THE FLUTE - PLAYER OF BRINDABAN by SAROJINI NAIDU

WHY didst thou play thy matchless flute

'Neath the Kadamba tree,

And wound my idly dreaming heart

With poignant melody,

So where thou goest I must go

My flute-player with thee?

Still must I like a homeless bird

Wander, forsaking all

The earthly loves and worldly lures

That held my life in thrall,

'And follow, follow, answering

Thy magical flute-call.

To Indra's golden-flowering groves

Where streams immortal flow,

Or to sad Yama's silent Courts

Engulfed in lampless woe,

Where'er thy subtle flute I hear

Belovèd I must go!

No peril of the deep or height

Shall daunt my wingèd foot;

No fear of time-unconquered space,

Or light untravelled route,

Impede my heart that pants to drain

The nectar of thy flute!

A sea of foliage girds our garden round,

But not a sea of dull unvaried green,

Sharp contrasts of all colours here are seen;

The light-green graceful tamarinds2 abound

Amid the mangoe3 clumps of green profound,

And palms arise, like pillars gray, between;

And o’er the quiet pools the seemuls4 lean,

Red,—red, and startling like a trumpet’s sound.

But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges

Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon

Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus5 changes

Into a cup of silver. One might swoon

Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze

On a primeval Eden, in amaze.

The Poem :-

I don't know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like

Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.

I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,

I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one.

Don't write in English, they said, English is

Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like? The language I speak,

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human, don't

You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my

Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing

Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it

Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is

Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and

Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech

Incoherent mutterings of the blazing

Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

WhenI asked for love, not knowing what else to ask

For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the

Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.

The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

I shrank Pitifully.

Then … I wore a shirt and my

Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored

My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,

Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.

Don't play at schizophrenia or be a

Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when

Jilted in love …
I met a man, loved him. Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

Who wants. a woman, just as I am every

Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste

Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless

Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,

The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I

In this world, he is tightly packed like the

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,

It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying

With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,

I am saint. I am the beloved and the

Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely
dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy
mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon
him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy
clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy
brow.
Background, Casually by Nissim Ezekiel
A poet-rascal-clown was born,
The frightened child who would not eat
Or sleep, a boy of meager bone.
He never learned to fly a kite,
His borrowed top refused to spin.
I went to Roman Catholic school,
A mugging Jew among the wolves.
They told me I had killed the Christ,
That year I won the scripture prize.
A Muslim sportsman boxed my ears.
I grew in terror of the strong
But undernourished Hindu lads,
Their prepositions always wrong,
Repelled me by passivity.
One noisy day I used a knife.
At home on Friday nights the prayers
Were said. My morals had declined.
I heard of Yoga and of Zen.
Could 1, perhaps, be rabbi saint?
The more I searched, the less I found.
Twenty two: time to go abroad.
First, the decision, then a friend
To pay the fare. Philosophy,
Poverty and Poetry, three
Companions shared my basement room.
The London seasons passed me by.
I lay in bed two years alone,
And then a Woman came to tell
My willing ears I was the Son
Of Man. I knew that I had failed
In everything, a bitter thought.
So, in an English cargo ship
Taking French guns and mortar shells
To Indo China, scrubbed the decks,
And learned to laugh again at home.
How to feel it home, was the point.
Some reading had been done, but what
Had I observed, except my own
Exasperation? All Hindus are
Like that, my father used to say,
When someone talked too loudly, or
Knocked at the door like the Devil.
They hawked and spat. They sprawled around.
I prepared for the worst. Married,
Changed jobs, and saw myself a fool.
The song of my experience sung,
I knew that all was yet to sing.
My ancestors, among the castes,
Were aliens crushing seed for bread
(The hooded bullock made his rounds).
One among them fought and taught,
A Major bearing British arms.
He told my father sad stories
Of the Boer War. I dreamed that
Fierce men had bound my feet and hands.
The later dreams were all of words.
I did not know that words betray
But let the poems come, and lost
That grip on things the worldly prize.
I would not suffer that again.
I look about me now, and try
To formulate a plainer view:
The wise survive and serve–to play
The fool, to cash in on
The inner and the outer storms.
The Indian landscape sears my eyes.
I have become a part of it
To be observed by foreigners.
They say that I am singular,
Their letters overstate the case.
I have made my commitments now.
This is one: to stay where I am,
As others choose to give themselves
In some remote and backward place.
My backward place is where I am.
The Ghaghra In Spate - A Poem By Keki N Daruwalla

And every year

the Ghaghra changes course

turning over and over in her sleep.

In the afternoon she is a grey smudge

exploring a grey canvas.

When dusk reaches her

through an overhang of cloud

she is overstewed coffee.

At night she is a red weal

across the spine of the land.

Driving at dusk you wouldn't know

there's a flood ‘on ',

the landscape is so superbly equipoised-

rice-shoots pricking through

a stretch of water and light

spiked shadows

inverted trees

kingfishers, gulls.

As twilight thins

the road is a black stretch

running between the stars.

the north comes to the village

riding on river-back.

Twenty minutes of a nightmare spin

and fear turns phantasmal

as half a street goes

churning in the river-belly.

If only voices could light lamps!

If only limbs could turn to rafted bamboo!

And through the village

the Ghaghra steers her course;

thatch and dung-cakes turn to river-scum,

a buffalo floats over to the rooftop

where the men are stranded.

Three days of hunger, and her udders

turn red-rimmed and swollen

with milk-extortion.

Children have spirit enough in them

to cheer the rescue boats;

the men are still-life subjects

oozing wet looks.

They don't rave or curse

for they know the river's slang, her argot.

for prayers are parabolic

they will come down with a flop anyway.

Instead there's a slush-stampede

outside the booth

where they are doling out salt and grain.

Ten miles to her flank

peasants go fishing in rice fields

and women in chauffeur-driven cars

go looking for driftwood.

But it's when she recedes

that the Ghaghra turns bitchy

sucking with animal-heat,

cross-eddies diving like frogmen

and sawing away the waterfront

in a paranoid frenzy.

She flees from the scene of her own havoc

thrashing with pain.

Behind her the land sinks

houses sag on to their knees

in a farewell obeisance.

And miles to the flank, the paddy fields

will hoard the fish

till the mud enters into, a conspiracy with the sun, and strangles them.