Kachchh. Khambhi. Kavya. : Six Poems For My Village of Six Memorial Stones
Amrit Gangar _________________ Chhasara (chha – six, sarā – memorial stones, also called khāmbhi or pāliya in Kachchh and Kāthiawād; though sarā or saro is a Kachchhi word) is a village of my childhood memories and therefore it exists. It exists within me and in the mānas–garbha (mind-womb) of both time and space. Two smaller villages flanked it, divided by the same river named Bhookhi (Hungry) that somehow turned its course. Perhaps, she was in search of water – epār Bhookhi, opār Bhookhi! She remained dry perennially, hungry for water, and occasionally expressed her terrible fury if it rained heavily and a remote dam somewhere on Kachchh’s deserty topography impregnated her, flooding, fanatically flooding. Much towards inside her shore, she inhabited an open well with a cement-concrete flat elevated surface that surprisingly remained full of deep waters, and would generously bathe many men. Young boys would use it as a swimming pool. Along her coast, the Bhookhi had yet another much deeper and bigger well with a havādo (a pucca reservoir) outside it, which would serve and sooth the thirsty cattle under the burning sun, awaiting eagerly the godhuli bela (dusk time). A little away from her shore, inside the bāri wall (the pucca-built tall wall with a window projecting towards Bhookhi and a hill that was abode of a pir’s shrine) was another well, with pulleys called, Sākariyo Kuvo (a well with waters as sweet as sugar) that would quench the villagers’ thirst, help them cook their daily hot food and make tea. Of the two villages across Bhookhi nadi, one had the privilege of having the service of a mochi (cobbler) that my village didn’t have, while the other had a self-taught medical doctor, who, in his khādi clothes, would visit my village riding his handsome horse. Their visits were significantly essential. I have a feeling that to be a good cobbler or a doctor, you need to have strong poetic intuition. Well, my village had a flour mill that both villages on the banks of Bhookhi didn’t have. Run on a machine fuelled by diesel oil, the mill would create a harsh sound, chhuk chhuk chhuk—like a locomotive engine, but its ingenuous owner had placed a small empty tin box on its exhaust vertical pipe which would turn the chhuk chhuk into a euphonic kuhu kuhu of koyaliyā, the cuckoo. And the sound would keep both the villages across Bhookhi informed about the flour mill’s working existence. Crossing the Bhookhi, the mochi would walk a-lame (he had polio) two miles to my village every week or fortnight as many torn shoes would be waiting for him. The doctor would also be on call – on horse, with his leather box of allopathic medicines. It’s the image of shoes that pushes me into a memory, memory of death, a forced death and the well on the river Bhookhi! On that early dawn, dogs had started sounding differently; the owl on an old peepal tree had lowered his mysterious eyelashes, small insects had started emerging from sandy streets. Something had gone devastatingly wrong somewhere. An early bather on the Bhookhi well had seen a pair of solitary shoes, a pair of spectacles, a stick and a Gandhi cap on its surface. Anxious, as he looked into the well, he saw a human body floating. Shocked, he shouted “Magan Patel!” while the misty-humid Bhookhi remained non-indifferent and self-absorbed. Soon, the news spread across the stunned village while the day had barely broken. Many rushed towards the well. The man’s pregnant wife was wailing and their four children added to the heart wrenching cries. He was a half-aged step son of a village chief (Patel), whom I, with my childhood-eyes, would often spy walking alone swiftly, talking to himself most of the time. He was an intelligent man but deeply perturbed somewhere within–that it is what I had felt. It had taken a massive effort to pull out his unusually swollen body from the well. At the time it was beyond me to comprehend the meaning of death but the image of the swollen body is still heavily stuck on my memory-scape. The Bhookhi well, someone said, had taken as many as seven lives as its toll! Years after, I stand in front of the six weather-worn sandstone sarā, having no script on their bodies to decipher, except poke-marks and unheard sighs of the dead: five Rajput brothers and their sister (and her little baby) were all killed in a little war for a fiefdom. Four centuries have gone by since but oral tales circulate around, in whispers or is it whoosh! The sister’s husband was also killed some furlongs away and his memorial stone (Hekalsaro) stands on a farm enveloped in an eternal mirage (Saro 1, 2). Nobody knows the names of these souls though their periodicity is an acceptable conjecture. But the fact of the matter is that these six (plus one) tall memorial stones are still there. That bit cannot be a fabricated. Chhasarā, the village of six memorial stones has gone on to desolate itself gradually. More and more families have left it for cities in search of livelihood. Only some old widows still inhabited it. They all wore maroon, black, white or even blue clothes– as a mark of their widowhood. All battling loneliness while their sons live afar. They would sustain their meagre existence. One such widow, stooping and frail in frame, suffered from terribly chronic asthma. In winters, it would be unbearable for her and she would breathe laboriously and loudly; so loudly that the entire village would helplessly witness her misery through its organs of hearing (Saro 3). Summer noons, with blazing winds, would be lazy and laidback; often the potter’s donkey would walk through the streets alone in a futile search of a mate and install itself naked (physical nakedness as we define it) in the empty village square. Its search punctuated by a mourning dove in the chabutrā, the
Why Bear It Like A Crucifix ?
Shiv Prasad Joshi [Translation: HUG] ________________________ That there is a well-planned pattern of attacks is quite evident. One does not need to be thrilled with any prophetic prediction in this regard. People shall continue to be killed. Our surroundings are suffused with a kind of painful despondency. Various regions and sects are despairing. Canker and curses arise from odd corners. It is not that every cry for the redressal of injustice reverberates only from the places from where they can be heard loudly. All peril won’t come at one go. Attacks against the freedoms of unity, religion and expression are not new. Such things have been in practice, as per expected convention, since the time of Manto. The lines penned by such poets are so dear to us and to many fresh young minds and souls. We live and quote such words and phrases and we move ahead. When hawks and falcons dare us, like penetrating light from a torch we focus such phrases on those predators. Some respected writers in Hindi have shown indifference and have been generally inactive. Such reactions surprise the younger generation and make them mute and taciturn. Perhaps the same patterns are being enacted in other languages too. But gentlemen, those who are returning awards are not ‘a tired lot.’ These are courageous people,fired with the energy of resistance. This is not an immediate and easy route to heroism.Nor is this any Bollywood masala film—now showing. No, this does not seem to be an emotional outburst or useless sentimentality under whose aegis tales of martyrdom are to be written. This is no slapdash superficiality. Do you consider this whole thing in such a light? History turns back and demands something today. Some people wrap themselves in blankets and, turning the other way, doze off. Forget Sahitya Akademi. Look at the writerly angst which, arising out of their artistic creations, has turned out determined resolutions. This is spreading. Is this a disease or an infection? Till what time shall you wait? What will happen when you shall say—yes, now we have reached the limit? Do you need the sound or the effects of a loud explosion so that all limits can be shattered? Why shall you bear this like a crucifix? It is not that Christ wanted to bear the crucifix willfully. It was brought upon him. Are you trying to say that this predicament has been thrust upon you? This crucifix does bear its full weight upon you every single day and it crushes you. But what about those who are being bludgeoned to death? Do these folks harbour any torturous nail of affliction that pierces your soul straight to make you shriek in pain? Instead of carrying this cross of remorse and fanning this restiveness of not being able to make a difference, why not take on this responsibility of the collective? How can you make this the solitude of all your agony and criticality? In such times. How can you remain isolated? Why are you getting yourself mired in the metaphor of bearing the crucifix? You are doing that anyway—in your everyday suffering and torment, in violence and in struggles. How and when did this idea of awards get entangled and started being counted within the axis of your writerly existence? You were not born to bear the cross. Your aim was to compose poetry. You did care about this troubled and exploited society. Hence you began writing in the first place. So, where did this crucifix come from? And what is this thing about exposing and unmasking? Why are our dear poets getting entangled in idioms? Why are they speaking through the nodes of a certain righteousness, as if whatever they say must be the correct and proven truth? Why is resistance being so downgraded—wherefore this skepticism? So, when we see this collective spirit in Kannada, Punjabi, Konkani and Marathi, why is there this proliferation of camps and coteries in Hindi? Why do many different-hued flags flutter over its shamiana? As if it is still the British Raj or some pre-Raj scenario. What about a common tent, a single camp? Who may be infiltrating these camps? It is not surprising that what the wealthy and the powerful of the nation believe is more or less what you have come to believe. Most smart-aleck media pundits also arrive at similar conclusions. And the writers are being said to be of two kinds. Look, Chetan Bhagat has also become a speaker with an opinion. Elements like Bhagat are giving us nuggets of wisdom. And people like Anupam Kher too, always acting the sentinel toany criticism ofthe PM. They have the gumption to seek accounts from the writers. Even someone like Shashi Tharoor, the controversial and controversialist, feels the need to offer his opinion. Stay a writer if you are one; do not trespass into politics. And the sound of this terrible laughter–that reverberates from Delhi to the farthest qasbah-mohalla of India—Bow before me! Bow down or else—should no one speak anything about that? Should all turn supplicants? Is that even possible? I don’t know why all these learned, respected souls seem to be floundering. This time we are correct. This is not vanity, just self-worth. Not cleverness, it is courage. Not selfishness, it is conscience. Our conscience is in perfect sync with our soul. This is permanent uprightness. Please do return to this uprightness. This return shall mean an admission into the future. The future has always been created by uprightness. Not through this flailing and flittering. From what custody shall you frame your next creation? What heartstrings shall trill and tremble before your shut eyes? Surely Muktibodh, had he been around, would have said on our behalf—what is your politics, partner? It is not a cliché to have converted such a great piece of writing as Andhere Mein into a cliché so that every ‘sated’ soul might no more speak on and about it. Stop drinking Andhere Mein like a cold drink
The Ghaat Within
Biswadeb Mukhopadhay ______________________ This is a poet of circularity—of the potter’s wheel, the rotund staircase, local implements like the maku and the turpun, the chakravyuh, the foundation-stone, the navel, the chalice, planetary orbits, the vortex in the pond—such motifs reappear. This is also a poet who believes that each creation, including the very idea of I, owes itself to the superimposition of the wave function of individual particles, continuously taking shape all around us. Thereafter all kinds of permutations and associations are possible. Sometimes that happens through vaak, through which we exchange bhava. Bhava is a many-valued proposition, a hypothesis which we may also give the name of wonder. Poetry gives shape to wonderment, and so it plays sounds and particles that stay in the nooks and niches of our everyday existence. This exchange of wonderment may sometimes prove incommensurable within the frameworks of our relationalities but it is not impossible to work that out. Perhaps poetry comes closest to bridging this incommensurability. The poet knows that the all scenes of marvel and wonderment are taking place within a smallish planet called earth, revolving around a mid-sized star in the milky-way. The poet has to forever be aware that art’s source and canvas is finally, the universe itself. The poet’s life, therefore, is a kind of sadhana, the same as that of the scientist. This sadhana, a repetition and an augmentation at the same time, is also a function of a perpetual flux: one that runs between the inner universe of our subjectivity and the outer, galactic presence. Does one travel from thought to mind, or is it the reverse? Do one and one make two or does the very idea of one envelop all duality within it? Does the brahmanda reside within our anubhavas or do anubhavas amass as entropy in this cosmos? We come back to the circular. The new returns, as the poet rearranges syntax, breaking form— again and again. He also renews an ancient bond with all that is the heart’s—apparently forgotten and left out, and yet all the time, they travel with us and with this our rushing planet. Characteristically, his poem titled Address, from the collection Pa Rekhechhen Parom (Parom Sets his Feet), concludes in this manner— Biswa Brahmanda post-office Zila Birbhum. ———————————————- Sorrows and Grandma In your next life, like kakurs you shall hang on kakur trees Saying this, my grandma Once blessed sorrow It’s difficult to say why she did this, may be since It never left us even in times of great distress. Reasons apart, We are told— That since that day, thus proliferated This our immense fruit garden Some utterances work like a mantra Though after this Grandma said so many other things as well —placing her palm on didi’s head She had said: “Be a Rajrani.” To me too She had said something, and engraved with baba’s name That mannat-pebble still dangles in the Peer’s abode. Baba is no more. This our sorrow and grandma’s tale We may also call it poetry, if we wish. If you are doubtful, why don’t you visit us around twilight someday? Come, sit around this our courtyard. You’d see How leaden darkness descends slowly, slowly… And right underneath the kakur-tree macha You’d spot, dangling Dark black, tall long, just-like-that sorrows and their fledgling little brood. *** Kalighat Temple No legroom in the temple, because everyone brings sins befitting his means, hence, the hustle to unburden those is also acute. One man supplicates, as if to cede All his depravity, another flings a coin And a third, anointing himself in temple-dust, smeared with tears Says, “All my sins I hand over to you thakur.” As prescribed, in clusters The disciples return each to their homes But Hari! Hari! The same stony weight each still carries within! Then More darkness Descends on the temple-precinct Roams alone, forlorn In Kali-kshetra, only a dog despondent. *** Ghani At the end of a long day’s trek Evening at a Kohlu’s house There, Kohlu’s daughter, standing with a lantern, Lights up the well-side. On the raised deck Water in a brass urn, a folded gamchha, And a footstool standing by. Moorland Hertalpur Dusk drops in torrents there Afar, the thuggee village… That horned moon now, splits open the kaash grove— The nightlong pestle rotates in the starry courtyard Tup Tup Honey-like sounds. In the morning an ancient earthen pot brims with oil. *** Tanti Colony’s Sleepy Time There spins the spindle, the bobbin whirrs So late at night. Arre O Paban, in the tant-room Why weave so frantic baap? Won’t you hit the sack? In the room, dust swirls Busy rats, yonder the rusty handle of an Old umbrella, chaupaya, pillow-wrapped Blanket, tattered rugs… Through the low lying windows, afar, strings of roofs Bolted door. Sleep. Encompassing Dhanekhali, Shantipur Hums the sound of tant, tant spins, someone weaves tant. *** Contentment Some go in darkness, some go in shadow At lantern’s end children are from lessons distracted There is only babel. The babbling stays close, so Sitting at evening’s portico A few kinsfolk chat, contented. *** The Husk Like a pillow cover, one day, a swift wrench shall invert me. Steadily the hand wreathes. Flakey cotton swabs underneath Fog’s unique body… All through the night The inside turns out, the outside in. *** Ghaat Who is that who scrubs dishes all night? Is the ghaat lodged inside the body? Yes, the ghaat is lodged inside the body! *** Path If the insect decides to traverse the path obverse To the old-man’s, will it by and by re-enter the body As the ancient sperm-tick? The old-man trudges northward Toward the embedded insect inquiry. *** The Listener From two throbbing meatballs emanate Joy’s ether-waves In the middle, sprawls a cosmic termination Dust-particles cipher-like. Unconnected…
Between Desire and Disability: Karichan Kunju’s Pasittamanidam (Hungry Humanity)
Kiran Keshavamurthy ————————————– Introduction The significance of the literary lies in its ability to imagine the inner workings of the human subject. The imagination of the human mind or body can never be notwithstanding the realist claims of a literary text, an accurate reflection of life itself. There has to be in any serious work of literature, an attempt to aestheticize the human relationship to the world at large, which may not be a reflection of what people actually feel or should feel. If the function of literature is to simulate without entirely corresponding to a certain reality, it would follow that literary meaning, or more specifically, the truth-claims of literature, lie in the domain of the possible and the probable. I wish to understand literature as a codified form that complicates and potentially transforms lived realities by imagining other possibilities. The role of any form of intellectual production may expand the notion of the social, which is always a construction constituted by exclusions. One of the functions of certain serious works of literature,for instance, have revealed the ambiguities that both constitute and alter visions of social justice. The question of moral ambiguity becomes all the more fraught when it comes to literary texts, where the line between representing and perpetuating social injustice cannot always be clearly drawn. This is not to condone texts that contribute to existing stereotypes and prejudices, but to evaluate the work of imagination within the diegetic world of the text and the social world to which the text responds.There have been many instances in the recent history of Indian literature where texts have been censored and banned for allegedly hurting the sentiments of religious or caste groups. These campaigns to censor literary texts have been motivated by dominant political interests without even reading the texts concerned. There has been a selective focus on the “offensive portions” of the texts and even the state has abstained from creating an intellectual space where there could be a deliberation over notions of offense and obscenity. These controversial texts have been significant in revealing the contradictions that undermine dominant or even competing notions of morality and ethics. Examples abound from Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses to a series of Tamil texts that were recently censored from Pudumaippittan’s short stories to Perumal Murugan’s novel One-Part Woman. But there could also be another way of reading moral ambiguity, which could form a formal element of the narrative.The following text for instance, creates a tension between the narrator’s sympathy for an ‘innocent’ character who ends up transgressing social and sexual norms and the character’s guilt that reflects or anticipates moral criticism. Here the literary text dramatizes the upholding and subversion of social norms to complicate the notion of what it means to be moral or ethical. This essay is a study of disability and sexuality in a novel by the Tamil writer, D Narayanasami (1919-1992) or Karichan Kunju as he was popularly known. In my larger book project, I located this writer in a modern literary lineage of writers mostly from the Tanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, writing primarily from the 1930s to the 1970s and 80s. Like his contemporaries, Karichan Kunju represented the life of the Brahmin man as an imagined conflict between sexuality and religiosity. Here the term religiosity may not refer to any specific form of brahminism and is often conflated with spirituality or advaita as something that characterizes the metaphysical identity between atman and brahman. Kunju’s protagonists are apparently divided by their illicit sexuality and their religious and spiritual impulse to transcend desire and the body. But what complicates a conventional opposition between sexuality and Hindu male asceticism, is firstly, the interpenetration of the religious, the spiritual and the sexual, secondly, the coincidence of the sexual and the religious in disease and disability and thirdly, the presence of protagonists who try to practice abstinence without being able to altogether renounce worldly life. These protagonists experience disability both as a religious experience of sexual redemption and as a self-affirmative and,what I call, an empathetic mode of sensuality. To be precise, the experience of shame and suffering is a transformative and empowering one that compels the protagonist to empathize and literally reach out to other outcastes, often through touch. What is posited as an untenable contradiction between the religious and the erotic reveals, I argue, a more fundamental disjuncture between the mind and the body. If dominant masculinity has been typically associated with strength and moral self-restraint, the male protagonist in the following text represents a crisis in masculinity with his lack of sexual restraint and capacity; a crisis that is in retrospect constituted by disease and disability. His moral interpretation of disability is also limited, or contradicted, by the fact that the disabled male body is a field of sexual and ethical possibilities that potentially overcomes the ontological disparity between body and mind and self and other. The modern figure who loomed large in the religious imagination of this generation of Tamil writers was Mohandas Gandhi. His growing popularity from the 1920s and 1930s inspired the writings of many self-styled Gandhian writers in Tamil and other Indian languages. Gandhi’s ideals of non-violent resistance, spiritual abstinence and social reform were widely and even loosely fictionalized by some early Tamil women writers (particularly VM Kodainayagiammal and the early Rajam Krishnan), who could for the first time imagine women sharing public spaces with men while protesting against foreign cloth and liquor. So even if there was not a direct allusion to Gandhi or his mass-movement, the Gandhian reformist spirit, as it were, pervaded a plethora of characters. While some of these female writers produced characters who protested against male alcoholism and domestic violence, their male counterparts created pious and restrained male characters whose conflicts with sexuality resemble even if somewhat crudely, a Gandhian model of abstinent masculinity. The protagonist of today’s discussion is another instance of a man whose attempts to redeem his sexuality by rechannelizing his desire in altruism represents, I argue,