Thursday, September 24, 2020

MY CASTE - MY SHADOW SELECTED POEMS: BALBIR MADHOPURI

 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 The  present selection has been made from his  published Punjabi  poetry collections and a few unpublished poems.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






































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