Re: Two kavitas from mahejabeen

uday bhaskar (srijna@hotmail.com)
Thu, 25 Dec 1997 10:23:09 PST 

"Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
 What if my leaves are falling like its own!
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
 My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
 And, by the incantation of this verse,
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
 Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
 The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

jagdISh jI,

Aku rAlE kAlAnni Shelley yE vidhaMgA citriMcADO cUDaMDi.

I am not sure whether chowdary gAru deliberately chose these two poems 
out of the collection, or they happened to appeal to him the most, but 
the greatness of the second poem can not really be understood without 
first reading the first (again, my opinion only).

The woman is in love, and would like nothing more than that intimate 
togetherness that she so masterfully portrayed in her first poem. But 
her love encompasses the love of her love. If her love brings with him 
his dreams of spring, well, all she can do is say "ataneppuDU aMtE! 
omTarigA rammaMTE vasamtAnni veMTa peTTukostADu" (muripeMgA, gAraMgA). 

vennelA and punnamI are aspects of that intimate togetherness, which she 
is willing to forego, if she can get back her love in his radiant fury. 
After all, it is this radiance that she loves as much as the tenderness 
of the embrace. 

Here lies the beauty of Mahejabeen's poetry. She does not either place 
the two aspects of her love in opposition to each other, or portray it 
as a form of sacrifice. For her, both are one and the same thing. She 
loves his dreams with the same fervor - neither less, nor more - as she 
loves his carresses.

I am not competent to analyze the poem and evaluate the merits of its 
imagery, or the sequencing of its stanzas. All I can say is that it left 
me feeling that I have read the best poem so far in my life (not 
exaggerating)

>
>BTW, no more drinks for you this evening!
>

"sAhib SharAb peene dE
masjid mein baiTh kar,
yA woh jagah batA dO
jahAn par KhudA na hO"

Uday "Sometimes the Fall can be an uplifting experience" Bhaskar

PS: The poem above is an excerpt from "Ode to the West Wind"  by P B 
Shelley.

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