D e s i r e
Poems by
Swaranjit Savi
PREFACE
Swaranjit Savi’s collection of poems is a witness to the fact that Punjabi poetry is transcending the tradition of modernist realism and is making forays into the post-modernist paradigm.
The book strongly refutes the notion that poetry is a transparent medium meant to put the reader in touch with outwards realities in their concrete from. Credit goes to this volume for liberating poetry from the bonds of singles- layered, absolute interpretation and certitude of meaning. The most outstanding quality of these poems resides in the fact that they generate symbolic signals which are uncertain, unstable and evolving. They exposit an evolving cultural discourse generated by a network of interrelationship between the ‘‘I’’ (the male) and the ‘‘You’’ (the female). It is through the ‘‘I’’ (the male poet) that the discourse gets shaped. But the ‘‘I’’ and the ‘‘You’’ (the male and the female) are so inconstant mutable and vibratory that in the words of the poet:
Whatever you are:
body, from, formless
man, house, toy god,
dust, ruin, earth, sky
word, tune, line
Whatever you are
bird, sun, redness
morning- evening
joy- sorrow
flight-drive
Whatever you are
move, darkness. brightness
delicate- solid…
Whatever you are
you’re an image
entering my eyes
taking shapes in my mind
And whatever I am
I am an image
formed woven grown
out of you
The poet intends to drive home three points. First, in no sing does there exist any enduring, inviolate and clinching affinity between the signifier and the signified. Nor can a sing be said to have a lasting affinity with any exclusive ‘‘signified’’. For example, in the poem- ‘‘I come to you’’ the ‘‘You’’ i.e. the female, is both a finite body and a fathomless desire, Similarly, ‘‘I’’ (the male) represents body in another poem. In another poem, it stands for bodyless knowledge. Last but not the least, there is the poem. ‘‘I’’ is infinite space. But, ‘‘I and ‘‘You’’ derive their distinct identities from their mutual association:
Melancholy-
It’s not you, my sarangi
but the bow of my heart
that clings to your neck and
weeps
In this context, ‘‘I’’ (man) and ‘‘You’’ (woman) share and establish an exchange of body and desire. This kinship between man and woman assume unusual significance. Time and time again, it provides basis to distinct identities of both man and woman. The contours of their personalities emerge from of this kinship:
You are…
someone who devotes the body
for the sake of love
I am…
someone who offers love
for the body for pleasure…
Secondly, no sign enjoys an autonomous existence. It rather owes its existence to those affinities and associations which it seeks to establish with other signs at the time of culture or poetry coming into existence:
You were happy
to rub the dream-lamps
I was happy
to lose my way in
your body’s raga
And with a bit of difference
we were both
submerged in lust – equally deep…
Third – in all these poems, invariably, it is the ‘‘I’’ (male) that speaks. ‘‘You’’ (female) is seen nowhere engaged in a dialogue. Nevertheless, the poetic ‘‘I’’ (male) is capable of realising, to a certain extent, the utterances of the poetic “You’’ (female), without stuffing her with speech. This could be possible as the poet assume divers positions in the poems. There are movement when for the sustenance of his inner pace and creativity, he waits for the magnet (desire/woman), like iron particles. On other occasions, he actualises woman at the verbal level, attempts to read her as a book and listen to the musical notes of her flute-like body. He penetrates the inner recesses of ‘‘You’’ through diverse positions. Not only that, he enters into diverse relationship with her and brings to the surface the infinite range of possibilities lying dormant in her:
Only your presence can fill
the void between you
and me
in which the elements
of our relationship communicate
I’m nothing without you
and what are you without me?
tell
Swaranjit Savi’s poetry thus presents a panorama of a ‘‘signifier’’ burgeoning into several ‘‘signifiers’’. Not only that, the ‘‘signfied’’ assume the from of several ‘‘signifiers in various situations through different relationship. In this way, the signifiers in these poems keep on adapting themselves as the situations demand. They possess a visionary quality:
Its words
dance, twist before your eyes
change shapes
like clouds flying in the skies,
radiate in the conciseness
The book
changes your direction
your ways
As a result, layers of meaning overlap each other. Like ripples, they surge and simultaneously break into other. In such a case, the reader does not remain a passive consumer of meanings. To the contrary, he rebuilds his own gestalt of meanings with the help of his own experience, situations, mental equipment and expectations.
These poems are beyond the censorship of meanings. A critic’s reading and interpretation of these poems in no case will be final and, extrinsic. A critical appraisal will remain open to another critical judgment. And there seems no end to such a sequence. Therefore, the advocates of a self-approving, empirical and outwardly- projected interpretation pale into insignificance. There is no such thing as absolute meaning. These poems free a passive consumer-reader from the fetters of finite meaning, surface text and idea- loaded parochialism. On the contrary, the reader enters into a kind of corporate enterprise with the poet in the process of decoding the text.
The poet is well aware of the fact how a poem can burden the reader with fixed meaning, limited textual approaches and dogmatic idea- bound insularities:
There is no ism anywhere
on the pages of your body
but when I
read them a poem
drenched in love
spreading the fragrance of your body
my listeners, before any appreciation
of love,
reflect an ism
in their eyes
even though
your body
and my feelings
met after crossing the boundaries
of all those isms…
He knows that it is almost impossible to be artless and unaffected once the boundaries of meaning and ideology are crossed. It is the wont of human mind to veil with meaning and doctrines what is as gigantic and palpable as the sea. It is the language that provides the stuff for these veils and vestures. Thus a collective mind is capable of transforming any austere and natural intercourse into a cultural phenomenon through its linguistic competence:
As the shadow
of coverings
of garments
on your body
progressed
I
was deprived
of the beauty of nature,
of a gentle attraction
of an awesome naked ocean
I became
more and more
confined
I was no longer my own self
you were natural no more
Through linguistic competence, Swaranjit Savi, beautifully portrays the mode of transforming of a natural intercourse into a cultural arrangement. He holds in the beginning were men and woman. Among them, there prevailed only one kind of relationship- relationship of coetaneousness – a shared carnal bond with all creatures. But the birth of language (verbal) created categories of father, husband, brother, son, lover etc. among men and mother, wife, sister, daughter, beloved etc. among men. This was a kind of disintegration. As a consequence, a network of relationships came into being and this network has laid the foundation of culture:
You and I
were bodies
I a man you a woman
your need
your desire my desire: all matched
we met
united amorously, enjoyed …
your language my language
were the tongs
of our bodies
… … … …
then came the word,
the explosion of the language:
you got started
I lost balance
an echo lingered
… … … …
And we
from you and I
from man and woman
got entangled in relationship:
mother father wife
sister brother…
and many more…
we
became civilized !
Social!
Society is a limit,
Is an order
Is what we have moulded and wove
It is the collective mind which through the medium of language, transforms an artless and unvaried natural into distinctive cultural items and processes. Language organises the collective mind into a thought-system with the help of its sentence- generating potential. The rationale of sentence- generation propels each experience further in the direction of cultural conditioning. Therefore, poetry too, is imprisoned in the cocoon of single- layered meaning and ideological code. Social constraints and cultural discipline are responsible for this. But the logic that language creates is not all that life comprises. Desire shatters this cultural discipline, demolishes its supremacy and thus paves the way for its change:
Your touch
anywhere on my body
excites the streams
flowing within the sea
the movement of my breath
the flight of birds
the call of the winds
Your kiss
“Your touch”- in this poem is a passion or desire which creates a stir in the discipline of human mind, language and culture. It makes everything restless- the tidal waves of human mind, the sail of human culture –all become turbulent.
Swaranjit Savi conceives cultural placidity or we may say the rational discipline of human mind in the from of a Rukmani who is serene and unruffled as the sea, and is circumscribed by the knowledge of meditation and penance. She is conditioned by the rigours of yogic discipline. In the tamed realms of cultural insularity, logic and discipline, Radha emerges as a symbol of boundless desire inspired by her passion and love. She enters the threshold with a melodious blush on her cheeks. But the melodies of a new dawn can not sway the human heart. They can only create restlessness:
……
Cultural placidity, ideological discipline, linguistic logic –all stand questioned. The cultural sign breaks away from its finite and ixed meanings and embraces the infinite signifiers. As a consequence, there emerges a split, uncertainty and disequilibrium in the equation between the ‘‘ signfier’’ and the ‘‘signified”. In this triangles of Radha, Rukmani and “I”, the poet voices the restlessness of the “I” in these words:
Radha:
a craze a love
a stream flowing fast
a morning, pure and sweeping
a raga, crimson, on the flute of heart
a dew freshly fallen on a flower
Rukmani:
an ocean
an penance
a yoga
And I :
a flow wandering in between
exhausted tired
irritated
a sad writing on a stone
The encounter between cultural conditioning (Rukmani) and boundless desire (Radha) offers no direction to the human mind (I). It rather creates in “I” dejection and yearning for quest in afixed meanings and embraces the infinite signifiers. As a consequence, there emerges a split, uncertainty and disequilibrium in the equation between the ‘‘ signfier’’ and the ‘‘signified”. In this triangles of Radha, Rukmani and “I”, the poet voices the restlessness of the “I” in these words:
Passing through my being
creating a maya
in the galaxies in the universes,
smoldering… sobbing … radiant
lit … aflamed
expanding its symphonic universe
beyond names places and the times
unfolding countless mysteries
creating countless more
running in my guts
as blood
wind
as a feeling,
getting strength from your lips
my beloved :
your flute.
This boundless desire performs its function not only when it gets transformed into an aesthetic force. It also fills insipid and static life with beauty and makes it dynamic. It is the poet’s crowning achievement that he could breathe dynamism into a kind of poetry on which the mildew of cultural stagnation, single-layered meanings, ideological constraints and the polemics of language had settled:
I dance
water wind fire are
my notes my rhythms
The wonder of your body
excites the fire of my mind
fire-
that burns on my palm and
I
encircled by the serpents
of your love
drink venom to find you
I dance
tireless
trample my own self again and again
My feet stifle
sometimes free
my being in the hot lava
flowing out of my body
you the smoldering of my breaths
burn
within me without me all around
saturating my breaths my limbs
like a fragrance
Uma
Swaranjit Savi refers to food, water, flesh, smells and scents as basic human hungers. These are the thirsts of man. When man attempts to satiate these hungers as a matter of need, and express them through the medium of discourse, culture instead of appeasing the libido, wrath, avarice, attachments, pride transforms them into an insatiable and infinite desire, Like electric current, this infinite desire stirs as a sequence of signifiers. When a certain “I ” makes an attempt to manifest desire, the cultural subconscious of the “I ”, deviates from conscious cultural conditioning and through metaphoric substitutions and metanymic displacement gives expression to itsdreams, art forms and poetic artifacts, emotional longings and fun and frolic by means of unstable signs. For instance, sex-hunger is common to all creatures. It is an animal tendency. But when man, to satiate his sex- hunger as a necessity, expresses it in discourse through language, it gets transformed into sexuality. Sex is a biological symptom whereas sexuality is the product of verbal human cultural. Sex- hunger is satiated through sexual intercourse. But sexuality is a cultural act which is never sated. It rather keeps mounting. Cultural conditioning keeps a check on the boundless sexuality and precludes it from any conscious manifestation. In art and literature, the sub- conscious symbolises this sexuality:
food
water
flesh
smell
body
fragrance
are all my hunger and thirst
The warm blood in my
arteries convulses
and speeds up to a center at some place
My whole body goes wild to
walk through another body
the thirst grows
the hunger doubles A moments or two
pass in bliss
and then
the hunger rises again!
spreads over to
words
vibrations
cells molecules…
The hunger accelerates
Punjabi albeit Indian cultural views sexual love as a major hurdle in the way of spiritual and moral growth of the individual. In several tales, we see the apasaras shattering the yogic concentration of gods in meditation. It is a common belief that woman in comparison with men carry a higher degree of sexuality. Men are made to believe that their real strength lies in their semen. Therefore, men should not waste a drop of it. It is something precious meant to be preserved within the body. Its preservation leads to spiritual, moral, mental and physical development. Men are thus for advised minimum indulgence. As far as possible, semen should be used for reproduction only. Over indulgence erodes this vital power. By all means, men should keep a strict control over their sexual desire. A man should nurture no desire of sexual indulgence with any woman other than his wife as it is morally degrading.
The tendencies such as the preservation of semen, sexual abstinence, check on promiscuity, total prohibition on sexual love before marriage, distancing of woman during the menstrual days, the absence of foreplay and afterplay, gross dismissal of sexual fulfillment on woman’s part during the act, inhibitions among woman regarding the expression of their sexual needs, lack of variety in love –making and total abstinence and before marriage- have drastically circumscribed the beauty, significance and contribution of man-woman relationship in Punjabi and Indian culture. Such codes deprive a culture of wide- ranging meaning and limitless joys. The ominous shadows of social and cultural conditioning hamper cultural blooming as sexual love is so vehemently tabooed.
The need for a radical change in our attitude is now keenly felt. We must learn to recognise the contribution of sexuality, sexual desire, love sexual pleasure and beauty, the relevance and meaning of such relationship to human culture. Swaranjit Savi has responded to the challenge. His poems not merely attempt to comprehend such relationship, they seek to elevate sexual passion to the heights of spiritual experience and meditation. They endeavour to attain the bliss of meditation and union:
The moment I meet you
I became free of all reincarnations
The entire words of mine
Shrinks into you
and I realize
the shape of my desire
for, you are
my strength
my salvation
the ocean of my contentment.
They also reveal the intensity of the dialogue of the bodies:
The moment
I am only a realization
like a raga passing through
the bodies in ecstasy
like a rising cloud of stream
like a melancholy ananda…
This moment
I
am a realization
of that moment…
Swaranjit Savi does not confine sexual relationship to mere intellectual musings, by creating them in the pattern of spiritual experience or union. Through the complete participation of the body, he harmonises the body and mind into a kinship:
I want to live in you
as a silence in a stone
As a murmur of a stone
In flower petals
As walk of the wind
through a turned sarangi
The poet is alive to the importance of body-based vitality. There begins a voyage- this voyage is possible through the medium of a dialogue, a kind of communication and kinship which enlivens the body and mind with lust, beauty, knowledge and strength:
To every rhythm of yours
My flute dances
and tells much:
that the vividly burning diva
in the tunnel of my ignorance
is none but you
In every journey of mine
in you, through you
I seek light- knowledge –strength
and every time I miss so much
I come once again
and spread the sheet
of my love
Come
give it a satin touch
give me the light
for, I’m not full yet,
Ratti / Uma / Radha !
the mother of my love !
The poet is least interested in the engrossed metaphysical human consciousness merging into the omnipresent. This consciousness has nothing to do with passion, lust, ego and beauty.
our jugglery-
to pass through each other’s bodies
to use each other’s bodies
and then
to free ourselves
of the thought of all this…
seems so conscious,
and fabricated
like a weakly crafted ghazal
He adores the whisperings of passion. Away from any such redemption, what the poet value most are the playful rhythms of the mind and the songs of the body that harbour curiosity:
My heart beats like
the vivacious
notes springing forth
from the santoor of Shaiv Kumar Sharma
Hypnotized,
I wander
through your being
through your maya
affected by the desire of you
bitten by my lava within, I
am not free for even a thousandth
of a moment.
The poet’s inquisitive man has no fixed, layered identity. His man is always evolving into infinite, inspired and informed by desire. He knows no fear and no enemy. He is multi- dimensional, multi- layered, multi- directional and a paradoxical manifestation. An epitome of synthesis, he stands for a perpetual struggle assuming the from of inter-related parallel peculiarities. At the core operates the dialogue. In fact, cultural and national existence too pass through the tensions. Out of tension emerge signs of a culture’s and a nation’s identity. Swaranjit Savi’s poems too appear to take birth out of tension.
-Amarjit Grewal
POEMS
1
Whatever you are:
body, from, formless
man, house, toy god,
dust, ruin, earth, sky
word, tune, line
Whatever you are
bird, sun, redness
morning –evening
joy-sorrow
flight-drive
Whatever you are
move, darkness, brightness
delicate- solid…
Whatever you are
you ‘re an image
entering my eyes
taking shape in my mind
And whatever I am
I am an image
formed woven grown
out of you
2
I draw close to you
My whole being
tiptoes for an intimate gaze
of you
like the iron- particles
restlessly meeting the magnet
the experience of seeing you
touching you
gives rhythm to the
waters flowing within
makes you a
body vibrating with music
you are transformed
into cosmic orchestra
In whichever direction
I see
whatever I touch
My breath smoulders
feelings caress
turbulent notes emanate
shimmering and ablaze
they pervade our universe
This is the only way-
mingling with the notes
of your each lyre
I will create new ragas
my whole life
O body blaring music
3
Your touch
anywhere on my body
excites the streams
flowing within the sea
the moment of my breath
the flight of birds
the call of the winds
Your kiss
suddenly
accelerates energizes
like a Niagara fall
the slow moving water
And in every part of my body
a flower begins to bloom
Then I see
the buds opening slowly
the petals unfolding hastily into flowers
and that’s the moment
I seek in you
again and again
4
I am
absorbed in writing the last
word in the Book of your body
But seems I haven’t
even begun yet
not even a word so far
I’m still entangled in the verse of
that last word…
Your body is limited
but within and without
it knows no limits
I have
scribbled my feelings
on every limb of your body
have spread my limbs
all over
on your feelings…
Seems you are
a boundless ocean
and I
a child playing on your waves
entangled in your waves
scared of your waves
Seems
the bird the dream and the net
are always there together
Though
I am still absorbed writing the
last word in the Book of your body…
5
I touch you
with my eyes closed
within me floats
the animated, dancing
flute of
Hari Parasad Chaurasia
My heart beats like
the vivacious
notes springing forth
from the Santoor of Shiv Kumar Sharma
Hypnotized,
I wander
through your being
through your maya
affected by the desire of you
bitten by my lava within, I
am not free for even a thousandth
of a moment.
I touch you
With my eyes closed.
6
The desert within me
burns
Hunger –thirst
Is a mirage in it,
the birth and death
the eternal cycle,
the universe
the planets on the
hot skies within…
all these are nothing but the
opening of a lotus
And it’s for all these:
desert to land
land to water
-prana- breath- energy
and then the sprouting
of a green stem…
it’s for all these
that I live I die
again and again
7
As the shadow
of coverings
of garments
on your body
progressed
I
was deprived
of the beauty of nature,
of a gentle attraction
of an awesome naked ocean
I became
more and more
confined
I was no longer my own self
you were natural no more
but the attraction of you
remained vivid
exciting
beyond all coverings
And I
a natural lover of yours
make love to you
in my fancy
with all the powers of
my senses in unison
8
I dance for you
the tandava
for, nothing
like creation and destruction
is possible without you
Without you
I am separated from
the battle field of action
and reaction
Only your presence can fill
the void between you
and me
in which the elements
of our relationship communicate
I’m nothing without you
and what are you without me?
Tell
9
You were naked
as a hill-brook
a twig – bud
a sun –shade
and I didn’t feel the presence
of my senses
As you and I
like elementary particles,
like a seed-from to create any from,
started on our-own –made
wave –tracks
created our-own-world,
you
after covering yourself with
the veils of relations
of meanings non- meanings
became from a nude to
a trembling –quivering
delicate –transparent
sheet
And deep inside me
elementary particles
of my energies of my senses
lost their forms
Restlessly, randomly
they long, seek your nakedness
long for the waves flowing ehind
the sheet
for, I will not return
nor it seems possible
to return now.
10
I, a mountain
you,a shower of snow;
kisses of your love
warp me every moment
A milk-white sheet of your love
falls on my top:
the entrenchment of
the seeds of your vivacity
on the lingam
of my mind,
Oh, milk-yoni!
11
I love
swim over waves
I flow
enjoy milk-springs of
comfort of hunger
Hey Radha ! Ratti ! Hey mother,
how many forms you assume
o assume
to beguile
To every rhythm of yours
my flute dances
and tells much:
that that the vividly burning diva
in the tunnel of my ignorance
is none but you
In every journey of mine
in you, through you
I seek light- knowledge –strength
and each time I miss so much
I come once again
and spread the sheet
of my love
Come
give it a satin touch
give me the light
for, I’m not full yet,
Ratti/ Uma/ Radha!
the mother of my love!
12
I know
my limitations
cell by cell… bit by bit
I know your endlessness
I spill
you absorb me to the last drop
and recreate
I know
much
or nothing
of you
of myself
of ourselves
to come to you
with a wild curiosity
and go back calm
to return again
with a new curiosity a new angst
what’s this mystery?
that I know much and know nothing
13
Just now
I was absorbed in
the rainbow of your body
in the everlasting raga of your lips
Just now
we were swimming
in the waters different than
the seven seas
Just now
we saw
a strange juggle spread
within and without us
Just now
a serpent
circled around us in reverence
Just now
every thing like a hot lava
was with us-
And now it seems
the body is something strange
our breaths lifeless
our limbs without
fire
we aren’t merging into
but drifting away
from each other slowly
Just now
every wonder was with us
and now!
14
You and I
were bodies
I a man you a woman
your need
your desire my desire : all matched
we met
united amorously, enjoyed…
your language my language
were the tongs
of our bodies
… … … …
then came the word,
the explosion of the language:
you got started
I lost balance
an echo lingered
… … … …
And we
from you and I
from man and woman
got entangled in relationships:
mother father wife
sister brother…
and many more…
we
became civilized !
Social!
Society is a limit,
is an order
is what we have molded and wove
Now it’s I
who crosses all the barriers
to meet you
the barriers
we ourselves erected
… … … …
You are …
someone who devotes the body
for the sake of love
I am …
someone who offers love
for the body for pleasure…
Now we are
who refuse to carry the
weight of the chains
we ourselves created
We’ re still the same
but now
we can not be the same…
15
I enjoy
dance –waves –music
swim
in the wonderful seas
soar
in the strange unknown skies
To understand you
I want to catch in you
the dance the gestures
ut only the water of the sea surface
fills my hands when
I try to catch the waves
My hands reach your body
every thing stills
the touch
generates
I begin to swim again
like waves.
16
These days,
do not see me
for, these days
road, taste
evening, dialogue
morning, company, culture
everything
has become like a body;
yes everything-
a silky violet night
an expanding universe
a raga of mind
the naada eternal…
you may
like it… not like it
but these days
I am someone
you better not see…
17
You are a canvas, full of luck
like the earth
endowed with
water fire wind and mountains
half-virgin, fertile
you are my canvas
with my brush I give you touches
the touches full of colors, waves
feelings
bearing my touches
you tremble
quiver
then grow
shoots
buds
and the leaves lush green
you effect
the realization of my dreams
you
the best canvas of
my life
my best painting
I put colors on you
again and again
touch you with my feelings
create a ragani of scarlet ragas
I draw lines
erase
then redraw repaint
… … … …
you’re never complete
I’m never tired
You’re the canvas
that’s my perfect match.
18
Radha:
a craze a love
a stream flowing fast
a morning, pure and sweeping
a raga, crimson, on the flute of heart
a dew freshly fallen on a flower
Rukmani:
an ocean
a penance
a yoga
And I :
A flow wandering in between
exhausted tired
irritated
a sad writing on a stone
19
I am yours
not like a death … like an assurance
Not a sadness but
a warm embrace I am for you
I have rolled myself
from all corners
to be an offering to you
I have wanted to fall
like a rain of kisses on you,
have desired to grow like a plant
on your earth
With you I am a verdure
without you
only a useless body I become....
20
I want to live in you
as a silence in a stone
As a murmur in a stone
in flower petals
As a walk of the wind
through a tuned sarangi
As a home –made coin
buried in a ruin
As a sweetness spreading on
the tongue at the
mention of a mango
As a cry imprisoned
in the yellowed bricks of a ruin
As a book on the shelf
filled with hate love sadness
as a delicate sensation
before your touch
and as an explosion
hidden in words
and as a shape hidden in
clouds and in stones
I want to live within you
as in the space live:
the word
the cosmos the universe
and the world of cosmic sounds
21
She opened her arms
I became a man and
went into them
The Chenab
with its waves of love
swelled in our eyes
We were the same age
… … … … …
With my head in her lap
She sang a sweet lullaby
patted me
kissed me on the forehead
I fell asleep-
a toddler in her lab...
22
We are not
Adam and Eve
and it can’t be possible either
Our pleasure,
our jugglery-
to pass through each other’s bodies
to use each other’s bodies
and then
to free ourselves
of the thought of all this …
seems so conscious,
and fabricated
like a weakly crafted ghazal
We are not Adam and Eve,
and even a possibility of this
is beyond the bounds
of our fate…
23
Your started response
at my very mention, and
your realization, of that act;
your approval
(after gently resting your head on my chest)
of all the moments except
that one final moment:
what else could it be
other than you innocence,
your naivete?
I said, “as you wish”.
You asked for a magic lamp,
I gave it
You rubbed it:
a world of dreams like that
of an actress
filled your eyes
“Your order my mistress?”
And suddenly
you were touching the peaks
Your name
your picture
your dreams of you
became of fate of millions …
… … … … …
And then:
husband child household : a little world
… … …
At that time
you were in my arms
Your eyes
depths curves
smiles shudders
sweet sensations
warm feelings
sweet ragas
and the flow of a hot lava ….
were all mine
Only the magic lamp was yours…
… … … … …
You were happy
to rub the dream- lamps
I was happy
to lose my way in
your body’s raga
And with a bit of difference
we were both
submerged in lust – equally deep….
24
You asked for
only one moment
I willed every thing
in your name
Whatever I am,
worn middle –aged
dilemma ridden, I am yours
with all my weaknesses worries
with all the inner crises
with the complete – incomplete
written half- written book
of my mind .
25
Whenever
I see you
all names drop from the
bag full of my relationships
only one remains: woman
Youthful-
full
the woman of my longings…
and the feathers of my thought
turn light blue-purple
fly toward the world
where we, free of everything,
are prisoners of only one moment
and only in that moment
are we alive
full…
26
These days
in your language
I am a man of porno thinking
These days
I am a prisoner of only
one moment
and the vast world of that moment
is the subject of my thoughts …
sex
wrath
greed
affection have possessed me
To live without fear and
without conflict
is something far beyond
me and my face…
I wonder
If a moment could became that long?
that year after year pass through it
or if the world of a moment
could became that different…
27
When I see you
everything else becomes trivial
this environment
these people
this society-
and in me
a red hot lava erupts
the broken pieces of music reverberate!
28
As I slowly disperse with age
I center on my senses …
A fear of something losing
a fear of something diminishing
and a desire to possess everything:
each sense of mine
has became monstrous
My thoughts
my actions
have taken a strange direction
… … … … …
Seems I’ll disintegrate
this moment
yes! This very moment…
29
I have become full
with woman
with bodies
I’ve been encircled
by a line
a line of red burning fire,
my thoughts race
only toward the prohibited…
This moment
I am nothing but a lingam
swinging
playing…
30
This moment
I am only a realization
like a rage passing through
the bodies in ecstasy
like a rising cloud a steam
like a melancholy ananda…
This moment
I
am a realization
of that moment…
31
This moment
I am what I am often not
my thoughts are sneaking past
the prohibited boundary
my body has became
a moment
just before the explosion…
wife
a girl passing by
or a beloved woman-
all like the same feeling
everything
feels the same
32
Two bodies meet…
A match dropped
out of the blue
a spark flew
one body trembled and
below out
the other was left sizzling
The bodies meet
but the touch turns
from warm to sticky
The nerves harden…
… … … … …
And that one moment
has unmanned my body
for years to come.
33
It was simply a crowd
and hustle bustle
and I too was nothing but an ordinary
social being…
But suddenly
when you appeared
you were the only one
around me
And in that very moment
I unclothed your body
gazed intently
caressed, made, love…
I was surprised
the crowed didn’t object
nor did your expression change
Again you become a stranger
looking as strangely
as before
But the intervening moment
I stole from you
and spent with you
is mine
and only mine…
34
It will happen like this
whatever our love-crazed
blood and sweat spills
the land will become more fertile
birds will sing
flowers will bloom
winds will blow fragrance,
carry messages of love
like Adam and Eve’s
… … … … …
It will happen like this
that this
narrative – the beastly narrative – of
petty differences in blood hues
will eventually end
first at the place
where the first drop of our
love – crazed blood ‘n sweat will fall
Come
let us spread
ourselves drop by drop
on the entire earth
35
The radiant blue light
fills my eyes
The mind:
rabbits jump
bounce ahead
pounding the earth under
their feet … …
Dim blue light
smooth road
satin swing
the hand walks slowly
on the road of silk
eyes closed
smiling delicately
float on the wind
as my mind floats on a song
of gentle notes
… … …
the hands swim
the mind smiles
the blue stream-
a pink intoxication
rising slowly-
dangles in the wind
like a string
after stealing a raga from
the instrument
walks gingerly … sinuously
36
Poetry ,
I don’t want
to string the same worm out
images in your braids
again
No, I don’t want to burden you
again
with Gautama – Sidhartha
Rama- Ravana descriptions
Nor do I intend to draw a
Lachhman – rekha between them…
I know
you can’t carry
the burden of trite metaphors now
No longer do I want to present to you
the scenes of exploding bombs,
corpses, fires
No more I want to load
on your back
the wall
of fanaticism erected between
man and man
Nor do I wish
you to support on you shoulders
the old Sarwan- vehingee of tradition
any more…
And if you too
have challenged these feelingless
images, accept a warm kiss of mine
on your eyes
Stands on the hot stands of time,
read verses of the love, I want
to see you in your fullness
You who have sustained all those
arrows of fire, I want to kiss you
to craziness
so that imbued with fragrance
of fresh flowers
you can walk on the tremble of
lips filled with feelings.
37
Then
you did swim
the Chenab of love and all
the seven oceans
Then
your desire and longing
was larger than the truth of the
entire universe
Then
you were a complete woman
but I
didn’t match your soul
nor your body
Then
you were the earth
spread in entirety
showering your love all around
I was then incomplete,
a man incomplete
For that moment…
forgive me…
38
There is no ism anywhere
on the pages of your body
but when I
read them a poem
drenched in love
spreading the fragrance of your body
my listeners, before any appreciation
of love,
reflect an ism
in their eyes
even though
your body
and my feelings
met after crossing the boundaries
of all those isms…
39
Society
home family
marriage- our supreme institution !!
Nothing is yet woven together
It’s already scattering bit by bit …
Husband, wife
whenever they meet
whenever they depart,
morning and evening,
repeat
I’m yours… you’re mine…
what’s all this?
so much strangeness!
so much distrust!
We
the civilized beings
are pillars
afraid of melting
And the bridge,
with its quivering lips
is in silent prayer
40
A high mountain
and you,
hypnotized by the
sound of a been
swinging
in the wildness of that moment,
seek something
And I, knowing every thing,
want to drive still deeper
What do we seek!
what do we find!
41
Your eyes
with the everlasting wait
and the dreams of that prince
in them
Your looks transfixed on
those paths
and your dream- flight in
the rainbow skies …
Whatever am I , imprisoned
in the geography of my body?
I have no right
to condemn you to a
Ahallia – destiny
Who knows
if someone would
come back or not
who knows the cycles of time…
… … … … …
No…
save yourself
from my frightened walls
trembling doors
weak windows
Save yourself
from my desolate existence
for, I don’t have the very capacity
and the vigor
that could create
something good, some
happy moments for you
Do not touch me
I’m a ruin,
today tomorrow …
may be I’m not…
42
food
water
flesh
smell
body
fragrance
are all my hunger and thirst
The warm blood in my
arteries convulses
and speeds up to a center at some place
My whole body goes wild to
walk through another body
The thirst grows
the hunger doubles
A moment or two,
pass in bliss
and then
the hunger rises again!
spreads over to
words
vibrations
cells molecules …
The hunger accelerates
43
You are earth
and I drops of rain
I showers kisses on every
Part of your body
My kisses scatter
spots of redness
every where
in the verdure
Every bit every pore
every cell of your body
freshens blooms murmurs
44
Like a stone
you gesture
And I a sculptor
with a hammer and chisel
chip you away
tha thuck tha thuk
As a break and peel
you slowly emerge out
My tha thuck tha thuk
uncovers you limb by limb
enflames my thirst.
45
It gestures
whenever you look at it
Longs
for a touch of finger tips
It opens.
trembling
quivering,
and ignites in you
the lights of love
Creates upheavals in the mind:
hatred
fire
chilly rain
like a spring
like an easterly wind
it fills you with fragrance
Its words
dance, twist before your eyes
changes shapes
like clouds flying in the skies,
radiate in the consciousness
The book
changes your direction
your ways
The book
after leaving the shelf
travels through hands
and with its words
passes through
houses
places
ruins
bodies minds
It wanders in skies universes
and returns itself to the shelf
And
generating a rush
the book settles
somewhere deep inside you
becomes a part of you
46
Oh leaves grass
flowers
buds… everything
the rain is falling
It drenches
body –mind
The saturated wind
fills the breath with memories
The rain
drenches the body outside,
burns it within
Hands ,
trembling quivering
in the cold wind,
reach your body
warm everything
with one touch
The rain
with its fresh breaths
is firing a new life in
grass
leaves
flowers –buds
47
The word
‘‘beloved’’
once used to be
a delight
a religion a morality
the whole world
The word, ‘‘beloved’’
is now a memory
hot sizzling
and a fire dying
slowly
as a burning pyre
cools,
becomes ashes
Then from the ashes
grows
something like a verdure
something like a raga malhar
The word, ‘‘beloved’’
a medium
between delight, ashes and
raga Malhar,
throbs here
obs there
48
A look at you
and a touch of your full being
transmits through my finger tips
the wonder of your
once robust
fresh
and proud existence
The faces the hands
that built you with dedication
flash before my eyes-
the face and the hands
that didn’t want to see
you become a ruin,
rather you were supposed
to see
their bones ,
and see the storms of the times:
the fading fires of love
the jealousies
ire
wrath
and the seeds of eruption
buried inside you
But you,
from a temple
from a stupa
from a loving sense
of worship,
have tracks a ruin,
the tracks for fading
civilizations,
a narrow eye
of religions of wars
that couldn’t tolerate your
existence your wonderment
and have made you
what now your are
……………
As I walk with you
you descend inme
with you unruly waves
with your stretch of
fifty centuries,
the centuries
that witnessed you
from youth to old age
to death to
your dissipating bones
I feel the heat of your youth
Ruins of the human history!
you are not a ruin
but an untold narrative
an untold history
that all coming ages
will listen to.
49
The thirst of love
moving toward amorous moments
easily picks up one of the
vocative names scattered around
in the space like a simran:
heart
you
Allah
Wahiguru – Ram;
Slow footed
leaping over water and fire,
the thirst suddenly accelerates
and catches the moment
in which
you
God Allah Wahiguru Ram
live like a simran
50
Radha ! Greater than all the
blessings in life is
the depth of the ocean of
your emotions
full with pearls of love
Welcome! Amen!
51
Melancholy –
it’s not you, my sarangi ,
but the bow of my heart
that clings to your neck and weeps
52
I dance
water wind fire are
my notes my rhythms
The wonder of your body
excites the fire of my mind
fire –
that burns on my palm and
I
encircled by the serpents
of your love
drinks venom to find you
I dance
tireless
trample my own self again and again
My feet stifle
sometimes free
my being in the hot lava
flowing out of my body
you the smoldering of my breaths
burn
within me without me all around
saturating my breaths my limbs
like a fragrance
Uma
come –
become a wave to resonate
with my wave length
be with me forever
like the strings of my damroo
for, now I can’t stop
this tandava is my fate
whatever I have to create
I have to create it with you
Without you
I am nothing
I dance for you.
53
The moment I meet you
I become free of all reincarnations
The entire world of mine
shrinks into you
and I realize
the shape of my desire
for, you are
my strength
my salvation
the ocean of my contentment.
54
Whenever I meet you, I
meet you for the last time
at the peak of a supreme bliss
like a death
I come back
un-believing – wonder – struck
like a child,
to reach you
for the last time
like a death
55
(Dedicated to Sh. Hari Parasad Chaurasia, great flute player of india)
(One)
From your lips to
he warmth of your love-breaths,
and in the rivers in the waters
mountains lush- fields springs,
everywhere it dances and gestures
like Radha – flute
Animated
chirping like a bird
It spreads verdure
and feeds my chick- senses
in my inner gardens:
your flute
55
(Two)
Convulsing in separation
sobbing mutely
beyond the mirrors of
agony- feeling
it spreads a desert of its loneliness
in me :
your flute
In the jungle of my wanderings
It echoes somewhere far away
with melancholy notes
eager for a union
In my jungles of sand
It creates a mirage of meeting :
your flute
55
(Three)
The flute
has become sadder
the dusk within me
is bidding the redness… adieu
The darkness is spreading
Somewhere near me
or far away
sits quietly,
within and without me
in all the four directions :
your flute
55
(Four)
Passing through my being
creating a maya
in the galaxies in the universes,
smoldering … sobbing … radiant
lit … aflamed
expanding its symphonic universe
beyond names places and the times
unfolding countless mysteries
creating countless more
running in my guts
as blood
wind
as a feeling,
getting strength from your lips
my beloved:
your flute.
(Translated from Punjabi by Ajmer Rode)
Poems by
Swaranjit Savi
PREFACE
Swaranjit Savi’s collection of poems is a witness to the fact that Punjabi poetry is transcending the tradition of modernist realism and is making forays into the post-modernist paradigm.
The book strongly refutes the notion that poetry is a transparent medium meant to put the reader in touch with outwards realities in their concrete from. Credit goes to this volume for liberating poetry from the bonds of singles- layered, absolute interpretation and certitude of meaning. The most outstanding quality of these poems resides in the fact that they generate symbolic signals which are uncertain, unstable and evolving. They exposit an evolving cultural discourse generated by a network of interrelationship between the ‘‘I’’ (the male) and the ‘‘You’’ (the female). It is through the ‘‘I’’ (the male poet) that the discourse gets shaped. But the ‘‘I’’ and the ‘‘You’’ (the male and the female) are so inconstant mutable and vibratory that in the words of the poet:
Whatever you are:
body, from, formless
man, house, toy god,
dust, ruin, earth, sky
word, tune, line
Whatever you are
bird, sun, redness
morning- evening
joy- sorrow
flight-drive
Whatever you are
move, darkness. brightness
delicate- solid…
Whatever you are
you’re an image
entering my eyes
taking shapes in my mind
And whatever I am
I am an image
formed woven grown
out of you
The poet intends to drive home three points. First, in no sing does there exist any enduring, inviolate and clinching affinity between the signifier and the signified. Nor can a sing be said to have a lasting affinity with any exclusive ‘‘signified’’. For example, in the poem- ‘‘I come to you’’ the ‘‘You’’ i.e. the female, is both a finite body and a fathomless desire, Similarly, ‘‘I’’ (the male) represents body in another poem. In another poem, it stands for bodyless knowledge. Last but not the least, there is the poem. ‘‘I’’ is infinite space. But, ‘‘I and ‘‘You’’ derive their distinct identities from their mutual association:
Melancholy-
It’s not you, my sarangi
but the bow of my heart
that clings to your neck and
weeps
In this context, ‘‘I’’ (man) and ‘‘You’’ (woman) share and establish an exchange of body and desire. This kinship between man and woman assume unusual significance. Time and time again, it provides basis to distinct identities of both man and woman. The contours of their personalities emerge from of this kinship:
You are…
someone who devotes the body
for the sake of love
I am…
someone who offers love
for the body for pleasure…
Secondly, no sign enjoys an autonomous existence. It rather owes its existence to those affinities and associations which it seeks to establish with other signs at the time of culture or poetry coming into existence:
You were happy
to rub the dream-lamps
I was happy
to lose my way in
your body’s raga
And with a bit of difference
we were both
submerged in lust – equally deep…
Third – in all these poems, invariably, it is the ‘‘I’’ (male) that speaks. ‘‘You’’ (female) is seen nowhere engaged in a dialogue. Nevertheless, the poetic ‘‘I’’ (male) is capable of realising, to a certain extent, the utterances of the poetic “You’’ (female), without stuffing her with speech. This could be possible as the poet assume divers positions in the poems. There are movement when for the sustenance of his inner pace and creativity, he waits for the magnet (desire/woman), like iron particles. On other occasions, he actualises woman at the verbal level, attempts to read her as a book and listen to the musical notes of her flute-like body. He penetrates the inner recesses of ‘‘You’’ through diverse positions. Not only that, he enters into diverse relationship with her and brings to the surface the infinite range of possibilities lying dormant in her:
Only your presence can fill
the void between you
and me
in which the elements
of our relationship communicate
I’m nothing without you
and what are you without me?
tell
Swaranjit Savi’s poetry thus presents a panorama of a ‘‘signifier’’ burgeoning into several ‘‘signifiers’’. Not only that, the ‘‘signfied’’ assume the from of several ‘‘signifiers in various situations through different relationship. In this way, the signifiers in these poems keep on adapting themselves as the situations demand. They possess a visionary quality:
Its words
dance, twist before your eyes
change shapes
like clouds flying in the skies,
radiate in the conciseness
The book
changes your direction
your ways
As a result, layers of meaning overlap each other. Like ripples, they surge and simultaneously break into other. In such a case, the reader does not remain a passive consumer of meanings. To the contrary, he rebuilds his own gestalt of meanings with the help of his own experience, situations, mental equipment and expectations.
These poems are beyond the censorship of meanings. A critic’s reading and interpretation of these poems in no case will be final and, extrinsic. A critical appraisal will remain open to another critical judgment. And there seems no end to such a sequence. Therefore, the advocates of a self-approving, empirical and outwardly- projected interpretation pale into insignificance. There is no such thing as absolute meaning. These poems free a passive consumer-reader from the fetters of finite meaning, surface text and idea- loaded parochialism. On the contrary, the reader enters into a kind of corporate enterprise with the poet in the process of decoding the text.
The poet is well aware of the fact how a poem can burden the reader with fixed meaning, limited textual approaches and dogmatic idea- bound insularities:
There is no ism anywhere
on the pages of your body
but when I
read them a poem
drenched in love
spreading the fragrance of your body
my listeners, before any appreciation
of love,
reflect an ism
in their eyes
even though
your body
and my feelings
met after crossing the boundaries
of all those isms…
He knows that it is almost impossible to be artless and unaffected once the boundaries of meaning and ideology are crossed. It is the wont of human mind to veil with meaning and doctrines what is as gigantic and palpable as the sea. It is the language that provides the stuff for these veils and vestures. Thus a collective mind is capable of transforming any austere and natural intercourse into a cultural phenomenon through its linguistic competence:
As the shadow
of coverings
of garments
on your body
progressed
I
was deprived
of the beauty of nature,
of a gentle attraction
of an awesome naked ocean
I became
more and more
confined
I was no longer my own self
you were natural no more
Through linguistic competence, Swaranjit Savi, beautifully portrays the mode of transforming of a natural intercourse into a cultural arrangement. He holds in the beginning were men and woman. Among them, there prevailed only one kind of relationship- relationship of coetaneousness – a shared carnal bond with all creatures. But the birth of language (verbal) created categories of father, husband, brother, son, lover etc. among men and mother, wife, sister, daughter, beloved etc. among men. This was a kind of disintegration. As a consequence, a network of relationships came into being and this network has laid the foundation of culture:
You and I
were bodies
I a man you a woman
your need
your desire my desire: all matched
we met
united amorously, enjoyed …
your language my language
were the tongs
of our bodies
… … … …
then came the word,
the explosion of the language:
you got started
I lost balance
an echo lingered
… … … …
And we
from you and I
from man and woman
got entangled in relationship:
mother father wife
sister brother…
and many more…
we
became civilized !
Social!
Society is a limit,
Is an order
Is what we have moulded and wove
It is the collective mind which through the medium of language, transforms an artless and unvaried natural into distinctive cultural items and processes. Language organises the collective mind into a thought-system with the help of its sentence- generating potential. The rationale of sentence- generation propels each experience further in the direction of cultural conditioning. Therefore, poetry too, is imprisoned in the cocoon of single- layered meaning and ideological code. Social constraints and cultural discipline are responsible for this. But the logic that language creates is not all that life comprises. Desire shatters this cultural discipline, demolishes its supremacy and thus paves the way for its change:
Your touch
anywhere on my body
excites the streams
flowing within the sea
the movement of my breath
the flight of birds
the call of the winds
Your kiss
“Your touch”- in this poem is a passion or desire which creates a stir in the discipline of human mind, language and culture. It makes everything restless- the tidal waves of human mind, the sail of human culture –all become turbulent.
Swaranjit Savi conceives cultural placidity or we may say the rational discipline of human mind in the from of a Rukmani who is serene and unruffled as the sea, and is circumscribed by the knowledge of meditation and penance. She is conditioned by the rigours of yogic discipline. In the tamed realms of cultural insularity, logic and discipline, Radha emerges as a symbol of boundless desire inspired by her passion and love. She enters the threshold with a melodious blush on her cheeks. But the melodies of a new dawn can not sway the human heart. They can only create restlessness:
……
Cultural placidity, ideological discipline, linguistic logic –all stand questioned. The cultural sign breaks away from its finite and ixed meanings and embraces the infinite signifiers. As a consequence, there emerges a split, uncertainty and disequilibrium in the equation between the ‘‘ signfier’’ and the ‘‘signified”. In this triangles of Radha, Rukmani and “I”, the poet voices the restlessness of the “I” in these words:
Radha:
a craze a love
a stream flowing fast
a morning, pure and sweeping
a raga, crimson, on the flute of heart
a dew freshly fallen on a flower
Rukmani:
an ocean
an penance
a yoga
And I :
a flow wandering in between
exhausted tired
irritated
a sad writing on a stone
The encounter between cultural conditioning (Rukmani) and boundless desire (Radha) offers no direction to the human mind (I). It rather creates in “I” dejection and yearning for quest in afixed meanings and embraces the infinite signifiers. As a consequence, there emerges a split, uncertainty and disequilibrium in the equation between the ‘‘ signfier’’ and the ‘‘signified”. In this triangles of Radha, Rukmani and “I”, the poet voices the restlessness of the “I” in these words:
Passing through my being
creating a maya
in the galaxies in the universes,
smoldering… sobbing … radiant
lit … aflamed
expanding its symphonic universe
beyond names places and the times
unfolding countless mysteries
creating countless more
running in my guts
as blood
wind
as a feeling,
getting strength from your lips
my beloved :
your flute.
This boundless desire performs its function not only when it gets transformed into an aesthetic force. It also fills insipid and static life with beauty and makes it dynamic. It is the poet’s crowning achievement that he could breathe dynamism into a kind of poetry on which the mildew of cultural stagnation, single-layered meanings, ideological constraints and the polemics of language had settled:
I dance
water wind fire are
my notes my rhythms
The wonder of your body
excites the fire of my mind
fire-
that burns on my palm and
I
encircled by the serpents
of your love
drink venom to find you
I dance
tireless
trample my own self again and again
My feet stifle
sometimes free
my being in the hot lava
flowing out of my body
you the smoldering of my breaths
burn
within me without me all around
saturating my breaths my limbs
like a fragrance
Uma
Swaranjit Savi refers to food, water, flesh, smells and scents as basic human hungers. These are the thirsts of man. When man attempts to satiate these hungers as a matter of need, and express them through the medium of discourse, culture instead of appeasing the libido, wrath, avarice, attachments, pride transforms them into an insatiable and infinite desire, Like electric current, this infinite desire stirs as a sequence of signifiers. When a certain “I ” makes an attempt to manifest desire, the cultural subconscious of the “I ”, deviates from conscious cultural conditioning and through metaphoric substitutions and metanymic displacement gives expression to itsdreams, art forms and poetic artifacts, emotional longings and fun and frolic by means of unstable signs. For instance, sex-hunger is common to all creatures. It is an animal tendency. But when man, to satiate his sex- hunger as a necessity, expresses it in discourse through language, it gets transformed into sexuality. Sex is a biological symptom whereas sexuality is the product of verbal human cultural. Sex- hunger is satiated through sexual intercourse. But sexuality is a cultural act which is never sated. It rather keeps mounting. Cultural conditioning keeps a check on the boundless sexuality and precludes it from any conscious manifestation. In art and literature, the sub- conscious symbolises this sexuality:
food
water
flesh
smell
body
fragrance
are all my hunger and thirst
The warm blood in my
arteries convulses
and speeds up to a center at some place
My whole body goes wild to
walk through another body
the thirst grows
the hunger doubles A moments or two
pass in bliss
and then
the hunger rises again!
spreads over to
words
vibrations
cells molecules…
The hunger accelerates
Punjabi albeit Indian cultural views sexual love as a major hurdle in the way of spiritual and moral growth of the individual. In several tales, we see the apasaras shattering the yogic concentration of gods in meditation. It is a common belief that woman in comparison with men carry a higher degree of sexuality. Men are made to believe that their real strength lies in their semen. Therefore, men should not waste a drop of it. It is something precious meant to be preserved within the body. Its preservation leads to spiritual, moral, mental and physical development. Men are thus for advised minimum indulgence. As far as possible, semen should be used for reproduction only. Over indulgence erodes this vital power. By all means, men should keep a strict control over their sexual desire. A man should nurture no desire of sexual indulgence with any woman other than his wife as it is morally degrading.
The tendencies such as the preservation of semen, sexual abstinence, check on promiscuity, total prohibition on sexual love before marriage, distancing of woman during the menstrual days, the absence of foreplay and afterplay, gross dismissal of sexual fulfillment on woman’s part during the act, inhibitions among woman regarding the expression of their sexual needs, lack of variety in love –making and total abstinence and before marriage- have drastically circumscribed the beauty, significance and contribution of man-woman relationship in Punjabi and Indian culture. Such codes deprive a culture of wide- ranging meaning and limitless joys. The ominous shadows of social and cultural conditioning hamper cultural blooming as sexual love is so vehemently tabooed.
The need for a radical change in our attitude is now keenly felt. We must learn to recognise the contribution of sexuality, sexual desire, love sexual pleasure and beauty, the relevance and meaning of such relationship to human culture. Swaranjit Savi has responded to the challenge. His poems not merely attempt to comprehend such relationship, they seek to elevate sexual passion to the heights of spiritual experience and meditation. They endeavour to attain the bliss of meditation and union:
The moment I meet you
I became free of all reincarnations
The entire words of mine
Shrinks into you
and I realize
the shape of my desire
for, you are
my strength
my salvation
the ocean of my contentment.
They also reveal the intensity of the dialogue of the bodies:
The moment
I am only a realization
like a raga passing through
the bodies in ecstasy
like a rising cloud of stream
like a melancholy ananda…
This moment
I
am a realization
of that moment…
Swaranjit Savi does not confine sexual relationship to mere intellectual musings, by creating them in the pattern of spiritual experience or union. Through the complete participation of the body, he harmonises the body and mind into a kinship:
I want to live in you
as a silence in a stone
As a murmur of a stone
In flower petals
As walk of the wind
through a turned sarangi
The poet is alive to the importance of body-based vitality. There begins a voyage- this voyage is possible through the medium of a dialogue, a kind of communication and kinship which enlivens the body and mind with lust, beauty, knowledge and strength:
To every rhythm of yours
My flute dances
and tells much:
that the vividly burning diva
in the tunnel of my ignorance
is none but you
In every journey of mine
in you, through you
I seek light- knowledge –strength
and every time I miss so much
I come once again
and spread the sheet
of my love
Come
give it a satin touch
give me the light
for, I’m not full yet,
Ratti / Uma / Radha !
the mother of my love !
The poet is least interested in the engrossed metaphysical human consciousness merging into the omnipresent. This consciousness has nothing to do with passion, lust, ego and beauty.
our jugglery-
to pass through each other’s bodies
to use each other’s bodies
and then
to free ourselves
of the thought of all this…
seems so conscious,
and fabricated
like a weakly crafted ghazal
He adores the whisperings of passion. Away from any such redemption, what the poet value most are the playful rhythms of the mind and the songs of the body that harbour curiosity:
My heart beats like
the vivacious
notes springing forth
from the santoor of Shaiv Kumar Sharma
Hypnotized,
I wander
through your being
through your maya
affected by the desire of you
bitten by my lava within, I
am not free for even a thousandth
of a moment.
The poet’s inquisitive man has no fixed, layered identity. His man is always evolving into infinite, inspired and informed by desire. He knows no fear and no enemy. He is multi- dimensional, multi- layered, multi- directional and a paradoxical manifestation. An epitome of synthesis, he stands for a perpetual struggle assuming the from of inter-related parallel peculiarities. At the core operates the dialogue. In fact, cultural and national existence too pass through the tensions. Out of tension emerge signs of a culture’s and a nation’s identity. Swaranjit Savi’s poems too appear to take birth out of tension.
-Amarjit Grewal
POEMS
1
Whatever you are:
body, from, formless
man, house, toy god,
dust, ruin, earth, sky
word, tune, line
Whatever you are
bird, sun, redness
morning –evening
joy-sorrow
flight-drive
Whatever you are
move, darkness, brightness
delicate- solid…
Whatever you are
you ‘re an image
entering my eyes
taking shape in my mind
And whatever I am
I am an image
formed woven grown
out of you
2
I draw close to you
My whole being
tiptoes for an intimate gaze
of you
like the iron- particles
restlessly meeting the magnet
the experience of seeing you
touching you
gives rhythm to the
waters flowing within
makes you a
body vibrating with music
you are transformed
into cosmic orchestra
In whichever direction
I see
whatever I touch
My breath smoulders
feelings caress
turbulent notes emanate
shimmering and ablaze
they pervade our universe
This is the only way-
mingling with the notes
of your each lyre
I will create new ragas
my whole life
O body blaring music
3
Your touch
anywhere on my body
excites the streams
flowing within the sea
the moment of my breath
the flight of birds
the call of the winds
Your kiss
suddenly
accelerates energizes
like a Niagara fall
the slow moving water
And in every part of my body
a flower begins to bloom
Then I see
the buds opening slowly
the petals unfolding hastily into flowers
and that’s the moment
I seek in you
again and again
4
I am
absorbed in writing the last
word in the Book of your body
But seems I haven’t
even begun yet
not even a word so far
I’m still entangled in the verse of
that last word…
Your body is limited
but within and without
it knows no limits
I have
scribbled my feelings
on every limb of your body
have spread my limbs
all over
on your feelings…
Seems you are
a boundless ocean
and I
a child playing on your waves
entangled in your waves
scared of your waves
Seems
the bird the dream and the net
are always there together
Though
I am still absorbed writing the
last word in the Book of your body…
5
I touch you
with my eyes closed
within me floats
the animated, dancing
flute of
Hari Parasad Chaurasia
My heart beats like
the vivacious
notes springing forth
from the Santoor of Shiv Kumar Sharma
Hypnotized,
I wander
through your being
through your maya
affected by the desire of you
bitten by my lava within, I
am not free for even a thousandth
of a moment.
I touch you
With my eyes closed.
6
The desert within me
burns
Hunger –thirst
Is a mirage in it,
the birth and death
the eternal cycle,
the universe
the planets on the
hot skies within…
all these are nothing but the
opening of a lotus
And it’s for all these:
desert to land
land to water
-prana- breath- energy
and then the sprouting
of a green stem…
it’s for all these
that I live I die
again and again
7
As the shadow
of coverings
of garments
on your body
progressed
I
was deprived
of the beauty of nature,
of a gentle attraction
of an awesome naked ocean
I became
more and more
confined
I was no longer my own self
you were natural no more
but the attraction of you
remained vivid
exciting
beyond all coverings
And I
a natural lover of yours
make love to you
in my fancy
with all the powers of
my senses in unison
8
I dance for you
the tandava
for, nothing
like creation and destruction
is possible without you
Without you
I am separated from
the battle field of action
and reaction
Only your presence can fill
the void between you
and me
in which the elements
of our relationship communicate
I’m nothing without you
and what are you without me?
Tell
9
You were naked
as a hill-brook
a twig – bud
a sun –shade
and I didn’t feel the presence
of my senses
As you and I
like elementary particles,
like a seed-from to create any from,
started on our-own –made
wave –tracks
created our-own-world,
you
after covering yourself with
the veils of relations
of meanings non- meanings
became from a nude to
a trembling –quivering
delicate –transparent
sheet
And deep inside me
elementary particles
of my energies of my senses
lost their forms
Restlessly, randomly
they long, seek your nakedness
long for the waves flowing ehind
the sheet
for, I will not return
nor it seems possible
to return now.
10
I, a mountain
you,a shower of snow;
kisses of your love
warp me every moment
A milk-white sheet of your love
falls on my top:
the entrenchment of
the seeds of your vivacity
on the lingam
of my mind,
Oh, milk-yoni!
11
I love
swim over waves
I flow
enjoy milk-springs of
comfort of hunger
Hey Radha ! Ratti ! Hey mother,
how many forms you assume
o assume
to beguile
To every rhythm of yours
my flute dances
and tells much:
that that the vividly burning diva
in the tunnel of my ignorance
is none but you
In every journey of mine
in you, through you
I seek light- knowledge –strength
and each time I miss so much
I come once again
and spread the sheet
of my love
Come
give it a satin touch
give me the light
for, I’m not full yet,
Ratti/ Uma/ Radha!
the mother of my love!
12
I know
my limitations
cell by cell… bit by bit
I know your endlessness
I spill
you absorb me to the last drop
and recreate
I know
much
or nothing
of you
of myself
of ourselves
to come to you
with a wild curiosity
and go back calm
to return again
with a new curiosity a new angst
what’s this mystery?
that I know much and know nothing
13
Just now
I was absorbed in
the rainbow of your body
in the everlasting raga of your lips
Just now
we were swimming
in the waters different than
the seven seas
Just now
we saw
a strange juggle spread
within and without us
Just now
a serpent
circled around us in reverence
Just now
every thing like a hot lava
was with us-
And now it seems
the body is something strange
our breaths lifeless
our limbs without
fire
we aren’t merging into
but drifting away
from each other slowly
Just now
every wonder was with us
and now!
14
You and I
were bodies
I a man you a woman
your need
your desire my desire : all matched
we met
united amorously, enjoyed…
your language my language
were the tongs
of our bodies
… … … …
then came the word,
the explosion of the language:
you got started
I lost balance
an echo lingered
… … … …
And we
from you and I
from man and woman
got entangled in relationships:
mother father wife
sister brother…
and many more…
we
became civilized !
Social!
Society is a limit,
is an order
is what we have molded and wove
Now it’s I
who crosses all the barriers
to meet you
the barriers
we ourselves erected
… … … …
You are …
someone who devotes the body
for the sake of love
I am …
someone who offers love
for the body for pleasure…
Now we are
who refuse to carry the
weight of the chains
we ourselves created
We’ re still the same
but now
we can not be the same…
15
I enjoy
dance –waves –music
swim
in the wonderful seas
soar
in the strange unknown skies
To understand you
I want to catch in you
the dance the gestures
ut only the water of the sea surface
fills my hands when
I try to catch the waves
My hands reach your body
every thing stills
the touch
generates
I begin to swim again
like waves.
16
These days,
do not see me
for, these days
road, taste
evening, dialogue
morning, company, culture
everything
has become like a body;
yes everything-
a silky violet night
an expanding universe
a raga of mind
the naada eternal…
you may
like it… not like it
but these days
I am someone
you better not see…
17
You are a canvas, full of luck
like the earth
endowed with
water fire wind and mountains
half-virgin, fertile
you are my canvas
with my brush I give you touches
the touches full of colors, waves
feelings
bearing my touches
you tremble
quiver
then grow
shoots
buds
and the leaves lush green
you effect
the realization of my dreams
you
the best canvas of
my life
my best painting
I put colors on you
again and again
touch you with my feelings
create a ragani of scarlet ragas
I draw lines
erase
then redraw repaint
… … … …
you’re never complete
I’m never tired
You’re the canvas
that’s my perfect match.
18
Radha:
a craze a love
a stream flowing fast
a morning, pure and sweeping
a raga, crimson, on the flute of heart
a dew freshly fallen on a flower
Rukmani:
an ocean
a penance
a yoga
And I :
A flow wandering in between
exhausted tired
irritated
a sad writing on a stone
19
I am yours
not like a death … like an assurance
Not a sadness but
a warm embrace I am for you
I have rolled myself
from all corners
to be an offering to you
I have wanted to fall
like a rain of kisses on you,
have desired to grow like a plant
on your earth
With you I am a verdure
without you
only a useless body I become....
20
I want to live in you
as a silence in a stone
As a murmur in a stone
in flower petals
As a walk of the wind
through a tuned sarangi
As a home –made coin
buried in a ruin
As a sweetness spreading on
the tongue at the
mention of a mango
As a cry imprisoned
in the yellowed bricks of a ruin
As a book on the shelf
filled with hate love sadness
as a delicate sensation
before your touch
and as an explosion
hidden in words
and as a shape hidden in
clouds and in stones
I want to live within you
as in the space live:
the word
the cosmos the universe
and the world of cosmic sounds
21
She opened her arms
I became a man and
went into them
The Chenab
with its waves of love
swelled in our eyes
We were the same age
… … … … …
With my head in her lap
She sang a sweet lullaby
patted me
kissed me on the forehead
I fell asleep-
a toddler in her lab...
22
We are not
Adam and Eve
and it can’t be possible either
Our pleasure,
our jugglery-
to pass through each other’s bodies
to use each other’s bodies
and then
to free ourselves
of the thought of all this …
seems so conscious,
and fabricated
like a weakly crafted ghazal
We are not Adam and Eve,
and even a possibility of this
is beyond the bounds
of our fate…
23
Your started response
at my very mention, and
your realization, of that act;
your approval
(after gently resting your head on my chest)
of all the moments except
that one final moment:
what else could it be
other than you innocence,
your naivete?
I said, “as you wish”.
You asked for a magic lamp,
I gave it
You rubbed it:
a world of dreams like that
of an actress
filled your eyes
“Your order my mistress?”
And suddenly
you were touching the peaks
Your name
your picture
your dreams of you
became of fate of millions …
… … … … …
And then:
husband child household : a little world
… … …
At that time
you were in my arms
Your eyes
depths curves
smiles shudders
sweet sensations
warm feelings
sweet ragas
and the flow of a hot lava ….
were all mine
Only the magic lamp was yours…
… … … … …
You were happy
to rub the dream- lamps
I was happy
to lose my way in
your body’s raga
And with a bit of difference
we were both
submerged in lust – equally deep….
24
You asked for
only one moment
I willed every thing
in your name
Whatever I am,
worn middle –aged
dilemma ridden, I am yours
with all my weaknesses worries
with all the inner crises
with the complete – incomplete
written half- written book
of my mind .
25
Whenever
I see you
all names drop from the
bag full of my relationships
only one remains: woman
Youthful-
full
the woman of my longings…
and the feathers of my thought
turn light blue-purple
fly toward the world
where we, free of everything,
are prisoners of only one moment
and only in that moment
are we alive
full…
26
These days
in your language
I am a man of porno thinking
These days
I am a prisoner of only
one moment
and the vast world of that moment
is the subject of my thoughts …
sex
wrath
greed
affection have possessed me
To live without fear and
without conflict
is something far beyond
me and my face…
I wonder
If a moment could became that long?
that year after year pass through it
or if the world of a moment
could became that different…
27
When I see you
everything else becomes trivial
this environment
these people
this society-
and in me
a red hot lava erupts
the broken pieces of music reverberate!
28
As I slowly disperse with age
I center on my senses …
A fear of something losing
a fear of something diminishing
and a desire to possess everything:
each sense of mine
has became monstrous
My thoughts
my actions
have taken a strange direction
… … … … …
Seems I’ll disintegrate
this moment
yes! This very moment…
29
I have become full
with woman
with bodies
I’ve been encircled
by a line
a line of red burning fire,
my thoughts race
only toward the prohibited…
This moment
I am nothing but a lingam
swinging
playing…
30
This moment
I am only a realization
like a rage passing through
the bodies in ecstasy
like a rising cloud a steam
like a melancholy ananda…
This moment
I
am a realization
of that moment…
31
This moment
I am what I am often not
my thoughts are sneaking past
the prohibited boundary
my body has became
a moment
just before the explosion…
wife
a girl passing by
or a beloved woman-
all like the same feeling
everything
feels the same
32
Two bodies meet…
A match dropped
out of the blue
a spark flew
one body trembled and
below out
the other was left sizzling
The bodies meet
but the touch turns
from warm to sticky
The nerves harden…
… … … … …
And that one moment
has unmanned my body
for years to come.
33
It was simply a crowd
and hustle bustle
and I too was nothing but an ordinary
social being…
But suddenly
when you appeared
you were the only one
around me
And in that very moment
I unclothed your body
gazed intently
caressed, made, love…
I was surprised
the crowed didn’t object
nor did your expression change
Again you become a stranger
looking as strangely
as before
But the intervening moment
I stole from you
and spent with you
is mine
and only mine…
34
It will happen like this
whatever our love-crazed
blood and sweat spills
the land will become more fertile
birds will sing
flowers will bloom
winds will blow fragrance,
carry messages of love
like Adam and Eve’s
… … … … …
It will happen like this
that this
narrative – the beastly narrative – of
petty differences in blood hues
will eventually end
first at the place
where the first drop of our
love – crazed blood ‘n sweat will fall
Come
let us spread
ourselves drop by drop
on the entire earth
35
The radiant blue light
fills my eyes
The mind:
rabbits jump
bounce ahead
pounding the earth under
their feet … …
Dim blue light
smooth road
satin swing
the hand walks slowly
on the road of silk
eyes closed
smiling delicately
float on the wind
as my mind floats on a song
of gentle notes
… … …
the hands swim
the mind smiles
the blue stream-
a pink intoxication
rising slowly-
dangles in the wind
like a string
after stealing a raga from
the instrument
walks gingerly … sinuously
36
Poetry ,
I don’t want
to string the same worm out
images in your braids
again
No, I don’t want to burden you
again
with Gautama – Sidhartha
Rama- Ravana descriptions
Nor do I intend to draw a
Lachhman – rekha between them…
I know
you can’t carry
the burden of trite metaphors now
No longer do I want to present to you
the scenes of exploding bombs,
corpses, fires
No more I want to load
on your back
the wall
of fanaticism erected between
man and man
Nor do I wish
you to support on you shoulders
the old Sarwan- vehingee of tradition
any more…
And if you too
have challenged these feelingless
images, accept a warm kiss of mine
on your eyes
Stands on the hot stands of time,
read verses of the love, I want
to see you in your fullness
You who have sustained all those
arrows of fire, I want to kiss you
to craziness
so that imbued with fragrance
of fresh flowers
you can walk on the tremble of
lips filled with feelings.
37
Then
you did swim
the Chenab of love and all
the seven oceans
Then
your desire and longing
was larger than the truth of the
entire universe
Then
you were a complete woman
but I
didn’t match your soul
nor your body
Then
you were the earth
spread in entirety
showering your love all around
I was then incomplete,
a man incomplete
For that moment…
forgive me…
38
There is no ism anywhere
on the pages of your body
but when I
read them a poem
drenched in love
spreading the fragrance of your body
my listeners, before any appreciation
of love,
reflect an ism
in their eyes
even though
your body
and my feelings
met after crossing the boundaries
of all those isms…
39
Society
home family
marriage- our supreme institution !!
Nothing is yet woven together
It’s already scattering bit by bit …
Husband, wife
whenever they meet
whenever they depart,
morning and evening,
repeat
I’m yours… you’re mine…
what’s all this?
so much strangeness!
so much distrust!
We
the civilized beings
are pillars
afraid of melting
And the bridge,
with its quivering lips
is in silent prayer
40
A high mountain
and you,
hypnotized by the
sound of a been
swinging
in the wildness of that moment,
seek something
And I, knowing every thing,
want to drive still deeper
What do we seek!
what do we find!
41
Your eyes
with the everlasting wait
and the dreams of that prince
in them
Your looks transfixed on
those paths
and your dream- flight in
the rainbow skies …
Whatever am I , imprisoned
in the geography of my body?
I have no right
to condemn you to a
Ahallia – destiny
Who knows
if someone would
come back or not
who knows the cycles of time…
… … … … …
No…
save yourself
from my frightened walls
trembling doors
weak windows
Save yourself
from my desolate existence
for, I don’t have the very capacity
and the vigor
that could create
something good, some
happy moments for you
Do not touch me
I’m a ruin,
today tomorrow …
may be I’m not…
42
food
water
flesh
smell
body
fragrance
are all my hunger and thirst
The warm blood in my
arteries convulses
and speeds up to a center at some place
My whole body goes wild to
walk through another body
The thirst grows
the hunger doubles
A moment or two,
pass in bliss
and then
the hunger rises again!
spreads over to
words
vibrations
cells molecules …
The hunger accelerates
43
You are earth
and I drops of rain
I showers kisses on every
Part of your body
My kisses scatter
spots of redness
every where
in the verdure
Every bit every pore
every cell of your body
freshens blooms murmurs
44
Like a stone
you gesture
And I a sculptor
with a hammer and chisel
chip you away
tha thuck tha thuk
As a break and peel
you slowly emerge out
My tha thuck tha thuk
uncovers you limb by limb
enflames my thirst.
45
It gestures
whenever you look at it
Longs
for a touch of finger tips
It opens.
trembling
quivering,
and ignites in you
the lights of love
Creates upheavals in the mind:
hatred
fire
chilly rain
like a spring
like an easterly wind
it fills you with fragrance
Its words
dance, twist before your eyes
changes shapes
like clouds flying in the skies,
radiate in the consciousness
The book
changes your direction
your ways
The book
after leaving the shelf
travels through hands
and with its words
passes through
houses
places
ruins
bodies minds
It wanders in skies universes
and returns itself to the shelf
And
generating a rush
the book settles
somewhere deep inside you
becomes a part of you
46
Oh leaves grass
flowers
buds… everything
the rain is falling
It drenches
body –mind
The saturated wind
fills the breath with memories
The rain
drenches the body outside,
burns it within
Hands ,
trembling quivering
in the cold wind,
reach your body
warm everything
with one touch
The rain
with its fresh breaths
is firing a new life in
grass
leaves
flowers –buds
47
The word
‘‘beloved’’
once used to be
a delight
a religion a morality
the whole world
The word, ‘‘beloved’’
is now a memory
hot sizzling
and a fire dying
slowly
as a burning pyre
cools,
becomes ashes
Then from the ashes
grows
something like a verdure
something like a raga malhar
The word, ‘‘beloved’’
a medium
between delight, ashes and
raga Malhar,
throbs here
obs there
48
A look at you
and a touch of your full being
transmits through my finger tips
the wonder of your
once robust
fresh
and proud existence
The faces the hands
that built you with dedication
flash before my eyes-
the face and the hands
that didn’t want to see
you become a ruin,
rather you were supposed
to see
their bones ,
and see the storms of the times:
the fading fires of love
the jealousies
ire
wrath
and the seeds of eruption
buried inside you
But you,
from a temple
from a stupa
from a loving sense
of worship,
have tracks a ruin,
the tracks for fading
civilizations,
a narrow eye
of religions of wars
that couldn’t tolerate your
existence your wonderment
and have made you
what now your are
……………
As I walk with you
you descend inme
with you unruly waves
with your stretch of
fifty centuries,
the centuries
that witnessed you
from youth to old age
to death to
your dissipating bones
I feel the heat of your youth
Ruins of the human history!
you are not a ruin
but an untold narrative
an untold history
that all coming ages
will listen to.
49
The thirst of love
moving toward amorous moments
easily picks up one of the
vocative names scattered around
in the space like a simran:
heart
you
Allah
Wahiguru – Ram;
Slow footed
leaping over water and fire,
the thirst suddenly accelerates
and catches the moment
in which
you
God Allah Wahiguru Ram
live like a simran
50
Radha ! Greater than all the
blessings in life is
the depth of the ocean of
your emotions
full with pearls of love
Welcome! Amen!
51
Melancholy –
it’s not you, my sarangi ,
but the bow of my heart
that clings to your neck and weeps
52
I dance
water wind fire are
my notes my rhythms
The wonder of your body
excites the fire of my mind
fire –
that burns on my palm and
I
encircled by the serpents
of your love
drinks venom to find you
I dance
tireless
trample my own self again and again
My feet stifle
sometimes free
my being in the hot lava
flowing out of my body
you the smoldering of my breaths
burn
within me without me all around
saturating my breaths my limbs
like a fragrance
Uma
come –
become a wave to resonate
with my wave length
be with me forever
like the strings of my damroo
for, now I can’t stop
this tandava is my fate
whatever I have to create
I have to create it with you
Without you
I am nothing
I dance for you.
53
The moment I meet you
I become free of all reincarnations
The entire world of mine
shrinks into you
and I realize
the shape of my desire
for, you are
my strength
my salvation
the ocean of my contentment.
54
Whenever I meet you, I
meet you for the last time
at the peak of a supreme bliss
like a death
I come back
un-believing – wonder – struck
like a child,
to reach you
for the last time
like a death
55
(Dedicated to Sh. Hari Parasad Chaurasia, great flute player of india)
(One)
From your lips to
he warmth of your love-breaths,
and in the rivers in the waters
mountains lush- fields springs,
everywhere it dances and gestures
like Radha – flute
Animated
chirping like a bird
It spreads verdure
and feeds my chick- senses
in my inner gardens:
your flute
55
(Two)
Convulsing in separation
sobbing mutely
beyond the mirrors of
agony- feeling
it spreads a desert of its loneliness
in me :
your flute
In the jungle of my wanderings
It echoes somewhere far away
with melancholy notes
eager for a union
In my jungles of sand
It creates a mirage of meeting :
your flute
55
(Three)
The flute
has become sadder
the dusk within me
is bidding the redness… adieu
The darkness is spreading
Somewhere near me
or far away
sits quietly,
within and without me
in all the four directions :
your flute
55
(Four)
Passing through my being
creating a maya
in the galaxies in the universes,
smoldering … sobbing … radiant
lit … aflamed
expanding its symphonic universe
beyond names places and the times
unfolding countless mysteries
creating countless more
running in my guts
as blood
wind
as a feeling,
getting strength from your lips
my beloved:
your flute.
(Translated from Punjabi by Ajmer Rode)
