(SR) SARASWATHI SONG
SARASWATHI SONG
Bolivian hacendados plant the year’s first coca,
Over Li Chiang, the snow-range is turquoise,
Rollerskates shake up Krivarbatsky Lane,
Stygian gloom devastates Stadhouderskade,
Josh sticks burn in Heliopolis,
Ginnungagap yawns;
& while starlings gather in pinetops across Canada,
Surya shines on an oily sea.
Do you remember the first time you found us,
Poeticizing in the caravanserai,
‘Neath Tashkurghan’s mountain Manchu fort,
Do you remember summoning us to India
To sing for thee, Saraswathi, my Goddess?
I wander’d all across the lands
Of India, most useful –
A mighty huntress, & her prey, Mankind!
Majestic Maharani of my mind!
Time is auspicious, the venue appropriate;
Elect me as your husband, & I’ll sing!
Expanding like the petals of cut flowers
Teach me to weave your webs of golden thread
& fill these soft stanzettas with your song,
In half-a-dream, or more a dream of dreaming.
Thoughts comes rushing in like a flight of swans
Then they pass, & they dive to the pure unknown
Raising glorious wonders in the stillness of the day!
Give me the lyrics of Mewari shepherds
Sate in fields of pristine sugar beets,
Slurping on stumps in between verses;
Give me melodies of Moslem bangle-sellers
Bustling thro’ narrow alleyways of Hyderabad,
Where wedding chaunts of winking grooms,
Floral-wreath’d & crown’d like peacocks,
As handsome as the Dawn of Krishna’s vows.
Sing, Saraswathi, of the Tyger of Mysore,
Stuck like a leg of chicken
In the British Empire’s throat.
& teach me, pray teach me,
Of the Ayer Vedic ghats
Of the Edicts of Ashoka,
& the chains of causation,
Of ineffable contemplation
& these Four Noble Truths
First glean’d under the Bodhi Tree at Gaya.
Sing, Saraswathi,
Your tender, primal melodies,
For the girlfriends who ador’d me,
& the women who would wash me,
When I was just a baby
Underneath a lone Pennine.
Yes, sing, Saraswathi,
Thro’ the song which I am singing,
Underneath thy silken sari
To the gather’d hearers, here;
For there is light in the music,
& there’s life forever after,
In the moments we were married
In a song that’s sung sincere.
Sing, Saraswathi, of white-wash’d Pondicherry,
& the mantric revelations
That you gave Sri Aurobindo,
Omniscient in syllabary!
Sing, Saraswathi
Of the wisdom of the Gita
That you gave to azure Krishna,
In the fields of Kurukshetra,
When Arjuna knew his doubts.
Her qualities are Nymphaeaceae,
Her perfumes Kustrika when on heat,
Bestowing immortality & the triumph of time!
But, Goddess, am I worthy ?
I am thy willing disciple,
My wildly discarnating spirit
Tameable with verses.
Sing, Saraswathi, the Song of the Lord,
The Gita of indestructible embodiment
To the strains of your astral sitar,
& in honour of blue Kishna
Let us do what is to be done,
Sing his song for the Ages to come
Saraswathi, summer of my life!
Let us discuss intelligent ideas,
Let us dissect the poetics of Pandini,
&, if you deign to treat me,
Illuminate this speech,
Adorn my burning heart
With words of water, nectar, pomegranate –
To cleanse & clarify my lonely time-corner
In this poly-sided universe of life
Sing, Saraswathi, of the golden Goan shoreline,
& the Kanchenjonga ridges
Oer the snake-streets of Sikkim.
Saraswathi! Blessed anthropomorphic
Vision of incorporeal bliss,
A coming together of vague poetic forces,
In one iconic majesty,
I see thee, Goddess,
Dost thou see me?
Sing, Saraswathi, of sacred Asvaghosha
& Ishavara Krishna of the Samkhyakarika,
Of how them both were Issa,
Spreading Vedic principles
In texts of many tongues!
O, Saraswathi!
Let me handle the divine leaves
Of your fabulous Fifth Veda,
Beyond all mortal realms in scope & slokas,
Transcending all Earth’s energies in style –
All-inclusively;
Sciences, philosophy, religious speculations!
O, Saraswathi! Monarch of my Muses,!
What is Mahabharata?
Literature? Painting? Sculpture? Music?
Didactic molder of Mankind’s character?
O! Let this epic perfect my searing soul!
O! Mahabharata! O! India!
Gigantic globe of thought enrob’d,
The Bharata Wars are the Universe,
Containing galaxies of narratives,
Forging consciousness in various spheres,
Finding ample sense in complex rhythms,
Where prospers humanity’s myriads!
O! Beloved! My Beloved!
While I sing our song,
Plant for me a vineyard
Leave a winepress near the garden
& I’ll boil my rustic wines,
For a party for immortals,
Am I Bacchus of the Ganga?
Apollo of the Punjab?
Give me ink, & give me goat-skin,
Give me wine, & give me feeling
To play most tender melodies
Upon your string’d sitar.
& give me, Saraswathi, as you gave to Vyasa,
The gift of sight, & in that seeing, beauty;
Fram’d by the imparting arts of poetry,
Let me mould my mimesis
Like those rouge, clay cups containing scented chai.
Chai! Chai! Chai!
My train rumbles on,
Muttering, shuddering,
Thro’ shutters I see
Siva’s fiery lingam,
Atop Arunachala’s mountain,
Oer Tiruvannamalai.
A question follows me everywhere,
‘Are you married, sir?’
My reply always surprises,
‘Yes… to Saraswathi!’
For I am thy Silver Rose, Saraswathi
Led, here, to Kolkata by scented trails –
If Edinburgh was the mind of the Empire,
& London its powerful heart,
Then, surely, this city was its soul!
Let me hear you play, O goddess!
& let me praise, like troubadours of old,
Celestial sounds of your sitar,
Haunting mantras of your sarangee,
Wonderful strings of your saron!
O! Saraswathi!
Let me drown in your deliciousness
In moments of togetherness
Which gladdens vocal arts
Yes! Be my sweet teacher
Immerse me in Dhurava for two years of bliss
When I shall only practice the base note ‘sa!’
Kolkata! Cacophony!
Calliope’s Conduit,
Clio’s Accountant,
Street’s pregnant with ghee,
Shady lanes of guava green,
Lepers pointing, with gnarling hands
At useless legs,
& while the card school prioritizes higher antes,
& the shoefixers busier than normal
Lemon sellers are doing a lively business!
Oh! Renovated rotund of Kolkata!
Oh! Pigeon-haunted rubbish tips!
Oh! Rubber emporiums in the ruins of the Raj!
In Kolkata
There is Taste & Beauty & Emotion
But do the touch the fossiliz’d minds
Of its prehistoric slum dwellers
O! Saraswathi! Are you really Sabia?
Up from the Sunderbans,
An elf on Sudder Street
& if no begging then nothing to eat!
Her mother caught the Black TB
& pass’d away, with nothing on her feet,
Sabia was now her own mother
With three younger mouths to feed
When only teenage prostitution could saved them
& only the decent Amir Vela Mandir pay her heed;
When on Sundays, she patiently waits in line
Recieving sweets & savouries & sabje in a bag –
Then shuffles back to paving flags to sip her gutter-wine.
On Canning Street
Tacky plastic jewelry battles each other
Flashes of rats scuttle between boxes
Flower-sellers’ teeth shine brilliant & white
Look at the masses! Gaze on the multitudes!
Inflam’d with religion,
Mourning hagiographic reliquerie –
Ye Prophets of the West, your time has come,
See how scrivan godspell cast upon the Earth!
Praise the thirteen siblings
Of Rabindranath Tagore;
Dwijendra, Satyendra, Himendra, Bivendra,
Saudamini, Jyotirindra, Sukamari, Dunyendra,
Saratkumari, Swanakumari, Barankumari
Somendra & Budhendra.
If the entire universe is Siva’s stage
Praise the acting of Rabindranath Tagore,
Upon whose honour all vidyas converge,
Disavowing the punitive West,
Refusing an Emperor’s knighthood
To read one line of his is to forget
All of the troubles of the world
Today, in Kolkata’s cockpit of conquest
There is Kathak, India’s own glory
Supernatural costumes, heroic make-up
Dancers gliding with grotesque splendour
& singers & actors, all on the same stage.
Transporting us to an ancient world of dreams
I dreamily read Tagore’s inventive metrics
On trains, in restaurants & on the tops of omnibuses
Subtle in rhythm, delicate in untranslatable colour,
A supreme culture’s common soil
Walking hand-in-hand across the Maidan
These vast, green, lung Calcutta
We pass a thousand Tendulkars
On a hundred home-made wickets
A city bubbling & thick with proud calls & lights
Overflows the saucepan of its eyelids
Its tears flow out in gutters of lowly populations
In streets where Saptamatrika fear to tread
O Saraswathi
Allow me my vocation as an artist in verse
Let me study the recipes of your poets
Take up a handful from every poet
& mush & mix into dishes of sweet nectar
O! Sad-fac’d White Tiger of Alipore Zoo,
O! Ghosts of english gaiety long gone
O! Pan-stain’d pavements in spat at spate
O! Card schools down Shady lanes
O! Women outside tinshacks washing plates
O! Homely hubs of homeopathic health!
O! College Street of famous books
O! Lovely ‘Indian Coffee House’
Serv’d by handsome cockateet waiters
In the middle of the day
My head is melting into mush
& my clothes stick sweatily to my skin.
Let me swim in each of the rivers of Punjab –
Where Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Bens & Sutle
All flow into the ever-sacred Indus.
In Kolkata
An urchin taps a single rupee on his biscuit tin
Metal on metal
Nearby, a dog dreams, lazing between wilting fruit
& two handsome young men, conversing in scams
Between them an argument breaks out, briefly,
But ends in an instant of smiles
Meditating on the making of magical metaphors,
Allowing one word to do the work of twenty.
I am the magenta-throated,
Amethyst woodstar,
I am the pump of village water-wells,
I am the small dog digging holes in sand,
I am the hammer & sickle & Stalin’s wall,
I am the secret street-cleaner at Dawn,
I am the aluminum rooves
Of the barbers of Chidamburam, – barbere district n calcutta
I am your everything!
Upon the splendid esplanade of life,
Beside oceanic universe,
Our saliency is this, my sweet,
I am thy song disciple, let me sing
Praising thy beauty with my velvet thought,
Add music to your rivers of righteousness,
In atmospheres of happiness & abundance,
A living poet & a bidden bard,
Praising language in its highest form,
Most plainly & most openly,
I’ll remain thy crystal paragon,
Adoring, with all aspects of my soul,
Who is, who was, & who shall be, always,
Most beautiful of all thy parts, my love.
Mumble Words 