Image of ‘An Odd Couple’ by Sudhir Patwardhan. 2015 Courtesy Vadhera Art Gallery
K. Satchidanandan
(All poems translated from Malayalam by the poet)
SALT
Ninety years ago,
we extracted from the sweat of
the ocean’s ceaseless waves,
a handful of salt:
a blossom of tender white
in a lean raised hand.
One hand suddenly turned into
six thousand manacled ones :
millions of fists raised against
an empire ‘where the sun never set’.
From that day truth in our land
came to be called ‘ imprisoned salt.’
Ram, Allah, Khuda, Messiah:
that salt was everything to us:
the prophetess who emerged from
the seafoam and arrived in the kitchen,
the white-winged angel,
the eternal saviour of our dreams.
A handful of liberty,
a handful of equality,
a handful of love,
a handful of kindness,
a Buddha of salt.
Today once again we raise
a flag of white salt
in the background of
the ocean’s dark turquoise blue:
the fleeting vision of
dark-haired freedom
slipping off from our little hands,
the snowy elaboration of fair equality
that we still keen our ears for,
a calloused hand with the scent of sweat
our flesh and tears have,
a handful of the dark-edged salt of justice
studded with the sand grains of rebellion
that Gandhi had raised in Dandi
ninety years ago.
*
THE NATION OF BIRDS
The nation of birds has no borders,
Nor a constitution.
All those who fly are its citizens,
Including poets.
Its flag is the wing.
Have you ever heard a cuckoo
Quarrel with a nightingale over their song?
Or a crane driving a crow away
For its colour?
If the owl hoots, it is not because
It is jealous of the parrot.
Has an ostrich or a penguin
Ever complained they can’t fly?
They begin chatting with the sky
As soon as they are born.
Clouds and rainbows descend
To stroke them; at times they lend
Their hues to the birds,
Like the cloud to the doves
Or the rainbow to the peacock.
They dream seated between
The sun and the moon. Then the sky
Fills with angels and stars.
They can see even in the dark,
Chat with elves and fairies.
They come down to earth to
Comfort the grass or to open
The flowers with their song.
The fruits and worms they eat
Burst out of their eggs with tiny wings.
One day I tried living as a bird.
I lost my nationality.
Nation is a cage. It feeds you
First for your song and when
It begins to dislike your song,
For your meat.
*
My Motherland
I live inside the cold, fetid,
mossy language of a cemetery.
Fresh dark dead bodies
arrive here every day.
At night they slightly raise their heads,
unsure they are dead like the dead.
Darkness will scare some
whose memory is still alive.
The corpses of the lynched
at times turn to the other side
groaning as if their bones
on one side ache still.
Some eye-sockets fill
with tears thinking of
their children who have
abandoned them.
It is from those sockets that
tulips spring in the cemetery.
The women raped and killed
don’t even look at the dead men,
afraid they will turn them into
hard rocks with no springs within.
It is the voices the dead hear
that the living call silence;
and the light they see, night.
Leaves’ murmur is their speech.
The scent of flowers and
the chirping of birds frighten them.
They have seen fangs on roses
and blood on birds’ beaks.
They feel the laughter of the living
is a downpour that drowns them.
Mushrooms are born from them,
but they are far from edible.
Don’t insist that the dead should
respond to everything around them;
don’t approach them with your
microphones ; they fear news.
The only hope of my rotting
patriotic flesh is the happy day
when I too will be lifeless like them.
Let none pray for my survival,
for, death frees us from every border,
it is truly international.
This cemetery is my motherland:
The only country shaped like a skull,
whose national flag is black
and whose national anthem
is but an endless scream.
*
Questions from the Dead:
An Essay on Nationalism
Which country’s border was Hiuen Tsang crossing
when, on a donkey, he crossed the Himalayan pass
with a sack full of Buddhist texts?
Whence came the races that spoke
Dravidian and Aryan tongues? Was there no one in India
when they landed here? Not even a tribal?
Where did the Bharatvarsha of Mahabharat and Meghdoot
begin, where did it end? Did Bhasa and Kapilar
belong to the same country?
Where were the borders of the India of Fahien
and of Al-Biruni? Where was Taxila? Which was
the India Alexander set out to conquer? Which
country did Ashoka and Akbar rule?
Who created India: the East India Company
Or Mountbatten? Or was it Gandhi? When
Did ‘Hindu’ become the name of a religion?
When did Earth come to be in the history
of the universe? When did nations come to be
in the history of Earth? How many nations
make a human body? What is the kinship between
human soul and nations’ maps? Did all the births of
Bodhisattva take place in India? How many oceans
are there in each language? How many skies
in winds? How many seasons for love?
I had been guarding the borders till yesterday. All
my life I had arguments about borders. My living flesh
bled, caught in their barbed wire fencing. I went
to court in their name, killed many times, died many times.
They said I would become a martyr if I died
for the cause, that it would secure Heaven for me.
My land, I do not loathe you, nor do I worship you.
Had I been born elsewhere I would have lived another
life; I would have needed a passport to enter you.
Today at last I am going to cross all the borders
and become part of the Earth. Do not cover me with flags.
Today I know, we are a creation of coincidences,
like our body, like the Solar System. We have
no scope for pride, and war does not have even
that scope. Bury me deep without an anthem.
No one ceases to ask questions
just because one is dead.
*
NOTHING REMAINS IN INDRAPRASTHA
No, nothing remains in Indraprastha.
The clotted blood has turned into sods,
And the corpses into fossils
There is nothing more to excavate:
Neither coins nor sails of sunken ships
Neither the broken pieces
from the temple frescoes
Nor the engraved granites
from the palace-pillars.
Neither the borders
of queens’ silken veils
Nor bows and arrows,
nor alphabets.
Not grass, but nails grow here
No bird arrives in search of trees
No flute is heard from the banks of Yamuna
The cows that drink from it fall dead
All the doors open to hell
Conversations lie buried in snow.
When the wrestlers share gold
A wind passes through the eye-sockets
Of those who once were people.
News arrives in coffins
Butterflies rise from the netherworld
Evenings are rolled out by machines
Ghalib’s lines have been kept
Stuffed in museums
Amir Khusrau roams like an orphan wind
Among the cacti along the streets
maimed by sunlight.
I am alive, like a minor character
In Mahabharata whose name no one remembers.
Even mirrors do not reflect my face.
I do not die in the battle of the Whites
And it is not for me to lead
the battle of the Blacks
The battle-drums have fallen silent
I lie sleepless,
Bleeding on the bed of arrows
Prepared for the decrepit,
Unable to save anyone:
I, who am neither the hero
Nor the villain of any war
Watching with my half-closed eyes
Cities, beyond rescue, burn.
********
Image of Sudhir Patwardhan painting courtesy Vadehra Art Gallery.
K. Satchidanandan, poet, art critic, essayist and public intellectual writes in both English and Malayalam. Also read by K. Satchidanandan in The Beacon A DISCOURSE ON NON-VIOLENCE PLURALISM IS CENTRAL TO INDIAN IDENTITY
Leave a Reply