Friends,
Find here the front and back covers of my book of translations into English of well-known Punjabi Dalit poet Balbir Madhopuri (born 1955-) published this month. The book is available with the publishers. It would be available on Amazon shortly.
Balbir Madhopuri came into prominence with the publication of his autobiography Chhangiya Rukh (The Lopped-off Tree) in Punjabi in 2002 which was later translated into English and published by OUP in 2010 as Changiya Rukh : Against the Night - An autobiography and also into Hindi and Urdu and is being translated into Russian. He has published three books of poetry apart from from some prose writings and translations into Punjabi from other languages. The present selection has been made from his published Punjabi poetry collections and a few unpublished poems. He has recently published a work of fiction in Punjabi titled Mitti bol pei (Earth has spoken).
Here are a few extracts from the book.
In Search of Poetry
These days I go
in search of poetry
as someone in the desert should go
in search of a tree.
In our times
poetry has become so insensitive
in truth, lost its way
become empty of social concerns
has forgotten
its proud tradition
of fighting against the throne:
the feeling for the suffering
swings from the hangman’s noose.
In these times, my contemporaries,
poetry has learnt
like a river
to flow within its banks,
like a bullock-cart
to move on the beaten track.
If the mainstream is a dark tunnel
what can live words do?
Meanings can only wear out.
What a turn!
Mother, in your poetry’s sheath
meaning has become
a rust-eaten kirpan.
Words are infected with lecherous worms
like computer virus.
Even then I keep searching
for a weak-bodied, dark-skinned
insignificant man a poem
a civilization like Mohenjo-Daro.
My beloved poetry,
don’t go away from the earth
like a spaceship;
don’t reserve your words
only for love tales;
come back again
like the newly sprouted shoots
on leafless trees,
like dew drops on grass.
These days I go
in search of poetry
as someone in the desert should go
in search of a tree.
xxx
Poetry is Not Mere Words
Poetry is not mere words.
It is
the flight of a man
without wings.
Poetry is not mere words.
It’s the agonizing cry
of a black partridge
snapped up by an eagle
as it flies out of a sugarcane field.
It’s the frenzied outcry
of a deer terrified in the wild.
It’s the story of leaves precariously dangling
from the branch of a tree.
Poetry is not mere words.
It is
the meanings emanating from words
that have lost their character
in the polluted environment;
even then they are
like monsoon showers in the peak of summer,
like stars on a moonless night.
Poetry is not mere words.
It is
the pain of the failure
to conquer the Red Fort of life.
It is the inexpressible story
of the seething waters of a river
that rose and fell.
Poetry is not mere words.
It is
the dance of limpid waters
and waves
struggling against banks
for equality;
roads marching towards a destination.
Poetry of my times,
your words are deadly silent.
This is debasement of their meaning.
Poetry, don’t be a slogan
become a voice;
not burning coal
but cosy wings of a hen
over its shivering-in-cold chicks.
Poetry is not mere words.
It is
the flight of a man
without wings.
xxx
Poetry, Tell Them
Poetry,
tell them who pluck flowers:
Fragrances can’t be shut up.
And tell them
that for cactus to bloom
in the burning sand of the desert
to keep smiling in every season
is its very nature.
Poetry,
speak to Sahiban:
She should not, like the spider, weave
with the strands of her fancies
a golden web around herself
that Mirza will return one day
bringing down the moon
and stars plucked from the skies.
And tell her
he is busy in search of a livelihood,
waiting for electricity beside his tube-well;
and no one knows when
Farhad’s Sutlej-Jamna link canal would flow
and the peasant’s budding crop begin to bloom.
Poetry,
tell the fish confined in a bottle
that oceans are infested with crocodiles;
and the colourful fishes
have returned
from across the seven seas
having licked the stones of self-indulgence.
Poetry,
tell the white pigeons
not to behave like parrots;
but when the sky is a cage
to fly away in a flock
against the winds.
Poetry,
tell those insects
it’s better
to fly on rainy-season wings
and be burnt on flames
than to crawl and
be squelched under heels.
Poetry,
tell the tired bull
he should shift the earth
onto the other horn.
xxx
My Caste
My caste is always with me
like my complexion
like my shadow.
We are so rolled into one
I’m nothing
except my caste,
in the city in the village
here or across the seas.
I try very hard to hide, to cloak
wear a hundred masks
but it shows itself
again and again
like the white hair
after the dye has worn off,
like the bodies peeping
through tattered clothes.
I wish to be rid of it
like someone wanting a divorce
but they tell me
impress upon me
this bond stays on birth after birth...
nothing to think about.
Finally
the bow is strung
with arrows of reason,
that pierce both present and past.
Blood boils within
like an earthquake
and then
the gaps seem to be bridging
east-west, right-left.
My caste is always with me
like my complexion
like my shadow.
We are so rolled into one
I’m nothing
except my caste,
in the city in the village
here or across the seas.
xxx
Tsunami Waves
The tsunami waves
swept away many things:
briny rocky shores
living things
sea creatures
trees and humans
beautiful natural landscape.
The waves overwhelmed
even God’s own houses,
of this religion and that religion,
where people passed by awestricken
trembling with fear.
And in no time land became water;
in the blink of an eye
present became past.
People recalled:
‘Death is a great leveller.’
Yet the survivors reversed the tune.
The living labelled the dead:
One high, the other low
one touchable, the other untouchable.
In this way on the seashore
the not-humans were left hungry-thirsty,
bereft of help and hope
in the demonic laughter of the humans.
And the tsunami waves
that had demolished the rocky shores
one and all
could not knock down
the towering walls of hatred
rising in the human hearts.
In the aftermath
on the now calm sea’s wide shore,
let someone reflect
and say:
Let us push our boat
into the sea of humaneness
like the waves embrace each other
merge into each other
catch the poisonous fish.
Come let us play this game.
xxx
T C Ghai
