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.
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.