Some more poems of Ravindra

These poems are the personal property of Ravindra and their use in any form requires his prior permission.

FULL BLOOM THEY HAD

Full bloom they had in my childhood-

the trees that grew in my backyard.

The last one was planted

by my father

when I was five years old.

Life has gone ahead—

wrinkles have given me the look of my father

when he became a grandfather.

Yes I  too am a grandfather now.

The trees smile

and say: Well, child! why worry !

 we shall live on

and in us you shall live as has lived

your grandfather

then your father.

We are the time that moves on.

Here in our sap lies the godly presence.

Be a tree

and see the miracle of life.

                           -  R.K.Raizada
 GOD LIVES RIGHT HERE

God lives right here--

in the little birdie’s nest on the Champak tree.

Here I hear the chirping all day long—

the father bringing food from distant farms

the mother feeding the newly-borns

the young ones

thronging around the mother 

and chirruping for food

the mother cajoling and scolding them

the father telling them to move along

and learn to open their wings.

Yes, the sweet little drama of life

goes on incessantly.

God smiles here.

I wish I could become a part of

The little birdie’s family

and learn

how to see God smile.

                      - R.K.Raizada

THE BIRTH OF URVASHI *                         

         That happened

in a south Indian breeze –

we call it Malay in our native parlance.

It at once connotes

the gust of romance

and joy and beauty

and the rosey-eyed Eros-

the sweet-winged paramour of desire.

I stood in my non-challance- a very epitome of desire

like the mythical god of love-

there direct under the shadow

of an epic presence.

There blew a breeze

from the early morning sun, playing cadence

with the flow of an over-eager current,

calling an old demon

in a matchless dancing sea;

their hymns of watery parlance

declaring earth

an ever-alive glory;

limbs matching limbs

conveyed a new meaning to the sky,

dawning in that ethereal moment.

As if direct from the epic,

embossed on the neighbouring ancient stones,

she stepped out

like a wish unfulfilled

of many-many births

come alive,

almost like a song,

a lyrical voice,

a sound eternal

that had reverberated

in the corridors of aeons.

I gasped for breath –

the breeze was so sweet,

filling the incrporeal senses

of the trees around.

She headed from the waves

and I saw

where the hem of the river

was lightly resting

against the sea’s fluid front.

She lifted her one step and below there

leaped the desire of the wave;

pearls scattered

near it on the sand;

then another step

and from beneath the sky-line

a lotus-

an ethereal fragrance-

issued forth

and gods of beauty, love, power and joy

surrounding it

sang in one solid hallelujah

the birth of the sweet Urvashi.

Among the stones

a light traversed

and each corner,

each crevice among the rocks

fluttered with a joyful soul;

there came peacock throbs

and quivers of a flower-bow,

seeding desire

in God’s abundance.

       * Urvashi is an Apsara, a goddess-fairy in  Indian mythology

                               - R.K. Raizada

AND BUDDHA WOKE UP           

And Buddha woke up –

It was still dark.

Life was still like a dormant pool.

He remembered the night.

There were a thousand sights lurking in the dark.

The tunnel was wide and mysterious—

Crowded it was with

shapes known and unknown.

There was the figure of father, mighty and weak;

the mother, a distant dream;

the pretty Yashodhara, asleep-

looking wane and pale;

the little just-born baby boy,

lost in his own dream-world—

all these and many others,

whom he had known in the crowd of experiences—

the street urchin

who looked agape with wide blue eyes

at his princely procession—its rich glory

that he could not understand.

Perhaps life was hard for the little boy—

working with his parents in some distant field

or, may be, working as

a menial hand in the royal kitchen.

Life is so hard—now he knows.

he also remembered the old man

whom he saw only once,

limping along the street on his bony frame;

then the cortege going towards the cremation ghat.

All this was a passing show—

now distant and unreal.

Buddha woke up and knew

that life goes on

and leaves behind a nothing.

Pain and suffering are real and yet unreal—

they bind you not.

One must see them and be aloof.

The long night had passed.

The day was beaming out from inside.

And Buddha knew

He was awake.

                  - R.K.Raizada

HERE IN MY LITLLE GARDEN 

Here in my little garden

a little bird moves along,

frisking among the branches of the Champak tree.

In the morning sun it looks golden,

But as the sun declines to the west

It looks darker till it merges

Into the green of the tree.

In the twilight of the setting sun

It emerges out and sings a melancholy note.

And when the night falls,

It flies up and merges among the stars.

I remember my mother,

Who died last year.

                  - R.K.Raizada

WELL, I WISH I COULD      

         Now is the time to sleep.

Well, I wish I could!

But the poet in me is a night-monger.

He wakes up when the world sleeps.

  

Poor me!

I know not how to cope with this ever-insistent

Poet’s insistent vision.

                       -R.K.Raizada

        YESTERDAY I PUT

             

        Yesterday

I put my pen on the desk.

Today when I took it to write a poem

it behaved in a funny manner-

it refused to write.

My mind was aglow with words

but the pen frustrated me.

I struggled with it in vain-

the pen had become a machine

and no more my companion

who took to poetry

as naturally as does a fish to water.

It had lost its soul.

            -    R.K.Raizada

AND THE BIRD FLEW        

        And the bird flew quietly

                       in the sky.

She knew not

how the metallic little satellite

went by her ,

rattling beyond her horizons

into the black womb of the skies,

there to find a new earth.

The bird in the sky can breathe

And playfully glide upon her wings

or be still at will.

The spaceship like a meteor

passes her by unnoticed.

The sky is air and life for the bird.

The spaceship knows not this

and goes hurtling around.

The bird looks askance at its mad fury.

Quietness in the sky is the bird’s home,

but the metallic bird knows not this

and roars.

                   -  R.K.Raizada

AND THEY…          

And they ….

the beauties, all raw youthful

stood in the artificial twilight

of  a pre-dawn celebration

with eager joy pulsating

in their breathless veins.

Throbbing of moments in a heartless time

glistened up and down  the flood-lit stage.

Here was a world

created out of the commonplace

to celebrate the pageant of nothingness-

a vain beauty

In a couple of hours’ wonderland.

Among the cobwebs of lanes,

as one crossed the streams of limousines,

there stood an orphan girl…

shivering in her nakedness.

The wild ecstasy reverberated from the pageant,

reaching unto her.

Poor girl!

She knew not--

as also the ancient banyan near the crossing--

that beauty could be such a grand show.

                             - R.K.Raizada

             

English Poems of Ravindra

The poems published on this blog are the personal property of Ravindra Kumar Raizada alias Kumar Ravindra. Please contact him on e-mail for any kind of use of these poems. 

THE EARTH LIVES HERE                                                                       

The earth lives here unknown.

No man lives here.

Here are the hills and the yonder sky

the unnamed wilderness and a divinity unexplored

trees dancing in the winds

and the birds singing hallelujah;

The stars of midnight join their chorus and shower their blessings.

I wish I were a star, a bird, a tree, a hill

and live here unnamed, unknown

and be this earth!   

                          - R.K.Raizada

         

         THE SKY IS DIM

The sky is dim, dark and sultry

distributed by static stars;

none dares to move;

all the stars are highly stable;

the commanding finger of light awaits

an event- a birth;

but the stars are unobliging.

Three ancient faces

six young eyes

and twelve tired feet

face the desert

for the signal of an unfulfilled  dream.

Memories of an ancient journey

that took them to a birth

among the cattle, are troublesome.

The grotto and the stable are empty.

Three shadows await the signal of life;

three other shadows of trees

in a dark tempest

appear across the horizon

upon a lonely knoll

still awaiting a long sought resurrection.  

                            -R.K.Raizada

       

         HERE IN THE WILDERNESS

Here in the wilderness

of the space-city they sit alone -

the gods from the forsaken earth.

To them has been given the charge of

keeping a watch over the stars

created once upon a time

by a so-called almighty god –

for centuries

priests had talked about him ad nauseam.

That god was long ago buried

under the debris of the fallen temples.

Now these new gods are sent

into space by their

creator man –

among the stars they sit on guard

alert and aloof.

The space-ships come and go

and among the stars

men from the earth come for picnicing every day.

Upon the earth life is the same

as it was in the twentieth century A.D.

People hungry and in tatters still live there

labouring for the rich.

The new civilization is agog with success.

                           - R.K.Raizada

GOD LIVES RIGHT HERE

God lives right here--

in the little birdie’s nest on the Champak tree.

Here I hear the chirping all day long—

the father bringing food from distant farms

the mother feeding the newly-borns

the young ones

thronging around the mother 

and chirruping for food

the mother cajoling and scolding them

the father telling them to move along

and learn to open their wings.

Yes, the sweet little drama of life

goes on incessantly.

God smiles here.

I wish I could become a part of

The little birdie’s family

and learn

how to see God smile.

                        - R.K.Raizada

THE NON-DESCRIPT BONE

Yes, it was waiting for me –

the little non-descript bone –

for aeons.

All these centuries

it lay on the sands

shifted along

by the indiscriminate shufflings of the waves

on that unknown beach.

Life had flowed by:

tourists came and went by;

the native fishermen too

had left it unravished – undesired.

Little it had to recommend itself

to the ravishing eye of man.

Poor thing –

it waited and waited and waited

till the advent of

my foot-steps on the neglected spot.

I had reached there unsolicited

knowing not its urgent call

echoing in the corridors of my bones.

My steps –

one, two, three and more-

did not know the direction.

And yet

the little thing from the past

was fully awake with longing

accumulated down its aged waking.

And then

it came to me all of asudden-

aye, abruptly to my soul.

My toe was touched to the quick

with a thrill of recogniton.

And my soul immediately knew it-

this my own long-forgotten self

waiting through the unknown times

down to the moment.

How could it be otherwise ?

                        - R.K.Raizada

LET THE EARTH SPEAK OUT 

And now

let the earth speak out

through its sub-soil presences –

the cadence of bubbling waters,

sbmerged in its womb;

the rocks rubbed round

In a subterranean stream;

the bare earthy touches of lifelessness

which non-challantly stare around

for silences;

the fiery lappings of the entrapped winds;

and the whisperings

that we humans cannot hear

in the midst of

our supercilious noises.

The depths have silences that speak

even where noises run amok around.

Our thoughts sometimes arise

from such depths;

then the speech of the earth

reverberates inaudibly

inside us.

May this be the end !

May this be the end of all our seachings,

aye, all our hankerings !

Then memory shall not speak to to us

and we shall hear

what we cannot hear.                                  

                        - R.K.Raizada

  

Kumar Ravindra's Articles

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NAVGEET- THE NEW LYRIC POETRY OF HINDI

Hindi lyric poetry came of age with the advent of  ‘Navgeet’, the neo-lyrical movement, starting with the lyrical poetry of Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’. It was he, who gave a new dimension to modern Hindi poetry by insisting on liberalising the control of ‘chhandshastra’ or strict classical prosody. His very famous poetic line ‘Nav gati nav lay taal chhand nav’ ,i.e, new movement, new rhythm, new sound and metrical pattern- became a kind of prescription for the upcoming generation of the post-‘Chhayavaad’ poets. Some among them took to a totally liberated poetry, completely departing from the earlier tradition of poetry, observing all the rules of and within the framework of ‘Chhandshastra’, as enunciated by the ‘Ritikaleen Acharyas’ and carried over with elan by the ‘Dvivediyugeen’ poets like Rashtrakavi Maithilisharan Gupt, Makhanlal Chaturvedi and the Chhayavadi poets like Prasad, Pant and Mahadevi and their other contemporaries. Sachchidanand Hiranand Vatsyayan ‘Agyey’ started what is known as ‘Pryogvadi’ or experimental poetry in Hindi. This genre of poetry was later known as ‘Nai Kavita’ or new poetry. He insisted that new poetry need not observe any rules of prosody. Actually this kind of poetry was inspired by the ‘Verse libre’ movement of France and England and took Hindi poetry to a direction which, in a way,was un-Indian. Nirala, who had been the source of inspiration and who had experimented with the liberated genre of poetry by his poems like ‘Voh todti patthar’ or ‘Voh aata / do took kaleje ke karta / pachhtata path par aata’ etc., returned to the lyrical form in the later part of his poetic career and gave impetus to a new experimental kind of lyric poetry, which acquired the nomenclature ‘Navgeet’. In the beginning, there was no contradiction between these two parallel movements of Hindi poetry, both trying to enrich the fabric of modern Hindi poetry with their experimental approach. But at a later stage, there started a kind of rivalry between the two genres, which resulted in a most unfortunate twisted approach to the study of  contemporary Hindi poetry. ‘Agyey’s followers tried to reject all poetry written in lyrical form and thus obstructing the normal growth of Hindi poetry. Unfortunately, the schism has continued for over half a century and still vitiates and besets the global vision of Hindi poetry.

The term ‘Navgeet’ came into official circulation with its written and printed use for the first time in ‘Gitangini’, a collection of Hindi lyric poems, edited by Rajendra prasad singh of Bihar. The collection came in the year 1958. Eversince the new kind of lyric poetry has been known as ‘Navgeet’. The collection was not a representative one and contained a lot of fallacious statements, but it must be given credit for giving an identity to a new trend in Hindi lyric poetry. In 1964 came ‘Kavita-64’, edited by Om Prabhakar, a rising Neo-lyricist. This gave further impetus to the new voice in lyric poetry. And then came in 1969 another good collection of modern Hindi lyrics, titled ‘Paanch Jod Bansuri’, edited by Chandradev Singh. Divided into five sections, this collection covered the growth of modern Hindi lyric poetry, with special focus on contemporary Hindi lyric. Many of the contemporary Navgeet poets were present in that historical collection. From 1969 to 1982 it was a period of silent but rightful and rich growth of ‘Navgeet’. It continued to vibrate and grow in the various remote corners of the Hindi heartland despite the stiff opposition from the ‘Nai Kavita’ clan. It was, in a way, good for it, as it got wide-spread and deep-rooted in the poetic psyche of the whole  Hindi-speaking area and thus becoming truly representative. It emerged from the limbo as a powerful genre with the publication of the three-part collection of ‘Navgeet’, edited by Dr. Shambhunath Singh. The three parts of this collection, titled ‘Navgeet Dashak’ Part-I,II and III, came in the years 1982, 1983 and 1984 respectively. This mega-collection contained ten lyrics each of thirty Navgeet poets plus their statements and bio-data. All these thirty poets, according to the Editor Dr. Shambhunath Singh, truly and faithfully represented the contemporary trends in Hindi lyric poetry. The writer of this article was also among them. In 1984 came another anthology of Navgeet, titled ‘Yaatra men Saath-Saath’, in which ten Navgeet poets were included, some of them from the Dashak collection and some not from there. And  then in the year 1986 Dr. Shambhunath Singh brought out a mega-anthology of Navgeet, titled ‘Navgeet Ardhshati’.This was an anthology of fifty years of Hindi lyric, demonstrating the new trends as they started and as they emerged and came to fruition till date. It was certainly a historical collection. With the arrival of these anthologies and a book of criticism on Navgeet, titled ‘Navgeet: Udbhav aur Vikas’, written by Dr. Rajendra Gautam created a positive atmosphere for a rapid growth and recognition of Navgeet. Immediately thereafter came individual collections of Navgeet by a large number of poets. In the nineties of the last century ‘Navgeet’ established itself as an independent genre. It also proved that the charge of  Agyey and his ilk that lyric was incompetent to give expression to the modern sensibilities and thus has no relevance in modern and contemporary situations was baseless. In fact, it has been proved by ‘Navgeet’ of today that owing to the prosodic discipline it is more suited to the expression of today’s realities. It has been found that the experiments of language and diction and poetic expression, introduced and adhered to by the prose-poetry of the middle of the last century, can be more effectively conveyed through the new lyrical poetry or ‘Navgeet’. By the time he brought out the third part of the ‘Saptak’ anthology in 1959 , Agyey himself had realized that the emotional element in poetry is important and the poet’s main concern is with the emotions of man and also that truth is that fact of life, with which we are emotionally involved. This view is very similar to the view of ‘Navgeet’. As far as the changing emotional concerns of mankind in modern times are concerned, they are also better expressed through the discipline of verse i.e. rhyme and rhytm.

Rhythm is a  very natural and normal phenomenon in all the biological i.e. physical as well as mental activity of man. All our actions are bound by an unnoticed and unrecognised rhythm. In different emotional and mental states it acquires separate forms and images. Verse is more suitable and nearer to this ever-flowing current of rhythm in man’s responses to the outside world. As far as the expression of thought in poetry is concerned, it is always expressed in emotional images, through which the complicated process of thinking acquires ‘a local habitation and a name’.The logical shape of arguments in thinking is converted into emotional images. The surface value of thinking is changed into a deeper emotional experience. The element of surprise, which has been one chief characteristic of all poetic expression in all times, is better served by the discipline of versifation. ‘Navgeet’ is thus more in tune with the poetic expression of ideas and thoughts.

The contemporary poetry, thus, is a rich tapestry of a variety of poetic genres, woven around the complex existence of today. It includes both the verse-poetry and the prose-poetry. Actually these two varieties of modern poetry are not in contradiction of each other. In a way, they fulfil each other. Their concerns and understanding of life and their world-view are the same and even their style and presentation are not much in varriance with each other. The only difference is that of prosody. 

Social responsibility has been one main concern of poetry all along the ages. Navgeet also adheres to it. Social situations today, specifically in India, are in a state of disarray. Today we face a world beset by a mad meaningless race for merely personal advancement and that too in the material field. The other aspects of human personality which made him a socially responsible citizen of the world have been set aside in the new programme of today’s civilization. The demonic mad rush for material advancement has reduced man to the level of a mere cog in the gigantic juggernaut of capitalism. Supra-advanced market-oriented  economic structure of today’s world has created an inhuman social structure in which the sense of social responsibility has been severely damaged. Wide-rampant corruption in the body politic of every country and the world as a whole has destroyed the very foundation of human society. Navgeet stands in opposition to this situation. The individualistic tendencies require to be made complementary to the social values. Literature has to play a sheet-anchor role in this sphere. Navgeet is deeply concerned with all these issues of today. It has tried to re-establish a rapport between man and man, which seems to have been lost in the past half a century, by emphasising on the basic life-giving values of manhood i.e. charity, goodwill, companionship, social responses etc. .

There are certain norms which define the Navgeet of today. In a conference held in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India in the year 1986 the defining features of Navgeet were discussed and then certain norms were set. They are -  (i) Rhythm and adherence to the elements and norms of prosody with freedom to experiment (ii) Sensitivity – an emotional approach to experience (iii) Communicability and simplicity (iv) Imagery-based expression (v) Adherence to the commonplace, factual and real experience of life (vi) Adherence to the cultural ethos of India and Indianness (vii) Acceptance of a humanistic approach to life and human emotions as life-giving energy. (viii) Acceptance of modernity and universality with a strictly Indian ethos.  Now these are the very qualifications by which we can sustain life in our contemporary world. The Indianness, which is being endangered by the onslaught of a crass materialistic international market economy, can be sustained by adherence to these values only. The crisis which we are facing today is the crisis of identity. We are fast becoming a clone of  the United States of America and the western culture. The cultural invasion of the east by the powers of the west is destroying the cultural identity of India. This has to be countered by a revival of our cultural milieu. ‘Navgeet’ is indirectly resuscitating the cultural ethos of India.

It is more than fifty years now that the term ‘Navgeet’ has been in official circulation. During its long lone journey of three generations now it has acquired the status of an independent poetic genre. Thanks to its rejection by the ‘Nai Kavita’ movement, it has acquired a tone of surety and confidence, which speaks of its maturity. The poets who took to ‘Navgeet’ and made it an instrument of modern sensibilities are in hundreds, but the main among them are – Shambhnath Singh, Thakur prasad Singh, Ravindra ‘Bhramar’, Umakant Malviya, Virendra Mishra, Devendra Kumar, Ramesh Ranjak, Bhagvan Svaroop ‘Saras’, Naeem, Neelam Srivastava , Shivbahadur Singh Bhadauriya, Ramchandra Chandrabhushan, Devendra Sharma ‘Indra’, Shrikrishna Sharma, Shrikrishna Tivari, Mukut Saksena, Vidyanandan Rajiv, Avadh Bihari Srivastava, Kishore Kabra, Umashanker Tivari, Amarnath Srivastava, Satyanarayan, Gulab Singh, Anoop Ashesh, Ram Sengar, Maheshvar Tivari, Kumar Ravindra, Nachiketa, Shanti Suman, Kunvar Bechain, Vishnu Viraat, Rajendra Gautam, Buddhinath Mishra, Shyam Nirmam,Radheshyam Shukla, Dinesh Singh, Isaq Ashq, Mahesh Anagh, Vijaykishore Manav, Shatdal, Udbhrant, Brijnath Srivastava, Yogendra Dutta Sharma, Vinod Nigam, Ashvaghosh, Veerendra Astik, Harish Nigam, Bhartendu Mishra, Zaheer Qureshi, Vinod Srivastava, Madhukar Asthana, Nirmal Shukla, Kumar Shiv, Dr. Suresh, Dhananjay Singh, Shyam Narayan Mishra, Yash Malviya, Sheelendra Kumar Singh, Shalendra Sharma, Vasu Malviya etc. Barring a few, some of whom died and some others who took to other genres of writing, almost all these poets are still actively involved in the growth of ‘Navgeet’ as a representative poetic genre of contemporary poetry scene. Besides these, a whole new generation of young ‘Navgeet’ poets has come up in recent times who have been making significant contribution to its growth and enrichment. This augurs well for the future of this powerful and expressive genre of modern Hindi poetry. It has slowly but surely gained  momentum and has been introduced in the syllabi of M.A. Hindi teaching in many universities. In the UPSC  examination also it has been given a place.

Thus we find that Hindi Navgeet has come of age. It has carried over the tradition of Kabir and Nirala to new heights and has re-discovered the magical and mystic connotations of the ‘Word’ without divorcing it from the commonplace significance of day-to-day usage. It has certainly given a new dimension to contemporary Hindi poetry.