विभूतिमूर्ति

 

 

The Broken Mirror                                             

‘Distortion of Reality’ in Nirala’s Poetry

Nirala’s poem ‘Kukurmutta’ translated into English with a Note

BSM Murty

 

Dog-piss                                                                    

 

There was a Nabob

Who got roses from Persia,

Planted them in his huge garden,

Even some indigenous saplings;

Employed many gardeners,

Looked like the charming garden

Of Gazanavi.

Like a dream waking

On civilization’s breath

In the lap of symmetry.

In cute little rows,

Spread out thick in the garden,

All flowers there

Looked gleeful -

Bela, gulshabbo, chameli, kamini,

Juhi, nargis, ratrani, kamalini,

Champa, gulmehdi, gulkhairu, gulabbas,

Genda, guldaudi, niwadi, gandhraj,

And so many others, and fountains,

Of myriad colours –

Red, green, yellow, sky-blue,

Sabz, firozi, white,

Zard, brown, basanti – all.

There were fruit-trees also –

Mangos, lichis, oranges, peaches.

Bursting buds, with sweet fragrance,

The soft breeze’s arms around their neck;

Whistling nightingales, swaying branches,

The whole garden – a nest of birds.

Clear paths, cypresses on both sides                                    

Spread out to the distant beyond,

Dotted here and there with cosy dwellings,

Smacking of wealth and status.

Bubbling streams, small hillocks,

Neat gardens beside unreal bushes.

With the season’s arrival came the rose

From Persia, with its mighty sway on the garden.

And just there amid the rubbish by the hillside

Grew the dog-piss, that bloke,

Who with a twisted neck, spoke –

“Oye, listen to me, you vile Rose - forget not,

All your fragrance, and all your radiant hues,

Which you have blood-sucked from those manures,

In truth, a capitalist swaying on that sprig of vanity!

Enslaver of so many, employed a gardener,                                   

Made him work through scorching sun and cold,

Whoe’r got you, he scuttled away back from there

Like a woman, holding feet on head,

Or like a colt breaking off from its stable.

Always dear to kings, emperors and the rich,

Never near to any of the ordinary ones,

What worth do you have, think, you bloke!

Full of stinging thorns that only poke.

The bud that just bloomed

Would have dried up into a thorn;

But for the daily shower of water,

You bastard of the pedigree kind!

Always looking for a Mehrunnisa

To extract the essence, the spirit from you,

And take people in its flow without shores,

Where there would be none of yours,

Only a shining star immersed in its dream,

Mice playing in the belly, with sweet words on tongue.

Look at me! Bigger by a hand-span and a half

Grown by myself, on higher ground,

Not by any graft, unpecked on any grains,

I live a life sustained all by itself.

You are a sham, myself the real one am,

You being a stupid goat, I of true pedigree.

You the stained one while I’m stain-free,

I am like water and you a mere bubble.

You spoilt the world, I lifted the fallen.

You made eunuchs, and stole their bread,

I gave three to one, singing their virtues.

It is I who have served them;

Even the lion is like an ass before me.

In China they made umbrellas in my imitation,

And mark you how the canopy of Bharat

Spreads all over there. Look at my parachute form.

I am the Sudarshan Chakra of Vishnu,

Swirling and angular I exist in this world.

Or turn me over to see the churner of Yasoda –

Oh, it’s a long story.

Bring me to the front, twine me,                                        

See the measure, I’m like, on purpose,

The drawn arrow on Ram’s bow,

Or on Balram’s shoulder like his plough.

I am the morning’s sun, the evening’s moon.

Kaliyug’s shield, boat’s bottom, also its top sail;

I’m the flat bat of the wooden oar.

Let the world weigh all its grains,

I’m their moustache, their jaw,

My dudes, my beaus.

Call them rupee or half rupee,

Be it Banaras or ‘nyawanna’,

I shine in my looks, my hood swaggers,

I carry you through, I drown you mid-stream,

I am the box-sample, I’m the lime.

“I, a dog-piss, like benjoin, like philosophy,

Like Omphalos, like Brahmavarta, 

Like the earth’s round, with its layers,

Like the wrinkles on a sari,

Or like the white starch on it;

Both cosmopolitan and metropolitan,

Like Freud and lotan,

Fallacy and philosophy,

If need be or just to forget it,

Amiability marred by fraud,

Just as in capital Leningrad.

In truth, the rival in love,

Or among writers,the lucky hoodlum.

 

“When in double I became a dumroo

On one side, then a veena,

Sombre-sounding, or often inaudible,

I am the strong male, and also the weaker ‘abla’,

Being both the ‘mridang’ as well as the ‘tabla’.

Also,in the hands of Chunne Khan, his ‘sitar’,

While Digambar’s ‘tanpura’ and Haseena’s ‘surbahar’.

I have been the lyre which brought in the lyric

Born in Latin, Greek, Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic.

All ‘mantras’, ‘gazals’ and song are my progeny,

Born, then dead, then re-born of me.

The violin came of me, as did the banjo,

All big and small bells, drums, gongs, conches,

Harps, flutes, cymbals, clarionettes and guitar -

All played by Hasan Khan, Buddhu or Peter.

All know my hand playing left or right.

 

“Ta-ta-dhinna as they play loud or light,

All my wizardry, even in the dance,

Measured by my feet. A life at large, all by chance,

Whether it’s Kathakali or Kathak or it’s ball-dance,

Be it Cleopatra, or the lotus, and the black-bee’s romance.

Be it the bird-catcher, the peacock; be it Manipuri or the Garba –

Beating the feet, the head or hand, or twisting the neck or brow,

Be it African or European – all are part of my know-how.

All gestures and movements are my creations,

All that is seen is part of my formulations.

Wherever the rulers fought, or the proletarians squabbled,

Even where spouses wrangled, or the money-lender quarrelled,

Wherever the falcon swooped, my dance always climaxed.              

 

“I have no bones, wood or thorns,

No eight-knots in my body.

Only full of juices I am,

Crying to hell for my whiteness.

All in this world stole my juices from me,

While I sank and swam in my own juices.

Valmiki and Vyas all took a dive in me.

All their tomes Bhas and Kalidas extracted from me,

Standing on my shore they all would blink,

All those greats like Hafiz and Rabindra.

A pebble here, a brickbat there –

Even T S Eliot would hit only here and there.

The readers also with their hand on heart

Spoke of all in the world written whole or part –

As if seeing with half-closed eyes an evening-star,

Or a progressive wielding pen, and the dash won’t

Stop, starting from here, going from mom to aunt.    

 

“My face likens to the pyramid,

My disciple, of course, was Euclid.

Rameshwar, Meenakshi, Bhuwaneshwar,

Jagannath, all temples full of splendour.

I am their progenitor as is gold of all jewelry.

Be it Qutub Minar, Taj, Agra or its fort,

Choonar, Victoria Memorial of Calcutta,

Masjid in Baghdad, on Friday, in fact,

Whether it is St Peters church or some other spire,

Their domes in design all have my imprint.

Aryan or Persian or those with Gothic arch -

Are all illuminated by my own torch.

Whether they be of old, or of middle, or today’s,

As with a swallow or a falcon in their ways,

Whether of China, of Japan, or of Persia,

Of America, Italy, England or of Russia.

Whether they be houses made of bricks, wood,

Or stone, or spun-woven like the spider’s mesh –

They are all under my umbrella’s broad circumference.

 

“All their heads will fall under my trap,

Turkish, Dupalia, Bhishti - whatever type be their cap,

Even all others made of straw or mat.

Look I’ve their imitation, an English hat.

Look, I go round headstrong and wilful,

Greater than you and evermore powerful.”

 

II        

Outside the garden were huts,

Seen from distance looked half-dug,

Filthy place, stagnant putrid water

In the drains, much like life’s rigmarole,

Crawling worms, scattered bones,

Heaps of broken wings of chicken and eggs,

Dung-bars drying in the sun.

The air reeking with stench,

As if everything had gone rotten and stale.

The servants of the Nabob lived there,

Who looked like aborigines from Africa -

Peons, cooks, security guards, warriors,

Coach-drivers, horse-riders, water carriers,

Palanquin-bearers, hair-dressers, masseurs,

Washermen, pan-makers, mahauts, camel-drivers,

Bullock-cart drivers, and all other menials, -

A whole large gathering of Hindus and Mussalmans.

All tied in the same rope of destiny,

Living a life with its ups and downs.

In that same hamlet lived some old men

With their young, women and children,

Soon joined by some poverty-stricken gardeners,

To live with them sharing their smiles and tears.

A garderner’s wife, Mona, spouse of the gardener, 

A Bengali woman, with her daughter named Goli,

Who had become a soul-mate of the Nabob’s daughter.

Held there by all like a princess, her name Bahar,

Fine-tuned like a high-strung lute, speaking in poetry,

Prose being anathema to her. Goli’s Bengali mother,

Very gentle, amiable, specialist in poetry like her,

Would sing like a lute as she conversed in poetry,

Thrilling Bahar’s soul with her sweet notes and tunes.

To Goli’s mother Bahar became like a Guru,

Who’d teach her ‘without boxing ears’.

And following her mother, Goli also learnt that art,

And Bahar, too, would always hang around

The mother and daughter all the year round –

And morning-evening, with sweet-talk cajole them.

Goli was - for the balance - the cheater’s weight,

Like the small canoe for the main steamboat.

But let’s say, both lived there together,

Each telling their part of the story,

Their hearts were one, like stars beaming.

They’d walk step in step with hands holding,

Swaying with each other and always giggling,

Cutting jokes, playing pranks, and with laughter rolling.

Both being of age seven,

They spent all time in only fun.

Goli would often go into the palace,

Just as Bahar would come to her place.

One day Bahar said laughingly –

“Let’s go for a round in the garden, Goli!”

Both went like sun and shadow intermingling

With Goli’s arm Bahar’s shoulders encircling,

With the terrier and a maid accompanying.

Close by were some women from a well drawing water.

They shied from some men standing on one side -

As if some gentleman would avoid dust –

Said one to another, when Bahar passed, -

“Look at that Goli, daughter of Mona Bengali,

A buffalo gone mad, and how’s her mother’s face,

But the apple of the Nabob’s eyes now, all her luck;

Goes daily into the palace, with no restraints, to inflame,

Out of the palace are being carried all kinds of goods,

Jewellery being fashioned, mutton-kababs being cooked.”

She’d carry the water-pots on her head, with bracelets jingling,

As if spring has arrived in the garden, with rows of champa buds,

She would cross them spurning,

Sit for a while on a bench under a tree,

 Under the shadow of the Maulishree,

Looked up to see butterflies fluttering

On nearby branches, and birds chirping,

Buzzing boozed black-bees, one caught

In a spider’s massive mesh, but narrowly escaped.

When she raised her eyes to the skies

And kept watching beyond the horizon,

She saw the sun moving up and glimmering,

Lighting the tree-tops – trees, like kings,

All standing in a row, all sparkling crowns wearing.

Came the gardener, with a bouquet in hand,

Presented to Bahar, who after smelling, gave it to Goli,

With an exquisite smile. Sat for a while then rose,

And through an angled lane, as she saw a French lily,

She proceeded to the bower as if to meet Gulbakavali.

Then across the Jamun trees and the roses went forward

Near the Toot trees, whence turned left, past a bush,

And went towards the main rose garden.

As she saw there big flowers blooming,    

Soon a shoreless sea started rolling

In her heart. The terrier with its tail wagging

Ran away, while Goli followed it shouting –

‘Dog-piss’. An unnerved Bahar looking

After them – as if a shot had been fired

For the dog-piss, she so highly admired,

Forgot all her love for the rose, fixedly looking

Where Goli had gone, like a cat running

After its fleeing prey, while in her lap culling

All the dog-piss she loved so, so dearly

Too many had sprung up she had carefully

Picked up in her lap kissing them lovingly,

And said to smiling Bahar – “You look at the roses

While I shall eat kababs of the dog-piss.”

Hearing the story of the dog-piss

Bahar’s mouth filled with water, she asked quickly

“Oh, Do you make delicious kababs of dog-piss really?

Among all the delicacies in the world, actually,

Kababs made of such objects, indeed so lowly?”

“Oh, yes, as its aroma so its taste”- answered Goli.

“Whoever eats it fills with memories of heaven,

And the stew made of its pods fried in oil

Is among men only comparable to a Nabob.”

“Don’t say that, O Bengali lassie,

Daughter of the gardener’s wife” –

Scolded the maid, with the squint eye,

But already several gulps of saliva

Had gone down into Bahar’s belly.

At once she reprimanded the maid firmly-

“No, no, never chide her for anything.

I must with her go to her house and eat

Kababs made of dog-piss meat.”

“How does a dog-piss kabab taste?Tell me Goli!

Does it give the aroma we get in a rose?”

With twisted lips, and a slight turn to her left, Goli

Let out a scornful - “Unh! Be it a goat or even a ram,

Or a cock or any winged bird, thay are all a sham

Before a dog-piss, having a superb aroma all its own.

Even the rose would be shamed, and for the rest

Their grannies would expire if put to this test.

Taut in vanity, ahead of Bahar, walked Goli,

Followed by the terrier, then the maid,

Wiping the tear from her squinting eye.

Like a dictator, ahead in that line, walked Goli,

Bahar, a famished follower, behind her,

And then the tail-wagging terrier, like a modern poet,

Lastly the frugal-minded maid like a capitalist quiet.

Goli entered into the hut premises quite swiftly                                       

Called her mother – “Ma!” rather loudly.

The mother opened the door promptly

And weighed each in her eyes rather solemnly.

Coming in, Goli put in a basket all the dog-piss.

The mother’s face brightened seeing things so precious.

“Be quick, Ma! Cook this into a tasty kabab-stew,

Putting all kinds of refined spices into it, old and new,

And bake some soft-soft chapatis for Bahar to eat with.

The stove just ignited, Goli and Bahar started playing both

The ‘bride-bridegoom game’ in one corner of the room

Ignoring the squint-eyed maid, with Goli’s friend terrier

In their group; the marriage solemnized, with Goli as groom

And Bahar, the bride, deep in love-chat in a swoon.

Soon, the stew was ready and both bride and groom –

Bahar and Goli – rushed for the stew; the mother’s eyes

Full of love, she placed before the two the dog-piss fries.

With the first morsel, said Bahar – “Never in my life

Had such delicious food”, and kept gobbling, Bahar the wife,

As well as her hubby Goli, the dog-piss kabab stew.

Goli’s mother served even a little to the maid, the kabab stew.

Their hands washed, with pan, then she bid them adieu.

The Nabob’s mouth filled with water when he heard the story

Of the dog-piss from Bahar, verified from the maid that story,

And got fully convinced. Then he called the gardener

And ordered him – “Go and bring all fresh-fresh dog-piss!”

Said the gardener – “Huzoor! No more remains of any dog-piss.

Your Kindness! Only roses remain in our garden now.”

Shook with anger the Nabob, said –“Plant only dog-piss anyhow,

Wherever you were growing roses, because like all others

I, too, want only dog-piss growing everywhere now!”

Politely said the gardener – “Your Grace! Mercy on me!

It will not be possible to grow dog-piss - however much try we.¹

 

A critical note on the poem:

 

‘Dog-piss’ is a literal translation of the the common Hindi word ‘kukurmutta’. It’s a wild self-growing ‘fleshy body of a fungus’ also popularly called ‘toadstool’, some variety (‘field mushroom’) of the plant-looking organism also cultivated as an edible delicacy, while some of its wild-growing varieties may be highly toxic or poisonous. The Hindi ‘kukurmutta’ is generally found self-growing after the rainy season in filthy humid places like dung or rubbish heaps. The literal (and odd, newly-coined word) ‘dog-piss’ has been chosen here, in this translation, as the title of the poem to emphasise its indigenous ‘earthiness’ of this wild plant in preference to the word ‘mushroom’ as the latter has specific suggestions of elitism with its rich edible attributes. The intent of the poet is to seize upon this earthy quality of its wild growth contrasted with the cultured and cultivated aspect of what in the English world is associated with the ‘mushroom’, mainly as an edible delicacy.

 

As the title of Nirals’s poem, it bears connotations of its wild self-growth in filthy, lowly places, with suggestions of arbitrariness, eccentricity, rebelliousness and angst which are attributes associated with the most innate dynamism of Nirala’s poetic creativity. Behind a thin façade of light-hearted humour (adumbrated through its narrative-structure), there is a sustained strain of acidic satire throughout the two-part long poem with the common ‘kukurmutta’ pitted against the pedigree Persian rose as contrasted protagonists, as if in a Popesque ‘mock epic’ poem like ‘the Rape of the Lock’ (though such comparisons needn’t be taken too far for obvious reasons).

 

If we look at the entire gamut of poetic styles in Nirala’s four-decade long poetic journey we notice, first, his highly Sanskritized metrical style of ‘Juhi ki Kali’(1918) and, on the other extreme, his semi metrical free-verse colloquial style of ‘Todati Patthar’(1937) or ‘Bandho na Nav’(1950). ‘Kukurmutta’ is believed to have been written around 1942 when it was first published in an eponymous collection and crafts a style of verse that is germane to the ‘semi-metrical free-verse colloquial style’ of the latter two poems, but is in an entirely different mode of pungent satiric humour. It also uses the rhyming device throughout the long poem not only as nails driven with marked regularity to tighten the structure, but also as a concomitant to the central theme of the poem where each rhyme repetition seems to buttress the idea by its cynical levity.

‘Kukurmutta’ is a unique poem not only in Nirala’s entire poetic creativity but even in the whole of the modern Hindi poetic canon mainly because of its selection of a lowborn organism (and to that extent, filthy, detestable untouchable, and of no-consequence) as the central metaphor, indeed, the central protagonist of the poem. In direct confrontation with its totally muted antagonist, the Persian rose, it dominates the poem, with its vigorous volubility, with all other minor charcters – the Nabob, the gardener, his wife, daughter, et al - only serving to flesh out the supporting details in the drama. In fact, at many places the poem often looks like a scene in a play being enacted with real action and powerful dialogue delivery, particularly in the latter part of the poem. There is in the poem a remarkable correspondence with the genre of ‘dramatic monologue’ in English poetry, though with some divergence in the use of occasional dialogues of the minor characters in the poem. But even in that sense, it’s a distinctive creative feat in modern Hindi poetry, apart from its pronounced satirical properties. It would, of course, be interesting to explore the dramatic potentialities in the poem in view of its farcical properties.

 

Seen in a broader perspective, Nirala’s recourse to an earthy realism wrapped up in ascerbic satire is an essential segment of his poetic creativity. In fact, such a stance in his creativity also seems integral to his fundamental poetic credo: the inevitable confrontation between his highest poetic ideals and the harsh realities of mundane life which constituted the sordid experiences spanning his long life. That penury and harsh struggle right from the beginning in his life, the acrimony and acerbity he faced all around in the literary world, the motivated hostilities of his co-litterateurs – led inevitably to a strain of bitter angst in him that manifested itself as an innate element in his poetic work. The classic magnificence of much of his poetry with its pure, intense lyricism is often, and rather unexpectedly, counterpointed by that ‘strain of bitter angst’ in many of his poems; something which sets him widely apart from his other ‘chhayavadi’ contemporary poets.

 

Seen from that perspective ‘Kukurmutta’ is among Nirala’s major poems, equally typical of him like his other major poems like ‘Ram ki Shakti-puja’ and’Tulsidas’. It is a poem on which he spent years revising and polishing it, and deciding to publish it, only in that single instance, as an independent poem in 1948, when he was at the cusp of his glory. Its uniqueness lies not only in its entirely distinctive poetic character, but also in its semi-autobiographical nature, and its being among the most innately representative poetic creations of the poet, evincing traits of post-modernism unlike any of his other contemporaries. As David Rubin observes in his short introduction to his translation of some of Nirala’s poems²: “In Kukurmutta…he pilloried the rich, the esthetes, and those who affected foreign ways. Some critics have assumed that the utilitarian and indigenous mushroom is meant to symbolize Nirala himself while the imported rose, fragrant but in practical termsuseless, is Pant. Such attributions are hazardous at best, but the social significance of the satire is clear enough.” The analogy and the implicit hints in the symbolism suggestive of the autobiographical character of the ‘dog-piss’ – than which nothing could be more repugnant and menacing – is highly germane to the personal life and character of Nirala as we cast a look at the entire span of his life’s journey right from the place of his birth (Mahishadal in Bengal) to his place of death (Prayag in U P). Another famous Hindi critic, Ramvilas Sharma, who was very intimate with the poet right from the beginning, and who has written his authentic biography³ in Hindi has also emphasized this aspect in his analysis of the poem where he maintains that the poem is symptomatic of his deep and complex experience of ‘disenchantment’ at multiple levels which is at the base of the ‘distortion of reality’that is to be seen most glaringly in this poem. Another subtle point highlighted by Sharma is the olfactory over-sensivity as the underlying pattern in the poem’s symbolism  – the contrast between the fragrance of the rose and the putrid stink of the ‘dog-piss’. There is a subtle play on this aspect of the symbolism in the different ‘smells’ we find intermittently in the various parts of the poem. Indeed, the whole poem demands a close lexical-cum-textual analysis from all these angles of perception  in order to unravel the various levels at which the symbolism operates.                                                                                 

Lastly, a few words about translating this poem ‘Kukurmutta’. The precise vernacular connotation of the common Hindi word ‘kukurmutta’ is not conveyed by the standard generic English word ‘mushroom’. The Hindi word is a blend of two common vernacular Hindi words –‘kukur’(dog) and ‘mutta’(urination or its slang variant ‘piss’), with the meaning, in a general sense, ‘born by a dog’s piss’. The English equivalent ‘mushroom’ would have completely obliterated that sense of its being born in a mean, despicable condition, or its being the exact opposite of the esthetic and elitist. And as the title of the poem is also its central symbol bearing all the thematic load of the poem, a vernacular coinage reflecting all that connotion of wildness and uncouthness, of being in direct confrontation with all that is sophisticated and elitist, would surely seem semantically more appropriate. Many of the names of indigenous trees and flowers, or mythological characters however, have been only transliterated to retain the original flavour and flow in the poem. In keeping with the satiric tone of the poem many words from Urdu-Persian or English have been used by the poet. All English words have been naturally retained while the Urdu-Persian words are translated as part of the same spoken language as Hindi. There are, of course – as is typical in Nirala’s poetry – a few words of regional dialect like ‘बुत्ता’,‘बेंड़ा’, ‘कैंडा, ‘अरगड़ा’ which had to be negotiated appropriately in the running flow of meaning. Rupert Snell, an acclaimed translator of Bachchan’s autobiography into English⁴, has aptly observed in its preface that any translation must “remain faithful to the flavour and spirit of the Hindi while also being sufficiently readable to sustain the interest of the English readership… [It must] break out of the straightjacket of the source language and produce a version which makes sense in the idiom and style of the target language.”  In short, a flexible strategy must be adopted to compress or fill out the structure to make it amenable to the idiomatic flow of the target language. With the same end in view, the uneven metrical structure, with the hammering regularity of rhyme which had to be retained as far as possible, was somewhat loosened to adapt to the metrical flow of English versification, with necessary changes in punctuation as necessitated by the modified syntactical structures.⁵

‘Kukurmutta’ has been among the least recalled major poems of Nirala even though the very fact that he kept working on its drafts since 1941 till 1948, issuing it in the final second edition in its two parts with an assertive preface, underlines its importance in the poet’s canon and his essential poetic creed which was as much to give a new creative vision to contemporary ‘Chhayawadi’ Hindi poetry that could sustain all the demands of modernism and could even point to post-modernism in poetry. 

 

Notes

1.Nirala wrote this poem on 3 April, 1941 which was first published in Premchand’s literary monthly ‘Hans’ (may, 1941), subsequently published with 7 more poems as an independent volume with the eponymous title ‘Kukurmutta’ in summer, 1942. Later, after several revisions, he re-published the poem as a thin independent single-poem volume (with a total of 436 lines in this final version) in July, 1948, with a new preface where he speaks with some gratification of its widespread reception and acclaim.

2. The Return of Saraswati: Four Hindi Poets: David Rubin, Oxford University Press (India), 1993

3. Nirala ki Sahitya Sadhana (Vols 1-3, 1979, 1981, 1976): Ramvilas Sharma, Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi

4. In the Afternoon of Time (English version of Bachchan’s 4-volume Hindi autobiography): Rupert Snell, Penguin (India), 2001

5. In ‘Kukurmutta’ Nirala has used a deliberately uncouth, seemingly un-poetic kind of vocabulary, in keeping with the tenor of the poem, made harsher-sounding by the insistent use of jingling rhyme-sets, with words taken often from regional dialects and esoteric sources to add to the stunning effect of the satire. This is also a marked feature of Nirala’s poetic style in many of his other poems distinguishing him from all his contemporary fellow poets. Not all the words like ‘benjoin’, ‘lotan’ or ‘nyawanna’ in this poem are quite clear in their meaning, nor all allusions like ‘omphalos’ are easy to explicate in the context they have been used in the poem. Some of the words in the poem, however, are explained in the notes below, although their deliberately heightened frivolity, rather than their technical allusiveness, is more integral to the central import of the poem. Gazanavi: Mahmud Gaznavi of Gazani in Afghanistan [971-1030]; gulshabbo, Toot, etc: indigenous varieties of flowers and trees named here just for effect; Zard, Sabz,Firozi:Persian words meaning yellow, green, light green, respectively; Mehrunnisa: wife of Jehangir (Akbar’s son); Sudarshan: the mythical weapon of a circling wheel borne by the Hindu god Vishnu; Balram: elder brother of Krishna; Kaliyug: in the Hindu time-cycle, the last and worst  fourth time-circle, believed to be, the present age; Omphalos: the centre or hub of something; (in ancient Greece) a conical stone (especially that at Delphi) representing the navel of the earth; Brahmavarta: the land in between the rivers Saraswati & Drishdwati (present-day Haryana). Bhasa [200-300 CE], among the earliest Sanskrit playwrights, predating Kalidas, who wrote Swapnavasavadatta among a dozen other plays. Dumroo, Mridung: Indian musical instruments. Manipuri, Garba: regional Indian dances. Names like Digambar, Haseena, Peter are casually used to keep up the tone of levity.

A Supplementary Note:

After I had sent this article for publication in the Indian Literature, I serendipitously came across D.H. Lawrence’s poem ‘How Beastly the Bourgeois Is’ with a striking resemblance of theme and imagery of a ‘mushroom’ symbolizing the bourgeois class. The thematic resemblance including the central satirical image of the ‘mushroom’ as a metaphor of the bourgeois’ class is striking. As a critic has  observed:

“Lawrence portrays the bourgeoisie as shallow, materialistic, and emotionally stunted. He compares them to mushrooms, living off the remains of others and lacking any real substance. Lawrence suggests that the bourgeoisie are incapable of genuine human connection or empathy, and that they are ultimately hollow and worthless….The poem is written in a conversational tone, with Lawrence directly addressing the reader. He uses simple language and imagery to create a vivid and memorable picture of the bourgeoisie. The poem's rhythm and rhyme scheme are irregular, lending it a sense of urgency and anger…. Lawrence's poem is a powerful indictment of the bourgeoisie, and it remains relevant today. The poem's themes of materialism, emotional repression, and social inequality are still prevalent in modern society. Lawrence's poem is a reminder that we should not be fooled by outward appearances, and that true worth lies in character and integrity.” [https://allpoetry.com/How-Beastly-The-Bourgeois-Is]

Lawrence’s poem was first published in the collection ‘The Ship of Death’ (1933) and it is not unlikely that Nirala’s poem ‘Kukurmutta’ ( written c. 1941) with its identical metaphor and its thematic and satiric treatment) may have been inspired by Lawrence’s poem, because Nirala was a voracious reader of English and Bangla poetry, and may have chanced upon this poem. His central metaphor of the ‘mushroom’ may have been borrowed, but the treatment of the theme in Nirala’s poem is much elongated and elaborate with the use of a much more artitistic, comprehensive and complex technique From a creative work's point of view, however, the similarity is extremely remarkable. This comparison, of course, deserves a fuller and broader discussion. -BSM Murty

Text & Photos © Dr BSM Murty

bsmmurty@gmail.com Mob. 7752922938

[This translation of Nirala’s poem, with the critical note, is published in a slightly edited form in Indian Literature (#341, May-June, 2024)]

You may also read my translation of Nirala’s ‘Joohi ki Kali’ (2 Feb 2008) & Shivpoojan Sahay’s fascinating memoir on Nirala (trans. by me, 26 Oct 2012); as also my own memoir of Nirala in Hindi (19 Feb 2015). First click on the year, then on the month to find the post.