker'd and died. 

 Blown by the morning breeze adown 

 The spiry stem 

 O Flower, thou fell! O couldst thou be 

 A bright star-gem? 

 Or a Being come upon earth. 

 Content with drinking bliss divine? 

 Thy soul that boundless greatness holds 

 Though it lay low 

 Upon the dust like to a pearl 

 Void of its glow, 

 Thy beauty's glorious gloriole 

 Unshorn did seem to shine alway. 

 And soon small spiders wove thy white 

 Soft silken shroud, 

 And Dawn with tender hands did deck 

 (In death yet proud),- 

 Thee with a chaplet gaily strung 

 With dew-drops like to peerless pearls. 

 And grief-struck at thy fall the stars 

 l' dewy tears rain, 

 Whilst from the densely-leafed trees 

Sparrows in pain 

 Do drop on earth and clust'ring thee 

 They chirp a shrill continual wail. 

 Behold! what dread disaster dire 

 Has come apace; 

 And dolour that would melt a stone 

 Bedims Day's face; 

 The Sun slides down the mountain slope 

 Pale sorrowing; the Wind sighs deep. 

 O why wert thou so rich-bestowed 

 With virtues great? 

 O why shouldst thou be smitten thus 

 By baleful Fate? 

 Who could fathom the mystery 

 Of Creation? the good die soon. 

 To grieve is vain: upon the earth 

 Misfortune kills 

 All joy sometimes; and deathless Soul 

 The Body fills 

 And whatsoe'er a Shape assumes 

 Through the Infinite Power of God. 

 Like as a star that slowly sets 

 In th' Western Sea 

 And rises o'er the Eastern Mount 

 l' white jubilee, 

 O Flower! thou may'st on Meru great 

 Bloom on the Kalpak branch again. 

 The Vedic utterances wise 

 To us give peace; 

 Only to people ignorant 

 Self-torture is 

 Solace in sooth. Keep faith in such; 

 The rest as God ordains will be. 

 O Eye-lids! fold on humid eyes 

 For soon this bloom 

 Will shrivel, rot and turn to dust; 

 This is the doom 

 For all; and what can tears avail? 

 Alas! our life is but a dream. 

(Translated by Manjeri S. Ishwaran)

( Taken from https://www.wattpad.com/185814001-the-fallen-flower)

5. Joe - two poems of Du Fu (712–770)

Du Fu poems

Moonlit Night

In Fuzhou, far away, my wife is watching

The moon alone tonight and my thoughts fill

With sadness for my children, who can’t think’

Of me here in Changan; they’re too young still.

Her cloud-soft hair is moist with fragrant mist.

In the clear light her white arms sense the chill.

When will we feel the moonlight dry our tears,

Leaning together on our window-sill?

(Translated by Vikram Seth)

In Chinese voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HCMnG-lVs

First 37 secs

To My Retired Friend Wei Ba in a translation which prefer over Vikram Seth’s:

人生不相見， It is almost as hard for friends to meet

動如參與商。 As for the morning and evening stars.

今夕復何夕， Tonight then is a rare event,

共此燈燭光。 Joining, in the candlelight,

少壯能幾時， Two men who were young not long ago

鬢髮各已蒼。 But now are turning grey at the temples.

訪舊半為鬼， To find that half our friends are dead

驚呼熱中腸。 Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.

焉知二十載， We little guessed it would be twenty years

重上君子堂。 Before I could visit you again.

昔別君未婚， When I went away, you were still unmarried;

兒女忽成行。 But now these boys and girls in a row

怡然敬父執， Are very kind to their father's old friend.

問我來何方。 They ask me where I have been on my journey;

問答乃未已， And then, when we have talked awhile,

兒女羅酒漿。 They bring and show me wines and dishes,

夜雨翦春韭， Spring chives cut in the night-rain

新炊間黃粱。 And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.

主稱會面難， My host proclaims it a festival,

一舉累十觴。 He urges me to drink ten cups—

十觴亦不醉， But what ten cups could make me as drunk

感子故意長。 As I always am with your love in my heart?

明日隔山嶽， Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;

世事兩茫茫。 After tomorrow - who can say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0qTF5IzUk

Chinese recording of this poem by Libri Vox

6. Thommo - The Heights of Macchu Picchu, Canto XII by Pablo Neruda

Rise up and be born with me, brother.

From the deepest reaches of your

disseminated sorrow, give me your hand. 

You will not return from the depths of rock. 

You will not return from subterranean time. 

It will not return, your hardened voice. 

They will not return, your drilled-out eyes. 

Look at me from the depths of the earth, 

plowman, weaver, silent shepherd: 

tender of the guardian guanacos: 

mason of the impossible scaffold: 

water-bearer of Andean tears: 

goldsmith of crushed fingers: 

farmer trembling on the seed: 

potter poured out into your clay: 

bring all your old buried sorrows 

to the cup of this new life. 

Show me your blood and your furrow, 

say to me: here I was punished 

because the gem didn’t shine or the earth 

didn’t deliver the stone or the grain on time: 

point out to me the rock on which you fell 

and the wood on which they crucified you, 

burn the ancient flints bright for me, 

the ancient lamps, the lashing whips 

stuck for centuries to your wounds 

and the axes brilliant with bloodstain. 

I come to speak through your dead mouth. 

Through the earth unite all 

the silent and split lips 

and from the depths speak to me all night long 

as if we were anchored together, 

tell me everything, chain by chain, 

link by link and step by step, 

sharpen the knives you kept, 

place them in my chest and in my hand, 

like a river of yellow lightning, 

like a river of buried jaguars, 

and let me weep, hours, days, years, 

blind ages, stellar centuries.

Give me silence, water, hope.

Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.

Fasten your bodies to mine like magnets.

Come to my veins and my mouth.

Speak through my words and my blood.

Spanish

Dame la mano desde la profunda

zona de tu dolor diseminado.

No volverás del fondo de las rocas.

No volverás del tiempo subterráneo.

No volverá tu voz endurecida.

No volverán tus ojos taladrados.

Mírame desde el fondo de la tierra,

labrador, tejedor, pastor callado:

domador de guanacos tutelares:

albañil del andamio desafiado:

aguador de las lágrimas andinas:

joyero de los dedos machacados:

agricultor temblando en la semilla:

alfarero en tu greda derramado:

traed a la copa de esta nueva vida

vuestros viejos dolores enterrados.

Mostradme vuestra sangre y vuestro surco,

decidme: aquí fui castigado,

porque la joya no brilló o la tierra

no entregó a tiempo la piedra o el grano:

señaladme la piedra en que caísteis

y la madera en que os crucificaron,

encendedme los viejos pedernales,

las viejas lámparas, los látigos pegados

a través de los siglos en las llagas

y las hachas de brillo ensangrentado.

Yo vengo a hablar por vuestra boca muerta.

A través de la tierra juntad todos

los silenciosos labios derramados

y desde el fondo habladme toda esta larga noche

como si yo estuviera con vosotros anclado,

contadme todo, cadena a cadena,

eslabón a eslabón, y paso a paso,

afilad los cuchillos que guardasteis,

ponedlos en mi pecho y en mi mano,

como un río de rayos amarillos,

como un río de tigres enterrados,

y dejadme llorar, horas, días, años,

edades ciegas, siglos estelares.

Dadme el silencio, el agua, la esperanza.

Dadme la lucha, el hierro, los volcanes.

Apegadme los cuerpos como imanes.

Acudid a mis venas y a mi boca,

Hablad por mis palabras y mi sangre.

7. Shoba - Two Poems by Abdellatif Laâbi, born 1942 in Morocco

1. En vain j'émigre

J'émigre en vain
Dans chaque ville je bois le même café
et me résigne au visage fermé du serveur
Les rires de mes voisins de table
taraudent la musique du soir
Une femme passe pour la dernière fois
En vain j'émigre
et m'assure de mon éloignement
Dans chaque ciel je retrouve un croissant de lune
et le silence têtu des étoiles
Je parle en dormant
un mélange de langues
et de cris d'animaux
La chambre où je me réveille
est celle où je suis né
J'émigre en vain
Le secret des oiseaux m'échappe
comme celui de cet aimant
qui affole à chaque étape
ma valise

In Vain I Migrate

I migrate in vain

In every city I drink the same coffee

and resign myself to the waiter's impassive face

The laughter of nearby tables

disturbs the evening's music

A woman walks by for the last time

In vain I migrate

ensuring my own alienation

I find the same crescent moon in every sky

and the stubborn silence of the stars

In my sleep I speak

a medley of languages

and animal calls

The room where I wake

is the one I was born in

I migrate in vain

The secret of birds eludes me

as does my suitcase's magnet

which springs open

at each stage of the journey

2. Le soufi élégant

Quand le soufi découvrit le drap anglais, le cachemire et le foulard de soie,

il déchira sa tunique de laine grossiere: « Je me sentirai mieux dans ces

étofffes, se dit-il. Elles donneront de la grâce à mes génuflexions. Je vais me couper cheveux et barbe, me brosser le dents trois fois par jour, utiliser comme déodorant une bonne eau de Cologne, jeter aux orties ma natte pourri et la remplacer par un vrai tapis zemmour. Je me présenterai net et propre devant Dieu et m'est avis que mes prières gagneront en pureté. Dorénavant je ne vivrai plus d'aumônes. Je vais me trouver un travail honnête et d'un rapport honorable. Je me mêlerai à mes semblables, connaîtrai leurs soucis, apprendrai leurs blasphèmes, m'initierai à leurs amours terrestres, gouterai à leurs vins terrestres et peu à peu les ramènerai sur la voie du Mystère. Au fond, ma vie ne changera que de forme mais j'aurai inauguré une nouvelle voie mystique, celle de soufis élégants.»

The Elegant Sufi

When the Sufi discovered English wool, cashmere, and silk

scarves, he tore off his coarse, woollen robe and said to himself: “I’ll feel more

comfortable wearing these cloths. They will make my genuflections more graceful. I'm going to cut my hair and trim my beard, brush my teeth three times a day, use a good Eau de Cologne as a deodorant, chuck my tattered prayer mat away and replace it with a genuine Zemmour rug. I will show myself neat and tidy in front of God and I dare say my prayers will become purer. Henceforth, I will no longer live on alms. I'm going to find myself honest and honourable work. I will mingle among my kind, become acquainted with their preoccupations, find out about their blasphemies and initiate myself into the secrets of their terrestrial attachments, taste their earthly wines, and little by little lead them back to the path of the Mystery. After all, my life would only have changed in an outward way, but I will have paved a new path towards mysticism, that of the elegant Sufis.”

8. Geetha - ‘Rice’, a Poem by Chemmanam Chacko

I come home at the end of four years of research

In North India, having earned a doctoral degree

And generous praise for my work on making toys with husk

Bored with eating chapatis day after day

I'm eager to eat a meal of athikira rice

It will be planting season when I get there

And my father - his handloom dhoti stained with yellow mud

Excited about the waters of the Varanganal canal

Will greet me from the fields below our house

Amidst the shouts of ploughing with several oxen

The oxen will stop when they see me

Walking with my suitcase, and my father

Without smiling, the smile slowly forming on his lips

Will call from the field, 'And when did you start from there?'

My little brother, carrying the tender saplings

To be planted in the field when the ploughing is done

Will run when he sees me, and call out loud

Within earshot of the house, 'Mother, brother's arrived!'

Walking cautiously along the dyke

So as not to upset the baskets full of seed

I'll reach home in good time, at last

Just as my mother drains the well-cooked rice

O train, will you run a little faster

Let me get home quickly and eat my fill

The bus stops on the road across from the house

When I left this place, palm-thatched houses could be seen

In the distance on the right - but now, there's nothing

Except for trees. How the place has changed!

Rubber plants, twice my height

Now stand in rows around me on the ridge

Where modan and vellaran used to be sown

And confuse my path as I walk home

There's no bustle of men below

No shouts of ploughing, and when I look

The whole field is planted over with areca nut palms

And in the corner, along the canal, stand the dealwood trees

I enter the house, beyond the south wing

My father, watching them fix up the machine

For making rubber sheets - how happy

And contented the look on his face!

My father says, with obvious pride

"Son, we've stopped working on all the rice

 It was quite inconvenient, the farmer gained nothing

 Only fools turn to rice-farming for gain

 This is better money. What good times!

 The govt gives rice to those who don't have paddy fields."

My little brother runs to meet me

I, eager to have a full meal of athikara rice

He is carrying rations for the whole household

He trips over something and scatters the wheat all over the yard

Above us, a 'ship of sky' roars northward

Drowning my brother's loud cries

The Chief Minister's off like an arrow to the Centre

To clamour for more grains, now flying high

Above the cash crops, now growing tall like the trees

Since no one here promotes the farming of rice

Can we get some husk from the Centre, too?

To make toys with it? I don't know.

Malayalam

9. Kavita - ‘Agneepath’, a poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan

Translation cited by Kavita:

Even if there be trees (around)

shady and huge,

for the shade of a single leaf

don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask..

(Walk on the) Path of Fire, (Walk on the) Path of Fire..

You will never stop,

You will never halt,

You will never turn,

Take this oath, take this oath, take this oath

(Walk on the) Path of Fire, (Walk on the) Path of Fire..

It’s a great scene,

The man is walking,

in tears, sweat, and blood,

soaked, swathed,

(Walk on the) Path of Fire, (Walk on the) Path of Fire.

Another Translation

Even if there are mighty trees all around you,

Let them be shady, let them be huge,

But, even for the shade of a single leaf,

Beg not, beg never, ask never!

The path of fire you shall tread! The path of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!

You shall never tire,

You shall never slow down,

You shall never turn back,

This oath you will take today!

This oath you will fulfill in your life!

Take this oath!

And walk the Path of Fire, every single day!

The oath of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!

What greater spectacle,

Than to see such a man walk,

Who in tears, sweat and blood,

Is soaked, covered and coated;

And still walks on in the Path of fire!

Walks the path of fire! Yes, That Path of Fire!

(Translaton by Riku Sayuj)

अग्निपथ

वृक्ष हों भले खड़े,

हों घने, हों बड़े,

एक पत्र छाँह भी

मांग मत! मांग मत! मांग मत!

अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!

तू न थकेगा कभी,

तू न थमेगा कभी,

तू न मुड़ेगा कभी,

कर शपथ! कर शपथ! कर शपथ!

अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!

यह महान दृश्य है,

चल रहा मनुष्य है,

अश्रु, स्वेद, रक्त से

लथ-पथ, लथ-पथ, लथ-पथ,

अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ! अग्निपथ!

10. Devika - Jhansi Ki Rani (The Queen of Jhansi) – four verses of a poem by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan

The throne got shook, and the tension erupted among the Raajvanshs, the royal heirs of the throne, 

In aged India, a new wave of youth was spreading,

All the inhabitants of India had realized the worth of their lost freedom,

All of them had decided to get rid of the British rule, 

The old swords started glittering again like new ones in the form of the freedom movement in 1857.

 From the bards of Bundela we have heard this story / She fought much valiantly, she was the queen of Jhansi. 

She was as dear to the Nana of Kanpur as his  real sister,

Her name was Laxmibai and she was the only daughter of her parents,

She had been with Nana from her early childhood, since she was a school student.

Spear, knife, sword, axe were her companions all the time. 

She had learned by heart the valorous stories of Shivaji .

From the bards of Bundela we have heard this story

She fought much valiantly, she was the queen of Jhansi. 

No one could guess whether she was Laxmi or Durga devi or reincarnation of Devi durga,

Her expertise in using a sword made the people of Marathward  wonder,

They learned the war strategy of how to attack the prey,

To ambush her prey and to break the forts were among her favourite supports,

Maharashtra-kul-Devi was as dear to her as Bhavani (Durga Devi )

From the bards of Bundela we have heard this story

She fought much valiantly, she was the queen of Jhansi.

With valour in a grand festival, she got married in Jhansi,

After her marriage, Laxmibai came to Jhansi as a queen with shower of joy,

A grand celebration took place in the royal palace of Jhansi. That was a good luck for Bandelos that she came to Jhansi,

That was as Chitra met with Arjun or Shiv had got his beloved Bhavani (Durga).

From the bards of Bundela we have heard this story

She fought much valiantly, she was the queen of Jhansi. 

झाँसी की रानी

सिंहासन हिल उठे राजवंशों ने भृकुटी तानी थी,

बूढ़े भारत में आई फिर से नयी जवानी थी,

गुमी हुई आज़ादी की कीमत सबने पहचानी थी,

दूर फिरंगी को करने की सबने मन में ठानी थी।

चमक उठी सन सत्तावन में, वह तलवार पुरानी थी,

बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,

खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

कानपूर के नाना की, मुँहबोली बहन छबीली थी,

लक्ष्मीबाई नाम, पिता की वह संतान अकेली थी,

नाना के सँग पढ़ती थी वह, नाना के सँग खेली थी,

बरछी ढाल, कृपाण, कटारी उसकी यही सहेली थी।

वीर शिवाजी की गाथायें उसकी याद ज़बानी थी,

बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,

खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

लक्ष्मी थी या दुर्गा थी वह स्वयं वीरता की अवतार,

देख मराठे पुलकित होते उसकी तलवारों के वार,

नकली युद्ध-व्यूह की रचना और खेलना खूब शिकार,

सैन्य घेरना, दुर्ग तोड़ना ये थे उसके प्रिय खिलवार।

महाराष्टर-कुल-देवी उसकी भी आराध्य भवानी थी,

बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,

खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

हुई वीरता की वैभव के साथ सगाई झाँसी में,

ब्याह हुआ रानी बन आई लक्ष्मीबाई झाँसी में,

राजमहल में बजी बधाई खुशियाँ छाई झाँसी में,

सुभट बुंदेलों की विरुदावलि सी वह आयी झांसी में,

चित्रा ने अर्जुन को पाया, शिव से मिली भवानी थी,

बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,

खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।