Bhawani Prasad Mishra
(Translated from Hindi by Yashoda Nandan Singh)
Geet Farrosh (or the Song Seller)
Right honorable sir, peddling songs
Is my life, my business
Different kinds of songs I sell
Every type of song I write.
Please, examine the goods
I’ll promptly name the price
They are not useless, be assured
I’ve written some in joyous abandon
Some when I was down and out
Here, this song will rid you of your headache
Or this one to make your lover’s heart ache
Yes sir, for a time I felt great shame
But then I figured by and by
Many sell their self-respect for way less
Don’t be shocked therefore
After some serious reflection
I began peddling my songs
Yes, your honor, I sell my songs.
This song is a morning song, consider it
This one is muscle-powered, weigh it
I wrote this one in loneliness, in my ivory tower
This I penned in Pune’s garden bower
See, sir, this one can scramble up a hill
And this, given the slip, stretch out forever
This song will banish hunger and thirst
And this will wake the ghost
In the desolate burning grounds
This one blows infected bhuwali air
And this is a herb to cure
The dying lungs’ thirst for air
I peddle songs both simple and nonsensical
Yes sir, I sell my songs
Sir, I have lots more to show you
I can sing them if you wish
Rhyming or rhymeless
Immortal or promptly dying
What is there to take offence?
Have paper and pen ready by my side
Should your honor not care for this lot
Shall I write one to suit your flavor pot?
If you don’t like new
I can copy something old
These days the poet must do double duty
Pen to write, shoulder to hawk
Some time for writing, some time for peddling
Won’t cost you extra for my effort
I write songs, new and old
Yes sir, I sell my songs
Your Honor, shall I write of birth
Of death perhaps
Of victory or of defeat?
This song will give the feel of silk
This of khadi
This one smacks of jaundice
This one is about badi
Wait please, I have other designs too
Here, this one is classic
This newly popular, filmy
This song is fit for thinking much too long and dying
And this to hum while going home, ambling
Why should I tease and joke?
I am always writing, all day all night
Molding songs of different types
The pile has grown big, let me remove it
Customer is always right, accept my apology
Please sir, let me show you one final song
You may go inside and ask if you like
But what can I do, helpless as I am with no way out?
Yes sir, I sell my songs
***
Dense Jungles of Satpura
Drowned in sleep
Dreamy and distracted
Fitfully sighing
These jungles dense
of Satpura.
All is silence above and below
Grass and reed
Plant and brush
Sal and Palas
All is hush.
Sink in them if you can
Where even the air
Dare not pass the ban
These fitfully sighing jungles dense
Rotting leaves, sodden leaves
Green, brown and burnt leaves
Mired in mud and bog leaves
Layer upon layer of jungle ground
Press you luck
Plodding and Slogging
If you can
Among these loathsome jungles dense
Root and stem
Shoot and blade
Creeper, climber
Intertwine, web and tangle
Like a bed and wall of vipers
Black and deadly
Every direction, every angle
Totally random
Devouring bees and flies
And denizens too
Grabbing intruding leg and limb
Choking, frightening
Heart and mind
These fitfully sighing jungles dense
On their faces and their foreheads
Spider web and spider hair
Bloody mosquito, black and bare
Pouring rain and windy squall
Forever the folks must endure
These fitfully sighing jungles dense
Snakes and pythons
These jungles populate
Huddled hills Seven deep
A million trees
Big and small
Roaring and growling
Tiger, leopard and carnivore
These jungles harbor
Shivering ear-tingling winter’s cold
These fitfully sighing jungles dense
Deep in these jungles, unperturbed
Native Gonds
Dark and strong
Feed and care
Four and four
Hen and partridge
Running and scurrying
Before their huts
Roof-ed over
With bamboo and brush
As the season of Holi nears
Grasses role and ripple, whistle and sing
Mahua trees leap and spurt
Filling the jungle
With liquorish air
Native drums and human feet
Beat and throb
Belting songs that cut the nightly air
Fitfully sighing
Satpura’s jungles dense
Pits and holes
Dens and caves
Stretching awake
Grass and reed
Sal and palas
Creeper and climber
Branch and twig
Wind and leaf
Fowl and partridge
All go mad and musth
At this time of the year
Straddling horizons two and two
Heaving black poisoned waves
swelling and churning
To bring forth towering Meru
Hoary Mahadev Timeless Vishnu
And the venomous restless Serpent Nag
Do you know this one vast ocean?
Likewise
Fitfully sighing
Are these jungles dense
Plunge in and fear not
Death dwells not here
These jungles feed and coddle
River, stream and water-fall
In numbers countless
Talking and babbling in their hilly lap
Where tigers and leopards
Rip and roar
A hundred thousand wings
A rangale of hundred deer
A hundred clusters of moonlit rays
Drunken, swaying flower and fruit
Sprouting by eyes unseen
Bud and leaf, baby-green
Here comes Holi
With its offerings sweet
Among the vines and tendrils
Of Satpura’s jungles dense
******
"Owl Cat" courtesy Manjula Padmanabhan
Dr. Yashodanandan Singh retired as a technical writer and business analyst in the software industry in U.S.A. in 2015. After earning his M.A. in English from Delhi University, Ph.D. in English from Loyola University of Chicago, and an Associate degree in Computer Science at a local college, he taught English at college level for ten years before moving into computers.
These translations of Bhawani Prasad Mishra are his first steps toward creative writing and they represent a labor of love.
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