Sramati...

madhushaala - Part 2

The song of life continues... (you might also want to check out madhushaala - Part 1; Look for a link to your left)

Stanza 17:

Translation (MB-RSV):
He who has calcined all the creeds
With fire from his burning breast,
Who quits the temple, mosque and church
A drunken heretic, unblest,
Who sees the snares, and now comes running
From Pandit's, Priest's and Mullah's cunning,
He, and he only, shall today
Be in my House a welcome Guest.

My translation:
he whose inner inferno, has
reduced to ashes every religious text

he who, inebriated, insolent, has
broken past temple, masjid, church

he who, tipsy, trenchant, has
cut through the noose laid by priest, moulvi, pastor

he is the the only one
welcome today into my tavern

Stanza 18:

Translation (MB-RSV):
Who has not kissed with trembling lips
The juice of apple-tree and vine,
Who, drinking, has not felt such joy
That trembling was its outward sigh.
Who has not drawn the Maiden, blushing,
Close and then closer still to crushing,
Wasting his fragile House of Life
Has never known the House of Wine.

My translation:
he who has not kissed
with salivating lips,
the soothing spirit;

he who has not cupped
with tremulous hands,
the wine goblet;

he who has not drawn
closer by her hand,
the coy wine-maiden;

has withered, wasted
tender life itself,
this House of Wine

Stanza 19:

Translation (MB-RSV):
The Saki seems to pray; the Wine
Seems water drawn at Ganga's brink;
Like prayers upon a rosary
I hear the Goblets when they clink;
This is a mantra we are chanting,
"Take this!" "take more!" -- by which enchanting
Shiva incarnate moves in me,
This House his temple where I drink.

My translation:
The loving wine-maiden is the priest,
Oh! sweet wine, holy water of the Ganga

Whirling around, at a dizzying pace,
an interminable succession of goblets

"Take more", "drink some more" --
divinely chanted in harmonic unison

I sit unmoved, Shiva personified,
this is my temple, the House of Wine

Stanza 26:

Translation (MB-RSV):
Bonfires of Holi once a year
Are lit, and once the Feast of Light
Encourages the gambler's throw
-- Beyond compare my House's might!
O worldlings, stop one day to ponder,
And toward the House of Wine just wander,
For we keep Holi every day
And keep Diwali every night.

My translation:
Iridiscent, but only once a year,
Holi bursts into flame

Refulgent, but only once a year,
glow the lights of Diwali

But come hither and behold, all,
this wondrous House of Wine

by day we revel in a riot of colour,
and every night is a festival of light

Stanza 32:

Translation (MB-RSV):
The lips may sample any draught;
The tongue still tastes the changeless grape;
The hands may carry any dish;
It seems to have a Goblet's shape;
And every shifting countenance
Takes on the the Handmaid's well-known glance;
Whatever is before the eyes,
The House within will not escape.

My translation:
any spirit may
the lips touch, yet the tongue savours
only ambrosial wine

any vessel may
the palms hold, yet they caress
only the wine-goblet

many faces may
the eyes glimpse, yet they see
only the wine-maiden

many scenes, fleeting, move
before the eyes, yet burned into them
is only the House of Wine

madhushaala - Part 1

Intro

madhushaala (written 1932-34), a collection of poems penned by the great Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan (who passed away recently) is acknowledged as a major work in Hindi poetry. Bachchan was apparently an overnight celebrity in 1935, and found himself reciting this work to packed halls.

I first heard madhushaala on cassette ( Rendered by Manna Dey, Music: Jaidev, copyright: RPG) in 1992, as an MBA student (madhushaala seems to have a cult following among college students in India. This cassette contains 20 of the 135 stanzas that make up madhushaala. One can listen to Manna Dey's glorious rendering at MusicIndiaOnline).

When I first heard this recitation, I found myself awash in the undulating tide of feeling contained in these poems. When one is 20, one often wonders what life is. I seemed to have found an answer. I felt like I had scored the find of the century. Even after all this time, I am still besotted by the lyrical beauty of this work. What glorious inspiration pours out of the poet's heart?

One needs to mention two things with respect to madhushaala:

1) Many have told me that this collection of poems is about liquor, and that it glorifies drinking. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wine is only a metaphor. A very good metaphor for life, I might add. After all, as Tennyson wrote in the beginning of his translation of Ulysses,

...I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;...

"Drinking in" life has been a very powerful metaphor throughout the history of poetry, in every language.

2) Many believe that madhushaala is a translation of the 11th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam's rubaiyat, which is filled with a message of Sufi mysticism, mixed with a heady dose of hedonism - "Enjoy life as it will not last forever". Bachchan did translate the rubaiyat in a work called Khayyam ki madhushaala. But the madhushaala I am talking of is his own work, not a translation. (Incidentally, Bachchan translated from the English translation of rubaiyat by poet-scholar Edward Fitzgerald, and not from the original Persian. Did you know that Bachchan was the first Indian to have received a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge?).

Eventually, I began digging a bit deeper for an English translation, and I found one: translation by Marjorie Boulton & Ram Swaroop Vyas (MB-RSV) translated in 1950, published by Penguin India. Alas, I found this translation remote, and at times lacking in genuine feeling. So, I decided to translate this myself...not out of hubris, but out of love...Naturally, I make no claim that my translation is any better. At times, I take liberty with the form (and write in no defined metre) to convey what I think the poet is really saying...

On to the poetry (numbers after the Hindi original refer to the stanza number in the original work).

Stanza 6:

Translation (MB-RSV):
The drinker leaves his home to find
The House of Wine, but does not know
The way, and fears achievement must
Be but for an instructed few;
And each from whom he asks the way
Has something new and strange to say;
In fact, you reach the House of Wine
By any path you may pursue.

My translation:
The drinker sets out from home
seeking the tavern
naive, uncertain
which path to pursue...
Each points a different way
But let me tell you this:
Choose a path, and keep walking,
You will find your tavern

Stanza 10:

Translation (MB-RSV):
Listen! the gurgling in the Cups,
The sounds of drunken merriment!
The Saki moves to music, shakes
Each tinkling golden ornament.
Now we are near the destination
And hear the merry conversation;
Listen! and now we can perceive
The House of Wine, the drifting scent.

My translation:
joyous commotion
full pitchers of wine, dripping
into tinkling goblets

swerving, swaying,
lithely moving to heady music
the wine-maiden serves

thirsty with desire
the drinkers, in the tavern
redolent with spirit

not far now
a few paces away, awaits
the house of mirth

Stanza 14:

Translation (MB-RSV):
This Wine resembles fire, and yet
Do not refer to it as flame
Nor call the bubbles at the brim
Blisters of frustrated love and shame:
Where your dead memories serve and languish
This Wine will make you drunk with anguish;
And can a man take pleasure thus,
My House of Wine is for that same.

My translation:
This wine flows from the goblet - liquid fire
yet, do not dismiss it as a flame;
This wine foams and fizzes in a thousand bubbles
yet, do not label them blisters on the scalded heart;
This wine has pain for an intoxicant
and departed memories are its wine-maiden;
He who can take joy in his deepest sorrow
is welcome into my tavern

LXG

I recently watched a movie called "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". This blog is an alternative review of this movie. The concept behind this movie is rather straightforward. These are heroes (and a heroine) that step off the pages of English (language, not nationality) fiction, come together and combat a formidable enemy, and (no surprises here) ultimately prevail.

1. Allan Quatermain, from the H.Rider Haggard book
2. Captain Nemo, from Jules Verne's "20000 leagues under the sea"
3. Vampiress Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker's "Dracula"
4. Dorian Gray, from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
5. Tom Sawyer, from the Mark Twain book
6. Rodney Skinner, the gentleman thief, and invisible man from the H.G. Wells book
7. Dr. Jekyll/Mr . Hyde, from the Robert Louis Stevenson book

I am a hardcore literary buff, and naturally thought any movie with Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer and Mr. Jekyll etc. all together must be worth a look. So I actually went to the movies and bought the popcorn and the Coke and did the whole nine yards. Now, the movie itself turned out to be a rather different experience, however.

The story is set in 1899. Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) is the reluctant leader of this gang of heroes, called upon by the Queen from his retirement in Africa. He is clearly the ringmaster of this group. Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah, yes our own man) is the technological facilitator of the group. He provides the group with Nautilus (among other things), a submarine for fast transportation. Each of the other heroes (and the heroine) bring their unique skills to the job: invisibility [Skinner], blood-sucking [Harker] , eternal youth [Gray], enterprising youth [Sawyer], useful evil in good [Hyde/Jekyll]. Critics have nitpicked about this movie: the submarine was shown cruising the canals of Venice in an apparently unlikely way (a real submarine could not navigate those narrow canals, they say). Many such critiques have been levelled.

My reading is slightly different: The whole enterprise is led by Quatermain, and Nemo very much plays second fiddle (recall that in 1899 India is a subject of the Crown). Captain Nemo is a bearded warrior who carries a sword, and looks like a Sikh to the Indian eye. He dresses colourfully, worships Kali (the "Goddess of Death", it is explained to us helpfully), and is in general inscrutable. The Nautilus is inexplicably adorned on the outside with many stautuettes of Indian Gods and Godesses, and on the inside we see a lot of persian/mughal/muslim style doorways and arches. The deck of this then futuristic machine is itself designed to look like a sivalingam. In the other important dynamic of this movie, Quatermain sees in Tom Sawyer a shadow of his own adventurous youth, and his lost son. He trains Sawyer in shooting and other helpful arts. In a defining moment of the movie, towards the end, as Quatermain lies dying, he utters a fateful benediction to Sawyer "May the next century be yours".

These observations are very important to the subtext of the movie. Pax Brittanica transfers power and responsibility to Pax Americana at the turn of the 20th century. The oriental Nemo is an object of curious fetishism, and his image is further steeped in mystery by his seemingly bizarre worshipping habits and his complete lack of emotion (indeed, an effort is made to show that "they" have no ability of emotion the same way as "we" do. ) Nemo is good at providing technology, and he is a visionary with gadgets, but it ultimately falls to the wise West to optimally make use of this technology.

As I see it, this movie is yet another textbook case of "Orientalism", a concept originally proposed by Edward W. Said, which revolutionized the whole study of comparative and post-colonial literature. My own reading of this film is neither accidental nor unique. Said provides in "Orientalism" and "Culture and Imperialism", a number of such examples, old an new. ("Indiana Jones and the Tenple of Doom" is another such movie example.)

After reading Said, I cannot not think through that lens. The reason is that his arguments are so brilliant, the content so profound. Sometimes, as in the case with this movie, I kick myself for no longer being able to simply enjoy a movie for what it could be: an entertaining performance. The moral of the story, I guess, is: the more we know, the more we shed of our innocence.

A word about my blog name

Why the blog name "sramati"? Pretty weird reason actually. Try to follow me here, as this is rather convoluted...

My name is S.Ramana. Sonti Ramana in the long, Indian form (so-called last name first). Sramana is the shortened form. "Sramana" is not a valid word in Telugu, my mothertongue (at least that I know of). However, a closely related word is "sramati". It means, among other things, "river" and "that which flows". Blogs are apparently supposed to flow, a slice of one's stream of consciousness. Hence the name "sramati". Hopefully, that's what my blog will do, provide you a glimpse into what I have in my mind. You can never dip into the same river twice as they say, but you will find a lot of oft-thought things in this blog. Some plain, some trite, some ribald, occasionally even original, these thoughts are all me, all the same...