Bahuk

1. Nal

Shall I ask
the setting sun?
Shall I ask
the nest-bound bird?
No,
I shall ask the imprisoned

Buzzing sound:
Do you know where will be
my resting place?

But,
oh! Mute question of mine
you are motionless like the four directions,
obstinate like a head-strong woman,
you are like the king-elephant
devoid of its tusk.

The lance flung
by an assailant
hastening towards me
unfaltering
-- even that lance cannot terrify me.

But, you?
but you reduce me
to a blade of grass
tossed by the rain water
surging forth from the hills.

Uprooting me,
displacing me,
you have brought me
face to face with
the terror
of the vast earth.

Yet
you are inscrutable
like the thorn
that has pierced
deep down inside the flesh

Oh, mute question!
unexpressed that you are,
you drill into my body,
you unnerve me.

You afflict me
with the ever present
pain of a festering wound.

Now,
I shall ask
the ancient long-lived
banyan tree
flourishing
at the other end of the city:
Oh, king of trees, 
is one’s abode too subject
to the vagaries of time?

As a child,
while passing by
in a chariot
with my blessed father
I have seen you
standing at this very spot.

Today in my
advancing age I see you
still standing here.

You have stayed 
beyond time
always here,
Oh, king of trees,
then,
why am I not there
where I was yesterday?

Why is it that
I am cast, against my will,
like a shell on the parched sea-shore?

Did the ocean
wish it that way?
or was I flung
on the sea-shore
by the waves at the wind’s command?

Or is it
because I have not been
as water 
in the sea?
Is it for this reason
that I have been cast out?

I,
I that am like
a flower plucked
off its branch
where shall I now go?

Even if I am
returned to the branch
I shall remain
only a chance visitor.

Oh, Nishadh city,
as I set out
on your highways
for the first time without a chariot
it was
not only my feet
that felt unfamiliar.

But the sound of my every
foot-step
every imprint of my foot
preed in the mud
on the highway’s chest
seemed to fling
defiance at me
like alien windows
empty of crowds

Helpless like the lifeless
dexter arm of a life-size
marble statue
erected in an alien city.

Dull-witted
like the stretched string
of a stone bow

Sterile

Disoriented
like an arrow in the painted
quiver afflicted
with bluntness
I stood
as if dead.

Then
the sun
with its thousand rays
was burning me.
but, oh, Nishadh city,
where had you the strength
to receive even my shadow?

Shipless in the wild sea,
unarmed in the battle-field,
a body, yes, but without a shadow

Though I did set out
with the palm of a frightened
worn-out Vaidarbhi
resting bird-like
on my unyoked shoulder.

Yet
Oh, Nihadh city
after such intimacy
over a long time
even if I go
divorcing you
how far can I go?

Oh, city,
I am of the city:

How can I 
part from you?


2. Brihadashiva

‘Let’s go wherever forbidden is every
ray of the sun’

The words
echo
incessantly

Fierce wild animals
tormented with guile
flash like lightning, roar

At the same pace
forcefully the words
echo:
‘Where forbidden is every ray of the sun’

*

Oh Vaidarbhi!
you who fended off
even the inevitable darkness
of the night
from the palace

with a string of lamps
no wonder
when the pearl clad in shell
moves from the deep sea
to the sea-coast
is parting with water
is much less painful
than that of fish.

oh lady
of the afflicted mind
invented worlds are
endlessly idyllic –
every imagined moment
is exciting –

but
the invincible horse
of Ashwa-medh,
back from the victorious
round may well be asked:
Can you tell
the familiar darkness
of the city stable
from that darknesss where
every sun-ray is forbidden

The dark verdant blackness
of the forest is not peaceable
like the darkness
of the city –
Even if the opaque
thick curtain of the city’s
darkness were to veil –
who would it veil?
palaces?
streets?
men?
who?

More often than not
in the forest
that coiled darkness
is a serpent,
not a rope.
Fed on desolate
darkness, hardened
in the constant company
of beasts
the scheming darkness
of the forest
can fly like a bird
can leap like a lion
can like a poison-tree
benumb and annihilate you
the very intant
you draw near

sometimes
this drunken darkness
with no mahout around
can stretch its trunk,
trample underfoot
and digrace anything
with its brutal passion alone.

The darkness of the forest
has never known
any string of lights
and cannot distinguish
form from anything.

So,
beware
of the vari-coloured
darkness of the forest.
Beware, anyway,
of any darkness
which is undecipherable.

This darkness
penetrable only by the clairvoyant
sages
gives access to the forest
only to him
who yields
to his own truth.

Therefore,
oh, daughter of Vidarbh
beware of your speech
which is like a boulder
hurtling down
dislodged from the top of the mountain
blowing everything to smithereens.

*

But,
vain I all this, vain.
The tusks
of the mahoutless, mad elephant
which glinted from afar
are closing in
now –

*

Eye lashes,
quickly draw your curtains
do not let these
scenes freeze
on the eye’s screen.

Now 
the beautiful
turns ugly.

Graceless scenes –
please do not net in my eyes.

3. Nal

The birds have flown away snatching my cloth.
Naked, naked am I.
Recede, oh river waters
recede to the mountain top
Oh!
mountain-like scared tree,
sink to your roots.

Go back, oh, water bearing clouds,
to the sky, go back.
I am naked
again as at the time
of birth
I am defenceless
as at no time before.
Why do I remember
my compassionate mother
when I am naked 
at the time of my birth?

Beloved, will you drape me like my mother?
Will you teach me the language that tames?
Can you restore dead fish to water
alive once again to swim for ever?

Why this all over again, again and again, in the same sequence?
With all my might I should shatter
these frightful bonds
so that the pictures
as yet undrawn,
yet to be drawn,
will surface on the canvas of time.

Moaning like a female lapwing,
alarmed like a deer pursued
by a piercing arrow,
she stand near the Ashoka tree,
unable to shed her sorrow
abashed
in the tatter covering her
praying
to the patriarchal mountains
to look around with their lofty gaze;
babbling to a group of saints,
ablaze in the flames of separation;
this is the daughter of Bhimak,
so close to my heart.

Can I stand the sight of her
lost in the desolate forest
confused and frightened?
How can the beautiful garment be pierced?

I am defenceless
as at no time before.
and this…
this city of Nishadh
so tender to her children,
in whose hands I frolicked as a child,
who welcomed me as a king in my youth,
she is benumbed like a woman
receiving the dead bodies
of her husband and son
at the end of the day’ battle.
All that was familiar
in the garb of directions
has turned inscrutable.

*

Thee bonds are like the strong
perfume of strange forest
flowers trying to become familiar
-- hard of hearing and blind to boot.

*

These bonds are like the trees
set on fire by their nearness to
a burning tree
-- of little faith and blind.

Thus,
before this green forest
turn to ashes
under the curse
of my proximity
let me flee
with clenched fists
and clipped lips
let me flee somewhere.

*

Before I scorch this blossoming city
and this tender creeper with my
burning skin, let me renounce them all,
let me accept the colossal cured stillness
of solitude, though it stings.

Be fatal – NAL WILL BE ANNULLED.


(This was originally published in Indian Literature: 169)