she will in the mornings sit on the river-bank,
fashion images of Shiva with the riverside clay
and pray to have me as her bridegroom. When evening falls,
she’ll light a lamp and let it float on the waters,
and alone on the ghat, her breast trembling with fear,
she’ll figure her fortunes with total concentration.
One day, at an auspicious hour,
her eyes lowered, she will walk into my home,
draped in red silk, sandal tracery on forehead,
to the playing of festive flutes. Then will she be,
in days of rejoicing and in days of affliction,
with good-omen bangles and propitious vermilion dot
below her parted hair, the presiding goddess
of my home, the full moon’s orb
by the bedside of the world’s tumultuous ocean.
Sometimes, gods, I shall remember this heaven
like a far-off dream, when half-way through the night
waking suddenly from sleep, I’ll see the moon
flooding the white bed, and my love fast asleep,
slack arm lying loosely, sari dishevelled,
shyness forgotten, until roused by my soft
amorous kisses, she will, startled, fold me
fast in her arms, twine around my chest,
as the south wind wafts flower-scents, and wide awake,
a koel calls from a distant branch.
Ah, mother,
pauperised, afflicted, tearful, tarnished earth,
after so many days at last today my heart
stirs with weeping for your sake, alas!
As soon as the sadness of farewell filled these eyes,
which had been dry before, the celestial world
vanished who knows where like an idle dream
or a shadow-picture. And your blue sky, your light,
your populous human habitations, long lines
of sandy beaches by the seas, white snow-streaks
on blue mountain-heads, quiet dawns
between avenues of trees, face-lowered evenings
on deserted river-banks: all, all fell down
onto a tear-drop, reflections within
a mirror’s depth.
Ah, sonless mother,
the torrent of tears you shed at our last adieu,
which, welling from your eyes, overflowed
and anointed your maternal breasts, has now
evaporated. Yet in my mind I know
when I return once more to your homestead,
instantly you’ll hold me within your arms,
to the sound of auspicious conch-shells, and you’ll welcome
me as one long known to you, to love’s shade
in your home, familiar world of affections,
filled with pains, pleasures, fears, and children.
From the next day, I know, you’ll be at my bedside,
ever vigilant, with a trembling heart,
panic inside you, sad gaze upturned
to the gods above, and pensive, wondering when
you might lose him, whom you had regained.
[Shilaidaha, or approaching it on boat? 9 December 1895]
The Victorious Woman
When into the waters of Lake Achchhod the lady
stepped down for bathing, then was the young spring
straying all over the world, in fits of trembling
like first love, hairs standing on end
every now and then. Then was the wind
idly prattling on a bed of leaves,
where the shade was the densest; noon’s radiance
was aswooned on the forest’s lap; a pair of pigeons,
perched on a still and peaceful champak branch,
were, in an interval between close beak-kissings,
rapt, in their privacy, in ecstatic cooing.
On the bank, beneath a white stone, her deep-blue cloth
lay forlorn in a corner, from glory dropped,
uncared-for, the lovely body’s warm scent
still clinging to it, like a last flicker of breath
in a fainted body whose term has come to an end.
The girdle lay, discarded from her waist,
silent in rejection’s hurt, the anklets too,
the breast-cloth in disorder upon the ground,
fallen from the twin heavens on the hard stone.
The golden mirror gazed into emptiness,
recalling a face. Arranged on a golden plate –
sandal-and-saffron paste; ravished and abashed,
two red lotuses; beautiful, unwithered,
a garland of white oleanders; a washed white cloth,
light, translucent, like a sky lit by the full moon.
Brimful and blue the waters, still and unruffled,
deep and rapturous, stretched from bank to bank,
a mass of embraces overflowing the breast.
At the lake’s edge, in the bokul’s dense shade,
sitting on a white stone-slab, the lovely woman,
breast-deep in water, her trembling reflection
spread in the transparent liquid, drew to her breast
the white she-swan that had been reared with care
and fondled her, folding her delicate wings
in her bare arms, placing her long neck
on her own shoulder, speaking again and again
affection’s ravings, brushing her soft cheek,
drunk with touching, on the swan’s feathery back.
From the four directions sweet melodies were rising
in water, land, and sky; someone was framing
a winsome story in shadow and sunshine,
in the forest’s slumber and the leaves’ susurrus,
in the many tremors and throbs of the spring day,
in breath and swelling, language, hint, and hum,
in flashes and wonders: as though the sunray-strings
of the sky’s vina, plucked by a celestial girl’s
champak-fingers, were pouring lamentations
in bursts of music, piercing the quiet
with their keen anguish, while without a sound
the limp bokuls kept falling from their tree
in the seclusion, and ceaselessly sang
the indefatigable koel, whose vain calls
travelled the forests as echoes – single-minded,
blind to all else. Not far in the shade
a streamlet came to meet the edge of the lake
ringing her ruby-spangled bells in dance
to a murmurous mingling; on the grass-swathed bank
a crane slept, lulled by the water’s gentle lapping
in the noon air, his long slender neck
gracefully curved and tucked under his back
between grey wings. Meanwhile in the sky
a flock of swans pursued their hurried flight
to Kailas, where the snows had melted,
leaving behind them distant, favourite haunts –
rivers and beaches. Weighted with woodland smells,
sometimes the weary wind had warm impulses
and flung itself with deep, long-drawn sighs
into the charmed lake’s bosom, its cool arm-embraces.
Eager and curious, the Love-god, friend of Spring,
was sitting concealed at the foot of the bokul tree,
on fallen flowers, carelessly leaning on the trunk,
his feet stretched out on the layer of new grass before him.
The edge of his yellow wrap trailed on the ground;
a chain of malatis hung from his curly hair
to his white neck. Smiling with sidelong glance,
in fun he observed the alluring young woman’s
bathing-dalliance. Avid and impatient,
his restless fingers awaited the right time
to aim his floral arrow at her pure, soft breast.
A mil
lion bees were flitting from flower to flower,
murmuring; a rapt-eyed deer
from time to time gave little, gentle licks
to his mate asleep in the shade. The touch of spring
had filled the forest with languor and desire.
Leaving hurt, piqued ripples in the water’s edge,
with wet footprints, one by one, marking the steps,
the beautiful woman came up to the bank:
her heavy hair came undone and cascaded down her back.
In all her limbs the surging waves of youth
were held immured by the magic formula of grace,
still and hypnotised. And on their peaks
fell the midday’s sunshine, – on forehead, lips,
thighs, waist, breast-tips,
arms, – gleaming on all the lines
of that dripping body, as round her gathered,
together in one place, air’s entire sphere
and the infinite sky, bent in humble zeal,
kissing her whole body, like a diligent servant
wiping off, with a warm towel, all the wetness.
Her shadow cast at her lac-dye-reddened feet
lay prostrate like a cloth that had slipped down.
Hushed with amazement, the woods stayed ever so still.
Then rose the Love-god, leaving the bokul’s base,
a soft smile on his face.
Coming before her,
suddenly he came to a halt. At her face
for a moment he looked with a steady, transfixed gaze,
and at the next, kneeling on the ground,
speechless with wonder, his head bowed down,
at her feet laid his offerings of adoration,
his flower-bow and all his flower-arrows,
emptying his quiver.
At Love after his disarmament
the beauty looked benignly, with a serene countenance.
[14 January 1896]
The Year 1400
A hundred years from today
who are you, sitting, reading a poem of mine,
under curiosity’s sway –
a hundred years from today?
Not the least portion
of this young spring’s morning bliss,
neither blossom nor birdsong,
nor any of its scarlet splashes
can I drench in passion
and despatch to your hands
a hundred years hence!
Yet do this, please: unlatch your south-faced door,
just sit at your window for once;
basking in fantasy, eyes on the far horizon,
figure out if you can:
how one day a hundred years back
roving delights in a free fall from a heavenly region
had touched all that there was –
the infant Phalgun day, utterly free,
was frenzied, all agog,
while borne on brisk wings, the south wind
pollen-scent-brushed
had suddenly arrived and in a flash dyed the earth
with all youth’s hues
a hundred years before your day.
There lived then a poet, ebullient of spirit,
his heart steeped in song,
who wanted to open his words like so many flowers
with so much passion
one day a hundred years back.
A hundred years from today
who is the new poet
whose songs flow through your homes?
To him I convey
this springtime’s gladsome greetings.
May my vernal song find its echo for a moment
in your spring day
in the throbbing of your hearts, in the buzzing of your bees,
in the rustling of your leaves
a hundred years from today!
[13 February 1896 (2 Phalgun 1302)]
FROM Chaitali (1896)
Renunciation
Said a man fed up with the world in the depth of night,
‘I’ll leave home tonight for the sake of the God I adore.
Who’s it that keeps me ensnared within this house?’
‘I,’ said God, but it didn’t enter his ears.
Clasping their sleeping infant to her breast,
his wife lay happily asleep on a side of the bed.
‘Who are you all, maya’s masks?’ he asked.
‘They are myself,’ said God, but no one heard.
‘Lord, where are you?’ said the man, leaving his bed.
‘Right here,’ was the answer, but still the fellow was deaf.
The child cried in his sleep and clung to his mother.
‘Return,’ said God, but the man didn’t hear the order.
Then at last God sighed. ‘Alas,’ said He,
‘where’s my devotee going, leaving me?’
[Shilaidaha? 26 March 1896]
An Ordinary Person
A stick under his arm, a pack on his head,
at dusk a villager goes home along the river.
If after a hundred centuries somehow –
by some magic – from the past’s kingdom of death
this peasant could be resurrected, again made flesh,
with this stick under his arm and surprise in his eyes,
then would crowds besiege him on all sides,
everyone snatching every word from his lips.
His joys and sorrows, attachments and loves,
his neighbours, his own household,
his fields, cattle, methods of farming: all
they would take in greedily and still it wouldn’t be enough.
His life-story, today so ordinary,
will, in those days, seem charged with poetry.
[Potisar? 29 March 1896]
The Ferry
A ferry-boat crosses and re-crosses the river.
Some go home, some go away from home.
Two villages on two banks know each other.
From dawn to dusk the folks go to and fro.
Elsewhere so many strifes, disasters happen;
histories are made, unmade, re-written.
Foaming upon cascades of spilt blood,
crowns of gold like bubbles swell and burst.
Civilisation’s latest hungers, thirsts
throw up so many toxins, honeyed draughts.
Here on two banks two villages stare at each other,
to the big wide world their names quite unknown.
Daily the ferry-boat plies upon the waters,
with some going home, some going away from home.
[Potisar? 30 March 1896]
The Worker
Not a sign of my servant in the morning.
The door wide open. No water for my bath.
The rascal had absconded last night.
I hadn’t the faintest idea where my clean clothes were
or where my breakfast was.
The clock ticked away. I sat in a bad mood.
I would tell him off, I would!
At last he appeared, saluted as usual.
With his palms together, he stood.
‘Go away!’ I said in a fit of rage,
‘I don’t want to see your face!’
Like an idiot, for a minute, as if robbed of speech,
he stared at my face, then said
in a voice choked with emotion, ‘Sir, at midnight
last night my little girl died.’
So saying, in a hurry, with his duster on his shoulder
alone he went to do his jobs,
and as on any other day scrubbed, scoured, polished,
left not a chore unfinished.
[Potisar? 30 March 1896]
Big Sister
They dig by the river for bricklaying –
labourers from the west country. Their little girl
keeps scampering to the ghat. Such scrubbing and scouring
of pots and pans and dishes! Comes running
&n
bsp; a hundred times a day, brass bangles jangling
clang clang against the brass plates she cleans.
So busy all day! Her little brother,
bald, mud-daubed, not a stitch on his limbs,
follows her like a pet, patiently sits
on the high bank, as Big Sister commands.
Plates against her left side, a full pitcher on her head,
the girl goes back, the child’s hand in her right hand.
A surrogate of her mother,
bent under her work-load, such a wee Big Sister!
[Potisar? 2 April 1896]
The Mediatrix
And one day I saw the same naked boy
sitting on the ground, legs stretched on the dust.
Big Sister at the ghat sat scrubbing a pot
with clay, turning and turning it.
A soft-haired kid was grazing near by,
gently nibbling the grass of the river-bank.
Suddenly the kid drew near, and looking at the lad’s face,
gave a few bleats.
Startled, the boy trembled and burst into tears.
Big Sister left her pot, came running down.
Her brother on one side, the goat on the other,
she consoled both, giving them equal attention.
Sister to both children, animal and human,
mediatrix, she knit them in mutual knowledge.
[Potisar? 2 April 1896]
On the Nature of Love
The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom – of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith – that a lifetime’s bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there’s a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: ‘This life is blest!
For your sake such miles have I traversed!’