“When it’s a poem you want to record then we must begin with poetry. What is poetry? It’s the farmer’s field. It’s the poet’s child. It’s your father’s assets. Your mother’s cooking. I have a hard time giving my poems a name so most of my poems are nameless. Who takes my poems for their own, may name them as they like.”
“Tagore has this great line about modernism. “true modernism is freedom of thought and independence of mind…” So I got it. But you know, after all I’m an Artist. So I interpret it my way … that True modernity is fearlessness of consciousness.”
“Now if you show me in a jungle, Vidrohi would look like a prisoner of romanticism wandering all his life in the jungle. As if wandering in the jungle is revolution! Labour alone is not radicalism.
To divert labour is also revolutionary.”
“Oh it’s a troublesome life, a struggle but a wonderful one. Because it’s not like I have limited myself to this I am everywhere … anywhere. I’m there too, in the world. Neither less
savage than anyone, nor less urbane.”
“Well if a great man does a grand thing, where’s the miracle, eh? If a limited man, does a grand
thing, now, that’s something to talk about. So you must reveal not just Vidrodhi’s grandeur
but also his insignificance.”
“Most stuff, no matter how fine will not last after June. It rots in the rain, which is the point.
Next year, someone will give new stuff. There will be other blankets, other shirts. Everything
rots, dissolves, disappears and yet people keep giving. It might seem as if Vidrohi’s life is utterly
anarchic. But in fact no life is more disciplined than mine. I follow a strict discipline with diligence, with beauty. An international discipline. I’m a man of international thought my man. It’s not like this way and that way, a little of this … a little of that. No. Say one thing to you and another to the queen, that’s meaningless. Whether you see me here or there or at large in the world. You will find the same words, the same colour, the same shades, and the same style.”
“The search for creativity, poetry with pain, that’s the beauty of romanticism. “Pain ex- ceeds itself thus becoming the tonic,” that’s what I am demonstrating. Midful of the poet Ghalib’s injunctions! If you whip a man for twenty years and stop in the twenty oneth year, he will crave the whip, for it has become his companion.”
“I’m trying to demarcate some understanding. And also shooting in the dark, hoping I’ll find
my mark. No matter if this saga of pain continues, but let not the pain become the solution.”
“When I write poems, I have an audience that I am addressing. This is my aesthetic – I believe these poems are more of speaking out, than reading. So I imagine a mass, a public. And I strive to speak in the language that rings true for them. Not one that alienates them.”
Poems
If you hear my sins, you will be filled with regret.
If you know my intentions, with courage.
Sir, I’ve just come to tell you.
That the day of reckoning, is nearly here.
I really don’t know if God knows,
But the people will know, what the deal is.
There will be no trial, nor debates.
This will be an old feud, passed down from Eden.
My friends, come out of your houses into the arena.
Only the staunchest in battle will carry the day.
He will be both the sheltered and the refuge,
Who has, all his life, been weighed by oppressions.
There is no God, nor child of God. The story is
Man’s,
Man will stand up for himself.
I have no belief in saving and saviours.
I have no need to believe, anyone stands above
me.
——–
I won’t tell you.
Because it might give you a fright.
That a tiger sleeps in the front pocket of my shirt.
But have no fear, I have trained it so well.
That look!
A tiger sleeps in my front pocket and you never
realized, it’s a tiger.
But a tiger or two,
In your front pocket,
Helps in reciting of poems.
But I’ll share a secret.
Since I’m reciting poetry amongst friends,
One tiger in the pocket is enough.
But when I’m among enemies,
Reciting poems all alone,
I make sure to keep two tigers in my pocket.
Then I wear, that red shirt you’ve praised before.
The one with two pockets in front.
So I keep reciting poems,
And the tigers don’t sleep,
They puff on beedi’s,
Emanating rings of smoke.
_____
It’s an excellent tree.
Friends, my grandmother was a tree of humanity,
Of which I am one leaf.
She isn’t dead,
She’s just gone for a swim,
In one of those ponds at Mohenjodaro.
Her sari is drying on the last step.
She has lost her key, there, somewhere.
She’s searching for it ceaselessly.
I see she’s sowing gram in the Himalayas.
Tethering my cow to Everest’s peak.
I want to clap in joy.
But what’s this?
There’s mustard growing on my palms.
I want to call out to her,
But yoghurt has set over my lips.
I can see my grandmother,
Flowing away in a river of yoghurt.
I want to catch her, but I can’t.
I want to call to her, but I can’t.
And my body starts to tremble like a leaf.
Which might fall any moment,
Which is just about to fall.
________
My people,
My friends,
Get up and break,
The walls that won’t let fresh air in.
That keep fresh water out,
And fresh thought out.
Don’t let the walls scare you,
Nah, spirits don’t reside in walls.
And don’t be scared of trees, because no, ghosts
don’t live in them.
Oh and don’t be scared of temples, gods don’t inhabit them.
And listen up.
The day you get it,
That a brick is just a brick,
And a stone, is just a stone,
Then you’ll be the king of your hill.
_______
Some may apply to Queen Victoria brand eyeliner or Sadhvi Rithambara brand eye-wash.
But kohl made of pure ghee was only Nur Miyan’s forte.
Atleast my grandmother swore by it.
Whenever NurMiyan arrived, my grandmother never failed to buy his kohl.
Just a slim line of his kohl in her eyes,
and they turned compact like clouds,
swirled within like the Ganga and Yamuna.
The old woman’s eyes grew limpid, as the sea,
into which, we children, glancing saw it all, gleaming.
Oh how she heaped blessings on Nur Miyan, ‘it’s his kohl,’said grandma.
“Makes me prance like a girl, puts thread in my needle,”
and I’d feel like crying out,
“Granny! You’re the doe-eyed maiden.
Sukanya to Nur Miyan’s sage Chavan.
He is your Hippocrates, whose herbs heal your eyes.
Your eyes aren’t eyes but witnesses,
and his kohl … offerings for the gods.
And then this Nur Miyan went away to Pakistan.
Whyever did he leave for Pakistan?
They say, because he had no one here.
But were we no one to Nur Miyan? Wasn’t he ours?
Then why did he leave for Pakistan, without telling us and our grandmother?
Why did Nur Miyan go away to Pakistan? My grandmother’s life ended.
She returned to the banks whence she came.
She had married across the river, and was cremated on the other side.
When I cast her ashes into the river, I felt as if the river wasn’t a river,
but my grandmother’s eyes,
and the ashes weren’t ashes but
Nur Miyan’s kohl and for the last time,
I put his kohl in my grandmother’s eyes.
________
He asks for his share, oh you!
The poor labourer asks for a cake, this time.
He asks for a smoke and some snuff.
A coffee or tea.
That’s enough.
Oh and a cup and a plate and a snack to go with it.
Maybe an omelette.
Oh and Mr. Overseer, I ask for a fair rate.
I am a poet. I’ll get to it. What’s the rush?
One day,
I’ll catch the policeman and the priest.
And present them in a court of women,
and debar all the courts besides that.
_________
Yes I know all about it, your lineage, and your status.
But when the moment arrives, you’ll be missing in action.
As for me, dear one, I will search for no cover.
Because there’s no head on my shoulders.
But that there’s a bomb.
A kick from our blistered feet, can dislodge the ground beneath yours,
and the veins in your calloused fists,
can turn your gentle skies to blood,
and when one day,
from earth to sky, standing end to end,
we rend from it will emerge neither Kashyap nor Narsimha.
Here! Come recognize me … I am the friend you lost,
you love … you hate … you envy …
but the only friend you have … it’s me!
__________
These are days of spring, let us lose our heads.
Let us fight for our rights.
God, to hell with your world.
Let us plant a new world of our own.
Where people can live … speak … hear and endure like human beings.
___________
I say to them – You babblers!
If god can take root on earth.
Then crops can grow in the skies.
___________
I demand neither reward, nor acknowledgement.
I demand neither alms nor donations.
I stand at the crossroads and demand loudly.
(Transcribed by Pradeep Pillai, Student of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai )
English