Four Poems: Kuyil Paattu 2, False or True?, Kannan, My Lover 1 and Show Mercy to the Enemy
ABOUT THE POEMS If the poems of Subramania Bharati (1882-1921) sound quaint today, it is because he wrote from within a bardic tradition that has fallen away from modern poetry, which is suspicious of passions of a communal nature. But this fiery patriot, a journalist and social reformer in his life outside literature, wrote from a passionate conviction not just in his ideas but also in poetry’s demotic power to rouse, or heal, through rhythmical language. “Wind and fire and the wide expanse of heaven – compounding these together, our Tamil poets make the sweetest songs,” he wrote. As the poems here demonstrate, Bharati’s poetic godhead—one with deep roots in the Indian south, with its veneration of the dyadic energy of Shiva and Parvati—was the Mother Goddess or Shakti, often projected onto the form of India itself. But if Bharati gave the transcendent its due, he did not slight the beauty and solidity of this world either, as his mocking of the Indian tradition of the world as illusion in “False or True?” attests. “To subdue another is to take one’s own life./Haven’t you heard this, kindly heart?” writes Bharati. Usha Rajagopalan’s new book-length volume of translations of Bharati (Hachette, 2012) allows Indian readers in English the chance to grapple with the challenging ethics and metaphysics and distinctive lyric sensibility of one of modern Tamil literature’s greatest poets.
Kuyil Paattu 2
In the trilling and warbling of birds in the forest,
In the music of the wind as it rustles through the leaves,
In the laughter of the rippling river and cascading falls,
In the ever-swelling waves of the blue ocean,
In the passionate lyrics of girls deeply in love,
In songs that drip with honey, in notes that melt the heart.
In the singsong of farmers as they draw water,
In the ancient chants of women as they grind corn,
In the country notes of those who powder limestone,
In the catchy little ditties of women working in farms,
In the tinkling of bangles on maidens’ arms,
In a circle as they dance clapping their hands,
In the notes of the flute and the veenai and
In instruments that men strum or blow air through.
In the melody that is heard all day long,
In the teeming city and in nature’s wilderness,
In all these notes I have lost myself.
False or True?
All you who stand or walk or fly above
Are you just a dream? The many delusions?
All that we learn or hear or ponder about
Are they trifling fancies, lacking substance?
The sky over our heads, mellow light, dense trees.
Are you illusory, each one? A mistaken perception?
Since those that have passed, vanished like dreams
Am I a dream too? Is this world mere deception?
That we call Time, the many sights that are memories,
Nature herself, are they all lies? Are their attributes
not real?
Since the trees in a forest grow so tall from a single seed
Is the forest imaginary? Will these words be taken
for real?
If what we see will vanish one day, will what is gone
reappear?
Will fate pursue the unreal, the imaginary?
We believe in what we see. What we don’t see is conjecture.
Transcending the seen and the unseen is the
eternal Shakti.
Kannan, My Lover 1
I cannot remember my beloved’s face!
How do I reveal this to anyone, my friend?
When my heart has not forgotten his love,
How could this mind forget his face?
The image in my mind
Reveals little of his grandeur.
I see Kannan’s face close to mine,
But I do not see his blossoming smile.
Endlessly, without respite,
My heart relives our love, our bond.
Incessantly, you’ve heard
My lips praise the dark-hued god.
My eyes are damned, I tell you,
That I have forgotten how Kannan looks.
Can there be one more foolish than I
Among women anywhere?
The bee that has forgotten nectar,
The flower that has forgotten light,
The crop that has forgotten the rains –
They do not exist on this earth, my friend.
If I can forget Kannan’s face,
What use having eyes at all?
I have not even a picture of him…
How do I live now, my friend?
Show Mercy to the Enemy
Show mercy to the enemy, kindly heart.
Show mercy to the enemy!
In the thick of smoke, there is fire.
We have seen this on earth, kindly heart,
We have seen this on earth.
In the midst of enmity, God dwells as love.
God dwells as love, kindly heart,
God dwells as love.
A lucent pearl can be found nestled within
An oyster shell, don’t you know, kindly heart?
Growing in the midst of refuse, can’t the Madhavi creeper
Bloom in profusion, kindly heart?
When falsehood creeps into the mind,
Can the mind be at peace, kindly heart?
If a little poison is added to pure honey,
Can it still be called honey, kindly heart?
Planning to live and grow, to think of decay,
Is it fair to life, kindly heart?
To subdue another is to take one’s own life.
Haven’t you heard this, kindly heart?
He came like one of the Kauravas,
To take part in the war, kindly heart.
Didn’t Kannan also stand, whip in hand
At the helm of Arjun’s chariot, kindly heart?
Even the tiger that threatens to devour us,
You can win over with love, kindly heart.
When Ma Parashakti appears as a tiger,
Bow to her, kindly heart, bow to her.