Seraphic Verses, Revisiting Gitanjali

SERAPHIC VERSES

As the world celebrates and hails ‘Gitanjali,’ a confluence of  mysticism, religion and humanism, to mark the centenary of the Nobel Prize for Literature by Rabindranath Tagore, I make a humble attempt, in this column, to showcase the history and a few of  his writings from  a work so profound.  The English Gitanjali is a collection of 103 poems of Tagore's own translations of his Bengali poems from the original Bengali Gitanjali, as well as poems from other books of his poetry.

 I begin with the words of WB Yeats, who wrote the preface in the English translation of Gitanjali, “I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it, lest some stranger would see how much it moved me. These lyrics---which are in the original, my Indians tell me, full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of color, of metrical invention---display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my life long. The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes”

Tagore always wrote in his mother tongue , Bengali, and was highly regarded and admired in Bengal for his literary pursuits and ideologies.  It was only in 1910 with the visit of foreign personalities like the English artist William Rothenstein , who had set up the Indian Society in London , that attempts were made to translate his work into English. Tagore was for such endeavors but was not highly enthused to read the outcome of his writings in English. With mounting pressure from home and abroad, he expressed an inclination to translate his poems himself. Referring to his translation, Tagore observed that his attempt to translate into simple prose had held him in good stead. Without rhyme and metre, his poems were hailed and accepted for their aesthetic and mystic core; such is the appeal and lure of a golden treasure that he gave the world. A major part of the translations was completed on his voyage to London, accompanied by his son, who misplaced the manuscript in the subway at London station. It was shortly traced in the lost and found section of the station and Tagore presented it to Rothenstein, on his arrival. The latter shared it with his literary friends namely Yeats and Bradley who, once in possession of his work, were bowled over completely. Their admiration and adulation knew no end and the feeling of rapture is admirably illuminated in WB Yeats introduction to the first print of the book, a must read by each and every human being whose journey in life brings him to the haven of ‘Gitanjali’.

Readings of Tagore’s poems evoke flowers, mountains, the sky, sunrises and sunsets, boat rides and water and lead many to the verdict that he was a naturalist poet.  The latter per se would have the tenets of romantic poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley. But Tagore’s mission was beyond the mere rapture of earthly beauty. He was a seeker who felt the divine touch and omnipotent presence through creation and nature. Living life embroiled in all its vicissitudes, his quest for God is a spiritual awakening strengthened by a humble yet determined resolve to see Him in all his glory. His playing field was the study of the Vedas and Upanishads, and his poems reflect the essence of his reflections and ruminations of these sacred texts. In the symphony being orchestrated by all the elements of nature, in praise of the divine force, paradoxically he himself is so meager and small. Yet his faith in God urges him on , led by a deep-rooted craving to raise himself . Like Rumi said :

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover or leaving — it doesn't matter,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,
Come, come again, come

Tagore acknowledges the divine in each of us, and his ceaseless endeavor to elevate his consciousness comes through in this verse from Gitanjali

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.

For him, God is not in the reclusive haunts of a self proclaimed saint. Rather, he seeks God in the stream of life , the toil of a farmer, the soil of the tiller

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee! He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and  like him come down on the dusty soil! Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all forever. Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

The procrastination that besets us and enmeshes us, chaining us to our comfort zones and force of habit or belief, such that renewal ever lies postponed

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.

The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.

I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.

The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

In many a verse he enunciates the bindings of our big egos and illusionary fears

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.

And over and over again, he pinpoints our human failings and illusions wrought by ‘maya’

`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?'

`It was I,' said the prisoner, `who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.'

Once we embark on our readings of Gitanjali , we can just not stop. May it triumph and be hailed in each human soul for our ultimate deliverance!

Revisiting Shelley's Ozymandias

      Earthly Passions                         

The cover page of the current issue of ‘India Today’ reads the ‘High & Mighty’ Power List 2013. The features inside on celebrities are arranged in a hierarchical order, with money and assets as the discerning quotient for pickings. Reading the stories of these living icons, I reminisced of my last visit to Jaipur in January during the Lit Fest. The preserved museums and mahals, a narrative of the erstwhile maharajas’ power and pleasurable lifestyles, had evoked in my mind two poems which resurfaced again with the present reading of the 27- storey mansion of the Ambanis.

The first poem is the famous poem, ‘Ozymandias’ by   Percy Bysshe Shelley, a major 19^th century English Romantic poet, critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in  English language. The work is a fourteen- line sonnet , a quaint work of Shelley, rendered in ten minutes but invoking a radical thought. Historical records say that Shelley decided to enter a sonnet competition with his friend - Horace Smith and the subject decided upon was the partially-destroyed statue of Ramses II ("Ozymandias") that was making its way to London from Egypt, finally arriving there sometime early in the year 1818. The colossal statue had tempted Napoleon too, who had tried to get it transported to France from Egypt, but in vain, defeated by its dimensions. It weighs almost 7.5 tons. Shelley, like Napoleon, was fascinated by this giant statue.
Shelley published his poem in January of 1818 in The Examiner, a periodical run by his other friend Leigh Hunt .

Ozymandias

 I met a traveler  from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The poem has a spiritual connotation for today’s materialistic, consumerist times. In its short space, it explores the relevance of kings, despots and tyrants , and men of insurmountable wealth and clout . What happens to them ?  The broken-down statue of Ozymandias in Shelley's poem points to the short-lived nature of political regimes and tyrannical power. Shelley uses  the irony of earthly power  to make a satirical statement.  At the very onset, we meet a traveller who describes the deplorable condition of the shattered visage that stands half- buried in the ever stretching sand  with ‘The wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command , stamped on the trunkless statue, a colossal wreck, boundless and bare’. A mighty king who was striving in his whole life for his possessions and got involved in worldly assignments so much that he forgot his ultimate destiny. Besides  this, Shelley reminds the readers of their mortality through the realization that our earthly accomplishments, so important to us now, will one day be finished, and nothing lasts forever. The psychological forces of the id as well as the superego of Oxymadias ,  appear as a character in a poem, and as a poetic work, writ large in the inscription ‘my name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: look on my work , ye mighty, and despair!’. ‘Nothing  remains , Round and decay,  The lone and level sands stretch far away’ – dust mingles with dust, and death levels all as equals in its play.

Now I shall enumerate translated verses from a sacred text:

I have seen many abodes, where groups of sarogis, sudhs , sidhas, and yogis reside

I have also seen various groups of brave men, kings, Gods who drink nectar, and saints belonging to various sects

I have noticed religions of different countries, but none seems to be the religion of preaching worship of the creator by which the soul becomes his slave.

If emperors possess tall incomparable elephants painted in bright colors, adorned with golden trapping

If they were to own million of horses, capable of fleeting at a speed greater than that of wind and bounding like deer

If countless kings, having large and strong arms were to stoop low and bow before them

If such emperors were to march and conquer all countries beating drums

If in their stables herds of beautiful elephants were to trumpet loudly and horses of royal breed were to neigh

If they could break into pieces the revolting enemies and twist their necks and smash pride of even the furious elephants,

If they could capture forts and win the whole world territory simply by issuing threats

What matters if such emperors exist or existed?

They shall depart bare-footed in the end , they must go to their final home of death empty handed

The whole world being in the grip of false ceremonies , rituals and practices of the ego and vanity has not known God’s secrets.

A study in the following poems would be an interesting follow-up of the theme under scrutiny.  “To his Coy Mistress”, “Ozymandias” and “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time”. All three of the poems clearly deal with the passing of time in different ways.  ‘Song’ , ‘We are Seven ‘ deal with death  and the attitude that human beings have towards it. ‘In Spring and Fall’, ‘To the Virgins’, ‘ and ‘Ozymandias’ poets tackle the question of mortality.

Poetry is powerful; in the hands of celebrated poets, it is sublime.