1
life’s
dark in the rooms
circling
a person continually;
the sound its step gives to hear
again again ... again again
he can’t be seen ... can’t be seen at all,
but he circles
in a talismanic cave someone has been imprisoned,
the partition comes close,
the dense secret darkness’ echo-like
existence
producing inevitably that one,
and, my heart’s dhak dhak
asks: who is that
can be heard but does not appear!
then suddenly falling from the wall
flaking plaster,
slaked lime and sand
the scab peels like this—
by himself
he becomes some large figure,
even by itself
it becomes a face,
tapering nose and radiant brow,
fixed jaw:
some unknown unrecognized shape.
who is that can be seen, but
can’t be known!
which Manu?
outside the city, on the far side of the mountain, a tank...
all sides dark,
pacified waters,
but from within swells suddenly from
the water’s dark evening mirror some white shape
in the haze some large face spreads
and smiles,
speaks in recognisable signs;
but, i struck witless
do not understand him.
Arre! Arre!!
near the lake, in the dark, the forest and tree
shine shine, rise green green, suddenly
in the trees’ crest dance dance lightning rising,
twigs, branches, swing and swoop
scream, they flail at each others’ tops such that suddenly
in the darkness of the trees hidden one
talismanic cave’s stone door
opens with a thud
...
thrusts a peculiar red red strange flare
into the opening interior’s dark
red red haze;
within this haze, in front, a blood-washed one,
a secret incarnate!!
seeing his vital brow flowing,
in my every limb a strange trembling.
pale-complexioned, flame-eyed, moon-faced
seeing his conjectured as-if-loving beloved form
an unfamiliar scruple,
seeing his arms hang down to his knees
obscuring a doubt.
that mysterious person
is the still unattained manifestation of myself,
he the whole state
of my self-imagination, my constrained radiance, of my audacity,
of my brimming emergence,
he is the pressure of offended knowledge trapped in the heart,
a semblance of self.
but, why is he wearing torn garments?
why is his golden face sullied?
why is there such a big gash across his chest?
how did he endure the sorrow of the imprisoned?
why is he in such a fearful state?
who brings him wheat?
who gives him water?
yet, why is there a smile on his face?
why does he appear fervent and powerful?
the question is heavy, perhaps even dangerous,
hence the outside’s thick
jungle from where the wind
blows in to extinguish each separate flare...
that i caught in that darkness
was given a sentence of death!
only some black hyphen’s thick black bandage was
tied over my eyes,
on some standing switch’s impaling stake i was left suspended,
in some null point’s dark ravine
made to fall i
insentient lay!
2
ruined wedding song,
in the dark the echoes bubble and swell,
in the mouth of zero a curled voice,
in my own chest, a sinking head,
a floundering wave of sound
sweet, this unbearableness!!
arre, yes, the chain alone continually
beats on the gate.
someone, only to tell me my own story,
calls, calls (stroking the heart
as if rashly in some tangled attachment
lip on lip, some true story
is flailing to be told simply, and then
on hearing that same story my self sinks...
this way, the chain keeps beating on the gate)
midnight, in such dark, who has come to see me?
traveler, impatiently awaited, surrounded by mist
bright mouth—that loving face
that innocent temper—
i recognize him who stands outside!!
he is that same person, yes indeed!
whom I had glimpsed in that talismanic cave.
opportunely or inopportunely
he is constantly manifest,
completely indifferent to my state
where ever, whenever arrived,
in whichever form
evident, whichever symbol;
by signs he speaks, trying to make me understand,
strikes my heart with lightning!!
arre, his face is blossoming dawns,
his cheeks’ plateaus gleam a mineral-light
his eyes’ rays ripple waves of calm,
look at him, love’s advance is effortless!
it seems like—i should open the door
embrace closely,
enclose in the heart,
dissolve, meet him in the crook of the arm.
but, in that frightening ravine’s dark
i still lie, severely wounded;
there is no strength to rise even a little
(this is also true that
enfeeblement alone enthralls me)
hence, i stall my love
trim it,
i fear him.
he seats himself on a high pinnacle’s
precarious and uneven edge;
in a sad state he leaves me below.
says—“cross the mountain-joint’s abyss,
by the rope bridge
reach the far pinnacle on your own”.
but brother, i do not wish these crossings between pinnacles,
i fear heights;
let the chain beat against the gate!!
in the dark let the echo’s bubbles rise,
those people... thus
you will leave as you came.
in the ravine’s dark will i lie
gathering heartache!!
what should i do, or not do: tell;
in this null set swims a universal discernment whose
(unbearable)
piercing distress is great
in that null’s interior ( unbearable)
dark he illuminates my shape as if to
give me my future
unbearable!!
no, no, i will not be able to part from him
however much i have to bear.
constantly rubbing my weak knees,
tottering i
rise to open the door,
my face’s strange bloodless nothing i
wipe with my palm,
to the shore of the dark, feeling my way,
moving forward,
in my feet i feel the earth’s expanse,
in my arms, the directions,
in my breath, the world
my forehead the sky’s terrain,
in my heart beats the intimation of darkness,
my eyes appear as if to inhale truth,
there is only strength in the depth of my touch.
in the self, a fierce
truth-pain’s wave rose, blazed.
thoughts turned wandering attendants.
i move forward,
walk with care,
feeling for those gates,
that corroded, cemented bolt
forcefully i draw,
push, open the door,
glance outside...
unadorned is the way, strange the expanse,
dark the winter.
with a languid eye i see the world the
sad stars.
each time thought and each time grief
each time reflection
causing that rising pain and as if from far away, over there
the shadowed peepal tree keeps vigil.
in those unmixing swirls of atmosphere the shivering
dogs’s far faraway isolate barks,
colliding with the echoes of the jackal.
distances shiver, intervals reverberate
(outside there is no one, no one outside)
in this shadowy desolation someone screeched
in the night a bird
sings:
“he has left,
he will not come back, will not return
to your door.
he has left for the village or left for the city!
search for him now, discern him now!
he your fullest clearest expression,
you are his student ( even if fugitive...)
he is your guru,
your guru...”
Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh was born almost the exact moment of the Russian Revolution--in November 1917, and his socialist leanings were to remain strong throughout his life, sometimes getting him into trouble with the government. He belonged to a Maharashtrian family but wrote mostly in Hindi, a sign of the vastness, fluidity and permeability of the Hindi-speaking area and the Hindi language itself--his brother became an influential literary figure in Marathi, a sign of the breadth and tolerance of linguistic interactions across regional cultures that has an urgent relevance today. Muktibodh began to publish young and was one of the poets included in the influential first Tar Saptak (roughly translatable as "the higher, more difficult octave") collection. This collection, published in 1943, is often regarded as a turning point in Hindi literary modernism for its freer and more diverse rhythms and themes. This recognition did not help Muktibodh economically and his life was spent working briefly in varied jobs including the airforce, as print and radio journalist, and mostly as teacher in various schools in small towns scattered throughout central and northern India--Shujalpur, Ujjain, Indore, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Benaras as well as, briefly, in the larger cities of Calcutta, Bangalore and Bombay. Perhaps these travels sharpened his ear to the wider, more abruptly spoken and colloquial Hindi that his poems sometimes contain. Equally, his Masters in Hindi from Nagpur University gave his work historical depth--his literary criticism of the older Hindi poet Jayashankar Prasad's work carve out a newer understanding of the modern subject pruned of the cosmological-nationalist posture that Prasad's work had assumed at the crest of the freedom struggle in the twenties and thirties. Muktibodh retained much of the Sanskritized vocabulary of Prasad--but his subject, emerging out of the delirium of the World War and Partition, was marked by the fifties sentiment of imminent nuclear cataclysm.
Nikhil Govind has a doctoral degree in south asian literature at the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on the figure of the revolutionary in the mid century Hindi novel. His poems have appeared in Chandrabhaga and his Haibuns and Haikus have appeared in Pirene's Fountain. A video of him reading poems (with A.B. Spellman) as part of UC Berkeley's Holloway Series in Poetry can be found here. He is currently teaching in the Manipal Center for Philosophy and the Humanities.