Inescapable Grace: English Poetry By Indians

Dr. Prema Nandakumar

When we draw close to the wonderful, multifoliate creativity that is going in Indian literature today, poetry makes us stop for a moment with astonishment. The commitment and the faith of Indians writing poetry in English is sometimes deeply touching. For nearly one hundred and fifty years, Indian poets have been prolific and they have given us some of the finest flights of English poetry. Of course, imitators of Eliot and Pound, Sexton and Plath have been a-plenty and they have even achieved success in terms of getting published abroad and gaining awards and finding themselves spread out in Indian anthologies and even syllabi. But even if Indians have chosen a foreign language like English, most of them have found it impossible to escape the magnet of Grace that is India’s rich past. That is why a good deal of their poetry will stand the test of time. Unlike their tool, the English Language, their subject matter has a literature and culture several millennia old. Those who have allowed themselves to be blessed by this Grace have gained the needed strength to endure and carry the torch onward.

For, what is generally overlooked is the manner in which lndian culture has been reflected even in our earliest poets in English. Our first poets like Vivian Derozio and Swami Vivekananda expressed our historical sense and mythological symbols with a sense of undeniable power. Even a non-Indian could sense the sway of a hidden strength in a poem like ‘Kali, the Mother’ by Swami Vivekananda:

“For Terror is Thy name,

Death is in Thy breath,

And every shaking step

Destroys a world for e’er.

Thou ‘Time’ the All-Destroyer!

Come, O Mother, come!

Toru Dutt’s Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindusthan (1882) is now a classic. So is Romesh Chunder Dutt’s Lays of Ancient India (1894). Manmohan Ghose, of course, preferred western themes (Adam Alarmed in Paradise, left incomplete) but his brother Sri Aurobindo drew from the Mahabharata to write narratives like Love and Death and the epic, Savitri. Sarojini Naidu recorded the sounds and sights of India with exquisite embroidery:

Sweet is the shade of the coconut glade,

and the scent of the mango grove,

And sweet are the sands at the full ‘o the moon

with the sound of the voices we love.

But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray

And the dance of the wild foam’s glee:

Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge,

Where the low sky mates with the sea.

(Coramandel Fishers)

Just as the tapestry of the Indian poet in English was gaining richer shades and subtleties in the background of the greatest tradition in the world, some poets changed gear to get into the grove of the Eliotesque conundrums of “broken images”. It was no doubt the call of the Time Spirit, and Indo-Anglian literature, perhaps, needed these inputs as well. India had become independent, and increasingly our young men were going to American Universities, and the exchange of printed material was speedier in a world growing smaller in distance. As one who was an undergraduate at this time, it was somewhat exciting to turn to the shorter, slicker and tantalizingly shocking poems. After all those lilies blooming on one’s backyard in American poetry, it was a sand-paper feeling to have the ugly raised up as the poetically beautiful.

Hernia, goiter and the flowering boil

Lie bare beneath his hands, forever bare.

His fingers touch the skin: they reach the soul.

I know him in the morning for a seer.

(Dom Moraes, At Seven O’Clock)

Also, the “confessional poetry” of some of these versifiers invited with a wicked gleam, especially if it was a poetess like Kamala Das or Gauri Deshpande:

You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured

Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed

My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices. You called me wife

I was taught to break saccharine into your tea and

To offer at the right moment the vitamins. Cowering

Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic loaf and

Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to all your

Questions I mumbled incoherent replies. The summer

Begins to pall.

(Kamala Das, The Old Playhouse)

There was also the sand-paper daring of some poets who could desecrate with impunity terms and beliefs we had been holding in reverence, using a facile English style:

We all pad the hook with the bait, Allah downwards.

What is paradise, but a promissory note

Found in the holy book itself? And if you probe

Under the skin what does it promise us

For being humble and truthful, and turning

Towards Kaaba five times a day,

Weeping in Moharrum and fasting in Ramadan?

What does it promise us except

That flea- ridden bags that we are

We will end up as splendid corpses?

(Keiki N. Daruwalla, Apothecary)

With so much churning of a received tradition regarding prosody, themes and aesthesis, the English-educated Indian (specially of the academic areas) could flaunt a wonderful feeling: “I too can be a poet. No need to play an imaginary piano with my fingers counting the syllables and struggling to decide where to have the “compensatory pause’ and weigh the words for a spondee or a dactyl. Enough of deciding whether wink will go with sink, stink or brink! Freedom from all prosodic shackles!”

Along with the externals of a poem, the subject-matter also was in for change. Keeping up with the tradition that what Bengal thinks today, the rest of the country practises tomorrow, the change was announced formally in Kolkata. The Writers Workshop of Prof. P. Lal took the lead and found the “spiritual poetry” of the Aurobindonian School (Nirodbaran, K.D.Sethna and others) not healthy enough for the growth of Indian poetry in English (Modern Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1959). In fact, Prof. Raghavendra Rao found eminent poets like Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu and Sri Aurobindo to be manipulators of the English language and not creators! Nor did they have any use for our rich tradition. However, their “cat on a hot tin roof’ attitude did not go unquestioned and within a couple of years Prof. Lal (backed by many young writers like Anita Desai and Pradip Sen) issued a statement which said:

Sri Aurobindo happens to be our Milton, - and Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Manmohan Ghose and -Harindranath Chattopadhyaya our Romantic singing -birds. They provide sufficient provocation to -experiment afresh, set new standards, preserve what is vital in -the tradition

and give a definition to the needs of the - present.

In the last forty years there has been plentiful experimentation and an amazing amount of poetic output in English in India. Prof. Lal’s Writers Workshop has been in the forefront of giving a base for those who want to publish. It may be remembered that many poets like Vikram Seth originally published their work in Writers Workshop. The publishing house continues to be active. The “Bombay Group” (Nissim Ezekiel, for instance) has been very visible in anthologies. Orissa has enthusiastic poets publishing all the time, while Jayanta Mahapatra remains one of our best recorders of the Oriya land. South India has the untiring Krishna Srinivas and his monthly POET that has always tried to be international in its spread, while encouraging English poetry by Indians. There is then Karnataka (the Chetana group readily comes to mind) and Kerala (Gopi Krishna Kottoor’s Poetry Chain).

Sitting in a room lined with rows and rows of such volumes, do I perceive any “trend” today? Indeed, it appears that Indian poetry in English has come full circle. The brief poem - no rhyme, no rhythm and often no reason either continues to be popular. Despite attractive titles, often we get lost in inchoate thought- processes:

never low as my staying over here

that has no intrigue or song;

just a simple act of hinging upon

what one wishes to do across the shrunken horizon.

(Rabindra Swain, I Forget the First Line)

It appears that such free verse has at last begun to pall and a bit of rhythm and rhyme have been sneaking in with plentiful laughter. For instance, a seasoned academician like Prof. M. K. Naik has been publishing volumes of limericks and clerihews. Tinier and tinier the form has grown in some hands, drawing upon the reservoir of Haiku and Tanka in Japan. Some lovers of poetry have tried to come back to prosodic poetry that has an explicit message or an internalized autobiographical recordation or a report of social concern. Indeed, Dr. H. Tulsi has even been bravely publishing a journal exclusively for structured verse in Metverse Muse. She has never failed to enthuse prospective poets as in this Spenserian Stanza:

From ‘Free Verse’ freedom you have been won at last;

Restored to you been your rightful throne.

Your darkened days have now become your ‘past’;

To fresh attacks your fort is no more prone.

Your harp, henceforth, will never hoarsely drone;

Repaired has been each broken string and dent.

With rhythmic chimes to guide your dulcet tone,

Your anklets new, with tinkling bells, are meant.

So sing and dance away, to all our hearts’ content!

(To Tradpoesia),

Of course there are wags around who always say that there are definitely more writers of poetry than readers in India, a point referred to wanly by the practitioners themselves:

O Poet

How long will you too

Continue to arduously compose the poems

Despite knowing well and true this fact

That people have absolutely stopped

Reading now whatsoever the verses?

(Suresh C.Jaryal, Inquest)

Anyway, this is a global phenomenon and the Indian poet need not feel disheartened. Unlike, his counterparts elsewhere, he has a very strong tradition to infuse him with new strength. Here it is also understood that the poet has an important place as the conscience-keeper of the society which is beset with a million problems. As J.P Das, the eminent Oriya poet says:

It is true that life is getting more prosaic and less poetic. It is true that there is difficulty in finding publishers for poetry. But no one has yet written off poetry as a gone case, and though they talk of the end of history and of civilization, no one has suggested the end of poetry. New poets are born and poetry books are published every day. ²

The Indian poet writing in English has, of late, been tapping the ancient past with a rare finesse and in this manner he has kept the poetic spirit alive for he knows that a nation must keep its poetry vibrant to meet any contemporary situation.

Poetry remains man’s inalienable

birthright and paramount need.

Call it verify the voice of the soul

and the elan of the race.

It survives fashions and revolutions

in taste and social upsets..

Isn’t a poet the brave intrepid diver

who explores life’s ocean-depths?

Dying almost, he collects his findings

and shores up the oyster-pearls.

But the Rasika alone sees the pearl

to prize it, and thanks the poet.

(K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Microcosmographia Poetica)

The rasikas of this nation may be poor in monetary terms when it comes to buying books and periodicals, but they have never failed to read, encourage and salute the Indian poet. Now that the English poet is turning to sustained projections of themes, the poetry scene in English is becoming rich fast, both by original productions as well as beautiful works in translation. During the last quarter century, my shelf of English poetry has had plentiful inputs that are sublime, readable, thought provoking, meditative. One cannot say the poets always succeed; even among those who achieve signal success there may be patches of dryness. But then this is to be expected in long poems. As the situation is today, one can only say the Indian poetic voice in English is quite, quite vibrant.

Maha Nand Sharma has retold the tremendous life of Bhishma and has made use of the Shiva cycle of myths for his Rudraksha Rosary. His Flowering of the Lotus is about the colorful Sanskrit poet, Bartrihari. Lakshmi Narayan Mahapatra has drawn upon Vedic images for Bhuma. C. S. Kamalapati’s The Song of Songs: The Song of the Seven Hills intersects the legends about the pilgrim hill of Tirupati with innumerable contemporary adventures in spiritual spaces. Drawn deeper and deeper into the spaces of the spiraling legends, these poets do get caught occasionally in a whirl of words. It is a pardonable evil, though as Kamalapati would have it:

The Rajayogi like the Ancient Mariner

Sometimes never stops, until he has fully explained

All points relevant to the subject concerned.

K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, an Aurobindonian himself, has sought a way out by controlling mythic effusiveness with his own prosodic structure of an unrhymed quartrain of 34 syllables (10-7-10-7) as “an English approximation to the Sanskrit anushtup.” His Sitayana, Sati Sapthakam and Krishna Geetam retell ancient legends with a contemporaneous thrust, as when Sita is heard musing on the nuclear threat while she is in the Ashrama of Valmiki. S.M.Angadi’s Basava Darsana is an amazingly sincere attempt to present the Basava phenomenon that gave Saivism a high pedestal and inspired the Vacana canon in Kannada language. Angadi’s is a breathless narrative in epic proportions. There are passages that move us deeply as in the legend of Akka Mahadevi. Immersion in the past history and alertness to the present make Angadi’s poetry meaningful. Thus Basavanna to his followers:

Beggary and parasitism have been in our country

Raised to dignified, nay, glorified status, but they in fact,

Must be outlawed at once and ruthlessly banished.

He who does not work for his bread has no right

To eat. So everybody without exception must work

According to his ability, in which case there’ll never be

Dearth, destitution, poverty and the like left on earth.

These poets give a creative and meaningful turn to the past in their English productions. Here is Amreeta Syam’s Kaikeyi speaking to her grand children

Ask

Ask questions, my grandchildren.

Always

Rule with your

Hearts

But keep a little

Of yourselves

Aside

For life

And laughter.

Interestingly enough, the richest area in Indian literature in English translation is also bagged by poetry. Some of the finest English verses to come to us in recent times is through translations which are creative in their own right. An example is O.N.V. Kurup’s Ujjayini which takes the received tradition regarding Kalidasa’s life but modifies it with new insights drawn from his writings. Familiar scenes and phrases flit by, and when touching upon Raghuvamsa there is almost an echo of the passage from Ulloor quoted above, for the heroic ideal in India has remained alive all the time. Concluding his saga, Kalidasa wonders at this phenomenon with pardonable pride

Where are the ones who wore

the sceptre and the crown, yet

diligently placed immortal reputation

above the stirrings of their mortal bodies

and knew what they gave as price for

preserving it unsullied and bright,

was the only real investment?

And where do the ones stand

Who sucked only the nectar of power?

As he finished writing that tragic saga,

From Dileep to Agnivarna,

The words of his guru long ago

Echoed in his soul, ‘Your words

Would one day reach Ujjayini !

A tremendous undertaking that has been enriching Indian poetry in English is Prof. P.Lal’s verse-by-verse translation of the Mahabharata. The power of the Sanskrit verses composed several millennia earlier come now in the simple, crystalline English of P.Lal, trailing clouds of glory from the stately style of Vyasa. An occasional slipping in of a Sanskrit adjective or noun but helps the English rise in sublimity:,

Like a musth-elephant

separated from his herd,

your maha-powerful son

Duryodhana advanced;

And the Pandavas broke

into loud exultation.

O raja! Seeing Duryodhana,

Mace in hand,

Looking like the tall-peaked

Kailasa mountain,

Advancing

Bhima said,

Remember how Draupadi

In her period

Was insulted in the sabha,

And raja Yudhisthira

Was cheated at dice

By Sakuni?

O wicked-atmaned Duryodahana!

Today you will taste

The Maha-bitter fruits

Of these and other crimes

You perpetrated against

The innocent Pandavas.

(Bhimasena - Duryodhana amveda,verses 40,42-44)

Twentieth century Kannada literature has given K.V. Puttappa’s (Kuvempu) Ramayana Darsana. This has now been brought to English by the renowned English scholar and poet, Shankar Mokashi-Punekar. Reading Kuvempu in Kannada is a rare experience; and absorbing his thoughts in Dr. Shankar Mokashi Punekar’s stately English leads us to a state of exaltation. Ah, the long poem is alive; the ancient myths are relevant still; the English language can convey the Indian experience as clearly as the waters of Sarayu in Valmiki’s time!

Going through Sri Ramayana Darshanam slowly (the poem calls for frequent meditation) one comes across many thought-provoking changes. As when Rama begs for Vali’s pardon in a long passage:

Admitting irreparable wrong done is the mark

Of knight templars: but ha! My mind seething-hot

Day and night by Sita’s severance, dimmed reflectors

And fuddled my thought. I chose devious pathways

To quick finis.

To the reader of Shri Ramayana Darshanam, there will never be a Iack of such very interesting innovations. When did we ever hear of Rama proceeding to join Sita in the fire in Yuddha Kanda? A scene follows “as if the gateway of supersensuous was thrown open to the sensuous”, and Rama is cleansed by the trial by fire. Divided into four Books (Ayodhya, Kishkinda, Lanka and Shree), the epic concludes with Rama’s coronation described in terms of the glory and grandeur of Mother Nature. The epic opens with Kuvempu’s salutations to world poets including Firdausi and Aurobindo, a passage that assures us that the poet in all climes and at all times has been the heart-beat of humanism:

Obeisance to poets.. to Homer, Vergil, Dante

And Milton; ………to Kumaravyasa , to Pampa,

Sage Vyasa, Bhasa, Bhavabhooti, Kalidasa and others:

To Narahari, Tulasidasa, Krittivasa,

Nannaya, Firdousi, Kamba, sage Aurobindo.

To ancients, moderns, elders and youngsters,

Regardless of time, land, language or caste distinctions,

I bow to one and all world Acharyas of art,

Discerning God’s glory wherever some light shines

I bend my knees and fold my hands in salutation.

May Guru’s kindness abide; poet’s mercy prevail;

May the yearning heart of the world crystallize

Into a blessing. Bend, heads; fold, hands; life, be clean.

May Rasa penance triumph; may perennial peace

Prevail.

Poetry is indeed a “Rasa penance”, a tapasya, not to be lightly taken up. One should not squander away one’s gifts in purposeless self-pity or elitist stargazing. The great Indian tradition as well as its folklore counterpart have always watched the sacred and the secular as a helix, each twining with the other and both enriching the country and the people, applying the needed correctives and inspiring people to exceed themselves in heroic ways. In India, the hero as a poet has been given the highest throne termed as the Kavi, the Dhrishta, and the Seer. Looking around the new wave of poets and translators, I do have a feeling that the day is not far off when Sri Aurobindo’s prophecy regarding the future poetry might come to true and the Mantric Word is heard in India. Caught as we are in this extremely complicated world, I would like to conclude with the solemn hope of George Santayana stated in Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius. Dante and Goethe (1935):

“It is time some genius ppear to reconstitute the shattered picture of the world. He should live in the continual presence of all experience, and respect it; he should at the same time understand nature, the ground of that experience; and he- should also have a delicate sense of the ideal echoes of his own passions, for all the colours of his possible happiness. All that can inspire a poet is contained in this task, and nothing less than this task would exhaust a poet’s Inspiration. We may hail this needed genius from afar... we may salute him, saying.

On or ate I’ altissimo poeta.

Honour the most high poet, honour the highest possible poet.”

Paper read at Chennai Poets’ Circle National Seminar on “Indian Poetry in English – Current Scenario and Tasks Ahead” on July18, 2004.

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