Hindi Translated
Poems – 1
By BSM
Murty
The Joohi Bud
Suryakant
Tripathi ‘Nirala’
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Lay
lapped in leafy bowers – in wedded bliss –
lost in
dreams of love-
A
snow-fresh, soft, sweet maid – the Joohi bud:
Its
eyelids sealed.
‘Twas vernal night time.
Loitering
in some land remote
Was the
lonely Breeze, love-lorn, forlorn
- the
Breeze they call the Malaya.
Memories
surged up,
Of that
sweet murmur in reunion,
Of the
moon-laved midnight,
Of the
tremulous, lovely limbs of his love.
And lo, the Breeze – over lakes and groves and brooks
And
sylvan mounts and tangles of vines and bushes,
- He
came bouncing, and made love to the blossomed bud.
And she
lay slumbering, unaware, naturally, of her lover’s
breath.
He
pressed a kiss on her cheek
And the
whole bine-curl swung and quivered,
Still
she awoke not nor sought excuse
Nor
oped her sleep-flushed eyes.
An air
of indolence and languor…!
Drugged
- was she? – with the wine of youth.
Wantonly
unkind, he was hard, oh, too hard on her –
Shook
up amain with fitful gusts
The
dainty petite frame,
Pinched,
too, her plump cheeks.
Startled, the maid rolled her bewildered eyes
And
espying her spouse in bed (or hard by)
She
chuckled, her chin dipped and nestled,
And
bloomed afresh in hue of love.
The
waves lapping-playing on their paws.
Cloudlambs
grazing sun’s greensward
Dauntless,
unamazed.
I walking in an infinite void –
A
vagrant point on the yellow sands –
Across
the eternal triangle
Of sky,
earth, and the shoreless sea.
As the backwash of my voyage
Are
visible only : cigarette-smoke
Trailing
on the wind; on the sands,
A
number of footprints
To be
full when the waves will sweep them over.
The sea
waves dashed on the shores,
But all
their might echoes aloud
Even
now in your robust roars.
The
foot of the mountain shook awhile,
The sea
waves ebbed from the shore.
But in
the nations hands were bestowed
A brand
new lusty sword.
Victory
come to Bharat’s new sword
O
soldier of a new country.
Victory,
O new fire, O new flame.
Victory
to the archer of the bull’s eye.
Welcome
O trampler of the Time Serpent
Who
ride on its fanned out hood.
Welcome
O priest ready to jump
And
burn in the holy fire as its food.
You
hold the nation’s future in your fist
With a
mighty roar in your throat,
Descending
from the mind you hold in your hand
A world
in which your dreams float.
O
soldier give your salute to the future
As
history heralds your coming.
The
planets in the darkest sky burn out
With
you the sky starts glowing.
The new
effulgence formless and abstract
Has
found its tangible form in you.
The
fire that you swallowed and ingested fearlessly
Has
turned into a glowing ember true.
The
winds of our country get hot and hotter
By the
countless breaths exhaled,
While
the shadow skimming the Ganga waters
Sets it
ablaze in its trail.
You are
the diamond disgorged by revolution
Like a
she-serpent at the mouth foaming,
Which
the Mother gathered as a precious gift
As she
went about searching and roaming.
You
came back to your land as an icon
Of
sacrifices made into the holy fire;
And now
that name ‘Jayprakash’ rings loud
From
the ardent unshakable youth’s choir.
They
call him ‘Jayprakash’ or ‘Victory be to light’!
He is
one who always defies death,
And
leaps undaunted into the midst of fire
When he
finds it dwindling in the youth’s breath.
Jayprakash
is the one and only name
Whom no
power can ever restrain
Holding
aloft a burning beacon in darkness
Spreading
light, like a hurricane!
Jayprakash
is he who gives feet to the lame,
He is
the one who gives voice to the dumb.
It is
Jayprakash who embodies the hope
Of the
country’s freedom soon to come.
Yea,
Jayprakash is truly the name
Of
turning time, and time’s tide;
Of the
earth-shaking youth’s pledges
With
their hurricane power and pride.
Jayprakash
is the name, aye
Who is
revered by the annals of history,
Seeking
fervently to get his footprints
To
record their enigma, their mystery.
The
wise offer their obeisance to him
And the
brave sacrifice their lives.
The
singer sings him songs of praise
And to
enkindle his voice he strives.
The
poet’s talent, his fervent imagination
Glows
and takes flight on its wings.
The
tide of imagination roars and rolls
On the
shores of humanity it sings.
O hear,
hear, the future is calling
The
saviour of the downtrodden many.
Jayprakash
is the dreamer of dreams,
The
maker of our country’s destiny.
Please
take me on your boat.
I got
delayed in the market,
It was
a luminous mirror
Which
caught me in its spell:
But,
poor me, its price I could not pay.
Was it
not sheer craziness on my part,
With
just a cowrie in my purse,
To hang
around near shops
Selling
the finest cosmetic fripperies!
Who’d
care for a pauper like me?
I
suffered silently the salt on my wound.
I won’t
be much of a burden for your boat,
Poor I
am but I’ll give you all my love,
Will
sing you the songs of Meera and Soor,
And pay
you the few coins that I get.
I put
my head on your feet; have mercy.
O
Brother, I must return home,
Please
take me on your boat.
Notes on the poems
is
perhaps the greatest among modern Hindi poets, the
leading
light of the “Chhayavad School” of modern Hindi
poetry.
Joohi ki kali , written in 1918, is his earliest poem,
embodying
the true romantic spirit of the resurgent poetic
mode.
It was published in his second volume of poems
Parimal
(1929). This translation first published in Hindi (Jan-
Mar,
2011).
Professor
of Hindi at Patna University and a renowned
Hindi
poet and critic. He led a small group of poets, during
the
1960s, who professed a manifesto of a new strain of
experimental
poetry called “Nakenvad” formed from the
initial
letters of their names: Nalin, Kesari and Naresh,
during
the 1960s. This poem is a typical example of that
school
of poetry. This translation first published in Hindi (Jan-
Mar,
2011).
(1908-1974)
Hindi poem ‘Kahte Hain Usko Jayprakash’,
recited
by the poet himself in a public reception accorded
to Shri
Jayprakash Narayan in Gandhi Maidan, Patna, on
April
21, 1946, after his release from imprisonment.
This translation
first published in Indian Literature (Nov-
Dec,2011)
(1 Nov 1912 – 19 Aug 1991), a lesser known poet
from Bihar, who had taught me as a Hindi
teacher in a Patna Collegiate school to whose memory
this translation is published as a humble tribute.
Shri ‘Rudra’ worked as a translator in the Bihar State Rajbhasha
Department.
He was better known in the literary circle in
Bihar
and as one who could draw tears by singing his poems
in
public poetic meets, in a melodious voice. His poetry is
rich in
textural quality, and marked by an intense lyricality.
He died
a tragic death by getting entangled in a roadside
live
electric wire as he was returning home on his bicycle
on a
dark rainy night.
Nov 15 : POETICA-1 The
Magic of Poetry / Nov 21: POETICA-2 Poem as Story
Nov28 : POETICA -3
Poetry & Punctuation / Dec 6 : POETICA -4
Poetry & Punctuation – 2
Dec 12 : POETICA -5
Rhyme or Reason / Dec 20 : POETICA -6 Poetry & Image
Dec 26 : POETICA – 7
Poetry & Image -2
Mar 7: POETICA -10
Poetry & Sonnets / Jun 15 : POETICA 11- Poetry & Prosody
Jun 20 : Tom Graves:
Review of Two-Way Mirror / Jul 22 : Shadow Sonnets : Keats
11 July :
Creativity & Translation / 20 Aug :
Sonnet in a Bonnet
10 Dec : Night
Train to Varanasi (Excerpt fr novel by Sean Doyle)
© Dr BSM Murty
I must record here the fact that the poem by composed on an occasion where I was present. Nalinji was my teacher & co-editor with my father Shivpoojan Sahay of the hindi literary quarterly SAHITYA published during the 50s in Patna. I was a 14 year old child studying in school. My father, Nalinji and some others in their literary circle went on a picnic on a midstream sand-island. There were two other children of my age, too. we were playing and running about on the sand. It was then I noticed Nalinji wandering alone smoking his cigarett, deep in thought. I couldn't have guessed that a poem was being conceived by Nalinji while he walked randomly on the sand-bank. Much later when I read the poem published in a 'Naken' anthology of imagist poetry, I could instantly recall that sequence of the picnic. It's only I that have been witness to the actual conception of the poem - of the real-time creative event - a unigue serendipitous chance of witnessing the actual creation of a poem. I have met no other instance of such a rare coincidence in any account of the composition of a poem by its reader. And that also fired my imagination while translating the poem. It's a truly serendipitous and solitary story of a poet, his poem and its reader being together in one place and at the same moment as the poem was germinating in the poet's imagination.
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