All those others who came close and moved off
in the darkness – I don’t know if they exist or not.
[En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 3 April 1896]
Putu
It was a long-drawn Chaitra noon;
the earth was thirsty, burnt by the day.
Suddenly I heard someone calling
somewhere outside, ‘Puturani, come!’
The river-bank’s deserted in the midday,
so the voice of affection made me curious.
Closing my book, I slowly got up,
opened the door a little and looked outside.
A huge buffalo, covered in mud,
tender-eyed, was standing on the bank.
A young man was in the water, calling her
to give her a bath, ‘Puturani, come!’
When I saw the young man and his Puturani,
gentle tears mingled with my smiles.
[En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 4 April 1896]
The Companion
And I remember yet another day.
One afternoon I saw a gypsy girl
sitting on the green grass at a meadow’s edge,
just by herself, doing her hair in a plait.
Her pet puppy came behind her, took
the movement of the hair to be some sport,
and jumping high and barking loudly, began
to bite the moving plait again and again.
The girl shook her neck and told him off,
which only increased the puppy’s playful mood.
She gave him a little rap with her forefinger;
he took it for more play, got more excited.
Laughing then, she got up, drew him to her breast
and smothered him with cuddles.
[En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 4 April 1896]
A Scene of Affection
He would be about twenty, with a wasted body
reduced to skin and bones through many years’ illness.
Looking at his vacant face – not a smile on it –
you would think he was wholly incapable
of sucking out the least pleasure from this world
even with all his body and mind and soul.
His mother carries him like a child –
his long thin withered barely throbbing body –
and without hope, yet patient, with a sad face, without words,
daily she brings him by the side of the road.
Trains come and go; people rush; just in case
the commotion revives the moribund’s interest
in the world, and he looks at it a little –
with such meagre hope does his mother bring him.
[En route to Shahjadpur by boat? 5 April 1896]
Against Meditative Knowledge
Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world’s true or lies,
may do so. It’s their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can’t be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.
[Shahjadpur? 8 April 1896]
True Meditation
The more I love you and see you in your greatness,
the more, dearest, I see you in true light.
The more I lower you, the less I seem to know you,
sometimes losing you, sometimes keeping you in sight.
This spring day, with my mind enlightened,
I see a vision I’ve never seen before:
this world’s vanished; there’s nothing at all;
before me only a vast ocean unfolds.
There’s neither day nor night, no minutes or hours;
the cataclysmic waters are controlled;
in the midst of it all, with all your petals unfurled,
you hover, sole lotus, and stay afloat.
The king of the cosmos sits for ever, impassioned,
and beholds in you his own self’s reflection.
[Shahjadpur? 9 April 1896]
Drought
In olden days, I’ve heard, gods in love
with mortal women used to descend from heaven.
Those days are gone. It’s Baishakh, the dry season,
a day of burnt out fields and shrunken streams.
A peasant’s daughter, piteously suppliant,
begs again and again, ‘Come, rain, come!’
Her eyes grieving, restless, and expectant,
from time to time she casts a look at the sky.
But no rain falls. The wind, deaf to her cries,
rushes past, dispersing all the clouds,
and the sun has licked all moisture from the sky
with its tongue of fire. Alas, these degenerate days
the gods are senile. And women can only appeal
to mortal men.
[Shahjadpur? 13 April 1896]
Hope Against Hope
‘Mother! Mother!’ I call to you in terror
in order that my wretched cries might make you
behave like a mother.
Perchance you will, as tigresses are known to do,
abjure all violence and lick this human child.
Well might you hide your claws and press to my mouth
your swollen teats, allow me to doze and rest,
nestled against your striped-as-a-picture breast.
Such is my hope! Ah, greater than great,
you are above, showing your billions of stars,
your moons, planets! Should you suddenly frown
hideously, and lift your thunder-fist,
where would I be, so puny, such a weakling?
So, she-devil, let me decoy you to be a mother!
[Shahjadpur? 13 April 1896]
FROM Kanika (1899)
Give Us Deeds, Not Words
Said the wasp to the bee, ‘This is such a tiny hive!
and you are so proud of such a small achievement!’
‘Why, then, brother,’ was the bee’s reply,
‘let’s see you make a smaller hive for a change!’
Relationship of Convenience
Said the beggar’s bowl to the rich man’s money-bag,
‘We’re related by marriage; let’s not forget that.’
The bag said, ‘Should what I have be transferred to you,
all relationship you would forget too.’
Kinship Analysed
Said the paraffin lantern to the earthen lamp,
‘Call me brother, and I shall have you flanned.’
Up rose the moon in the sky soon thereafter.
Quickly the lantern said, ‘Hallo, Big Brother!’
Too Good
Good-Enough said to Even-Better,
‘In which heaven do you show your lustre?’
‘Alas,’ cried Even-Better, ‘I live in the impotent
jealousy of the insolent and incompetent.’
Positive Proof
Thunder says, ‘As long as I’m far away,
they refer to my roar as the rumble of clouds,
and my brilliance is attributed to lightning,
but when I fall on heads, they say: thunder indeed!’
FROM Katha (1900)
The Repayment
(Adapted from a Buddhist story)
‘Theft from the royal treasury! Catch the thief!
Or else, Police Chief, you’ll come to grief—
there won’t be a head on your body!’ Terrified
of royal wrath, policemen scoured streets
and houses in search of the thief. Outside the city
in a ruined temple lay Bajrasen,
a foreigner there, a merchant from Taxila,
who had come to Benares to sell horses,
and having been robbed of all, made destitute,
was sadly returning to his native land.
On him they pounced, arresting him as the thief,
binding his hands and feet in iron chains,
dra
gging him to prison.
At that very instant
Shyama, queen of the city beauties, sat
at her window in a mood of indolent fun,
spending her time watching the flow of the street,
the dreamlike procession of people. Suddenly
she shivered and cried, ‘Alas! Who’s this?
So tall, handsomer than great Indra himself,
being dragged to prison like a common thief
in harsh chains! Quick, my friend!
Go to the Police Chief, mention my name
and say I would speak to him. Could he come
just once with the prisoner to my humble home? –
It would be a favour.’ Such was the attraction
of Shyama’s name that the Police Chief, impatient,
thrilled to be invited, quickly came,
behind him, in chains, Bajrasen, head bowed,
cheeks shame-red. Said the Chief with a smile,
‘Untimely comes such an unsolicited favour
toward this undeserving person. I’m on my way
to do the king’s business. So, my Lovely, permit me.’
Suddenly Bajrasen lifted his head and said,
‘Beauty, what sport, what perverse humour is this
that makes you call me from the street into your house
to humiliate this innocent foreigner’s hurt
of humiliation?’ But Shyama said, ‘Alas,
foreign traveller, this is no sport at all!
All the jewels I carry on my person
I could give up to take your chains on myself,
and this insult to you, believe me, insults
me to my inmost core.’ As she said so,
her eyes, their lashes wet, seemed to want
to wipe off all the insult from the limbs
of the foreigner. And she begged the Chief,
‘Take all I have and in return set free
the prisoner.’ But the Chief replied,
‘Beauty, it’s a request I may not grant.
To satisfy you there’s beyond my power.
The royal treasury’s robbed, and royal wrath
won’t be appeased till blood-price is paid.’
Holding the policeman’s hands, poor Shyama pleaded
pathetically, ‘Keep the prisoner alive
just for two days – this is my humble plea.’
‘All right, then, I’ll do just that,’ said he.
At the end of the second night, a lamp in her hand,
the woman opened the prison doors and entered
the cell where Bajrasen lay in iron chains,
waiting for death’s dawn, silently repeating
to himself his God’s name. At her eyes’ signal
a guard came quickly, freed him from his chains.
The prisoner, his eyes surprise-whelmed,
gazed at that fair face, soft, open as a lotus,
amazingly lovely, and in a choked voice said,
‘After the horrors of a grotesque nightmare-night
who are you, appearing in my prison-cell
like the white dawn, the morning star in your hand,
life to the dying, liberation incarnate,
merciful Lakshmi in this merciless city!’
‘Me merciful!’ The woman laughed so loudly
that the grim prison woke again with shudders
of renewed terror. She laughed and laughed
till her bizarre lunatic laughter burst
into a hundred mournful tear-streams, and she said,
‘Many are the stones that pave the city’s streets,
but none as hard as Shyama, who’s hard indeed!’
So saying, she firmly grasped his hand
and took Bajrasen outside the prison gates.
Day was breaking then on Baruna’s banks
above the east woods. A boat was ghat-tied.
‘Come, foreigner, come,’ said the belle,
standing on the boat, ‘listen, my love,
only remember what I’m saying now –
that I’m floating with you on the same stream,
bursting all bonds, o lord of my life and death,
my heart’s sovereign!’ She untied the boat.
On either side in the woodlands the birds
merrily sang their festive songs. Uplifting
his lady-love’s face with both hands, filling his breast,
Bajrasen begged, ‘Love, tell me, please,
with what riches you have set me free.
Foreign woman, let me know in full
how big a debt this poor miserable man
owes to you.’ Tightening her embrace,
the beauty said, ‘We won’t talk of that now.’
A brisk breeze and a fierce current made
the boat sail away. Above, a blazing sun
ascended to the zenith. Village wives
went home in wet drapery after their bathes,
carrying bell-metal pitchers of Ganga-water.
The morning market closed; the hubbub stopped
on either side of the river; village paths
emptied. Below a banyan was a stone ghat;
to it the boat was tied so bath and lunch
could be had. On the drowsy banyan branches
shade-immersed birds’ nests were songless.
Only the indolent insects buzzed and buzzed.
When the noon wind, stealer of ripe-corn-odours,
blew off Shyama’s drapery from her head,
suddenly then, tormented, oppressed
by the fullness of his passion, voice near-muffled,
Bajrasen whispered thus in her ears,
‘In eternal chains you’ve bound me, freeing me from
transient chains. But you must inform me
how such a feat, so difficult, was achieved.
Love, if I but knew what you did for me,
with my life, I vow, I would repay you.’
Drawing the end of her drapery over her face,
the beauty said, ‘Let’s not talk of that yet.’
Far away, folding its golden sails,
daylight’s boat went quietly to the ghat
of the sunset-mountain, and by a grove on the bank
Shyama’s boat was moored in the evening breeze.
The moon – fourth day of waxing – had nearly set;
a faint light glimmered in long lines upon
the calm unruffled waters; the darkness massed
at tree-bases vibrated with crickets
like vina-strings. Blowing off the lamp,
below the boat’s window in the southern breeze
Shyama sat, her face deep-sigh-tense,
and leaned on the young man’s shoulder. Her tresses
unbound, fragrant, fell without restraint,
covering the foreigner’s breast with soft cascades
of darkness, like a net of the deepest sleep.
‘Dearest,’ murmured Shyama in whispered tones,
‘what I did for you was hard enough,
hard indeed, but even harder it is
to tell you about it now. I must be brief.
Listen to it once and then wipe the story
off your mind. –
A young teenager,
his name Uttiya, was nearly driven mad
by his hopeless passion for me. At my request
he pleaded guilty to the charge held against you
and gave his own life. And this is my pride –
that the greatest sin of my life I have committed
for your sake, o most-excellent of all!’
The slim moon set. The speechless woodland,
the sleep of hundreds of birds upon its head,
stood still. Slowly, ever so slowly
the lover’s arms around the lady’s waist
slackened, and a harsh distance settled
silently between the two. Bajrasen
stared before
him, mute, stiff, as rigid
as a stone image, and her head on his feet,
Shyama, released from the embrace, collapsed
like a torn climber. The massed riparian darkness
slowly thickened on the ink-black river-waters.
Suddenly, clasping the young man’s knees with force
within her arms, the tormented woman cried
in a dry voice, free from tears, ‘Liege, forgive!
May that scourge, the punishment for my sin,
be that fiercer at the Creator’s hand,
but may you forgive what I have done for your sake!’
Looking at her, but moving his legs away,
Bajrasen burst out, ‘Why? What need had you
to save this life of mine? Now until death
bought at your sin-price, a sharer in a great sin,
this life’s a disgrace, thanks to you, shameful woman!
Fie on my breath that stands indebted to you!
Fie on my eyes that blink in each moment that passes!’
So saying, he rose with assertive force,
left the boat, went ashore, wandered aimlessly
in the sylvan darkness. There his feet
trampled the dry leaves, each step startling the forest.
In the stuffy airless underwood, thickly packed
with strong vegetal odours, trunks of trees
raised their twisted branches everywhere,
assuming so many grotesque, frightening shapes
in the darkness. All exits were blocked.
The creeper-manacled forest spread its hands
like mute forbiddings. Utterly exhausted,
the wanderer slumped to the ground. Like a ghost
someone stood behind him. She had come
on his heels in the darkness a long way,
following him without words, with bleeding feet.
Clenching both his fists, the wanderer shrieked,
‘Won’t you leave me yet?’ At that the woman