As a prelude to a collaborative project, in mixed media, on some varieties of urban imaginary in history and literature with archaeologist and all-round savant, Mudit Thali Trivedi, and all-round scholar-kavi, sometimes bhatta, sri satpathi, and jewel of our adda-darbar, munshi Hasan (bedil) Siddiqi, (author of the mirror for tenure, Notes from an Adda-ground), here are a few gleanings from the web, before offering our own renditions of these gems in demotic Amrikan-Angrez. A translation of Shri Varma's Magadh is available, but not recommended for someone seeking the incomparable taste of the original. Still, curry looks like curry if you rein in your other senses. The effect of distance, and some squinting. (Varma, Shrikant, 1931-1986.[Magadha] Shrikant Verma's Magadha. Trans. by Ajit Khullar. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1990. 91 p.) Other translations, some better, are scattered in the sky-wide waters of the web. To use an image beloved of Varma, some of the translations, corpses, wash up from time to time...)
Shrikant Varma (1931-86).
Shrikant Verma was born in 1931 in Bilaspur, formerly in the Central Provinces and the state of Madhya Pradesh, and now in Chattisgarh. He was educated in Bilaspur and Raipur, and received his M.A. in Hindi from Nagpur University in 1956 (which he attended on the recommendation of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, a leading Hindi writer of the previous generation). Verma then moved to New Delhi, where, for a decade, he worked as a journalist and in various capacities for political organizations. Between 1966 and 1977, he served as a special correspondent for Dinman, a major Hindi periodical then edited by S. H. Vatsyayan (Agyeya). Later, he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha on a Congress (I) ticket in 1976; and served as an official and spokesman of the party in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. He was Indira Gandhi’s national campaign manager in the 1980 elections that brought her back to power, and he worked as an adviser and political writer for Rajiv Gandhi after 1984. Verma passed away while being treated for cancer in New York City in 1986. He was a central figure in the Nai Kavita movement in the late1950s and early 1960s, and published an influential short novel as well as collections of short stories and literary interviews and essays. His important volumes of poems are Jalasaghar (1973) and Magadh (1984), the latter perhaps the best-known book of Hindi poetry in the 1980s. He was a visitor at the Iowa International Writing Program twice (in 1970-71 and 1978), and won the Tulsi Puraskar (Madhya Pradesh) in 1976 and the Sahitya Akademi Award, posthumosuly for Magadh in 1985.
अवन्ती में अनाम
क्या इससे कुछ फ़र्क पड़ेगा
अगर मैं कहूँ
मैं मगध का नहीं
अवन्ती का हूँ?
अवश्य पड़ेगा
तुम अवन्ती के मान लिए जाओगे
मगध को भुलाना पड़ेगा
और तुम
मगध को भुला नहीं पाओगे
जीवन अवन्ती में बिताओगे
तब भी तुम
अवन्ती को जान नहीं पाओगे
तब तुम दुहराओगे
मैं अवन्ती का नहीं
मगध का हूँ
और कोई नहीं मानेगा
बिलबिलाओगे –
‘मैं सच कहता हूँ
मगध का हूँ
मैं अवन्ती का नहीं’
और कोई फ़र्क नहीं पड़ेगा
मगध के
माने नहीं जाओगे
अवन्ती में
पहचाने नहीं जाओगे
आवागमन
जब भी वह गुज़रा
कोसल से मगध
मगध से कोसल
आते हुए
हरेक ने उससे यही पुछा –
मगध से कोसल
जा रहे हो
या कोसल से
मगध आ रहे हो?
क्या फ़र्क पड़ेगा,
यह कहकर
उसने
टालना चाहा सवाल को.
मगर कुछ
सवालों को
टाला नहीं जा सकता –
विशेषकर तब जब
अक्सर गुज़रते हों हम
कोसल से होते हुए मगध
मगध से होते हुए कोसल
सबमें अहम है यह सवाल
कहाँ जा रहे हो?
कोसल और मगध में
किसे
ढ़ूंढ़ रहे हो?
और यह कि
कोसल
पहले आएगा
या मगध?
सच तो यह है कि
कोई नहीं जानता
वह बार-बार मगध से कोसल
कोसल से मगध क्यों जाता है?
क्यों दृश्यों को दोहराता है?
क्यों
मगध से गुज़रते हुए
कोसल के पक्ष में,
कोसल से गुज़रते हुए
मगध के विपक्ष में
नारे लगाता है?
क्यों,
कोसल के टूटे हुए दुर्गों पर
मगध के
फटे हुए झंडे
फेहराता है?
जब कहीं से कोई
जवाब नहीं मिलता
तब वह भी
उन्हीं में
शामिल हो जाता है
जो आते-जाते को पकड़ते
और पूछते हैं –
कोसल से होते हुए
मगध जा रहे हो
या
मगध से होते हुए
कोसल?
Anonymous in Avanti
Will it make any difference
if I say,
I don’t belong to Magadh,
I belong to Avanti?
It will certainly make a difference.
Everyone will assume
that you belong to Avanti,
you’ll have to forget Magadh.
And you,
you won’t be able to forget Magadh.
You’ll spend a lifetime in Avanti
and still won’t be able
to get acquainted with Avanti.
Then over and over again
you’ll say,
I don’t belong to Avanti,
I belong to Magadh,
and no one will believe you.
You’ll whine,
“I’m telling the truth,
I belong to Magadh,
I don’t belong to Avanti,”
and it won’t make a difference.
No one will believe
that you belong to Magadh,
and you won’t be recognized
in Avanti.
Coming and Going
Whenever he went
from Kosal to Magadh,
on the way back
from Magadh to Kosal
everyone asked him the same thing—
are you going
from Magadh to Kosal,
or are you coming
from Kosal to Magadh?
He tried to evade the question
by saying,
What difference will it make?
But some questions
can’t be evaded—
especially when we pass
so often
through Kosal on our way to Magadh,
through Magadh on our way to Kosal.
The most important question
is this—
Where are you going?
Then the question—
Who are you looking for
in Kosal and Magadh?
And then—
Will Kosal come first
or Magadh?
The fact is
that no one knows.
Why does he go
from Magadh to Kosal,
from Kosal to Magadh,
over and over again?
Why does he repeat
the same scenes
over and over again?
Why does he shout
slogans for Kosal
while passing through Magadh,
against Magadh
while passing through Kosal?
On the broken bastions of Kosal,
why does he raise
the tattered flags of Magadh?
When there’s no answer
from anywhere,
he too joins the ranks
of those who catch hold
of every passer-by and ask—
Are you on your way
to Magadh through Kosal,
or are you on your way
to Kosal through Magadh?
(Translated from the original Hindi by Vinay Dharwadker.)
ख़ैबर
पृथ्वी में सबके लिए जगह है, यह कहकर
शामिल हो गया शोर
स्वाद में.
बरसों तक लिखते हुए मैंने प्रमाद में
अनुभव किया,
दूसरी कोई भाषा न थी.
शोहरत और कुछ कर गुजरने का आकर्षण खींच कर
लाया जिस जगह वहाँ
कुछ नहीं
(दूसरों के स्वप्न को रौंदकर गुज़री हैं
झेलम की सेनाएं
या यह केवल मेरा भ्रम है! )
पाप और पुण्य, कार्य और अकार्य से फारिग कर दिये गए
शोहदों के रचे हुए तंत्र में
समारोह!
किसी भी दिन बदल सकता है,
फ़र्क मामूली है –
छपता है जिस ज़बान में इश्तिहार उसी में कविताएँ हैं!
दो कौड़ी वक़्त
मुझसे कहता है समग्र जियो.
कभी भी समाप्त नहीं,
(दीखती है दूर तक सिकंदर के पैरों की छाप)
अगर रोक सकते हो, रोको संसार को, रोको
जो चाहती थी पैरिस की सड़क से गुजरना
अभिशप्त रफ्तार को
इस हाहाकार को
जिसे होना ही था सियालदा में, हावड़ा में,
मृत्यु के असंख्य कार्यालयों में
घुसती और निकलते हुए.
फिर से आएँगे यूनानी ज्यामिति के प्रश्नों के हल की तलाश में
अन्तरिक्ष युग के लिबास में
औरतें राह देख रही हैं
(हममें से जो भी सैनिक हो
जा सकता है)
किसी के विरोध में न होकर भी सबके विरोध में.
भाड़ में जाय समरनीति.
जो आयें हैं मंसूबा लेकर जीतने का
ढह सकने वाला मकान.
बर्दवान. बर्दवान. फी यात्री तीन टका बर्दवान.
जो भी हो सकती थीं, विधियां हो चुकीं, इच्छा ही
शेष है –
हर पद्धति में क्लेश है.
किसका कर रहे हो शिलान्यास?
बाबर लौटता हुआ समरकंद को, एक बार, करता है
याद खुदावंद को और फिर
कुछ नहीं
ख़ैबर से आओ या ख़ैबर से जाओ
फ़र्क़ मामूली है.
Khyber
There’s room enough on earth for everyone—
saying this, the noise died down
and joined the feast.
For years I wrote lost in error
and came to see
there was no other tongue.
Fame and the lure of carrying all before me
brought me to the place where I found
nothing
(armies have crossed the Jhelum,
trampling on the dreams of others,
or is this my delusion?)
except this celebration, in a phantom world set up by scoundrels
freed of the burden of virtue and sin,
of action, inaction.
Any day it can change, any day,
there’s hardly any difference—
in the language in which their slogans are printed
we have poems.
Two-bit Time says to me,
live with integrity.
It never ends
(far into the distance you can see
the trail of Alexander’s footprints),
stop it if you can, stop the universe, stop
the accursed momentum
that dreamt of passing down the streets of Paris,
stop these screams
that had to arise in Howrah, in Sealdah,
entering and leaving
the countless offices of death.
They will come again this way, the Ionians, in search of the key
to the puzzles of geometry,
this time in space-age camouflage,
women sit watching the way
(whoever among us is a warrior
is free to leave),
opposing no one and nothing, yet opposing all.
The ethics of war
can go to hell—
and they, who’ve come with plans to conquer
a mansion ready to topple down.
Burdwan! Burdwan! Just three bucks per passenger to Burdwan!
The solutions that were possible are done with now,
only the desire is left—
in every scheme of things there’s sorrow and strife.
For what are you laying a new foundation stone?
Babur, returning once more to Samarkand,
pauses to pray for a moment, and then
nothing,
whether you come or go through Khyber,
there’s hardly any difference.
बाबर और समरकंद
बाबर समरकंद के रास्ते पर है
समरकंद बाबर के रास्ते पर
बाबर हर थोड़ी दूर पर
पूछता है
समरकंद अब कितनी दूर है?
बाबर को कोई जवाब नहीं मिलता.
ऊपर चिलचिलाती हुई धूप है
नीचे धूल है
बाबर का घोड़ा चलने में मशगूल है.
समरकंद अब कितनी दूर है?
बाबर चिल्लाता है
कोई जवाब नहीं –
केवल बाबर का घोड़ा हिनहिनाता है.
बाबर के पहले
बाबर की ख़बर पहुँच चुकी है,
रास्तों पर भीड़ है,
बाबर भीड़ के बीच से गुजरता है –
‘खुदा के लिए.’ बाबर गिडगिडाता है.
‘समरकंद अब कितनी दूर है?’
बाबर का सवाल
बाबर के पास लौट आता है.
बाबर सिज़दे में झुकता है
शहर देख रुकता है,
‘समरकंद! समरकंद!’ बुर्ज़ देख
बाबर किलकारी भरता है
‘समरकंद पीछे रह गया है!’
कहता हुआ शहरयार
बाबर के पास से गुजरता है.
बाबर समरकंद के रास्ते पर है
समरकंद बाबर के रास्ते पर
Babur and Samarkand
Samarkand remains on Babur’s way,
and Babur on the way to Samarkand.
At frequent intervals
he asks,
‘How much further still to Samarkand?’
Babur’s question finds
no answer anywhere.
The air, ascending, shimmers overhead,
underfoot, the earth
is dust,
his horse, oblivious, remains absorbed
in plodding on.
Babur screams,
‘How much further still to Samarkand?’
No answer anywhere—
only Babur’s horse
whinnies, whines.
The news of his arrival has arrived
ahead of him,
the streets are dense
with crowds,
Babur parts the crowds and passes down the streets.
‘For Allah’s sake’,
he pleads,
‘how much further still to Samarkand?’
His question winds
back through the air to him.
Babur goes down on his knees,
stops short
as he sees
the city and the city’s domes
rise before his eyes,
and cries,
‘Samarkand! my Samarkand!’
Passing close to him,
Prince Shaharyar
murmurs to the king,
‘Samarkand’s been left behind’.
Samarkand remains on Babur’s way,
and Babur on the way to Samarkand.
The Road to Ujjaini by Shrikant Verma
Translation from Hindi by Gagan Gill and Arlene Zide
Notice to travelers wishing to go to Ujjaini:
This road doesn’t go to Ujjaini
and this is the only road going to Ujjaini
Until just yesterday I was pointing out this road
saying:
Attention: this road goes to Ujjaini
Even today I am pointing out this road
saying:
Attention: this road doesn’t go to Ujjaini
Travelers,
the truth is
every road leads to Ujjaini
and
no road goes to Ujjaini
Ujjaini is constantly gazing down the road
Ujjaini has averted its gaze from the road
Then, those who need to go to Ujjaini
where should they go?
They should go to Ujjaini
and say:
This is not Ujjaini
because we
didn’t come on the roads
that go to Ujjaini
or don’t go to Ujjaini.
