Thursday, August 6, 2009

ਮੈਂ ਨੱਚਦਾ ਹਾਂ ਤੇਰੇ ਲਈ

MY FRIEND DEVINDRA PAL IS A FILM MAKER, STORY WRITER AND A FILM SCRIPT WRITER.
HE SPENT HIS PRIME YEARS IN BOMBAY FILM INDUSTRY AND WORKED FOR MANY TV SERIALS ,FILMS, DOCUMENTRIES AND ADD-FILMS.THESE DAYS HE IS MAKING SHORT FILMS OF PUNJABI POETRY WITH THE POETS.
CLICK ਮੈਂ ਨੱਚਦਾ ਹਾਂ ਤੇਰੇ ਲਈ TO SEE VIDEO OF MY POEM.

MY NEW POEMS

Swarnjit Savi
Some Poems


Translated from Punjabi: Gurshminder Singh Jagpal



Journey


I thought of journey
and
she began the conversation about
the caves of Ajanta and Ellora
and
started enjoying the
enormity of Niagra Falls

I thought of bird
and
she soared high
chirping amongst
woods, hills and clouds
and
perceived a nest

I thought of joy
and
she spread her wings
let-go my finger
and
flew into green valleys
and snow-clad hills
like breeze.

I shut my eyes
and
through stars and planets
she made me traverse in pitch darkness

I thought of sorrow
and
meandering through stupas and ruins
she vanished into the picture made on a pillar

I became quiet
and
she touched the canvas
with veritable hues
and I got imaged on the canvas

I thought of death
and
she kept caressing
the foreheads of mummies
that lay buried in pyramids

And
all those who lay asleep for centuries
stood up
as if startled out of a
dream.


Death


1-



It’s not you I fear
but
the despondency
I live
beyond the feeling of
unstable brimness
that comes seeking me

After fulfillment
the despondent-moment
is death-like.

My desire
each day
makes me graze
deathly-moments
small-little fears

Fears…
that empower me
and
in their totality
I stand before you

It’s not you I fear
but
the sum total of those moments.
………………………


2-

O death
Before the enormity of
your capricious horses
I compose a petite phrase of words
Cause innocent rabbits of
colours
words
rhythms
to run

And indulge in
small dialogues
with
big issues.



3-O death

teach me salvation from
cobwebs of relations
jaws of socio-egoism
memories and dreams
yearning and lusting
Then I shall not fear

Why fear, then?

What would I possess that would
be lost
get estranged
flow out off me

Why fear, then?



4-

Neither knowledge
nor ignorance
makes you exist

You simply
infest the book of my body
each moment

The dust that
quietly falls off me

The terror of that dust
that in an instant
I am
I ain’t


5-

O time
In a moment I gaze you
from thousand directions

In your eyes I trace
fear, sorrow, joy, pitch darkness
and infinity

Everything captured in the moment
as if you lie imprisoned

Tied to the bed-post
mere visual-time
……………..

6-

Echoes
word-history

Awakens death’s sleepy-universe
a long rosary
arises from darkness afar
reaches me in beads

My obsession
sufi-wave of words, rhythms
zenith of my ecstasy
moment of my brimness
fills in me
the energy to
touch that bead
that hidden behind a frayed veil
shining, chirping
recedes into the infinite darkness.

beads get sewn
into a long rosary
of history.
…………..



7-

O, Ancestors
You, who, love to defy death
Fill me too
with that vital creativity
which sprouts from the fear of death
and makes one swim across the time-river
with artistic zest.

O, Death
Intensify your intimidation
Much I have to create
against you
to understand you
to escape your vice-like grip

I bow to your
awe
- the genesis of creativity
…………………


8-


In the fear of
the suddenness of your knock
I intend to live
to the brim

Then
through art and poetry
I wish to draw a thin line
on the blue river of time

This
Knock of yours
gets used by fanatics
to spread dread

Selling dreams of better tomorrow
endeavour to rob us off
our present
joy-sorrow
celebration
energy
transforming
Living body
into a
Mummy.




Salvation ?


Will I stand liberated ?
From
the continuity of zillion time-atoms
that
in my birth land
in the bosom of my soil
have remained smouldering for
centuries

And from time immemorial
passing through my mother’s bosom
have housed themselves in me

Will my internal
conscious, unconscious , journey in time
rooted in timelessness
cruising through me
make me liberated?

I don’t wish to become free
of the identity
whose one end is rooted in me
and the other gets traced back to
centuries old timeless step.

For a mere liberation from your awe
I refuse to lose such huge gains


What purpose
this salvation
to me?



Where am I?

Where am I?

Everything, suddenly, stands afar
For instance
You, people, earth, planets, sepulchral-silence,
everything


What am I?
I distance myself from my body

What is this mind?
Then it too withdraws itself from me

What is consciousness?

Who is keeping a watch?

Is it I?

Something transparent, beady-eyed
watches everywhere

Air, consciousness, word, time, me?

No

Something else
that is watching through me…everything…

What is it ?




DUST


This thin layer of dust
settles wherever,
defaces.

Gradually
transforms everything.

However hard one
dusts the surface,
still
remains obscure , that,
which glares and shines
before the settling of
dust.

SOME MORE POEMS

Swarnjit Savi
Some Poems

Translation from Punjabi: Anil Kumar



Goodbye Mother!

Bidding you farewell on your final journey
Walking as I was with the four elements of your mortal remains
I was aware of your lifelong love
Every moment… every step.

And to painfully realize
That you’re going to return to five elements
I carried a water filled pitcher and completed the ritual walk around your body
The sound of the smashing pitcher
And the splashing water
Reminded me how on the day of my marriage
You’d in immense joy
Drunk the ritual water after waving it
Round my head several times.

On the snug chest where you’d always held me secure
I was placing
Heavy logs of wood and tree stumps
And while lighting your funeral pyre
I reasoned with my trembling hands
That I was the eldest son of my mother
And that I needed to be brave.

Consuming flames, which forced others away,
Continued to radiate to me
The coziness of your lap
And the shade of your body wrap.

And next morning
As I was gleaning and gathering your mortal remains
And putting them in an earthen bowl
To wash them in milk
You continued to linger on in my mind—
A young woman dumping basketfuls of soil
To fill the pit of a plot:
Your eyes full of dreams
And your hardened bones
And your dogged insistence
That you’d set everything right.

My hands stumbled upon a portion of your skull
And your sisters and sisters-in-law, my aunts, and your daughters, my sisters-- all averred
“Look at the writ of Mother Destiny
How incomprehensible it is like
The green coloured graph
On the oxygen monitor in a hospital!
That’s why in all your life
You’d experienced happiness for a fleeting while
And during the rest of it your silent eyes
Were filled with gloom.

How niggardly
Had Mother Destiny
Credited happiness in your account—
A scant moment of joy
For millions of moments of pain!
How mountains of grief
Mother Destiny kept raising for you!

Now here I sit
In the swift current of Ganga
With all that is left of your life
A few handfuls of bones not more than a couple of kilos.

Have got entered
In the ledger of the priest
Your name
Along with the names of generations gone by.

The priest has told me
How and when
Our ancestors came there
At Har Ki Pauri—the ladder to Eternity.

One handful after another
I’m immersing your ashes
In the swirling waters at Har Ki Pauri
And the priest remarks
“In forty-eight hours flat
These bones will turn into grains of sand
And will be washed away by Goddess Ganga’s
Blissful waters.”

And I find myself brooding:
I can hold you in my hands only a few moments more
And God knows where you’ll be thereafter
Perhaps you’d go on to join
The long line of stars
Twinkling since times immemorial.

Not you
But a sense of you will remain
After these bones
Have slipped out of my hands.
That’s all I’d be left with!




Nanaka

(Mother’s Family)

On crossing the narrow path
To mother’s ancestral village
Kids, elders, youth and contemporaries all
Turn into uncles, aunts, grannies and grandpas.

First of all on the screen of mind
Appears mother’s mother
My grumpy granny
A treasure trove of joys.

Happy, playful
Chasing us with a stick in her hands
Or showering her love on us
And feeding us with butter-soaked jaggery sugar.

And then there were
My grandpa and Uncle Atma
Every time you saw them,
You’d notice Grandpa pulling out pieces of red-hot iron
With pincers and placing them on the anvil
For Uncle to beat, cut or forge them with a hammer
Wreaking vengeance on them blocked
God knows since when.

And then fashioning
Sometimes a ploughshare
Sometimes a sickle
Or a disc for a hot plate
Or a chisel
And umpteen other things the two kept shaping.

Granda would double up as a doctor too.
Should someone come with an aching tooth
Grandpa would put his pliers in his mouth
And out came whatever was painful—canines and molars
No ah…no ouch!
The patient would look in awe at
The decayed tooth lying on his palm
And get up and depart.
Grandpa departed one day just like that.

At times in front of blazing red flames
With his face aglow would sit my Uncle—mother’s brother
Beating, cutting, forging iron.
Seeing him at work people would say
“Hot iron just cringes before Atma
Just like a goat in front of a butcher.”
And Uncle would say
“The welding that Atma does is as smooth as cheeks.
Let your tongue roll all over the tractor trailer
And not a spec would prick it.
And just like that
A day after he had wailed in mourning
At the last prayer for his dead niece
He passed away at his village
Without a prick.

And left behind him the legend—
“In front of Atma iron would wail
And work would go into hiding in scare.”
…………………




River
1-

How impetuous is the river!
Caressing stones
Rubbing them
Roaring
Leaving on them
A mark of
Her gushing waters
Combing the rounded head of stones
To make them smooth as wax.

Stones do get impacted by
The fathomless love of droplets
If not a drop itself.
……………….



2-


Audacious river
Carrying away
Everything in her blind fury
But stones
Keep locking horns like bulls
Jibing, baulking and thwarting

Roaring
Ripping
Flipping
The surging course of the audacious river.

…………….

3-


The unceasing fall of water drops
And the moist life
Have on stones
Grown verdant moss
And blossomed tiny leaves
-Refreshingly green.
Are these merely stones?
………….


Mother River

You…
How eager were you
To offer all that’s yours
To jungles, trees
Flora and fauna!
And we your sons good and bad
First add poison
To your water
And then to drink it
Purify it again
Water that was
An elixir before.




Mountain Dweller


Lofty peaks
And raring to reach them
The tortuous paths
Full of uneven scattered stones

And we set out
Carrying sticks for support
Breathless, suffering cramps
Stumbling and staggering

And wondering
Who would reach the top first
And planning to reward
The ones who would.

We hugged and patted in appreciation
All the kids and youth
Who had reached the top first.

Watching this celebration of victory
Was the one
Who had guided our path
He who, with the burden of our luggage on his back,
Had reached ahead of us all—
The tenacious mountain dweller.

…………………..
Clossal..!!!

Clossal..!!!
How deep it pierces into your being
This word.

Viewed through the window of the moving car
The stony torso of a mountain
Seems to have neither beginning nor end.
Running all along the tortuous road
Like a dreadful giant.
On getting down I notice
Another peak beside that mountain
Milky white
Shining like a plume
On the forehead of
The mammoth mountain.


Mother

Mother
Now that Mother
Has entered the pages of the ledger of death at Haridwar
Along side the names of her in-laws’ ancestors
Father lets out a wailing cry

And for atrocities hurled on her
Seeks pardon over and over again
And bemoans the loss of his Sultanate.
Earth like Mother
Where Father sowed neither love nor intimacy
Just command.

Mother who
In times of want and penury
Slogged shoulder to shoulder with Father
Put together her nest straw by straw
Filled the pit of a plot deep like a well
With basketfuls of soil she carried herself
And built her home.

Mother—Earth like Mother
Who had never whined
While bearing children
Or rearing them
But was always up and doing
Pruning and preening.

Mother raised husband’s younger brother like a son
And finding his elder brother’s nest empty
Placed two of her children in his lap
And filled with happiness his desolate home.

Mother
Who took in her stride
Every time Father tilted in favour of
His brothers and sister
Carried out chores for them
Only to bear the brunt of his rebuffs.

Mother
Sometimes she tolerated Father’s highhandedness
And sometimes the waywardness of her progeny
But kept the doors of her patience tightly shut
Never raising her voice.
Not her words
Only her sobs did the walls ever hear
Walls with whom she would converse in loneliness

“My husband slogged like anything
Day after day and night on night
I do agree
But I work twice as much
Tell me for what fault of mine
Everything I do becomes worthless
In comparison to what he does?”

Father who now wails in grief
Has been left all alone
All his life he had just commanded and had his way.
Now the pride of his authority
Lies shattered in tears.