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.

                                                           Quilt me a Story

Our lives are a continuous thread of stories and these do not end even when we die ‘cos they continue in posterity in our children’s lives woven into the very fabric of human life on earth. We have been talking of stories for the past two exchanges and the story of stories seems to continue, its repertoire heavy and laden with more to say and share.

The picture above is a colorful design in embroidery, meticulously worked with patience, perseverance and ingenuity. It has an aesthetic appeal related to colour, touch and creativity, but more so it intrigues and enthrals us with the story which is woven unto the cloth. The sewing needle moves in and out of the fabric creating patterns with its long colorful thread tail treading a trail untold and anew. Each twist and knot is an amalgamation of explicit and symbolic meanderings of the needle and the tail replicating a story on the canvas of a wide fabric, to be deciphered and understood by humans far and wide through the ages. We arrive at the art of storytelling through ‘Quilting’.

Quilting is our artistic heritage, indulged for creativity, sharing  and community living. Quilting seems to have been around in the medieval times in Europe and the Eastern world, but it reached America in the 1800s. Initially quilts satisfied the practical purpose of warmth in the cold season, wrapping babies, folded and used as cushions or pitched on a clothes line to serve as children’s tent house. Quilting was mostly done by women at home or in larger extended groups to overcome isolation and satisfy their creative impulses. They would relay a simple joyful account of a family or episode, or be indicative of a family tree, recounting the entire history of generations of a clan. The pattern selected by the quilter can be indicative of a quilter’s lifestyle, artistic talents, political views, and even her emotions. Prior to a woman’s ability to vote, some women used their artistic talents and expressed their political views through a quilt.  Over times they morphed into story narratives, especially when women could not actively participate in active service during revolutions and wars. These stories on a cloth canvas became coded and suggestive of signals and messages to men, serving and stranded in tense zones.

An example in case would be the issue of slavery in the United States in the mid-1800s which led to quilt patterns called Slave Chain or Underground Railroad. The designs and colours indicated safe houses or routes to freedom. ‘Clara and the Freedom Quilt’  by Deborah Hopkinson is a picture book based on the true story of a young slave girl who is taken away from her mother to work on another plantation. Clara’s greatest wish is to be reunited with her mother and to become a free slave. Clara was skilled at sewing and became a seamstress at the plantation house. She was often privy to conversations between her master and other visitors to the estate. Being a sharp, clever girl she was able to piece together the information that the Ohio river was very close by. She stitched a map to the river and beyond to freedom, locating swamps, rivers and fields en route. The quilted story board was used by herself and her mother to escape and thereafter, they helped many other slaves to reach the underground railroad and thus freedom.

Harriet Powers and her two famous story quilts are now part of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She was a completely illiterate woman who was greatly influenced by the sermons and gospels in church services and her quilts carry her favorite portrayals of biblical stories and folklore tales. “The Keeping Quilt’ by Patricia Polacco is a story of a quilt that

was made to preserve the memories of an immigrant Russian family’s remembrance of their country. Over the years the quilt is used as a tablecloth for the Sabbath, as a huppa for family weddings, and as a blanket to welcome newborn babies into the family. As the quilt is passed from one generation to the next, so too are family stories.”

‘The Sujjni Kantha’ embroidered bedspreads, ‘Embroidered Rumaals’ and  ‘Embroiderd Pahari Quilts’ are a few examples of the stitch craft practiced in India for 3000 years. They are preserved in museums across the Indian territory and the Victoria Albert museum in Britain. A revival wave in the country through the initiative of foreign interventions have led to the surfacing of our age-old heritage of crafted stories on cloth by women and it is providing sustenance to rural women in pockets even today.  The themes vary from the depiction of stories from the great Indian epics, ‘Raslila’, ‘Rukmini Haran’, depiction of popular dice game of ‘chaupad’  to contemporary works portraying  stories of female foeticide, education for girls, election violence. The oldest ‘rumaal’ is from the 16^th century embroidered by Bebe Nanki, sister of Guru Nanak, the founder of sikh religion, preserved in a Sikh shrine in Punjab.

‘Kalpa Vriksha’ – the boon giving tree, a treasure of the churning of the oceans – ‘Samudra Manthan’ was taken by Lord  Indra and planted in his garden. Many an embroidered quilts  depict the ‘Haran’ theft of the tree by Krishna and the ensuing fight between Indra seated on his white elephant and Krishna riding Garuda. ‘Ashatanayika’ is a representation of ‘Nayika Bheda’ the moods of the nayika through varied expressions, gestures and surrounding motifs of doves and peacocks.

A POW wiling away the war in a German prison camp delivered a defiant message insulting Hitler through the apparently innocuous skill of embroidery.

Maj Alexis Casdagil sewed a Morse code message around his sampler, reading 'God saves the king'.  

“Major Alexis Casdagli, who was taken prisoner in 1941, had turned to embroidery as a way of protecting his sanity against the tedium of POW life but he also found it provided a means of covert resistance. An innocent looking tapestry stitched by the officer in December 1941 bears the rather bland text stating the name and location of its creator and the date. But in a border surrounding the text Major Casdagli also stitched a series of dots and dashes, which in Morse code spelt out "God Save the King" and "---- Hitler". Unaware of the hidden message but impressed with the captive officer's needlework, the Germans even put it on display."It used to give him pleasure when the Germans were doing the rounds," Tony Casdagli, the Major's 79-year-old son, told the Daily Mail."It also stopped him going mad. He would say after the war that the Red Cross saved his life but his embroidery saved his sanity."

Quilting as a theme has been interspersed in writings in literature. To name a few writers would be Rohinton Mistry in ‘A Fine Balance’, Ismat Chugtai,  the feminist Urdu Indian writer and her controversial story titled ‘Lihaaf’ meaning quilt and Alice Walker in ‘Everyday Use’ and ‘The Color Purple’.

Quilting is here to stay through revivalist endeavors, maybe not patronized popularly but a haven for those seeking creativity, expression, sharing and healing qualities in their lives. Go Quilt a Story!  

Stories Galore!

       

We celebrated short story as a literary form of art in our last exchange and the impetus it has acquired in the digital age as the more favored form of narrative literature.  Today I will be enumerating and expounding on the ones that have lingered with me over the years, culminating in a couple from contemporary writers. We read short stories to occupy ourselves for a brief period of time, given the length of a short story. It intrigues me when they stay with me for longer durations and some have been in my mind space for years together. A short story is technically written to invoke a single effect or mood and all parameters of the story are etched towards that effect, climaxing to the most apt denouement.

 In my school text, I read  Tagore’s ’Homecoming’ which left such a deep impression on my mind that I would often dream of Phatik, his homesickness and ardour to be back home with his mother. Over the years, I have mulled over the poignancy of the story and how Tagore inimitably creates an aura of loneliness, alienation and neglect that shrouds Phatik who accompanies his Uncle to the city with a willing heart, but finds himself unwanted, ignored and a burden. The liberties that he took with his mother and younger brother are suddenly and strictly curtailed and the love that he took for granted becomes paramount and an obsession, by its complete absence. His loneliness crushes him into a shadow of his former boisterous self. He falls ill and in delirium the refrain continues – ‘Have the holidays come – can I go home?’

Equally unequivocal are the writings from the 2R’s – Roald Dahl and Ruskin Bond, read and followed by children and adults throughout the literary circles. ‘The Man from the South’ written by Roald Dahl is an intriguing piece of literature. The story portrays the compulsive and so, a strange urge of a man to trick other people into getting their fingers chopped in lieu of extravagant material possessions. It is a study of the psychological depths of the human mind. The expertise of the writer skillfully laces the intricate workings of the mind, of the desire for wealth, the bait of gambling, and compulsive behavioral patterns with humor and a lightness of being.

‘The Eyes Have It’ by Ruskin Bond is a sweet story of a blind traveler rendered in first person, who meets a girl on a train to Dehra. The brief, but beautiful exchange between the two acquires a deep poignancy with the revelation in the end. The sweetness of attraction, the little pretences to keep up the lovely fantasy, and the so very tender interlude leaves the reader with a savory chocolaty feel of the whole episode.

 ‘The Gift of Magi’ by O’ Henry is an insurmountable feat in literature by itself. ‘The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here, the author  lamely relates the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.’

Now I shall take the reader into the unpalatable realms of story writing by Franz Kafka and DH Lawrence. I term it unpalatable because ‘The Metamorphosis’ by Franz Kafka, is a story that strips humans of every vestige of camouflage and shows us our barren naked souls. That every relationship in this world of desires and maya is based on give and take and what happens when it becomes just one sided. Of how we as human beings detest and are afraid of anything which is unlike or unfamiliar or grotesque to our senses. Kafkaesque, a repertoire of the absurd touched its zenith with the story ‘The Metamorphosis’. An extraordinary transformation of the protagonist Gregor Samsa into a giant insect is relayed in a mundane banal tone highlighting the absurd and chaotic in an everyday home with the kitsch of huge debts and themes of alienation and isolation. The evolving feelings of love and care juxtaposed with animal yearnings of food and shelter in Gregor, the insect (whose very sight and habits disconnect him from the family he so much cared for) deliver him in the end. Horrified by his appearance and transition from a bread winner to a grotesque burden and a liability, his family distances itself from him and his death releases the family to better days. In a way the story questions the consciousness of humans versus the animal world which is devoid of it.  Milan Kundera is another such writer whose writings are a journey into the cold, insensitive, basic and raw desires of the so-called highly evolved race of human beings. We shudder at their writings ’cause they are the hard, unpalatable (I use the word again) truth of our existence as a species. 

DH Lawrence wrote the ‘Rocking Horse Winner’ to mirror the ungainly image of mothers who in contrast to their nourishing avatars, drive their families to destruction with their incontrollable desires.  He brings out the irrevocable imprints that women as mothers leave on their children’s minds. The effect of a mother on her child can drive him to the realms of clouds and also to the dungeons of despair, depending on which way the energy of the bond is used by her. The story with its morbidity leaves an indelible mark on the reader’s mind.

Amongst contemporary writers, I devoured the story collection of Anjum Hasan – ‘Difficult Pleasures’ delightfully. The stories have urban settings with themes of displacement, longing and alienation imbued with a melancholic search for meaning, deeper connections, flair for creativity and sometimes an escape from a claustrophobic relationship or a flight from paranoia.

The reader is easily led into the interiority of the characters and more often than not the protagonists are solitary reapers exclusively binding and unwinding their lives, singing melancholic strains………... Characters are animated in deft strokes and their muddles, paradoxes archived using the stream of consciousness which builds crests and troughs diffusing situations and moments with a fluidity of a competent writer who has complete control on the design and structure of the narrative.

‘Revolutions’ is about a precocious child turned photographer who sees pictures in everyday things and freezes them into his frames. His endeavors are a face in a coconut husk, plastic that could be water and water that could be shadow. His quest for recognition makes him cling to a mentor and he himself becomes frozen in time. ‘Good Housekeeping’ unravels the deep emotional bond in a mother - daughter relationship. Ayana views the world through her mother’s eyes. Her mother’s mood -swings, tears, likes and dislikes are hers too. The last part of the story when she comes into her own is rendered with great mastery and subtlety. ‘The Big Picture’ walks away with all the laurels. It is a sweet story about an older woman who has cocooned herself in her house with her art works, and then suddenly she is let out in the wide world with an opportunity to travel to Europe with her selected paintings for an exhibition and the attraction of seeing master works and meeting world renowned artists. A menopausal woman stranded and lost at airports and art galleries , talking and mumbling to herself, fidgeting with tampons, with her menopausal timing gone awry.

And so the stories go on. Godspeed and stories galore to my readers too!