BREATH BECOMING A WORD

CONTMPORARY GUJARATI POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION EDITED BY DILEEP JHAVERI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My earnest thanks to GUJARAT SAHITYA AKADEMI for publishing this book and to Harshad Trivedi. With his wholehearted support a dream is fulfilled.

Several of these translations have appeared in INDIAN LITERATURE- Sahitya Akademi Delhi MUSEINDIA KRITYA- web journals and elsewhere. Thanks to all of them.

Cover page painting by Late Jagdeep Smart with the kind permission of Smt Nita Smart and Rajarshi Smart

Dedicated to PROF. K. SATCHIDANANDAN The eminent poet of Malayalam who has continuously inspired other Indian languages while becoming a sanctuary for the survival of Poetry.

BREATH BECOMING A WORD

It’s more than being in love, boy, though your ringing voice may have flung your dumb mouth thus: learn to forget those fleeting ecstasies. Far other is breath of real singing. An aimless breath. A stirring in the god. A breeze.

Rainer Maria Rilke

From Sonnets To Orpheus

This is to celebrate the breath becoming a word and the joy of word turning into poetry. This is to welcome the lovers of poetry in other languages to participate in the festival of contemporary Gujarati poetry.

Besides the poets included in this selection there are many who have contributed to the survival of Gujarati poetry and there are many other poems of the poets in this edition that need to be translated. So this is also an invitation to the friends who are capable to take over and add foliage and florescence to the growing garden of Gujarati poetry. Let more worthy individuals undertake the responsibility to nurture it with their taste and ability. I see myself as an ant carrying a grain of sugar to the ant-hill that is constructed by the cooperative efforts of other hard working colleagues. an ant-hill is created and sustained with joint effort. The name of our great epic poet of Ramayan symbolically conveys this spirit of collaboration. Valmiki’s name is derived from valmik which means an ant-hill. Over the centuries several poets contributed to create this epic. Similarly for many centuries common people and geniuses have created and refined Gujarati language. Let my contemporaries and future geniuses add glory to this language that has given us an esteemed identity. Holding the hand of English one can say Hello to the other languages of India and the world. Come, let us rejoice together that poetry survives within us all.

Dileep Jhaveri

301,WALDORF, HIRANANDANI ESTATE,PATLIPADA, GHODBUNDER ROAD, THANE-400607 e-mail [email protected]

FOREWORD

Perfect translations and model anthologies are impossible ideals that repeatedly encourage imprudent to rashness. High expectations on the part of the readers and hawk-eyed critics should dampen their spirits but the zealots never say die. This present attempt has many inadequacies but there is a hidden agenda beyond the candid confession. Let better translators be provoked to prove their mettle by working on the poems and poets that are left out. With better quality of translations let yet more focused selections be made. If those making selections cannot translate let them search out the able ones. Wherever institutional assistance is available let it be utilized. Let this happen to Indian languages like Punjabi, Rajasthani, Kokani and others also. With this hope I wish to thank at the outset my fellow-translators Sitanshu Yashashchandra, Karamshi Pir, Dhanwanti, Neerav Patel, Dr. Ganpat Vankar, Kanji Patel, young and ebullient Dr. Hemang Desai and especially Sachin Ketkar. Late Nitin Mehta, Jaydev Shukla, Shirish Panchal and ever dependable Rajendra Patel and Kamal Vora along with several others have extended great help.. For decades we pampered ourselves with the comfortable notion that Gujarati poetry was perhaps the best amongst all the Indian languages. Sheer gullibility and ignorance of what was written elsewhere and fleeting acquaintance with mediocre works (easy, popular and hence rigorously promoted) of other languages were largely responsible for this illusion. Forgotten was the fundamental truth that poetry writing is an exercise for excellence and not competition. On the other hand it is also true that many of the Gujarati poets past their sixties are erudite. They have read Indian as well as European classics. They are acquainted with critically acclaimed contemporary national and international literature. Some are closely involved in other art genres also. Some were deep into classical Sanskrit aesthetics and criticism along with present day Euro-American thinking. None, mark it, none was associated with any political ideology. Some poets from that generation became popular with audiences and remained rooted there. They had no time to read. Their easy path was followed by many young poets. This explains the plethora of lyrics, gazals and comic verses on urban life. What was tragic and contemplative in the poetry of the masters became farcical satire in their works. Devoid of any discretion some journals continued publishing them. To enhance their CVs the ambitious academicians and the journalists pursuing honour continued reviewing them. And a small class of literary socialites continued raving about them. Serious critics continued ignoring them. And that was not the right thing. So a very large space Is occupied by these poets in Gujarati. But mediocrity remains universal! The fallacy was in comparing such similar stuff from other languages with the small body of work painstakingly generated by the best poets in Gujarati. The same injustice is done to the poetry written by Indian writers in English. It is almost a fashion to run it down. But if one reads Jayanta Mahapatra, Keki Daruwala, Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar or from the younger generation Ranjit Hoskote, Robin Ngangon, Mamang Dai, Laxmi Kannan, Menaka Shivdasani – to name a few, one would realise that the achievement of these poets is no less significant in comparison with English language poets from the West. While translating the best Gujarati poets and hoping for yet better translations a realization dawned that in other languages also excellent poetry is written. Inspiring poetry of K. Satchidanandan, K.G. Shankarpillay in Malayalam, Sirpi Balasubramaniam in Tamil; Sunil Gangopadhyaya, Shankho Ghosh and Utpal Kumar Basu in Bengali; Ramakant Rath in Oriya; Nilmony Phukan in Assamese – just to mention a few, is a beacon for aspiring Gujarati poets, inviting to open their sails wider. When one looks at the post modernist women poets in Gujarati, missing are the sensuousness of Jaya Prabha in Telugu, or contemplation of abstract by Pratibha Nandkumar in Kannada or the robust and full blooded poetry of suffering and carnality by Mallika Sengupta in Bengali. Dalit poetry in Telugu, Kannada or Marathi has more muscle than shrillness. So let me repeat that comparing one language with others to establish poetic superiority of one’s own language is a futile exercise. Some friends from other languages have tried to embarrass me by accusing Gujarati writers for not responding to the contemporary events in Gujarat. That Art should mirror Life sounds Aristotelian and unacceptable. Also one must be reminded that poetry is no cure for evil or injustice. A writer has to act as a human being against injustice in whatever capacity he has, and not wash his hands off by writing poetry. Tadeusz Rozewics said, ‘The dance of poetry came to an end during the second world war.’ And his purpose was to create ‘not verses but facts’. But one cannot be parochial about history. To consider one’s time as an end in all is a kind of chauvinism that poetry can do without. Intent upon writing about his life and time Dante placed himself within the compass of his contemporary history but proceeded to relate it with past and extending it to Mythological time. In the end the poet as well as poetry found a place beyond the time. Such freedom is not meant only for the epic poets. Freedom is the precondition for every poet, every artist. And art cannot be created by prescriptions. It is true that life is an important concern of art. But the fallacy is in mistaking the contemporary for life. And human life is not the only form of life! Those demanding poems on communal riots from every Gujarati poet are twice faulted with Aristotelian as well as anthropocentric prejudices. True, Gujarati poetry has some shortcomings like other languages. There is poetry of innocence, full of blissful jubilation for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, sea tide, rains, spring, bird call, breeze or traditionally overrated spiritual experiences expressed in ambiguous terminology of metaphysical words. Poetry of adolescence runs in circles around the first glance, the first touch, the first confession, the first betrayal, the first parting followed by repeated betrayals and permanent partings. These are witnessed by walls, windows, mirrors, birds, flowers, lakes or traditional Gujarati architecture or furnishings, festivals, folklore. Again, the nights, stars, moon, rains, oceans, autumn, deserts, mirages, oases arrive expectedly to give company to the lovelorn. Poetry of complacence merrily keeps iterating romance of Radha-Krishna copied or extended from the overcelebrated verses of Narasimha Mehta, Mirabai and Dayaram from the medieval period and various folksongs, marriage songs as well as seasonal songs. Also can be added to this list the devotional poems for the family where the grandfather is always a pious and robust man, the grandmother is a tireless story teller, the father is aloof but caring and the mother symbolizes everything from sweetness, sacredness, sacrifice to suffering. This ideal family naturally lives in a village with a cowshed and misty hymnful mornings, golden evenings and favourite trees of the childhood like mango, peepul, tamarind or champaka.

Never to be left behind is the poetry of grievance, common to every language. It expresses the middle class grouse against the life with problems of every day living, urban chaos, unfulfilled dreams couched in the language of newspapers that finds an easy resonance from the audience in search for entertainment and easy identification at affordable or zero price. Often nostalgia is the only escape offered. Fortunately absent is the vociferous political cacophony prevailing in Hindi Hasyakavita and unfortunately absent is the vociferously applauding audience that such poetry commands in Marathi. But what is distressingly absent is a response to the challenges of media and technology. Neither the pioneers of Modern Gujarati Poetry in sixties nor the younger poets have engaged in this task their experience or experimentations. In Marathi, there are poets like Hemant Diwate, Manya Joshi, Varjesh Solanki, Salil Wagh, Shridhar Tilwe, Sanjeev Khandekar, Malika Amar Sheikh, Kavita Mahajan and others who have confronted the contemporary with vigour and fury. Marathi was becoming a closed language under the pen of the popular and voguish poets. How it opens up and rejuvenates itself, can be seen in Sachin Ketkar’s translated anthology ‘Live update’. Gujarati has to take a fresh dip in the turbulent waters of the present, the way it happened in nineteen sixties. Modernist movement in Guajarati poetry was a search for newer experiences through experimentation, exploration of language, interacting with other art forms to create a new aesthetic order. This was different from giving verbal expression to some given inspiration or poetic experience. That is why temporal and territorial attachments were subordinated to language and aesthetics. While revisiting the protagonists of modern poetry after more than four decades one finds no interruption in the continuity of this search. The succeeding generation has surprises and paradoxes, poets like Nitin Mehta, Jaydev Shukla, Saroop Dhruv, Kamal Vora or Nirav Patel were born within the last five years of nineteen forties. The post modernists have laid a claim over them, even though they are hardly a decade younger than Labhshankar Thakar! Nitin continued and Kamal has extended the modernist movement in their subdued voices and distinctive styles. Jaydev may appear to differ from the modernists due to his rural landscapes and traditionally Gujarati domestic ambience. But his language grows from multidisciplinary relationship between music, painting and films. The modernists were vocal about urban life and loss of identity but were subtle about the contemporary events rather than obvious. Similarly Jaydev’s poems after the demolition of Babri Masjid retain the same subtlety. Modern tradition was interested in examining the interrelationship between the components of the language. Kamal Vora extends it to various objects and words. He picks up an object or a word, isolates the meaning from known context and afterwards creates designs of similarities, contrasts or sensuous or verbal associations. His poems are more transparent than motley ones of the predecessors. He plays with the grammar of language and dimensions of the universe and depths of the mind deftly as a mathematician. Nitin Mehta depicts urban middle class life but goes beyond its surface. The poet starts as a class-representative but ultimately evolves into a uniquely sensitive individual with intimately personal language. This is when the poet becomes universal in spite of being within history.

Neerav Patel is a prominent Dalit poet. He goes beyond mere statement or complaint about Dalit situation. His sense of rhythm and diction are matched equally by his sense of humor. As expected he is shrill and loud at times but swift and dramatic also. Dr. Ganpat Vankar who has translated his poems in an eminent psychiatrist who has done pioneering work of translating Gujarati Dalit literature. That is why including only three poems of Neerav I respectfully step back to leave the rightful place of honour to Dr. Vankar for presenting a separate selection on Dalit writing. In Saroop Dhruv we find a poet distinguishing herself by taking up the issues almost untouched by the Modernists. She speaks for the suppressed, dalit, women and communally hurt. She is very clear in her objectives and priorities. To her poetry is a medium and not an end in itself. Her speech is powerful and fearless. She does not compromise the content for the style or structure. However, she does employ various verse forms and fluid meters and can make herself heard above caterwauling mediocres out to please the audiences as well as the slothfully slumbering apathetics. Before considering younger poets and postmodernists two unique and ubiquitous modes in Gujarati poetry need a notice. In the beginning the White Goddess said, ‘Let there be poetry on Gujarati earth’ and Lyric was born. Song writing, since then, has been a part of elementary exercise for the seekers of poetry. True, some poets do turn heretics and exclusively practice other forms. When one looks at the songs written over several centuries, repetitions of themes, dictions, styles and subjects become obvious. 19th and 20th centuries witnessed waxing and waning of this form, Kant, Narasinha Rao Divetia, Nanalal (highly celebrated lyricist of his time and a maverick rebel), Botadkar and others preceded the generation of poets associated with the freedom movement who were also preoccupied with various social concerns. Sundaram and Umashankar Joshi led this younger generation. In spite of their commitment to Gandhiji they printed the khadi in delicate and joyous colours. One of the most surprising poet joining them was a renowned intellectual and critic, Ramanarayan Pathak, whose few but tender lyrics had exceptional beauty. The next generation excelled both in quantity and variety. Rajendra Shah who honoured the Gnyanpith Award a few years ago is the greatest lyric-poet of Guajarati language. His range of subjects, rhythms, rhyming patterns, dialects and diction is awesome. This great master is at ease with free verse as well as classical Sanskrit meters. His philosophical vision and his deepest concern for the universal life and minutest details are evident in his entire work. He was just an year and a half younger to Umashankar Joshi but his poetry marked the beginning of a new generation. He turned poetry in the direction of pure aesthetics. Several of his generation wrote excellent lyrics. When the next generation of the Modernists emerged who thought that they were heralding a revolution the pursuit of aesthetic remained unchanged. Later on some returned to the fold of lyrics. Notable was Ramesh Parekh. Mumbai gharana passionately promoted lyrics along with the laments of middle class woes. Mass production guarantees lack of originality and quality. The challenge of Rajendra Shah was immense. But any challenge can be circumvented by ignoring it. That is what happened to song writing in Gujarati. However, some poets Like Vinod Joshi, Sanju Wala, Harshad Trivedi, Dalapat Padhiar, Viru Purohit and versatile Harish Minashru extended the possibility of the lyric form by experimenting with its exterior or thematic interior.

Not a single issue of any literary journal in Gujarati is without Gazals, and there are several devoted only to gazals. Within less than two centuries gazal has become most widely written (and presented) form. Most of them are trash and rehashed. But there are some very good poets who have written really good gazals on the sly inspite of crooning with the chorus. Chinu Modi, Adil Mansuri, Manhar Modi, Ramesh Parekh, Manoj Khanderia, Karsandas Luhar, Rajendra Shukla, Hemant Dhorada, Jawahar Baxi, Ravindra Parekh, Kisan Sosa, Saroop Dhruv, Mahendra Joshi, Dilip Joshi, Harish Minashru again even here, Udayan Thakkar, Hemen Shah, Vijay Rajguru, Ashokpuri Goswami, Harish Dhobi, Haresh Tathagat, Harshad Trivedi, Mukul Choksi, Raish Maniar, Rajesh Vyas ‘Miskin’, all these have managed to make a mark in the maddening crowds of Mushairas as well as with demanding critics. The list quoted above is not exhaustive and is a challenge for young Rajesh Vyas ‘Miskin’ to get these poets translated and be published in other languages. Some of these poets have experimented with the outer form of gazal with its meters and rhyming patterns while some have tinkered with its soul. The gazal of Harshad Trivedi on departure that is included here is in classic Sanskrit meter Mandakranta and has refreshing originality on the subject of exile. Manoj Khanderia also had used classical Sanskrit meters. Harshdev Madhav has written gazal in Sanskrit language itself! It is one thing to distinguish oneself by going against the current and another by flowing with it. If the Moderns were rebels the next generation was adaptive. From esoteric sixties Gujarati poetry moves to inclusive nineties. But this movement is not categorical enough to be distinctively labeled post modernism. Some promising young and not so young poets need to be considered before debating further.

Vinod Joshi: The success of his lilting lyrics made the readers forget his mastery over classical Sanskrit meters and his fluency of medieval narrative. In his songs women intensely perceive their bodies, eroticism, solitude, social status and indefinable individuality through images of everyday reality and objects. The traditional is rejuvenated. There are layers after layers of elegant eroticism in the sounds, rhymes and rhythms of his lyrics. His songs are easily the best from the younger generation. Rajendra Patel: Being an expert short story writer he clearly knows the space of poetry. Essentially he is an explorer. He dives deep in the mind and wanders wide in the world. Encountering images after images emerging from subconscious he undergoes astonishing experiences. On the other hand he invents surprising allusions from the objects of everyday life. Employing ordinary vocabulary his poetry is an exercise in erudition and sport of joy simultaneously. Udayan Thakkar: He is uniquely ambidextrous. He belongs to Mumbai – gharana famous for its popularity with urban middle class audience. But he continues experimenting and comes out with serious poems like ‘Dying’. He writes gazals as well as literature for children also. Yagnesh Dave and Harshad Trivedi: These two are constantly experimenting with language, diction or verse forms. Yagnesh has both a scientific background and a multidisciplinary vision. He can link DNA code with anthropology in his poems. He can fill his canvas with exuberant forest or misty mountains and rarefied clouds in Japanese style. He can engage a variety of dialects and liberate large silences between brief lines of few words. With boundless energy Harshad Trivedi attempts lyrics, gazals, free verse and sequential poems. Alongwith confessional poetry he gives words to the disturbing socio-political events without sentimentalizing. His collective consciousness knows no separation between rural and urban or between one generation and another. Ramanik Someshwar, Rajesh Pandya, Sanju Wala, Vasant Joshi: These poets often start with a landscape, sometimes familiar and sometimes surreal. Creating allusions they start exploring the language and encounter unexpected experience or hidden memories – associative or imaginary. They verbalise these and arrange them in a structure that is emergent rather than predetermined. Their cultural heritage and quintessential Guajarati sensitivity give finishing touch to the partly intended and partly independent final form. These poets also practice lyric, gazal, folk verses, narrative, as well as free flowing blank verse. They were close to some very popular and successful poets but resisted the temptation to emulate them, earning aesthetic merit in the bargain. Sanju Wala’s boldness occasionally makes him verbose in free verse but also leads to delightful subversion of the lyric form. He has published an entire collection of experimental non lyrical songs. Ramanik Someshwar keeps trying several verse forms in his quiet and discrete style. His poetry is reflective as well as expressive of concerns about human suffering and natural calamities. He has translated poetry from Telugu also. Vasant Joshi knows forests and forest dwellers intimately and uses minutest details to create a series of images in short and measured poems. Behind the unassuming poet Rajesh Pandya hides an eminent scholar who is devoted to studying the epics in original and their variations over the centuries.

Ramanik Agrawat: A peasant and a scientist, he is a loner whose earlier poems were moodscapes. His family portraits were unassuming but had instant impact. His visuals were exuberant and original. His sensitivity as a human being is evident in his poems after the communal riots that have been recurrent. He blossomed joyously in unusual marriage songs that are not easy to translate. Late Jagdeep Smart: He is interesting because he looks at the form and structure of Theatre as a painter that he primarily is. He now constructs poetry out of that experience and surprises the reader with intricate design of the details. His recent untimely death has left a promise unfulfilled. It is not that there was no consequent or conscious post modernist literature. What is significant is the irrelevance of the claim of some to be the sole representatives of Gujarati language and culture with their exclusive prerogative to authentic and refined – Parishkrit – Literature. The post modernists have made remarkable achievements in short stories and novels. Mohan Parmar is a towering figure who has raised Dalit and rural Gujarat to great aesthetic levels. Himanshi Shelat has in her direct style done the same for the marginalized class of urban and semi-urban society. They have proved their commitment and art equally. ‘Indian Literature’ issue no. 249 has carried the works of these two and other noteworthy prose writers. But the issue of poetry is not easy. Three important young poets are Harish Minashru, Kanji Patel and Babu Suthar. They are very different from each other with overlapping characteristics. Between Kanji and Babu Suthar magic and certain primitiveness is common. Rural landscape and lifestyle may be part of their poetry but they are neither nostalgic nor possessive about them. Both are concerned about ecology of primeval universal culture. Magic and rituals that are part of the human life, but relegated to dream world are common in both. But their geography differs. Kanji’s geography is earth and folklore. Babu’s geography is mind with its collective unconscious. Kanji is quiet and solitary. His poems remind one of the paintings of Mark Chagall where every space is occupied by awkwardly placed beautiful shapes from dream or memory. Babu is adventurous and loud and his poems are rich like the forests of Henri Rousseau. He is a Fauvist. Noteworthy about him is his vast reading. Amongst all the Gujarati poets (including even my contemporaries) he stands out with his erudition and articulation. Babu can be comfortable arguing with Derrida or Chomsky and conversing merrily with Adivasis of Panch mahal. That is why his post modernism is more genuine, being a choice, than other pretenders to the crown. At the same time Kanji is a natural heir to the natives with his authenticity. Harish Minashru is the most versatile and brilliant poet of his generation. His lyrics paint Sanskrit eroticism in the ambience of medieval Gujarati diction and rhythms. On the other hand traditional Bhakti and Sufi mysticism chant in his gazals. When his spirit is not traversing the transcendental his language joyously turns carnal from metaphysical. With playful rhythms and ebullient rhyming he creates kaleidoscopic patterns. He coins new words beyond dictionary and sportingly bends grammar to pluck surprising adjectives and adverbs. His free verse poems range from exuberant to ascetic. There is a lot of experimenting and search for identity in diverse manifestations. He has championed the post modernist thesis but the tradition of modernism continues in his style and his concerns. Any true poet, regardless of following the traditions, playing with them or abandoning them, aims at creating candid literature beyond labels. Claims of Harish cannot be any different. As a translator of poetry from many languages and countries he must be certain of this. Creativity is not gender biased, leaving little room to lament that there are very few women poets of consequence. Again there is no reason for comparison with other languages. Still what is worth noting is that as short story writers and novelists women writers have excelled in Gujarati. Majority of current verses written in Guajarati have women as dominating subject but as stereotypes. Women poets have been unmindful of the creators of this image. Saroop Dhruv of course, has lodged her protest, but she has protested against every kind of discrimination. So her human voice is louder than any feminist whine. Urvashi Pandya portrays women suffering from centuries on the mournful backdrop of acute agony enhanced by culture-specific details in Sanskritised diction. Except for occasional first person grammar, poems of Sanskriti Rani Desai, Manisha Joshi and Darshini Dadawala do not differ from the main stream poetry. Sanskriti Rani often describes surreal experiences while Manisha delves in the interpersonal relationships and Darshini details intense personal experiences. All of them write in free verse and easy flowing conversational language. That ease is indicative of their confidence as poets rather than consciousness of gender. Modernity is both an ongoing and recurrent phenomenon. It is time now to revisit the hoary missionaries of modernism. Premanand was the first medieval pioneer who had decided to convert the shared Indian cultural heritage into an exquisitely Gujarati establishment. Ramayan, Mahabharat and Bhagawat became Gujarati (in the same way they had been transformed in Kamboj, Siam, Malay and Yavadweeps) under his spell. In the process he revolutionized and enlarged Guajrati language also. Akho was another poet who from the images of everyday life explained and debated details of metaphysics exclusively monopolized earlier by scholars in Sanskrit. In 19th century Dalapat Ram ringed in another revolution with the arrival of printing press and prose prospered. Gandhiji brought simplicity, directness and discipline. The present modern movement was initialed by Suresh Joshi with a bang and promoted by his senior Umashankar Joshi in his resonating style. Baptised by them the modernist poets also rebelled against them. Decades after their turbulent blood settled down to serene circulation, all of them have accepted their debt to the duo. In Mumbai Rajendra Shah nurtured us when as fledglings we were attempting modern poetry. Mumbai gharana poetry adamantly refused to be guided by him and kept hopping in the crowds. Let us revisit those modernists who have dropped arrogance but have retained the free spirit. Most of them continue labouring in their smithies. Wearing their grease and soot stained smocks they continue to tinker with their tools, materials, forgings, techniques. They keep abreast with technological advances in Guajarati and other languages. They also keep performing pilgrimages to the old Masters and their craftsmanship. Like Premanand they also transformed their shared heritage of industrial and urban culture into a uniquely Gujarat property. Gulam Mohammed Shaikh was the foremost amongst the modern poets. With a single collection of poems ‘Athava’ he retains that status but has turned a fulltime painter of international fame. His poems have been translated and published earlier and now we reserve tributes for his pioneering work. Labhshankar Thakar remains the same Janus-faced poet, playful and profound. Earlier he wrote poetry as exploration of language and as an attempt to reach reality beyond the words. He used to play with rhymes and rhythms and designs of lines. Breaking the syntax of the words, separated in several lines the plurality of grammatical possibilities were demonstrated. A single word can be an adjective to a word above or an adverb for the following word. And thus, just one text multiplies into different meanings. He uses modes of speech expertly. A childish lisp would denote innocence and simplicity at one time and facile credulousness at another. Rhetoric would mean pompousness or profundity alternatively. Unnameable experiences or thought processes or connecting mental states are his preoccupations for which he invents images and styles of expression. Verbose in some poems he can be penetratingly brief also. His sense of humour is as intense as his feeling of pathos. His engrossment with absurd is his search for meaning also. He has continued to be the most prolific poet. Sitanshu Yashashchandra continues exploring relationships between self and others, people and people, present and past, reality and imagination/dreams, various voices in the language, modes of Guajarati language, one word and another. While doing all this, his focus on poetical structure does not waver. Neither the force of his intrepidity is reduced nor his vast concern for life is diminished. Transcendence of the temporal has always been his mission. He converts mythology into contemporary not merely by reinterpretation but making it tangible with freshly hewn words, deliberately misshapen to correspond to raw sensuality of the present. At the same time he can turn contemporary into mythological. Myth making is a continuous and universal process. Discovering elements of history that are universal the poets structure them into a dimension that goes beyond the time. Some of us whose works typified Modern poetry still continue to experiment, set challenges before us and try to outgrow our past constantly. Even after receiving national and international recognition and honour Sitanshu refuses to rest. His work asserts that art of poetry is a risky affair and not an easy game that some of our contemporaries and also many youngsters believe it to be. Chinu Modi again is another hard working poet with versatile achievements. Short story writer, novelist, playwright and of course a master of Mushairas, he explores time and attempts to mould past to the present. For doing this he explores several verse forms and revives medieval narratives and creates surprising combinations. Unburdened by academic and metaphysical concerns he employs classical meters and free verse deftly. He keeps experimenting in Gazals to convert them into mainstream poetry. His poetry has been recurrently surprising and repeatedly self rejuvenating. Rajendra Shukla has remained faithful to Gazal and has been experimenting with diction and set format. His mastery over Sanskrit and penchant for mystic have impressed and inspired many. Recently he was awarded by the Sahitya Akademi and a large body of his work should be available in translation. Pranjivan Mehta is at ease both in his prose short stories with his unique individual style and in poetry of multiple modes. Whether in blank verse, in medieval traditional Bhajan or Duha forms his poems are continuously traveling inside the mind and the language. Or, he explores mind through language. Altering the words by repetitions and rhyming he confronts the unexpected and offers it unchanged to the reader. Two towering critics have been in the forefront of modernist movement in Gujarati. Chandrakant Topiwala has been an astute puritan in criticism while Radheshyam Sharma has catholic exuberance in his poetry appreciations. He has also been an excellent novelist and short story writer, interviewer and creative journalist. Both, now in their seventies, are consistent and persistent in experimenting the verse form. Younger poets seek recognition from both, the thrifty as well as generous. Chandrakant experiments with meters, rhymes, and sequencing of poems. Radheshyam plays with diction, grammar and printed shapes. He also employs methods like pointillism in painting, or incorporates verbal visuals from the sounds of music or painting. Both of them are avid readers, from classical to contemporary and Indian to international literature. Though reserved, Chandrakant is publicly visible and Radheshyam inspite of his impishness remains aloof. But what is common between them is their commitment – aesthetic! Gujaratis translate profusely from other languages. But English translations of Gujarati poetry are few. Other languages are more fortunate. K. Satchidanandan, E.V. Ramakrishnan, A.J. Thomas from Malayalam can be envy for us. From Telugu Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar; for several South Indian languages the late Ramanujan; the legendary Sharma couple for Kannada along with H. Shivaprakash; Robin Ngangom, Pradip Acharya, Samir Tanti and others from north east; honourable Jayanta Mahapatra for Oriya; Dilip Chitre, Sachin ketkar, Santosh Bhumkar and several others from Marathi – all these have been blessing for their languages. Some kind souls have worked for Guajarati and their generosity must be honoured. Dr Ganpat Vankar, E.V. Ramakrishnan, Rumi Naqvi, Dhanwanti, Karamshi Pir, Gieve Patel, Salim Pirandina, Shirin Kuchedkar, Jenny Rathod, Rakesh Rao, Narendra Patel, Vinod Meghani, Ranjit Hoskote, Dr Hemang Desai the enthusiast and some poets like Sitanshu himself have laboured for Guajarati. Recently Pradip Khandwala has brought out an ambitious anthology covering centuries. I would like to end by expressing deep gratitude to all of them and bow before them and also those who will prove many times better than me by translating yet more poems with greater confidence than this mere bravado displayed in this selection. To me this exercise has been an illumination and disillusionment also. This selection is incomplete and imperfect. Let us celebrate even imperfect in anticipation of ultimate perfection. DILEEP JHAVERI

INDEX

Labhshankar Thakar Come Come then, let us sit down and talk. You have valleys overflowing with silence. I have an ever-interrupted language of melting hopes. To recognize each other in a silent word or a worded silence, come, let us sit down. You are spread wide under slopes of soundlessness. You are far, very far or close by. Perhaps you are motionless. Dumb. But you draw me irresistibly. I wander haphazardly evanescing since centuries to reach you, let's say me. You are soundlessly quiet in closed lips. And I from the open lips am constantly poured out like this. I amble and roll down reaching slopes and gradients. And know that half way I dry up. During my in betweens my fading voice does not reach you ears – with it I fragmentarily speak to myself.

Come now, to sit and talk. You are ever nascent and wholesome. I am withered, stooped at neck and back, Disordered. Slackened. Crippled. Extending your clear and fresh steady gaze pull the ravaged and crushed shadow of my wandering down and within. Flustered, I am staring at you. You are soundlessly and utterly pulsating within me, and outside, severed from you, I dangle and drivel.

This clamour of mine does not abandon me. Come, release me from myself. Plant me in you navel Make me like you – throbbing silently. While holding savoury slip ups I have lost my hands. Lost my legs in scared, escapist leapings. With eyes half closed I have hid in frayed documents, stationary in safety. Hatred, boredom, spite, rage gnaw me and suck at my sound resonating within me and slither out to gather illusions. I have been sucked to nourish rituals of righteous wars. There are sinks and drains to carry away the continuities of the constant rhythm of my suicide. Its gurgling, flowing sound is heard deep within my ears. I have stared at my death drifting away in my erratic oblivions. In the perpetually remote mirror of your support I want to view it in close- up. So come near and bring, show me my death in which I would cease serenely, silently. You are standing before the white back drop or behind. I suppose you have two eyes. One will give me a new birth and the other will give me death. I want to be divided. I am too engrossed in lifeless and deathless memories, This being that I am, is nothing. I am hollow. I am a reflection of inexistent image Without going wayward I am lost. I am out not knowing from where and for what. Thinking that I have set out for Yes or thinking that I have set out for No on the road I have stopped midway. In such static meaning of my shadow I hear my crackling voice tripping every morning in the newspaper. Holding it after morning ablutions. I see myself clipped bud by bud. Being is incarnation of constantly severed pulsing, grating of autocracy and patriarchy. In the morning darkness is born in the name of light. Similarly, rising daily and to set while rising of myself is within me – in this reference – within mankind.

I dream of a densely flowered fragrant tree in this voyage without sails or rudder. Perhaps growing from your navel I am that. In the silent instants within my discord momentarily I hear my flower-navelled pulsating self uprooted and falling. To save that moment come up from under bringing out the boat to plant me within you, within me. To salvage the armless me from fast bowlers.

Inside you inside me where there is turmoil where there is restarting. Where there is budding, branching of constantly growing uncertain mind under the soil. There is no doubt that waiting for you my legless voice walks up and down.

I cannot be destructed. That is why I am calling. Come now to liberate me from the connections of before and after. Bring unhurdled existence without happiness without sorrow without preaching. These interconnections of threads torn togs lustful stains far and near diminish not. They are fulfilled to their holding capacity and are engaged in a pageant of imprisoning the entire in the grip of fragmentary. In the gathering where the pageant is in full swing this soliloquy is tiring. In the unimaginability of chewing up my own heart in loneliness my imagination stares at you. These association like mice lick me alive in their outrageous resolutions. Come to unburden me of these associations. I do not wish to be disappointed. I do not want to abandon hope. I do not want to play like a record of their gramophone. I do not want to give up my link with my self. You are within me. You are my protector. I am waiting for you. I am not alone in my boundless solitude. Where you can hear my self addressed speech or I yours. You are within within within my voice. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Quarrying the Voice Is Not Possible Quarrying the voice is not possible Not can silence be lifted My rebellious friends We cannot inter our sauntering skulls And we cannot seam our ashen anxieties Then Why plead before the barbed fence of this barren land To let afloat our dreams like white swans? It is true that taking advantage of our blurred sight The trees have started flying. But is it not true that we are cheated by the grant of eyes? Weary friends, returning to the drudgery After drinking a handful from the lake water of the Muse’s eyes It is true That quarrying the voice is not possible And silence cannot be lifted Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Termites Will Not Graze the Blaze Not a dime in the purse yet rushed straight to the market Who ? The Galoot's imagination. Why ? To gobble a watermelon. But watermelon in monsoon ? So What ? But in monsoon ……? In reality he is actually chomping a cantaloupe Believing it to be a watermelon. And sniffing at the cantaloupe hums silently from the memory 'You are made just for me' Sings and gambols also without moving an inch Sitting merely in the chair without even batting an eyelid And Johny – he alone asks Why does this ass dance? And he replies to himself only Because there is no bridle before and no straps behind That is why I dance And loudly chortles within roaring like soaring ocean It's true: Termites will not graze the blaze. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri Blinks 1 doors are of darkness locks are of light there are citadels there are bows arrows guns fear stands in the breach enveloped in silence in the eyes the rhythm of blink is soundless soundless 2 the branch is dry dry not a drop of water the blinks look for leaf flower fruit 3 imagining punctuations in the language beyond meaning the blinks trail towards death 4 in the net of vision the blinks seize eternal meaning with the swiftness of a kite 5 in the desolate underground of sleep the blinks rock dreams 6 in target-shooting the observer is hit the blinks fall into frozen waters of hope like severed wings

7 in slow motion the tradition is tugged click click pulling pulling the ants lug it whither ? 8 in the language of linked and delinked meanings the blinks in the tempting hope of topsy curvy dice …. what is more real than nothing ? 9 in soiled language the blinks search for and reveal the unblemished unfathomable and loudly the blinks sing of the unblemished unfathomable void Translated by Dileep Jhaveri Radheshyam Sharma Incessant ladders arrived in a market place ruined by earthquake in search of houses and found instead temples without pinnacles wrapped under white flags fifty two meters long what shall I sing my single stringed humble lute is buried under some unknown rung Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

In The Midst Of Forest Dense Frivolous Forest Within it swings On a seat suspended from a branch Amorphous and amorous beloved of Yaksha Who has come In search of moon Deserting the mountain ranges But today here Is no moon day Will the desire remain unfulfilled? To arrive from the mountain Flying down to the impenetrable woods Will it be in vain? Tutored by master Centaur She initiated Preamble of the mode of Rain Melody. When will it fetch the rewards of attainment? She sang Melody of Lamp Fire in every limb And searing rush of ash Feeling the singe And discarding one garment after another Draped only by the space The beloved from the swing Hears Growls of primitives And beholds Mysterious Forest-piercing Expansive Glare of the tiger. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Illusion of Rainless Moment My gaze Fixed to the bus window Wanders A farm far away Near the fence hole A dilapidated plough The motor bus rushes Along with the sight The far off field Appears close Surprise Where is The dilapidated plough Stands here A skeleton Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Chinu Modi Poet He can digest full mountains Quaff the ocean in a gulp Can pitch the air in a sling And swing it and whirl it What a wizard he is who would raise the lid and stuff the whole sky in a casket ! With his mere shadow he can ravish the earth like dung stuck with a rod He can douse fire with his scorching piss He is a poet For him everything is a sleight of hand What he has I do not have I have a coin with a hole grossed with great difficulty by begging My breaths, earned just, have slipped away from the hole of the beggar's coin I am stuck like a scooter coughing scarcely after a hundred kicks Like the easily peeling off Boiled potato skin I am a goody goody compromising guy I am a flickering lantern I am a plain ninny How do you survive within me O poet! Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Poetry With your mere touch Numbness spreads in my senses Breathing becomes strenuous And you burden me with bother of every moment Knowingly I refuse to taste the nectar And you set a jar of ambrosia before me Why are you doing this? I am awarded servitude to Time god Generation after generation Not only during the day I also keep serving Time-god at night Do not distract me You come at your will To show me the chariot ride From dew to florescence The fluctuations of flowery fragrance Why are you doing this?

Do not command bird-trilling to build nests Do not gift an eighth colour to the vibgyor Do not uplift the heel of wind’s sandal The earth is a ball Agreed But do not hit it beyond the boundary Do not seek to supply specs for every eye of the sky Is there no one to challenge you? Why are you doing this?

Ever since I came to senses I have suffered your shenanigans Relent now, please, Poetry! Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Ramesh Parekh The Negress Bathing In River Covered by a double layer of breeze The Negress bathes in river Massages the breasts, rubs loins and the soap turns black

The dimples of buttocks are deep enough to hold ladles of water And the sky doubles over, staring steadily at the water

With virile fire in the bosom the mountains bow With slopes slipping away from their bones

Wriggling in transparent wildness, the water now is still With ebony back beauty filling its every pore

Leaving the sun behind, the luminance by itself Bursts a hundred fold, stark naked, upon the Negress

Like firm juvenescent lightening the Negress slithers The blazing life becomes a sooty log with vision turning black

Everyone rushes to become a Negro And says Ramesh, with folded hands – that’s how it always is

Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

A Song The tree askes its leaf 'Why?' Why did you doubt that you are not mine?'

The leaf asks back 'When my name is leaf Why is your name tree? Why is there this barrier Of branches between you and me?’

The tree said ‘I am sheltering your tender greenness And that is all I know’

The leaf said ‘I want to reach the sky And why are you fettering me?’

The tree said 'It is the love of earth That binds us with all, And not even a hint of separation Should affect you, snap you That is what I call my love for you' Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Pranjivan Mehta To Son - M As such there is no possibility of vacuum anywhere Never / never ever It is not possible to enter nothingness Still you know that What enters the mind is acquisitiveness What enters the body is carnal

I also know that On squeezing the essence nothing will drip And in the end from mind and body Nothing slips away / nothing splinters even The burden of existence on my / your head Is the same / equal

Filling your self today with vacuum You move / wander and perform daily chores I am not detached everlastingly So I watch you / within me lose myself / you

Son-M Now you behold the time and get set Now penetrate nothingness / the void M – My son When you were young I used to tell you stories / tales of winged fairy Do you remember? At that time ,your curious face kept querying me Does a fairy have wings? I used to mumble yes / you took it as no Years after years have passed You matured and I settled in age You got a fairy And I rested finally in my story

The fairy moved here and there and everywhere Presenting a peacock feather to everyone Joy shimmering, blood corpuscles trilling All of a sudden M-My son The flight in the house went helter shelter Feathers slithering in the air I am wordless you are speechless I stare around You stare within this space in hope House walls backyard roof everywhere Blind light running in circles

Again your silent question Surrounds me, seizes me I am dumb / dense soundless meaningless I stare at you / my self nothingness I attempt to find the fairy of my tales there And see M – My son Translated by Dileep Jhaveri Those Days With their hoofs the oxen plough soil and straw Squeaky water wheel empties buckets in the basin Flowing water finally reaches the ploughed furrows My undulating paper boat floats with water I would be musing That unfolding in the seed bed my boat with sprout The leaf bud will become a grass blade / a verdant plant Joyfully the paper boat will become a raft / a craft The sprouted paper boat will become a steam ship someday Some day we will cruise on high seas When will the steamship merrily ply the oceans! Unnoticed The strand of when – when abruptly snapped At lunch time the oxen were unyoked / also the father Squeaking stopped And me, staring at the floating shadow In the waters of the seedbed Unwittingly the father would tweak my ear Punch without reason With wet eye I would watch My paper boat capsizing in shallow water Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Chandrakant Topiwala The Avian Shrine Sometimes the rock itself has been invisible If the rock was discernible Then the steps disappeared If the steps were seen, the rock could not be climbed If I clambered up the rock I have stopped and gone down again Even after having ascended the rock the temple is not found If the temple is located noontime is over Reaching at the noon hour one is told that Only just, the bird had arrived And flew away just now Verily, the bird does arrive But every time I am the one to have missed the bird. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Non-Fable Poem The sage had well nigh saved me From the beak of a crow Afterwards I was afraid of the pussy cat The sage said, 'Go son, be a Tomcat' I became a Tomcat Then I was scared of the dog The sage said, 'Go son, be a hound' I became a hound Then I was scared of the tiger The sage said 'Go son, be a tiger' I became a tiger Then I got scared that the sage may not again change me To a rat Since then I am on flight as a fugitive tiger Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Memorial Church The church is standing blind. It sees Bombardments, bunkers, battalions Blaze, collapsing buildings, Scattered arms and legs, Trunks, necks in pieces.

The Church is standing deaf. It hears Explosive devastation, scorched desolation, Smashing, smoke, sighings, Silent scream of split eye balls.

The church stands crippled. Left over are Its stuttering shutters, Toothless windows, Blistered walls, Splintered tower

The church stands alone. Around it revolve Flamboyant avenues, majestic manors, Dazzling vehicles, Radiant people,

The Church stands timid. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Sitanshu Yashashchandra The Sea I have seen the sea Before the deities and demons unravelled it.

I have seen the waters In the radiance of the deep ocean fire.

Flames and fluids cannot be parted. To be soused and seared is the same.

When I emerge from the seabed I shall not bear fistful of pearls. I am not a pearl diver. I am a poet. Whatever there is will be in my eyes only. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

To My Son 1. A Mountain: Yesterday I, for you a mountain With rocky trails and several hurdles High, but scalable if desired.

Securing pegs on the ledges Firmly gripping the handy ridges Heaving the ringed club at a few wild beasts on high climbs Your thighs and arms will grow sinewy.

In the forests of the same mountain Would readily be available for your nourishment Fruits from the leaning branches Honey from the combs hanging high And flesh of swift and clawless animals.

For a comfortable night shelter An unexpected and clean cave, With the challenging cliffs again at the dawn.

After ascending to the mountain top, Getting used to it, Climbing down, crossing over it With robustness and competence You will seek the distant lands That will entirely belong to you.

Without halting Let you sun-warmed golden gaze lightly caress The mountain ranges behind Slowly dimming under cold mist And almost diminishing Constantly in the far distances.

2. A Gift : Today

On eighteenth birthday With munificent future What else can I offer you as a gift Only this much …. When travelling alone by yourself at will on some unfamiliar railway station, with head a little aslant and eyes screwed with slight concern while searching for the confirmation in the chart where you would find your name and between your first name and the surname for full endorsement even my initial, a single letter and A dot or better A blank space Unblemished. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

To The Wife 1. Pick up thread and needle, my shirt needs mending, Sit in the cane chair by the window So that sunlight falls on you shampooed hair. Sit in such a way that I can see you, with eyes closed. Take the blue spool, pass the thread between your lips, Change its colour. Putting the shirt fabric on your knee straighten it, Look properly, Open the small cane box and choose a button, Then look at me. Thread, knee, shirt, chair, button, window, sunlight and I would appear matching perfectly. To me, at present, nothing is more important than that. Thread the needle, Mend my shirt.

2. My glasses are lost, find them. Don't question, I can't remember. Earlier I was not reading anything. Lately I was watching you, Ascending the steps you were going Then after the turn you left. Without glasses I cannot manage for so long. You have a thousand chores that I know well, understood? But without glasses how will I even search for them, Will you tell me? Talk no more Leave you thousand chores and come. They must be on those steps Or just beyond the turn. Delay not, come. If you find the glasses on the way, then bring them. Do not question. Find them and adjust them on me. Then attend to your chores, a thousand, but here in this room. So that you are visible. 3. Light the kitchen fire, knead the dough, start frying Taking a handful of water sprinkle over My gradually kindled fire. It is lit by mistake. You are in the adjoining room. You are folding my yesterday's laundered clothes. Your palm straightens the creases on my shirt. Its warm weight occasions your bosom to breathe deep. Open the window of the next room. Arrange the footwear neatly in the passage. Peep out to see if the milk booth opposite our compound is open. Today they will discharge me from the ICU. At the end of the tedious and tiring journey We have returned home after a long time. You are exhausted and you menstrual flow has started And you have no napkins. Don't worry Take out my old shirt from the closet, it is clean. Cut it From whichever convenient part, take a piece And adjust on yourself. Take rest. I will get provision and grocery from the market. Today we shall not have packed meal. Later I shall pat you to sleep on my chest. Now you only light the kitchen fire, knead the dough, start frying, Taking a handful of water souse my smouldering pyre. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

The Forest The forest is on fire. And protracted is the rhythm of my song. Now the meaning-birds dwelling on the teak word-trees cannot be salvaged. This old rain forest is lofty, parrot green, ample and enormous. Even after several dry monsoons its ground still holds bitter and turbid water. This entangled wood will not burn away easily, the flames will keep flickering, sprays of sparks will keep on surging, and this fire will not be able to slumber in the cool bed of soft ash with closed eyes. There is abundant water to prevent the forest from parching but not enough for quenching the fire. This indolently cadenced song has lost explicitly and is not able to reach the implied intention. Melancholic notes of the beasts, birds, humans and vegetation have correspondent nuances.

A large verdant bevy of parrots, hundreds of parrots soars in the sky, hovers, scatters, swirls and plummets upon the forest like pelts of pallid pebbles. If only I can recall the measures inscribed on the missing pages of the book of meters, I can compose a complete canto on the splintering teaks and oaks staggered by the striking stones.

Atop the dryadic Shiva temple its broad and bulky banner is flapping with the flames. In the boiling water I discern the simmering sounds of the metaphors. Where would be their catalogued critique? There is sheer dazzle in the sanctum sanctorum. I am within the white-white, cool-cool rocks of marble. I am inside the faceted crystals, behind the chiselled cliffs of gigantic diamonds. I can see the blazing forest all around. The fire does not touch me. I am burning. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri How Nachiketa Came To Know The earth, an African water-buffalo, young and fearless, pokes her horn of hammered bronze playfully into the full flank of the mahisha, the mount from whose broad back Yama, death-god, has not yet quite got down. “Nachiketa must be waiting for me,” He mutters to himself and quickly goes up the flight of steps to his palace, tossing his dreaded lasso across his shoulder like the sacred thread.

Above, a black night, comforted by the might of muscular body of a dark sky, gets excited and welcomes in her valleys the moonlight-juice, bright like sperm. Darkness-Man rubs his lips, beard and mustachio in the salty sweat-drops, the stars, blazing on the slopes of her breasts.

Shapeless souls Gratefully receive their gifts of hard-to-get life-forms inside the bodies of yellow lionesses, red she-scorpions and female elephants black and wet like heaps of soft mud.

She-birds, singing and bold, drink up from quickly woven leaf- bowls, sparkling drinks of angry sperms of sages fallen from their tapas.

Nachiketa, Who was not noticed by the hesitant gaze of an embarrassed death-god, sits enthralled on the broad steps of Yama’s palace. He gives up his old thoughts about his father’s sickly cows; And finds for himself an answer to his original question.

Without asking for any other boon from the god, Quite tired and thirsty from his long journey, Nachiketa returns the same night to his home-place, sits near the steps of the village well, full with water, and awaits her who would come with a new earthen pot. Translated by the Poet

Yusuf Maher Ali, Excuse Me… 1. I would like to talk to you, if you are free. Do you remember Mr. Broker? Gulabdas? He was with you at the Lahore Congress? He was your neighbor at the camp Kher presided over. Broker, Gujarati writer, yes. I am a reader of his books.

You would not know me. Books are like that. The authorized memories. One way streets.

But if you come now to my poem, we can talk, to each other. Here, though, things are in free verse. Like Hindostan after Mughlai broke down. And like India before British ruled. A Society without a State? You might perhaps like it that way! Would you come?

2. These days an invite like this is not without its risks. Risky for whom? For both of us, Janaab!

For me, because I invite you to my poem. For you, because you agree to come. The times being what they are today, some risks have to be taken. And poetry surely is a dangerous place, always - like Satyagraha. You are used to it? Good! I am used to it, too. - Welcome, Yusuf.

3. Do you like the place? Mahatmaji might not quite approve of it, though. Some farmhands might find a few things confusing here. Some other farmhands, though, might find this exciting.

You too had your differences with the Mahtma? And loved him yet? - Alabatt!

That was why I wanted to meet you. And I am left hardly with any other place but my poems where one could talk freely about differences And about sharing.

Come, let us sit here in our place without prosody, Where you could be aaraamse alert, And be alert while stretching out at ease Biraajiye.

4. Issues I have many, Maher Ali, but, Let me bring this one up to start with. The issue that you had raised on the banks of Ravi, in the Lahore camp, in presence of Kher saheb. Yes, About Gandhi. About the resolution he wanted so much to move. Remember?

5. No, no, Yusufbhai, not that. Not the one on Mukammil Azadi. That, yes, for sure: Purna Swaraj, the Jawahar-resolution, sar-matthe-par. To tell the truth, it still sits on our heads, today, Purna Swaraj — does not step in; but let us not discuss that now. It is a long tale and I wish to keep my poems short. Why ? Because it is difficult to get paper for poetry, it is all used up for newsprint.

I want to talk to you, Maher Ali, about the resolution that Gandhi had wished to move himself at the Lahore Congress of 1929 and had to struggle so hard to do that. Now you remember? Yes. That resolution. Dr. Alam had so lightly ridiculed it from the podium and it was barely passed, and that only at Gandhi’s personal requests, and because you still had a sense of shame to meet the Mahatma’s eyes - yes, that resolution: Regarding Bomb Blast.

6. You were young then, Yusuf? “With a tall and slim body, flashing teeth, bright face, eyes that could talk, a smile on the lips, hair parted in the middle, black and curly and spread out thick on both sides; a man who would fascinate you at the first sight”: Was that you? How history changes us all, Yusuf Maher All!

7. Yes, that resolution: An Indian revolutionary had thrown a bomb on the railway train the Viceroy was travelling on, just a few days back; and now Gandhi had drafted a resolution:

A resolution disapproving that bomb blast.

The Viceroy was, of course, not harmed; but the resolution was nearly blown off, was it not, and blasted by sharp comments by young delegates, Maher Ali?

What did Dr Alam say? From the public platform in the pandal? And the previous evening in the privacy of camp, the Kher-camp, Alam, Broker and you sipping Lahori tea, gazing at the flow of Ravi?

What had you all said, angry but honest young men?

I ask, I had to get you here and ask, Maher Ali, because Broker’s book has a note on it but not the details. Some other book might have them, but incomplete, because history moves on more swiftly than the river Ravi and merges into the brackish and dark waters of mere past, stagnant, without waves. And I want to hear today all the tales, Gandhi’s and yours.

8. Today, again, Biradar, I have asked you urgently to come Because a storm is building up in those brackish waters, such That they have forced themselves into the opened mouths of Ravi, Kaveri and Gangasagar, Dark waters of the past, and blast Occurs in every train, from Ravi to Iravati, Viceroys are safe even today, But the blasts do not stop, from train to train, derailing our thoughts.

9. Noisy waters of lightless past force their way into the rivers of history, with their dikes and gates now broken, and histories now Make senseless sounds, like murderous seas. They flood the fertile slopes of poetry, break down the compound walls of our homes and inundate our kitchens and rooms where we store our drinking water. In day time, such histories flood our sitting rooms, at night our beds.

Prosody breaks down in our poems, and genres, forms, rhymes; drenched, the few sheets of paper saved to write poetry upon, are turned to pulp; Salty, vengeful, dark waters, Blind, have come up and in, all the way up to here, Yusuf Maher Ali, excuse me,

This place is safe no longer, for you, Forgive me, go now from here, without answering my questions, go back quick, to your history.

10. Because histories now give no answers, histories rob us of our questions.

Now, Maher All, I have to draft a resolution, anew, I have to ridicule it, anew, and I have to check again if there is any sense of shame left in our eyes, sightless, staring, billions of our eyes, from Ravi to Iravati. Translated by Poet “Farmhands” (section 3):A reference to Gandhi’s call to Gujarati authors to write in a simple style accessible to labor (koshio) hired to pull water from wells in farms.

Rajendra Shukla When Would It Happen ? Sometimes wind blows Or a breeze flows from within Suddenly the door of word opens

At the word's door Expedition for something exquisite Is started by the bird The wings of firefly close – open Spreading light here and there

People say 'Poet' Statement or gibbering Whatever a poet does Is poetry

The recitations auditions Later printing, the opus Publication Afterwards review criticism Premiere – book launch Fascinating felicitations before mirror

Twinkle twinkle again The dim light of desires Appear and disappear

When would it happen That beyond darkness and light One after another The coverings of all cravings Would flow away far very far

At some propitious momemt This also can happen Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Karsandas Luhar The Rain of Your City I read boredom, grief, loneliness and anguish When randomly a page from my diary I read

I read the honour of fragrance stamped in the air When in a home like a flower in the morning your memory I read

I read an unwritten complaint When translation of your totally blank letter I read

I read the deserted street like a decrepit old book When after many years once again I read

The sky of my village is absolutely acid in the eyes And the rain of your city in the shade I read

I haven't become a scholar to read the entire tree Only after much effort a single leaf I read Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Dileep Jhaveri From The Verses On Poetry 1. I am amused: Nobody has even the haziest memory Of my father's Grandpa. And yet his sword is still preserved. Blunt. And even now on its hilt A delicate pattern of leaves and flowers Is faintly visible. There are stains Hidden behind the tattered loyalty Of the scabbard's silk and leather. Are they marks of rust or blood? Who Knows?

Anybody would be embarrassed of the rusty sword. And who would not be ashamed of a bloody one! I am abashed by the sword itself That too still retained!

Those who will address my son as Grandpa Perhaps will discover A pen belonging to his father preserved still When forest or ponds or squirrels or migratory birds Must have become dried stains On the rusted surface of barren paper. Nobody would have even dimmest memory That Poems were written with that pen. Nobody would ask what poetry is.

And yet, picking that pen Someone would draw a petal of Peony flower And write P for the first time And proclaim perhaps I am ashamed of my ancestors ? Translated by The Poet 2. To write a poem Is like embarking on a short or long journey The destination may be fixed or uncertain In the beginning the route may look familiar.

But later on the roads turn strange, Even the familiar become surprising or boring. There would be restiveness. When will I reach? And also some lingering regret for having started. Everything picked and packed carefully, Yet while rummaging the pocket the kerchief would be missing. Likewise how much more may have been left behind?

While writing of a marigold like experience You would feel tickled all over And write fountain ! fountain ! instead. The fountain may spray from Diwali fireworks Or from a whale’s nostrils Or from intestinal arteries of someone's belly ripped in riots. Picking a rag one would hesitate Whether to mop first or stuff the gash. Similar turmoil would arise before finding the next word. The confused word, like a key stuck in the unyielding lock of the bag. What will happen now to the imaginations packed in the bag? Will there be a bomb blast in Diwali? Will the whale survive? Will men keep on slaying like this?

Poetry is not written for giving answers. Translated by The Poet From Khandit Kaand Poems: Written after demolition of Babri Masjid 1992 And Gujarat riots 2002. Launderer Someone, go fetch a launderer There are stains all over We gathered waters from every eye But fell short We thought that Dipping all in a single colour One can dye everything red In the end the blood was not enough

Again, please, someone go find a launderer launderer launderer

In the crowds there are Carpenters without hands Potters without thumbs Blacksmiths with broken arms Porters with wrenched necks Legless farmers Wood cutters are there but no axe Masons are there but no bricks Painters are there but no walls

From the fields one cannot pick even a fistful of seeds to swear From the sky let alone a mizzle even lightening does not fall Parched palms are uprooted, no palm beer to drown the base hunger. Only a leafless berry tree stands alone on the desolate periphery For covering its nakedness there are no thorns even.

Still to clear the soiled air To wash it clean Somebody, go, fetch a launderer Translated by The Poet

2. Whose Father's Son The piss jet from my snipped pipe would reach farther than any of my school mates, When my father used to return from the shift in oil mill he would stop at Chorasia's paan-shop and his spit jet would stop short by an inch from the doorstep of Badaru's glassware shop.

Our neighbour Narabada aunty would be collecting the dresses of her half a dozen offspring from the clothesline. She would notice him entering the tenement and would slyly whisper. 'The prince of perfume arrives' Listening to this my sharp eared mother's elbow would scorch by the hot pan while turning rotis. Whistling merrily my pop would hang his shirt on a hook and enquire 'What did the sheep do in the school pen, bleat, shit or lay eggs like big zeros ?’ Switching the radio on, he would snap his fingers in tune with the music. The sound of his snapping fingers was louder than a clap.

Even if the curry lacked a pinch of salt or if the vegetables had a pinch of pepper in excess my father would polish off the plate with relish. Scooping the leftovers with loud clanks my mother, eating the last, would whine 'He doesn't bother to blame even when I blunder!’

My mother tied talismans observed fast made pilgrimages. She would hug me close or occasionally hurt me, She would stop talking to me or suddenly tickle me. But I was not blessed with either a brother or a sister.

My pop’s voice rang loudest in singing hymns to Shiva, But be lost his oil mill job. and while coping with my unfinished school and doing sundry jobs a lot remained lacking in my life. But my father's flamboyance was undaunted. Being the leader of tenants' association he would make daily rounds of municipality and blithely snapping his fingers he would harry the glass vendor with long stream of spittle from Chorasia’s shop.

One day some people pitched stones on the glass shop. And set it ablaze. My dad got burnt while rescuing Badaru. His snapping fingers shriveled along with the skin of half of his body. Yet instead of being snuffed in a snap. he dragged his self down a long lingering life. And ended bankrupting me in return. Returning from the crematorium the dour faced priest revealed the secret. That I was an adopted son. Translated by The Poet Fear Fear grips me And then My tongue gets tied throat turns dry A stone swings over the heart and sweat breaks out from armpits. Eyes screw shut and piss and shit turn loose

Cattle bellow in fear Centipedes coil up porcupines spread their quills Feathers of birds get stuck Aquatic animals shove to cling to each other

When the land gets scared there is earthquake What if an ant is afraid ? When a mountain panics where does it hide? On the spot it spews lava

Sensing danger the sand pulls storm over it Shedding leaves in the wind the tree bares its frame Then what would the forest do?

When pursued by randy floods rushing to rape the jittery river runs wild and like a child seeking shelter of mother's bosom merges in the sea

Occasionally even the language is terrified Then the grammar like a gown is ripped from her tattered blouse and the spellings are yanked above the knees Underneath them the honour of life force – love – humanity – universal consciousness is mangled, rent and violated Afterwards to cast out the evil eye by flinging out some sinister malevolent ill omened object from the house the language, swaying like one possessed, would throw Poetry out

And then fear grips me Translated by The Poet

Regarding the Unsalvable When asked about the trees One chanted hymns from the ancient scriptures One recited a poem One brought a painting One dragged a large tome of nomenclature, chronicled geographical data, One dumped pigments resins planks shavings sawdust cord hessian cloth paper. One scrawled down faggots coal tar diesel petrol and struck a matchstick. One babbled woods woods woods One sobbed One carefully set with a smile a bonsai flower pot.

One dug a pit entered it and planted himself Then on his branches the birds built nests, clamoured, smeared shit in his cavities entered rats and snakes and such animals earthworms, caterpillars, locusts, scorpians stung ants and termites sieged lichen spread frost, sun, rains, winds, relentlessly harassed every day and night

Several years passed before he realised that to become a tree after being a man is very difficult

And meaningless Translated by the Poet

From : Death Wake The dead forget a lot They ask – what is a shadow? They come rushing from afar but forget to pant Frighten them, but their hearts do not pound Let alone puking, crapping or the strain of pissing They do not even remember a headache Not only your name, they cannot remember their own even

Yes, you may name them: Tree Rock Field Soil Rain Grass-snake Slithering fish Lame parrot Dumb Mynah Playfully dub them Cloudy In the dreams play Starry Harp for them Style them Andromeda to show off Or Pole Star Pole Star! Set a mirror before to snare them After staring at it for a while They would ask 'This is your snap Isn't it? Translated by the Poet

Manoj Khanderia Gazal Not drudgery, we shall hoist the whole life happily along This burden that you have allotted, hoist it well

The eyelid barred the tear in such a way As if we were to cart away an entire lake from the eyes.

There in no question of transgressing the border This is merely to raise the foot a bit high up

May the onus of explaining not fall on you We bear this silence only for that

We have not committed anything akin to sin But shall we, simply because of that, lift a stone?

We know how heavy a mountain is But to be light like flowers, these letters we hold aloft. Translated by The Poet

Nitin Mehta A Modern Day Meditation Not all the devils are cruel, depraved and treacherous all the lime.

Some of them are quite different.

Some, if fact, rest under the watch on your wrist go through their ablutions in the morning, breathe deep the fresh breeze that blows from the river and remain silent with their eyes shut. Sometimes, they meditate on the words of wisdom that the saints have spouted. It is true that the shadows of these saints suffer from bouts of relentless coughing When these devils who did not know their caste or past start flapping their wings furiously like papers fluttering on the writing table. Wings that look like a sky trapped inside a paperweight.

But sometimes on an orange afternoon even as you are turning on your side in the siesta, a match stick sets your ear on fire and a rotten, half eaten apple bursts out under the wrist watch With a gush of blood. The sky frozen in the paperweight is torn apart, shadows turn into bubbles, bangles are broken, virginity is lost, and sobs choke and control the air around. Right then, The note paper and the table fly out in search of their origins They curl up, burning in from all corners. Like broken branches they fall on the ground.

This is what happens.

Nothing more to it than that.

Only when the devil has removed his rotten molar or when the left side of the saint is aching or when the actors forget their lines only then, something else actually starts happening.

But the orange afternoon has a different story to tell at least for now Translated by the Poet Dreams Sometimes our dreams get blurred crumpled Sometimes the dreams tremble totter But do not give up the journey Sometimes these dreams forsake our several thoughts every day in the sunlight and sometimes like the sunlight linger from branch to branch As it is dreams are Sometimes ice Sometimes mist Sometimes vapour Sometimes thirst Sometimes power Sometimes exploitation The dreams Can be adorned sometimes Can be exhibited sometimes Can be churned sometimes Can be snatched sometimes

Also the dreams Sometimes crack picture frames Sometimes colour gossip Sometimes drain the shine off the face

Is there any way to discern these dreams? Yes they are a bit psychosomatic And there is a spring time of their expiring also! Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

When It Comes Solitude has unobtrusively entered the written word

In this final move Let no one accompany Only I have to walk

I know that you are restive and will not leave me soon Still you will make me walk some more prod me some more exhaust me some more torture me over and over But I shall continue walking wheezing tired tortured Yet I will not surrender

Every illness keeps erasing me little by little And your image keeps turning clearer Still you will not be able to change me

Okay, enough now Let me first reach the realm beyond language You will still have some time left to know what you are Bye then Follow me

Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Jaydev Shukla The Upanishad Of Breast 1. The very first and fatal stabs Of nipples Dark and crimson Keen As the needle like tips of horns Of the female deer Since ages The deep gashes Of these moments Stab 2 In the midnight Silvery Like jasmine bud Two evade The incursion of the moon The lowing breasts Lie low Under the desolate palms

The sanguine breast drill Meanders On the palms Till today 3 Piercing the taut air The wide eyed breasts Conjure up A spell to transfix. 4 The pixilated breasts Etch a curve On the naked back. 5 On that purplish evening The Pancham note Black as a cuckoo Chirps From the tattoos Tinted by The insolent tits 6 They are like The smirking red raisins Peeping Out of the pudding The whole body Brims over High – strung ….. 7 The lips Grazed With eyes closed On a moonlit Chaitra night Were actually Clusters of dark grapes!

8 In the waters of flesh They are in fact Swaying lilies Blooming arrogantly! 9 Sniffing the perfume Of swaying lilies Rocking in a boat I beheld The deep red sun On the horizon 10 In the low evening light The bewildered breasts Nipping the air Neighed

The body Jingle – Jangling Like a shaft! 11 The nipples Sparkling in the air Like sulphurous tips

This side Even before a spark could fall on it The body Detonates! 12 One the jingling hills The tumultuous full moon of autumn Pervades everything

Rains completely …. The sky is fully Empty … Translated by Sachin Ketkar

Topple It, Hurtle It On seeing the hand arched in a striking posture the pig, gobbling up what was apportioned for the cow, stands motionless immediately

Palm describing a craning neck stretches out a wee bit in attempt to caress its ashblack and white downy fur

What makes the bell ring in blood to lift up the pig rummaging the garbage dump with its eyes screwed and nose elongated What makes the stump of its tail so endearing a veritable pendulum that oscillates ceaselessly and tosses up sharply at times

What makes a thin strand of silk dangle from lips and tongue on seeing the taut udders bulging with fat

Limbs of the body once consumed by fire now for the first time ever reverberate with jubilant sounds of myriads of drums beating and conches blowing on hearing the abuse 'The son of a pig …. '

Varah, O Varah topple it again Hurl it far far away Sink it, sink it again in that primordial depth this bald barren and smoky ball These Hiranyakshas ! Translated by The Sanat Bhatt

Ravindra Parekh From The Heart Up to the Eyes From the heart up to the eyes will be filled waters. After that you will spot the lake

Hurry up; you will not be able to come out on the road Once a cloud, like memory, spreads on the mind

The river brought address of a mirage And the paper boat said that to sail there is possible

What if I light myself as a lamp? Your will blow like a swift wind

If you do not agree that I am life, well then But switch from here and you will be tricked

Today with great effort I covered myself Now after many years I shall encounter me

It is possible that you may pierce a pearl But can the teardrop on the finger tip be penetrated?

I am death; do not see me as a game of catch me if you can On unearthing me you will hide yourself Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Hemant Dhorada A Gazal She received my drizzle Like a water drop on a wax paper

My existence consists of dry grass And this damp and empty match box

I am wind I blow around the lantern But I am the steady lamp flame also

I am in the lore of the hinges Also I am the fastener on my door

Frozen in a still glass, the ice Did it also wish to flow rippling? Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Saroop Dhruv Ahmedabad From February 27-28 To May 2002 1. Pieces Perhaps once again the corpse is breathing My city once again has returned with blackened hands Blood stained from head to toe Wounds, lacerations, slashes, gashes and Dripping tears are all stuck fast, inseparably scrambled Its stinking, putrefying frame is left rubbing the eyes When will this city take off its attire of rancour?

These shameless rags can cover nothing Like its pieces These rags sticking glutinously to its unrecognizable skeleton

And still, we, who are ashamed of nudity If we cannot remove these disgusting rags, Then what? Do you want to see your body parts, Ahmedabad ?

2. Enmity This – is there any feeling left? It has become a malady – Hemophilia But the patient is hardly aware That the blood dripping is his own!

3. Who? The blood has become ash And still, these swords They are eager, eager to penetrate – whom? why? Who will pulverise these swords? And collecting the fine fragments, melt them? Who will fashion needles and would pump breath Into sewing machines of these women? From its scalding smelted sludge Who will forge new anvil, hammer, axe, shovel, pans? In the kitchen of these men's homes In the tins and in the steaming pots That will turn into cooked rice. From this swirling steel Who will curl the fists Of the newborns in the relief camps That would sway as hope for tomorrow? Even in the blazing air? Who?

4. History This historical city Is becoming a history or the grass over the grave of Time?

5. New meanings New References "That one, this one, those people, them, all those, all of us" Shall we have to comprehend The associative meaning This way now? "Fire, smoke Wound, lacerations severed limbs, Peeled skin, exposed guts, Bloated bodies burnt names Pieces ….. pieces …… pieces ….. ash ….. ash ….. ash….. "

6. She She has not lit the stove For seventy four days Is it because she is used to the charity? Is it because she doesn't have a cent even? Is it because there is no kerosene in the house? Is it because there is no house? Is it because there is no one left to eat? Or perhaps The fear of fire has spread to the very marrow of her bones Whatever it may be she has not lit the stove for seventy four days

7. Sewing Machines Salama, Noora, Naseem, Manju, Kesar They are all given sewing machines As charity Yes that will fill the hungry bellies But the torn and tattered rags Of this city Will there be a sewing machine To mend them? Where to find it? Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Kamal Vora Sheets of Paper 1. O my dearest... I enclose this blank sheet of paper in a blank envelope Because chatting spills away the essential words take us on a tempestuous tour meanings classify according to identifying marks O my dearest... come, therefore come to this path of blankness and meet each other in utter blankness 2. Time, the destroyer effaces knowledge effaces ignorance ambition honour and word unions effaces names effaces bone flesh and skin effaces desire anger greed infatuation pride and envy effaces colonies effaces city and its first citizen Devouring mustard-seeds dust-specks and mountain Time releases them in slow progression Circumventing Time I keep the sheet of paper blank 3 Words noisy chaotic and wild grow on the paper like amorphous mass of vegetation during the rainy days I fiercely uproot them to feel, alas, an inch of blank space! 4 Just as skies glide in and out on clean and tranquil waters of a lake Mist pours down incessantly to engulf the entire universe into an unified entity Sandgrains swish to rise in a column of whirlwind in the desert Sea-waves rise in high tide and remain heaving and turbulating in the ocean Like this just like this goes on occurring in the blank sheet of paper 5 Everything that I commit to writing ………………… ……………………… ……….. the sheet of paper erases out and despite preparedness of the pen and the ink the paper sweeps each and every syllable under the carpet and turns its back on them once again to guise itself as nonchalant Only for a few moments, I happen to be in ecstatic delight savouring the fleeting contours of the curvaceous script.

6 Nothing is more delicate transparent sacred truthful and beautiful than the blank sheet of paper 7 At times to amuse myself by seeking appearances in reality and reality in appearances I make a descent down on the paper in the form of a script and sport about in graceful curves 8 Intercepting the onslaught of snowstorms of the white megalomanias of the ink and epileptic fits of the fingers is daunting and to upkeep the paper as clean as a new pin is hard indeed 9. If I do write it would scatter to the wind like an echo fading out If I do not write it would vanish into the air like a mist I’d better gently pull out the paper sandwiched between that in front of the eyes and that in repose at the core of the being 10. At the moment I am upto my neck in the attempts to raise the paper high with the magnetic pull of the syllables What could be there beneath this frigid icy whiteness? 11 Levitating each syllable Over and over and over again I do away with the voice yet to be articulated the language yet to be structured and casting them in the deeper currents of whirling waters I render the paper more and more clean 12 Give up the word-treasure and the rhetoric Take off the masks of nouns and pronouns and the adjective apparels Stop down the movements of verbs. . . predicates And dare. Dare to confront the prime mover - the Subject regardless of its being active passive or otherwise 13. It is extremely difficult to scribble a single syllable To erase the written word is tough.... impossibly tough O radiant whiteness...! Get yourself vibrant and flow down Flow down and undo the dichotomy between the perishable and the perennial! Translated by Karamshi Pir

The Magician :One: The magician Pulled out a rabbit from the hat A dove from the jacket An orange in left hand With the lost ring hidden inside

Whispering something with closed eyes Waving the magic wand Offered from the closed palm Whatever was asked for With a touch of finger tips Ensembled the pieces Into a whole One into many Two into many Several into a single What was there just a while ago Vanished.

Afterwards the conjuror continued to cackle

From the crowd One boy spoke up Magician I am scared of your magic What if you turn me into a butterfly Fluttering away!

The magician went on laughing Spreading his arms like wings The magician Flew into the eyes of the boy Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

The Magician :Two: Name any flower And the magician Will spread its fragrance He will ferret out What is hidden in the secret recesses of the mind

Even if blindfolded chained fettered locked up He will vanish from here And appear somewhere there With a mere glance He will scatter words on paper And with a breath erase them

Rapidly he will weave A Web Of visible and invisible And unravel it the next moment

On the spinning wand He will balance past present and future

At some crazy juncture While raising the curtain He will reveal It's very simple It's not that What is visible Is Or the invisible Is not Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Neerav Patel Th Song Of Our Shirt We are a fashionable caste Or tribe you may call : Our forefather Mayo Dhed Had a shirt of 3 sleeves, His father had a shroud as his shirt And his father wore a shirt of his own skin. I am no less fashionable – Just got a pocketless, sleeveless, buttonless Peter England, the second From the pavements I sweep.

Every passerby is tempted to pay his respects To the label of the lords But without touching my collar-bone. Our shirt has a song to sing. Of bizarre fashions. Translated by The Poet Note : In medieval Gujarat, untouchables were forced to wear 3 – sleeved shirt so that caste – Hindus can identify them and keep away from them. The dalit folklore has a hero called Mayo Dhed who sacrificed his life for doing away with such humiliating practice.

My Lord My lord honoured my hundi! * My lord honoured my hundi ….. How shall I perform Gagli's wedding ceremony Otherwise ? My oath to deity Chavanda bore fruit And the young Garasani woman died a sudden death, They draped her corpse with a shroud of red gavan Flames of her funeral fire are burning red And the red gavan is waving at the aak bush ! Gagli's mother, the bad woman, is smiling ! 'Let them turn their back And I shall run to the funeral ghat My lord honoured my hundi'

* Promissory Note Translated by Ganpat Vankar

It Would Have Been Better If I Were Illiterate While studying science, Watching Newton's apple fall, The first thought I had Was to eat it.

While learning the lesson of social life Watching the glass houses on Harijan Ashram Road The first thought I had Was to throw a stone.

While controlling thirst Watching the water pot at the outskirt of village The first thought I had Was to raise one leg like a dog an piss in it.

The fox went to a city, Accidentally fell in the dyer's tank Became colourful and showed off posing as a king. Rather than making stories from such points, With multiple meanings the last thought I had was To remain illiterate.

Rather than studying and suffer awareness of Insult, hate and atrocities, And encourage the inactivity It would have been better If I were illiterate, I would just strike a blow of aadi * on the head of the unjust Or gulping mahudi ** I could have swallowed the insults.

* Wooden stick on which dead cattle are carried. ** drink made of mahuda Translated by Ganpat Vankar

Ramanik Someshwar Blank Paper I inscribe my delirious incoherence And chart charades On this paper

Disband the entire Alphabet And again bind it together After rending and bending And knocking on it like nail I hang strands of ideas on it The dangling ropes become wash lines With fluttering clothes wet and dry

On this unrolled paper Words surge like teeming ants Swarming towards a grain of sugar

A net is knit And is cast into water When drawn out Not even water is trapped

Sometimes a web is woven And the prey remains outside

Overwhelmed with letters This paper From within Remains Blank Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

A Violet River A violet river flows When I close my eyes The river has no form no banks It is filled with dry waters Motley shadows shimmer Green yellow or occasionally blue hues Are layered densely

Forests after forests flow in the river Even the ocean surges towards it Within the river swirls another river and Again it is still In the river the waters are dry or moist

When I close my eyes A violet river flows Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Song Our lot was Red hot desert

Mounted on camel hump We filled the sky in our eyes Red hot desert, our lot

How to reveal That we are just sand dunes When the caravan clamours For oases amidst the desert ? Like straw, slithered away the whole life Red hot desert, our lot

We got sweltering days Night chills eerie solitude On the vast expanse of the sand What destination and diversion to where? We insisted on getting the entire ocean And merely a drop trickled Red hot desert, our lot Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Come Evening Come evening And someone starts Eroding my heart!

The trees dissolve and drown in the dark; Alongwith the birds, ferrk So much else also flies away As I gaze deep in the distant My breath itself is stayed.

Come evening And someone starts Eroding my heart!

The shrill cry of the lap-wing Pierces my inmost fold; At this hushed moment of dusk Someone points to me a far – off goal; Someone throws open for me This door-less balcony.

Come evening And someone Erodes my heart! Translated by Dhanwanti

I Am Only a Shadow I am only a shadow. I went out to bathe in the river And I was scattered in its waters. I am just a shadow.

The season-wheel keeps rolling on ; But it makes no difference to me. No matter how the conches blow, They'll never find an echo in me.

I am made of sparks Severed from the sun. I am only a reflection.

No one can bind my body or me For I bear no line, no curve No permanent shape. I am just a shadow.

A hymn sprang in the hill And I flowed in the valley. For I am a shadow only. Translated by Dhanvanti

Mahendra Joshi An Event Happened The moment I turned into a bird from the feather, I became a cage When I tried to touch the sky I became doorstep of the house.

When I could not find a way to that direct and simple matter I got lost, became a forest. I petrified and became a mountain

My feet, my being carried away, my being abandoned O my fish-transfixing eyes, tell me when did it really happened!

Those who were mourning after me, covered with mist. For a moment, for their happiness I became God

Mad river rushed and moonlight spilled over From then on I - a dead wind of the desert became an ocean

The secret of my story is these sunflowers Afterwards there is sinking sun that became a hand held dagger.

After distributing all the fragrance, they left with pockets full I forgot to ask, of which flower I became the scent? Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Kanji Patel Badwai A tiger came in the dream The other day came a cobra Riding a small charpoy, I flew high Then came down a sling of cloth I held it and was sent into the brimming river Was rinsed tuftdeep and was brought out Was drowned after a full play

See, the standing one See, the sitting one See, the dying and the killing ones This is called this This is a shrine It is not of this day alone It is from the days when parents shot the seeds Sheer burning in the frame A malady come to stay How can the malady be driven out

I climbed down into the river I would observe and break the codes I would eat one meal a day Would eat one kind of grain Would worship the wind At the sunrise and the sunset Would worship mountains the tiger and the cobra I roamed and setlled I found the earth of the size of a charpoy Then the rhythm of wakefulness and dream bloomed I would sing, worship and Spread the grains on The threshing ground In the farm And the home floor

Would offer sacrifice And sprinkle wine Would unleash oracles And Then the river flowed Now the malady left the frame I sang And the sick rose from the bed and walked I internalized, owned up the maladies Of the humans and other animals

Now the burning ceased All was at peace Translated by The Poet Badwai: The occult act

Inch by Inch Your name ? One that eats and drinks and is hungry on time Your vocation? Seeing, frenzy and move as an arrow And roam in the forests Your wages? A food grain a day and a flat stone at night Your country? Mountains

It was when there was no foot track When the scales of labour and returns Were not yet made When the man and wife Would take an oath of bathing the mountain with fire For progeny The fire would lick the liver of the god

The story goes back to the time When wine was drunk along the sacrifice

The scales were then made The handles got into the axe Then came the bond Then the winds and forests were cut Then all the roots, the long land, the plains, the waters and stones – All went off The ‘arch’ replaced the ‘bow’ The ‘arrow’ replaced the ‘dhakodo’ The laws of the man and the forest were broken The water tanks burst off Thus, the wages, the names The country and the job Were lost Inch by inch Translated by The Poet Dhakodo: Pointed stick used as arrow

The Small and the Big Once a small mountain Began climbing up A big mountain The big mountain Grew bigger and bigger The small mountain said: Let me go over To the other side The big mountain said: No No The small said: Let me set at least One creeper on you

While this exchange was on The clouds gathered And it rained heavily The small said: Rain, wait Don’t wet me Let me go over to the other side My sister is on that side All mine are there

The rain did not stop

The small mountain went on saying: Rain, you too are naked And I, too, am denuded Don’t soak my loin cloth See, the forest is no more a forest The river has ceased to be a river What will you gain If you soak my loin cloth? Do you also side with the big? Translated by The Poet

Harish Minashru The Matter Of The Bird 1. A tree with thousands of leaves Thousands of flowers Thousands of fruits Stands With a bird In one of its palms A tree so much alive That it is stock-still As if dead

One could ask the bird The question regarding its flights and fights Quite legitimately

But the teacher asks the archer instead What do you see, my son A tree, a branch, a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a flower?

The bowstrings taut Everyone will resolutely aim at the target

Everyone knows : He who sees the bird fully Along with the entire tree Will be a hunter

He who sees the bird fully Along with each and every leaf Will be a merchant

He who sees the bird fully With each and every ripe fruit Will be a house holder

He who sees the bird fully With the entire flower Will be a lover

He who sees only the bird Will be a loner

He who sees on the eye of the bird Will be a Yogi.

But the bird alone knows That he who sees his reflection in its eye Will be the Archer

He who is himself pierced Will alone succeed In hitting the target

At this decisive juncture On the palms of the thousand handed tree With thousand intrepid postures The bird is present

2. The bird is building a nest In a cranny of the wishing-tree. The bird is without an adjective, Then how to call it one or solitary With certainty?

Formidable skies are rent apart. And suddenly blazing lightening mends them. And the pounding of the bird’s heart eases But by saying such things At the most Uncertain images of simple suffering and happiness Can be constructed. But to what purpose?

This is not a homely tale Of stringing the pearls. Here at any time with a flash of lightening A danger of minor fire is there. And after everything turns to ash Who is going to honour the legend That from the heap a new bird will again flutter Its pristine wings?

It is customary among the bird community of forests. That is why it builds. The nest. In the cranny of the wishing- tree. Without choice. Otherwise in this saga Ah, none has conviction That it will lay eggs, hatch them And take care of the household. Making an excuse of the night The cold sky squeezes The speech mingled with darkness. The bird cry tries to pierce its blind darkness. No one halts in the forest To name that sound An ardour or appeal Hankering or hope No rhyme is available For the sound struggling to reach the birds. Till now.

Night long the defeated wishing tree keeps shedding its tremblingly falling leaves in the bird. Throughout the night. And the unquestioning bird keeps flying in the darkness of the stem. Throughout the night. Flutter flutter. Fumbling for a way, throughout the night. Smoothly and unswervingly keeps flying, throughout the night. And in the end, pat, it pecks at a tiny seed And dawn breaks.

After the language is erased Let alone the paper even and inkling of paper also Is not left. I have no courage to call this void nothingness. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Yagnesh Dave Home 1. In the home Aroma of frying curry Colour spray of swerving sarees The child's giggling was afloat Curtains were fluttering Folded clothes Dried utensils Arrayed books Fresh potted plants Not a sign of dust I recollect every detail speck by speck

2. I roamed Jaipur, Delhi, Shimla Wandered in buses, trains Over the road, in the mountains along footpaths In hotels The home remained where it was – At home Of course What came along everywhere I went Was only the home

3. A am nowhere else Either I am out of home Or returning home Only that

4. I was all alone at home At late night A cat arrived She was self willed Felicia Came Came and took a round Honestly, if felt very good

5. You are so much absentminded When you go – Would that you carry everything with you! A week ago In the bathroom Near the mirror Was your lipstick Today Under the pillow Your hair-pin It is not good to forget like this From now onwards Carry away everything remembering Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Vinod Joshi A Paring of the Nail of Little Finger My tresses I ringed with A paring of the nail of my little finger Now I wait, Darling, pen me at least one letter

I search for a bud And find a cluster of dew Tell me dear, what shall you call such a fate?

By kissing again and again you made them moist Darling, now wipe away the sadness from my eyelids

I reared tame doves in my bosom Lanky dear, ask how large are their shadows

I do not care for a mere splash Darling, blend roaring venoms for me Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

O Caravan Vendor Your comb has pulled out my golden hair Give me a nosegay in its stead

I offer you quills and corals Melting down the full moon I will give you lustre O caravan vendor Your slipper has dented my pearly fringe Give me an ocean in its stead

I offer you empires and heart beats I will give you ripples from the petals of the eyelids O caravan vendor At the tips of your fingers are tautened the turns of my chemise Give me peacock calls in their stead Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Rajesh Vyas – 'Miskin' A Gazal If you have just nothing, forsake it, and come over If you have everything, renounce it and reveal

Where the rooms are illuminated by your name I am that house, even if you do not come

You are my garb and you are my quilt You are my every word and you are my sign

Like sugar I will dissolve But first, send you overflowing bowl

Miskin, you will reach him beyond the seven seas But, if in your palm there is no travel line, get it grooved Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Udayan Thakkar Dying It is said: Man's matrimony to death Is determined even before his birth Now, whoever said this Was he emphasising The beauty of death Or terror of marriage?

With dying comes The stench of a caterpillar cased in a match box Putrefying wood Poultry droppings Of relationships Like a windowless airless desolated dwelling Shut up for years,

'Put four leaves in the pot, sir, Tie the thread around the rim Now offer the coconut Smear vermillion on the four sides Paste the rice grains Hold it in the palms Lift it and touch the forehead three times In the pot I invoke the ocean, offer it' A smell like this Comes from dying

Coal from a leaf bud Oil from a whale – How many guises does this dying have?

The French set it to fire, tied up at a tender age A hunter shot an arrow in the toe The Greeks offered a drinking bowl The Jews hammered nails. Still, yelling 'heh! heh! heh!' it stands immortal, This 'dying'

When you want it desperately It is never around It gets misplaced In the fulminating light of a kerosene – lamp, Rail tracks. Splash Tik-20 'On the rocks' Climb twenty one stories twenty two times And come down But it vanishes. You convince yourself Saying, ‘OK, let God's wish be done' And Laughingly bursting out It would emerge Like a Beatle-nut In your armpit And ask 'Hi there! Looking for me?’ Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Ramanik Agrawat Home This world is not of my asking But what can I do? My home is rooted in this land It was not built in just a single day Who gets a dwelling easily? And is every house a home?

Building my home has been an event for me Brick after brick was laid in tune with the beat of the heart The roads surrounding my home are circuitous and poisonous And still I like them After propelling me in circles and tiring me They drop me at my door But I too am no less Spewing over them spittle smut and spleen I have abhorred them gingerly And loved them from the bottom of my heart

When not having a home I have repeatedly run away I had deserted one - two or three thousand years ago To stop again for alms At the door step of Yashodhara The same home wandered and withered following me For fourteen years from Panchawati to Dandakaranya To Kishkindha to the Demon city And who knows where else

Look With these same hands I had torched Khandav Van Smashed by the mace of Jarasandha and fleeing, I have seen this home raised again in Dwarika But I do not wish to stretch that far Just a few centuries back Mounted on horses elephants and camels With back packs bursting I have slaughtered my home in Arabian Deserts Carried it in crammed ships and steam boats I have squandered it in England and Europe But I do not wish to go so far One some sixth December * I have massacred it With a thousand hands I have been excising it with Weapons treachery pain tears anger reason illusion And still I feel it deep within me Right at this moment Within the ribcage On the left Scorching me

* On the sixth December 1992 Hindu fundamentalists had demolished Babri Masjid Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

New Settlement Within a single night In the open space next to the railway tracks New and naked shanties cropped up Motley expanse of planks tin sheets and burlap Somewhere hammers still keep hitting the nails Wayward smoke escaping in intricate design Municipal pipe developing new leaks Drains heralding new springs The ground beginning to ooze Allah himself marking new tracks along the sewer-lines Three wheeled crippled cart with the fourth support of piled bricks Cigarettes matchboxes tobacco – stall sprouts up Howling hawkers have found yet one more venue New racket and new reek blend with stale sweat Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Babu Suthar Homesickness 1. The aroma of maiden rain And I Sit back and Spread through each other.

Perforated by pattering raindrops Sandy soil has become A veritable sieve.

Fresh heat rashes Have erupted on rock-skin.

In no time It’ll pour down. Grooves in roof-tiles Will overflow with rivers. Teen oxen will frisk on eaves. In every single street Bullocks will draw water With sixteen tarila tied to their necks In every single house Cross beams will bathe to their heart’s content. On walls On tree trunks On memorial stones Gushing water Would unfold The signature of God’s predecessors. Then rain would let up Bright sky would unfurl Like mother’s soft palm. Sun would roll over Tree trunks Branches Leaves Petals. Perched on the todlo

Left behind by slithering serpents There a black-ant hightails away smiling I ask: “Mr. Black-ant, where are you bound?” “To Mahadevji’s shrine.: He replies Butterflies hover over Flowers and leaves In Saptarshi-like clusters Just then a ghuni passes by Carrying mountains of Mother Zamzar In tidy rows on its back Ramde Viramade play gedidado on the leaf of purvadiya Hanumanji’s eyes open On the leaves of aakado And close. Just then I espy a crimson fruit Hanging from a giant cactus. Slashing the scent of fennel seeds Flowing from farms beyond cactuses I gently pluck the fruit. Remove thorns from its rind. Peel it off. Hardly had I put it in my mouth When something went wrong Fingers of mother and father Ears of wheat and rice And The letters on my mobile phone Got muddled up.

A cloud scudded in And strutted away Dealing a vilonet shove. And with that I got flung onto Concrete roads again Drifting flabbily in my shadow Like a lopped-off branch Drifting in floodwaters.

Glossary Aaval; kind of plant, tanner’s cassia: cassia auriculata. Akadiya: pl of Aakado: a kind of shrub, calotropis gigantia Ghuni: a blind reptile or a serpent with two mounts. Gedidado; a native game played with stick and ball. Puvadiya: pl of puvad which is a native plant found in monsoon Dodi; kind of a creepr found in hedges; leptadenia reticulate Ramdeviramde; two brothers called Ramdeo and Viramdeo adored as saints by locals. Saptarshi: the constellation of seven stars representing seven sages, viz. Marichi, Atri. Agnisar, Pulatsya, Pulaha, kratu and Vasishtha Zamzar: in local lore, ‘Zamzar’ is a goddess, the sister of another goddess called “Kaleshari’. Whose temple stands near Lunawada in Gujarat. Kaleshari (so called because she has sixteen Children) used to keep her children placed on her own body. When she gave birth to sixteenth Child, she hadno place left on her body to accommodate it. Since Zamzar was childless, she Asked her to give that child to her but Kaleshari refused to do so and placed that child on her own nose. Zamzar felt bad and came to a mountain near the poet’s village, which is now known as Zamar mountain.

3. Sitting by a window With a cracked plate glass. I gaze out:

A stark blank Flowing in my flesh and blood Even reigns outside.

A moon hangs in sky. Stars like dead worms Their wispy moustaches wave in wind.

Seven corpses Of my last seven births Float in the milk of my milky way

A worm bigger than me Struggles to wriggle Out of my navel.

I sit back And keenly watch A game:

Within me And Without An elephant holding a lotus in his trunk Drowns in a puddle.

A hawk High-up A rock Hollowed out.

A wound rides on its back. Interminable void gushes within me And pours out.

Translated by Dr Hemang Desai

Jagdeep Smart The Play This stage, this curtain, These pegs supporting the act of painted settings. In this dressing room from the costume–coffers Emerge gold and silver brocaded ensembles to be decked in. Powder, foundations and layers of makeup, Intoxicating perfume of lipstick.

One after another and yet more wings Arraying entries and exits of River, oceans, mountains, earthquakes. These prompted lines form your lips Lance the sharp lights of the green and yellow flood lamps Falling on the blue sky of the cyclorama. In between the soft footfalls The sliding music of the background tape recorder

From one play to another You are a winged fairy, As a mermaid you soak in the rain on the stage, Scorch in fire and shiver in the cold.

The interval of my tarrying gets suffocated In the rattle of cups and saucers Or ballooning popcorn bag Or the hollow ringing of the bell Within the dark tunnel of the auditorium. Stuck in the chair My eyes keep staring at the closed show-case glass Of the velvet curtain.

Shorn of wings with head held in hands I am Strapped, set, secured Anticipant viewer

The Setting Because I do not know how to act I paint the sets, sculpt masks, tint dominoes, Paint trees, mountains, sun.

You know how to act in a play. At your gesture the sun rises on the stage Or at times the full moon emerges. You are primed to the changing moods of the heroine.

Who says that there are three acts in a play? The story is only one. Only the rings for interval keep disturbing. Whenever there is a storm on the stage Or volcanic eruption, earthquake or floods I am ecstatic behind the curtain And you are Rapt in the acting and speech of the role.

I already know the dialogues Foregone and forthcoming Of separation, love, renunciation, the end. All the stories and roles are similar. That is why you change the costumes again and again And I, the settings.

Act follows act. And in the last act With a stroke of white from my brush In your black hair emerge silverine trails.

My gaze falls on your eyes visible in the mirror I extend towards you my hands, tired after tracing the tracks. You run away leaping over the crazy stage, Skipping over the stairs and palace-balconies painted by me, Behind the ruins or wooden cut outs To play hide and seek in the dark.

Because I do not know how to act I paint the sets, make masks, tint dominoes, Colour fire-flames, rains, sinister nights

The Backstage This backstage A reminder of standing ruins At the turn of the Shiva-temple lane. At the corner of the ruins The broken stony staircase of the backstage Like a flight of steps reaching the sky. On each step There are scattered and overlapping foot prints Of various fragmented characters. On the surviving foot marks The clapping from the auditorium Grows like cactus, Sounding like crackle of dry peepul leaves.

For every birth or rebirth of a new play There are ghost like characters without feet On the stairs of the back stage In rented costumes. They rush pell-mell, climb up, climb down, Fall, missing a step occasionally Meet each other on the steps; say 'hi-hello!' Drink tea in the interval, spruce up disorderly costumes. The sky-reaching silent ladder is a bustle. The string-wielder from behind the scenes Keeps eliminating characters, improvises upon some, Builds them and when lost at times Breathlessly suffers from the anxiety of the play's demise.

On the stale glass of the aged mirror of the green room Are Echoes of spiralling cigarette – smoke, reflections of lip marks, Puffs of talc rise, nails are painted, and eyebrows are lined, Bangles jingle, hookah gurgles, the clock that was standstill starts, A call for attention is given over the red Persian carpet. With white added, the water in the cup turns into poisoned milk. On the stage pictures dazzle illuminating seven generations. Entering the back stage to greet, the charmed and speechless spectator Quietly listens to the sound of chairs shifting in the makeup room. From the coiled cable on the right hand corner of the backstage Starts the screech of the curtain. All are ready for the show with their new faces and masks. The light goes up in the prompter's box, Within it shine the sweat drops of the characters Waiting for entry – exit. The weary eyes of the director. Impotent spectators in the auditorium. As if I am watching the transparent stage from a lens. I am inside. Out sometimes and at times deep within. Before the wings the show goes on. I also feel like playing a role, Reach the green room crossing the backstage steps. Encountering the idle make up man, while the play goes on Tell him, tell him; 'I too shall stretch out on a greenroom chair, Paint, paint my face Touch up my skin, apply rouge’ I tell the director: 'Teach me to get wet in the rain. Give me another body to put on With its yearnings, its tears, its smiles. Make me a wraith wandering in the ruins on this stage, Lost in the blaze of the tragic and desired. I too love the ladder of the backstage. Standing on its third rung I want to sip tea in the interval'

Costume For a five minute scene of the play You asked for my shirt. Later, watching the play I came out of my body And the transparent and liquid body Experienced you. Two soft breasts rose on my chest. Motherhood sprouted in the belly Musical notes floated from the throat. Buds, that would become trees, lined my palms. The shirt suddenly became fragrant. The scene of the play. Freeze. And darkness. You never asked for my shirt again.

I passionately long for my body.

On the barbed fence In the wind Flutters my lonely drying shirt For its body.

The Makeup Man Before the twilight When the doorkeeper has not yet opened the main gate Your grey cycle with gears Has already arrived at the cycle stand wall shaded by the neem tree of the play house.

On a cheap peg of the green room you jacket gets suspended, Scrawny, like you body that will never wear a makeup. The blue sky of the cyclorama rolling on the shutter Has not opened up as yet. There are no signs of coming or going In the dark conduit of the blue wings. The dust has not shifted from the flood lights or flickers. Nor is the space of the auditorium shaped By the bright yellow lamps. And you … even earlier than that …..

A strong reek of the previous play Pervades every green room. After one play another, and then the third. Thus layers form after layers, Through these layers enter only the cold shadows of the characters Arriving like melted ice from North Pole, One after another, lifting the curtain of the green room. They wait to reach your chair, And you are always standing. As soon as your red leather bag, like a salesman's, Of makeup opens The characters are spread out on the dressing table. Seasons change. Flowers bloom on floating bodies Before the ringing of the call bell, Footsteps become fluid, dialogues iterate in the mind, Glycerine for the eyes of moist evening, Rouge and powder writhe at the touch of your fingers, The masks lying limp on their backs rise And get stuck on faces.

Later, when the play is over they exit without informing you Like flakes falling from the walls Groping the steps of the theatre. After painting several eyebrows the tired pencils And soft brushes staring at the mirror Go to sleep wherever they are lying. At late night, the held up rain of the eyes And the suffocation in the mind Cross over the steps of the backstage And get stuck in the chain of the grey cycle.

The old attendant of the cycle stand Waits for you under the neem tree Come out now, from behind the curtains.

Entrance to the Backstage Let’s leave then and there When someone denies us the right To chat at the entrance of the backstage From where one can reach the rostrum.

From the greenroom to the backstage And from the backstage to the podium, It is a long journey. I cannot undertake it

To celebrate the festival of death There are many masked faces Lying on the steps And only we are aware Of our dead faces.

We are like what we are. We are like what we are not. We are unlike what we are … enough … enough Lighting, prompting, applause, Bouquets of flowers, congratulation ……………………. everything Everything is dead as a doornail.

Do not come here wearing a face sans make up. What are you doing here ? Suicide of mounting the stage. Against I attempt to breathe on the steps Of the entrance to the back stage. From my hand a couple of marigold flowers fall on the floor The entrance to the backstage is automatically closed.

Finish Him Off On The Spot Slay the scoundrel on the backstage straight away. Hammer nails in his hands Gag his mouth, So that he stops delivering his dialogues. Bastard ! wants to stage a play ! Idiot ! wants to be talked about, be mentioned in papers ! Wants to act in theatre! Wants to assert his existence!

Perhaps he will reappear on the stage, Will speak the whole truth. Instead of playacting he will become the director. Instead of firing a gun, will give flowers to the heroine. Will line the eyes with saffron. He will perhaps change the end of the play.

In such matters he is a fool Absolutely unreliable. If you grant a leeway …… just a little, He will not even leave God alone. He will make the sun and moon go round. On the setting he will get dark night painted.

Wipe the makeup off from his face, Smash his teeth, splash acid, Make him repulsive, Give him vermilion to drink so that his voice is lost. He should not be allowed to go on the stage, to act

Hang him from his bleeding nails. Let him come to play the role of Jesus And before he attempts anything ……. Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Vijay Rajguru You, Enwrapped By Night We could not bring the palanquin at the doorstep But you could not come enwrapped by night

We passed through many incarnations and arrived But you could not even cross just one threshold

We brought vermillion from the sun But you could not apply it in the parting of you hair

We transformed the wind into a calligrapher But you could not dictate even a couple of words

We confessed from the tower top But you could not even bend your neck Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Harshad Trivedi The First Beam Of This Bond It is possible for even an ocean to change into a tear Someone’s letter would rain here and it would be monsoon

If you consider, a trail of water can also turn into a track Recommend the feet to be sprightly

About the dampness of the dry step well of the past moments Who is enquiring while keeping me in the dark?

There must be several ages behind this strain Only then the first beam of this bond has strayed

We are two banks of a river of flowing sand The sails are the only asset of a boat coming apart

The emotions would be coiled under the paper-weight and The time would be at stand still, and then who can be entrusted?

It is possible for even an ocean to change into a tear Some one's letter would rain here and it would be monsoon Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

I Have To Depart Like That I have to depart like the whole city arising to leave And without letting the road know, I have to depart

With all the dreams from the opened palms, to line the eyes And without letting them to be tipsy I have to depart

To nurture the night full of wonders, leisurely And with every particle visible I have to depart

My life is slow moving, and then continuing to live With the memories clinking in the pockets I have to depart

Standing helplessly I watch the images sprinting away And stumbling while attempting to run I have to depart

These moments resemble the incessantly ringing evening bells And like time gnawing at the breaths I have to depart Translated by Dileep Jhaveri Rajendra Patel The Pigeon * The window Forever maintains This pigeon Was there yesterday Is there today Will be there tomorrow * The pigeon declares Whether it's open or shut With a grille or without As long as there is the sky There will always Be a window * Watching each other The window and the pigeon Turn into the sky And seek and unknown window * From its birth The pigeon has sought A window It can look into As in a mirror * Sun or moon Day or night It takes that To be the direction to fly Every moment Time flows away like sand From the sands of time Flowing into the window From outside Flowing out of the window From inside It feels that the sky is everywhere So it can fly out of the window Even if it is closed * The pigeon doesn't have a past It doesn't have a present It doesn't even have a future It merely sits On the shores of time Pacifying every passing second Muttering whatever passes Is not time Then it floats Without flying * The pigeon's feather Clambers to be a pigeon Hence It has forgotten to fly A halo of light Echoes in its eyes Yet there is no life In its wing. It sits serene On an unknown branch Of a tree Without giving a hoot For the branch, The bole or the blossom. It simply doesn't care. It is simply enrapt In the shadows Of the window. It has forgotten The whole forest. Half of its mind Half of its body Frozen stiff. It hardly knows It cannot fly. * It runs with shadows When it flies It does not cut it into two. It flies As if it is not in the sky. It remains on the earth Even if it is up In the sky. When it flies deep within It leaves the shadow behind And the exhilaration In its every feather Of flying deep within Makes the pigeon a pigeon * Though surrounded by other The pigeon is all alone. When it flies It takes along all the other pigeons Which are not flying That's why Even if it flies alone It carries all along with it The hunter's net * After a good deal of flying It dawns upon The pigeon That finally One has to seek refuge In the earth Even when it is on the earth There is a spirit of the sky In its wings It knows very well It is not him that flaps the wings But what flies Without purpose Is him * In every drop That falls It can hear The call Of the sky But it does not know That the one that calls Is he himself It can't see That what is there to see Is he himself It can't hear That the voice that's heard Is his. It croons continuously The pigeon within him Woos the moments That are no more And so it can't hear The challenge of the sky. * When it coos The deep rumbling of the sea Falls silent The more it sings More the sea shrinks The more the sea shrinks More the pigeon expands The rays of the sun Do not scorch it It lulls The invisible lava When the golden light Diffuses in the sky The pigeon disappears Or pervades everything * Even if it is all on its own The pigeon is connected To other pigeons With invisible wings Even when they are far away Their crooning is one It spreads in the air It struggles To drag the sky Down on the ground * The pigeon has a beak And claws But in harbours No violent thought It has wings But it doesn't disperse a view It doesn't shut its eyes When it sleeps It croons Welcoming every Approaching moment * The pigeon doesn't condemn Even the cyclones. It wipes its wounds Caused by the cyclones With the passing feather It lives the chaos As if it is golden dream It sprouts At both famine Or drought Because It is a serene wave It welcomes every moment Like a lake. * The pigeon has never ever yawned With every blink of its eye It spreads out a scene In front of it Carrying every hand of the clock In its beak It flies at night Lands in the day time In every veranda If spread out a balcony It flies from this end of the house To that Carrying the entire tree Along with in That's the reason why It appears grey Like the sky * At times You can't see the pigeon With your naked eyes Even if it perches On a broken branch of a tree The whole tree Is overjoyed It does not discriminate Between a green tree And a barren one It merely sips The silence In the space That separates the leaves Seeing this Every falling leaf Flies like a pigeon * The pigeon is not finicky About birdfeed Calmly it pecks at anything That comes its way The whole sky dances at the sight It composes new currents of wind Snaring the past In its footprints * Left or right Up or Down It makes no difference To the pigeon It takes its own shadow To be the shade of the sun Hence it rears its dreams In its shadow And knocks At the sun * One day The pigeon felt like flying Across the entire sea

It asked a raft about it The raft said Unload yourself And you will swim across

It consulted a boat The boat said Be one with the water In no time You will flow along

It asked a huge ship The ship said Keep your fuel Forever on fire And you can go anywhere

Since then The raft, the boat and the ship And the entire sea Are waiting for the pigeon But it is waiting For the high tide Of someone's dreams * The pigeon has absolutely no idea How every time It soars to never heights How come It falls to newer lows So it has started Flying without wings And seeing without eyes

Since then it has never fallen Or landed It has fathomed The meaning of wings Without wings It robes itself with horizon And reaches Wherever it wants to go Whenever it feels * One day The pigeon felt like singing Like a cuckoo So it sought the counsel of the leaf The bole, the flower And the sky But none replied. Out of despair It remained mute It forgot to speak or sing Then one midnight A tweet escaped him Since then a pigeon prefers To remain silent * The pigeon Sees with its ears Hears with its eyes And slowly breathes With its feet It sips at silence With its beak Even if its feet Are firmly perched On the ground It is always flying In the sky Winds soak it Rains scorch it Rains do not dampen it Yet it remains moist When it flaps its wings It touches the entire Creation The sweeter its song The further its shadow * All day and all night The pigeon hatches The egg of darkness The sum of nothingness in its eyes Stretches as far as horizons It waits unmoving For the window to open None except the pigeon Knows Every moment In every place There is a pigeon Translated by Sachin Ketkar

Sanskriti Rani Desai In The Word - Box Waking up suddenly from sleep at night I saw and was stuck dumb. From one word was emerging another word From the second a third..... A hundred, two hundred words were emerging From each word! The whole room was overflowing with words. Seeing my eyes open There was a mad rush. The words started moving back to their word-boxes Fifth in the fourth, fourth in the third, Third in the second I swiftly caught a speedily escaping word And questioned 'What is all this?’ It kept mum in the beginning, On compelling further it said, 'Periodically every word dons a skin And after some time another over it As if one box into another.’ As soon as I let go its neck It ran for its life. Before entering the mouth of a snoring word It said 'Right from the original meaning All the current meanings Come out at night To enjoy momentary freedom. Take care, the prevailing arrogant word Does not come to know about it, Otherwise our doom is sealed. Will you keep a secret? A gentleman's promise?’ Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Sanju Wala Winter Fires With the benevolence of brightening the entire universe The fires burn all around Far off To offer warmth Close enough To scorch

The soil that appeared golden golden, When grabbed into fistfuls Turns into concrete reality Amazing is the scornful laughter of the flames The crackle of green crust Perhaps the waters Within tiny blisters erupting over the body Will be cooling

Light blue smoke bellows like erupting bamboo Like a daydream it disappears midway After pouring crucibles of evil odour On all suppositions

These fires appear like spectres The distant ones cannot provide warmth And the water from the blisters Cannot quench the near ones

Then all the hearsays take new forms As it is We have heard That the facts are Janus faced After seeing the countenance of the fear from close One feels more secure Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Tamarind in the Cemetery In the middle of the city Let us say, in its heart The cemetery pulsates With the silent, slow And yet deliberate And resolute flow Of the coffin bearers

The large gate is rusted Perhaps in the past it might have been Venom green But today it is grey Appropriately for a graveyard

Disordered and yet in a rhythm The large and small graves, Unmindful of all that is, Await what is missing

The trees are largely familiar Like those in gardens and parks Still one can risk comparing them With an indolent raga And the tamarinds blending with all this … Ample, verdant, with bountiful branches Bowing with swinging fruits, looping with one another

I remembered The tamarinds on the outskirts of our village It was said the witches dwelled in them After a little darkness Nobody would stray around

But these are standing straight in rank and file Within the dazzling brightness Of the urban rules and regulations Flooring the conditioned prudence The taste of their fruit also is Sour, sweet, bitter, and tangy It appears that the roots must have reached far deep And the essence, alive in the bones Must have been sucked up that is now perched On the tip of the tongue Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Vasant Joshi Forest Poem Strokes of colours On white canvas Above all the black Occasionally the moon would rest Atop an erect pine In the valley a gurgling spring The forest inhaling the songs of crickets Solitude rolling over the desolation A patch a field on the slope In the farm hut A lantern lights up The dawn of emerging day Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Sisyphus Do not prevaricate Do not run fingers in the hair Ruffling your beard Be prepared Sisyphus !

Though there are rocks around Not all are granite There is soft soil also It would cave in During rains It would spread And turn coppery to you taste It will be useful to you As a marking band

After throwing a challenge It is fun to accept it Come Without worrying about the down slope We shall ride the challenge We shall catch rain bird songs Climb-ups slip-downs River ravines treks And soundless stillness Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Rajesh Pandya Everything, For Everyone You may prefer to eat fish Or flesh Or grains Or legs of the chicken Prancing around Or juicy fruits Dangling high up from the ground You may eat eggs Or potatoes You can digest everything you eat You are endowed With such sturdy stomachs

You may prefer To sleep in the day Or in the night You can watch you dreams Or TV Or thighs of geckos Crawling on the walls In circles Or the bosom of Malaika You can enjoy anything and everything You are gifted With such powerful sight

You can carry tools Or Weapons Or sickle, hammer Or even AK 47 You can place a computer On your table Books in your closet Keep a mobile phone close To you heart Plug your ears with headphones To listen to what The person next to you is saying You have the luxury Of keeping whatever you want

You may stand or walk If you think you have found your way You may walk Or if you think you haven't You may stand where you are The trees around you Are standing wherever they are too You may stand like them By the roadside Cautiously So that you don't create trouble For the vehicles At least that much sense You have been given

Your may keep your mouth shut Or you may scream It’s all the same You may agree Or disagree

Who cares? Translated by Sachin Ketkar

The Cat When everyone is fast asleep A cat full with milk Hides herself In the corner Between the walls

The moon tiptoes Into the room And tries to bore A hole in the wall

Once it's made The cat will jump Out of the hole And flee Spilling the milk

Then The moon Will lap it all up Translated by Sachin Ketkar

Ants A tree Very much tree-like

In the jaws Of ants

Root after root Is drawn out A river Freezes

All leaves fall In a heap Crack ! A fruit falls And the sun sets

A ground Very much ground-like Is enveloped by darkness

Ants keep gnawing Till morning The tree lazily Sits up again And stretches. Translated by Sachin Ketkar

Manisha Joshi A Poem The elephant’s memory is sharp He reminds me a lot of what I have forgotten This elephant with his deep and wide eyes looks into my eyes and I remember that there was a strange sadness in the eyes of my beloved like in this elephant’s

The elephant wanders in the bondless forests of his dreams and I also wander following him Sometimes he trumpets with joy and his unknown language similarly reminds me of my deep and secret happiness The mahout does not know of our shared dream

Tying the legs of the elephant he drives him from one town to another When the elephant passes through the lanes it is a wonderful sight

One little girl appeared from the first floor corridor of her apartment and put a banana on the extended trunk of that elephant This elephant remembers that she was me. Now a young and beautiful maiden today I walk behind that old elephant from one town to another. In order to re-live what was lived before.

When the mahout whips the elephant the weals rise on my memory Walking long distances this elephant now tires and I too have started jumbling up my memories The elephant looks at me With sad eyes But in my eyes is mere wonder, still The wonder of having seen a huge elephant arriving in a tiny village

Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Sinister Step-well Yes Yes that man is still alive Happily at his home But he is dead for me And that is why I imagine His newer and newer daily deaths Truck tyres roll over him on the road And like a pedestrian I pass by quietly Sometimes his dead body is found on the rail tracks And I am travelling in the train over his corpse At times I am tying a knot of my scarf And the noose tightens around his neck I light lamps in the temple And his entire body is aflame Sometimes he is at the bottom of some sinister step- well And I am fetching water from it Everyday Hades arrives On his dark horse Pleads to take him away But I do not let him Translated by Dileep Jhaveri

Darshini Dadawala The Climax The roots of the tree penetrated the soil… They clasped it… Firmly attached to it… And spread out within… Like, The veins branching out in the body…

His aroused space Moved inside me. And got expanded…

His and mine spaces, Fused into each other, And Bloomed into a flower On the tree… Translated by The Poet & Amit Dholakia

What, if? One more day!

I reached him, Breaking loose from the dust, the smoke and the commotion…

I removed the sandals… Settled on his shore… Pressed my purse in the arms. Now, none can snatch it!

I am staring at him…

In the habit to search for his other end, My sight runs over him… Without asking me.

But, as ever… It returns, failed! And dissolves in me through my breath…

How impulsive! Gushing towards me, The surging him is drenching me… His caress expresses something…

“Oh! You need not be frightened! Have you peeked into my world? Just glance… So many souls live happily here! Fish, moss, algae and many more! You might as well dwell within me! Thereafter, no more hassles to reach me…”

He wants to pull me inside his world…

He is right may be! No more hassles to reach him…

Should I set out with him?... _At this moment?._ But, What, if the moss spreads all over within me through the nose and tickles me? What, if those sticky, coarse, stinking fish rub off on me? What, if his spiralling waters surround and strangle me? What, if that prickly marine plant sprouts out of my bones? What, if someone swallows me? What, if I rot within him?

This sea perturbs me… Translated by The Poet & Amit Dholakia

NAMES AND ADDRESSES Labhshankar Thakar: (Born: 1935) Prominent poet, playwright, novelist and essayist. C-18, Jaldarshan Society, Near H.K. College, Ashram Road, Ahmedbad 380 009. Tel: 079 26544652 Chinu Modi: (Born : 1939) Eminent poet, gazal writer, playwright, novelist. 16, Jitendra Park Society, Near Shankar Ashram, Paladi Ahmedbad 380 007. Mob: 09825439010 Pranjivan Mehta : (Born : 1937) Poet Short story Writer, 81-B, Sindhu Wadi,MG Road, Ghatkopar, Mumbai 400 077. Tel: 022 -25121524 Chandrakant Topiwala: (Born : 1936) Eminent Critic, Poet, Translattor D-6, Purneshwar Flats, Gulbai Tekra, Ahmedbad 380 015 Tel : 079 26301721 Sitanshu Yashashchandra: (Born : 1941) Renowned poet and playwright, Aesthetician A/2, Chamelibaug, Near University Guest House, M.S. University, Vadodara – 390 002. Mob: 09228187436 Radheshyam Sharma: (Born: 1936) Eminent Critic, short story writer, novelist, poet 25, Bhulabhai Park, Mani Nagar, Ahmedbad 380 022. Rajendra Shukla: (Born: 1942) Poet and Gazal writer 22/529 Satyagraha Chhawani, Jodhpur Tekra, Ahmedbad 380 015. Tel: 079 26861764 Harish Minashru: (Born : 1953) Poet and Gazal Writer, Translator 9-A, Sumiran, Sauramya Bungalows, Vinukaka Marg, Bakrol Dist. Anand 388 315. Mob: 09824511961 Vinod Joshi: (Born : 1955) Poet, Playwright, Critic, Prayag, 32, Shwet Kamal Society, Vidya Nagar, Bhavnagar 364 001. Mob: 09825989737 Nitin Mehta: (Born: 1947) Poet, Critic, Editor, 401, NewShilpa Terrace, Kastur Park, Shimpoli Road, Borivali West, Mumbai 400 092. Tel: 022-28991724 Jaydev Shukla: (Born: 1946) Poet, Editor, Act critic, Jashoda Nagar, Behind Guin College Road, Savli, Dist. Vadodara 391 770. Tel: 02667222283 Sanju Wala : (Born: 1960) Poet, Anthologist, A-77, Alap Avenue, University Road, Rajkot 360 005. Mob: 09825552781 Vasant Joshi : (Born: 1962) Poet, Broadcaster, B-75, Alap Century, Kalawad Road, Rajkot 360 005. Mob: 09426987882 Mahendra Joshi : (Born: 1951) Gazal Writer, A-70, Alap Avenue, Unversity Road, Rajkot 360 005. Tel: 0281 2561037 Hemant Dhorada : (Born : 1945) Gazal Writer, Critic, 5, Yashwant Nagar, Op;ShoppersStop, S.V.Road, Andheri West, Mumbai 400 058. Tel: 022-26209901 Rajesh Vyas – Miskin : (Born : 1955) Gazal, Writer, Poet, Editor, 1, Saraswati Society, Jain MerchantSociety, Paladi, Ahmedbad 380 007. Tel: 079 26602154 Ramanik Someshwar : (Born: 1951) Poet, Translator Pallav, Near Forest Offcie, Behind Manav Complex, Naya Anjar, Kutchchha 370 110. Mob: 09428081200 Ramanik Agrawat : (Born: 1955) Poet, Translator, 7, Murtanand, Narmada Nagar, Dist Bharuch 392 015. Tel: 02642 245172 Udayan Thakkar: (Born : 1955) Poet, Writer for children, Laxmi Nivas, 22, Kashibai Navarnage Marg, Gamdevi, Mumbai 400 007. Mob: 09820086458 Sanskriti Rani Desai : (Born : 19058) Poet, 2-C, Nanik Niwas, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mumbai 400 026. Tel: 022- 23643567 Saroop Dhruva: (Born : 1948) Poet, Feminist Activist, 4, Lalit Kunj Society, Near Swastic Four Roads, Navrangpura, Ahmedbad 380 009. Tel: 079-26444066 Yagnesh Dave : (Born: 1954) Poet, Translator, Broadcaster, Sadguru Vandana, 3B/302, Ring Road, Rajkot 360 001. Mob: 09426949131 Vijay Rajguru : (Born : 1957) Gazal Writer, 40, Gautameshwar Nagar, Rajkot Road, Sihor, Dist. Bhavnagar 364 240. Mob: 09427742004 Ravindra Parekh : (Born 1946) Poet, Short story, Writer, Playwright, 1, Union Dhara, Behind Sarjan Society, Modi Bangala, Athwa Lines, Surat 395 007. Mob: 09327384746 Karsandas Luhar : (Born : 1942) Poet, Gazal Write,r Children’s Literature, 39, Kalpadrum, Shreeji Nagar, Mahua, Dist. Bhavnagar 364 290, Mob: 098242225127 Harshad Trivedi : (Born : 1958) Poet, Gazal Writer, Editor, Surata, A-11, Nenuishwar Park, Near Tapovan, Arniyapur, Dist. Gandhi Nagar 382 424. Tel: 079 23276854 Neerav Patel : (Born : 1950) Poet, Dalit Activist, 4, Hemand Park, Vejalpur, Ahmedbad 380 051. Mob: 9825629390 Rejendra Patel : (Born : 1958) Poet, Short Story Writer, Translator, 78, Niharika Bungalows, Opp; Himmatlal Park, Near Azad Society, Ahmedbad 380 015. Mob: 09327022755 Rajesh Pandya : (Born:1965) Poet, Critic, Research Scholar, A-5, Ritu Raj, Kasturba Nagar, Sama, Vadodara 390 008. Mob: 09429255957 Kamal Vora : (Born : 1950) Poet, Short storywriter, A-403, Parasnath, Sudha Park, Vallabbag Lane Extension, Ghatkopar East, Mumbai 400 077. Mob: 09819820286 Babu Suthar : (Born: 1955) Poet, Novelist, Critic, 222H, Friendship St. Philadelphia PA 19149 USA, Email: [email protected], C/o Gautam Shah, 25 Manek Bag Society, Nehru Nagar, Ambawadi, Ahmedbad 380 015 Darshini Dadawala : Poet Critic, 303, Anand Vichar Avenue, Opp: R.C. Patel Estat,e Padara Road, Arota, Vadodara 390 020, Email: [email protected]. Mob: 09327200030 Kanji Patel : (Born : 1952) Poet, Novelist, 12, Gayatri Society, Lunawada 380 230

Copy Right Holders Ramilaben Parekh for Ramesh Parekh : (Born : 1940) Poet, Writer for Children, Parva, 32, Rang Upavan Society, Near Haruman Madhi, Raiya Road, Rajkot 360 005 Purnimaben Khanderia for Manoj Khanderia : (Born : 1943) Poet, Gazal Writer, Mrinal 23, Dana Pitty Society, Near Bhutnath, Junagadh, Gujarat Nita Smart for Jagdeep Smart : (Born : 1956 Died 2009), Painter, Poet, Essayist, 11, Jay Somnath Society, Behind Somnath Temple, Ichhanath, Surat 395 007. Mob: 09824331615

Translators: Sachin Ketkar : (Born : 1972) Poet, Critic, Translator, Anthologist, J-1, Vikram Bags, Pratap Gunj, M.S. University Campus: Vadodara 390 002. Mob: 09974620367 Karamshi Pir : Neel Niwas, Tilak Road, Tilak Road, Ghatkopar East Mumbai 400077 Dr. Ganpat Vankar : (Born 1963) Psychiatrist, Translator, Dalit Activist, 19, Uttar Gujarat Sangam Society,Meghani Nagar, Ahmedbad 380 016. Mob: 09904160338 Dr. Hemang Desai : Poet, Short Story Writer,Translator, 9-2, Six Bungalows, Opp: Ranak Hostel, Mota Bazar, Vallabh Vidyanagar 388 120. Mob: 09723716678 Email: [email protected] Ms. Dhanvanti : (Born 1934) Painter, Translator, Poet, Shri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002. Tel: 0413 – 2222212 Amit Dholakia : Reader in Political Science, M.S. University, Vadodara 390002. Email: [email protected] Dileep Jhaveri : (Born : 1943) Poet, Playwright, Translator, 301, Waldorf, Hiranandani Estate, Patlipada, Ghodbunder Road, Thane 400 607. Tel: 9122-25861849, Mob: 09969276911 Email : [email protected]