Some of my poems (contd..)

Again these are some more melodies from the eternal harp. The fingers are fragile. The fervor is a bit too assuming. But does a child know that its prattles lack a grammar? So be these to those timeless years.

11) Month of Margazhi 

It was a premature morn; 

A simple thought was stirring in my mind. 

The slow eyes beating the slipping wake; 

The cow is calling in the courtyard; 

The cow-herd cajoling the animal tethered; 

The streets have become midwives 

of the new-born morn; 

The twenty ninth song of Tiruppavai 

cradling the craving sky air-borne. 

'in the little small early dawn 

having come to thee and worshiped' 

Slowly I opened a corner of the blanket, 

the childish morn caught my neck 

and kissed my cheek to daily chores. 

Morn-caught murmuring I came out to the doors. 

The cow was all Lakshmi bathed in fresh rays. 

The twenty ninth day was born. 

*** 

12) Dream 

The loud-cry lone-crowd of myself, 

Transporting structures in shambles 

from the out world in. 

Dreaming, suddenly in action 

in strange and similar plots, 

some thickness of impasse; 

Dropping horizons in the back, 

darkly visible stretches ahead, 

I expand the space around; 

Is it mental? who said? 

Duplicating myself? 

Me from one medium to another; 

The web in-weaved in memory; 

A return aggression of the world onto the self; 

Is it a wake of the sleep, 

in the sleeping waking world? 

Dream -- 

Is it reality-not-happened ? 

Or happened-reality not in space-time? 

Or unreal happening in space and time? 

Yea it is easier to dream 

than to theorize it. 

*** 

13) Poetry 

Don't tell me children are god; 

They are too childish to be one. 

May be you mean to say 

Gods are like children. 

Quite likely, they never grow in time. 

Don't tell me you write the poems; 

Poems are not written that way. 

Perhaps you mean to say, 

Poems are written through you. 

May be you have a point there; 

Poems do but reflect You, 

That is inscribed in those through you. 

***

14) Elusive Pursuit 

The telephone was ringing; 

I wanted to answer hello, 

Reached out to the receiver, 

when the ringing stopped. 

I'm sure it was you. 

I saw you across a street, 

I wanted to talk to you, 

Rushed only to go past you, 

turning to find that you were not there, 

but somebody like you. 

I heard your voice in a mob; 

I came and searched every moving face; 

The crowd dispersed; 

The voice was heard no more; 

But the doubt lingered behind the crowd. 

How to meet you? 

Where to see you? 

Whom to ask? 

Which door to knock? 

Knowing nothing 

I am not equal to the task. 

Suddenly I heard you somewhere 

Felt your presence neighboring mine; 

Yet I saw you not, 

knew not where to find you, 

The same, the same, the self-same you. 

Me, the one following you; 

You, the self-same elusive you. 

***

15) The Wakeful Night 

It is night; 

The society has slept; 

perhaps the people are dreaming 

in the multi universe of their minds. 

The crows are steeped in leafy silence; 

The dogs have left an interval in their barking. 

Vehicles have become sparse; 

There is traffic of smells in the air; 

I am awake 

and the sky is all eyes. 

The thoughts have become audible 

and the wind has overheard 

and afoot to spread the secrets wide. 

Space is warming its wings of expansiveness. 

It is leisure time, 

the night, 

but business time 

for elemental things of the world. 

***

16) Flower and mind 

A flower in the green; 

Yea, a flower in the green; 

Like a mind in the flesh. 

Beautiful to see 

Sublime to understand 

Profound in implications 

A flower in the green 

Not for the sake of me 

has it blossomed forth 

But out of its inherent laws. 

A flower in the green. 

Yea a flower in the green 

Like a mind blossoming in the body. 

***

17) A New Grammar 

Pedagogic grammar is easy to know; 

But what is this? pediatric grammar! 

It is so hard; 

One way it makes sense; 

In another way strange. 

My father and mother 

gave birth to a child; 

The child was me. 

Me, who am now a man. 

OK got it. 

My father and mother gave birth to me 

And I was born to my parents; 

Strange. 

Does it make sense? 

Yea this pediatric grammar, 

Again listen,...My father and mother... 

***

18)  The Immortal's sarcasm

Eastern morn, 

The early Sun, 

The sulking rays 

surfacing the horizon. 

Festive air 

Was full of joy 

Spreading wide 

The flowers' puberty 

The spanning sky 

Was full of song 

Birds in flight 

Were full of dance. 

Am I the Poet full

of the Poetry of the Heaven? 

Can you the reader fulfill then? 

Poetry Poet Reader 

Triangular meaning in orgasm 

Living life embodied 

Is but the Immortal in sarcasm. 

*** 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

*

Some of my poems

I intend to record here some of my poems written long back and turning brown in paper. May be online, they remain fresh. Is it not? 

1) A Cyclist's Anthem 

Space is dynamic 

Time is adjustable 

Legs weave miles into minutes 

Threading destinations and recreations 

I take a kind of Viswaroopa 

Roads roll into me. 

And my eyes spread the world before me. 

The wind towels me like a mother; 

Smells converse with my nose; 

Sounds are parabolic off my ears; 

It sweats into dryness; 

People are transient 

Places adhere, 

Time becomes a vector, 

Thoughts sojourn; 

Water burns the travel 

With the fueling food; 

Man is different from the animals; 

Repetition begets progression; 

Nose goes in search of smells; 

Senses visit the perceptions; 

Poetical transportation 

Of pious rowdyism indulging nature 

Pedaled philosophy of imagination two-wheeled. 

*** 

2) Books  

Friends penned and bound; 

Memory in paper; 

Thoughts await forever 

The prying lens of mind; 

Past in backups 

Formatting the future; 

Algorithams of human endeavor 

Flow-charts of experiences 

Verbal hearts into written minds 

Eternal giffs of ephemeral lives. 

*** 

3) Viswamithra for a second time 

Uparishravas! Don't fall down! 

After all you have spoken the truth; 

Why should you be pushed down, 

so ruthless by Indra? 

Uparishravas:-- 

How can I ever stop, 

When Indra is at the top? 

The wrath of Indra has wrought my fall; 

He asked me 'Who is the greatest on earth?' 

I told him, "I don't know; 

When I was down there 

people used to say of me so.' 

He got wild. 

'Are you my equal? 

Dare you sit by me? 

Down below is your place; 

Drunk of your ego, 

you've lost your grace;' 

His wish tumbled me down 

Too quick even to frown; 

Uparishravas! Don't fall down! 

Tell that retail trader 

That you are way beyond his exchange; 

Tell him that he after all 

shines on glory dearly borrowed; 

stand firm on your humanity. 

To be a deva need not to be divine; 

Uparishravas:-- 

Who are you, so kind and fair? 

What can you do to stall my fall? 

If anything please do it now; 

Otherwise, pray! pity me not; 

Pursue thy way and forget me what; 

I am Viswamithra, friend of the world; 

I can stop your fall, 

Reverse you back 

And rend asunder the gates of heaven; 

No no Sage! don't send me back. 

Rather make me born on earth 

Fie you! a simple lover of earth? 

mundane got you bound? 

mortal flesh hath eaten thee mind and soul? 

Nay Nay Sage! not so base; 

Never the putrid taste of sensual 

But I want to be born in the isle of Sriranga. 

I heard my case argued by the great 

Bhatta Parasara of Kuresa born; 

That put me into shame 

for all the pride I had 

about my friendship with the deva-gang; 

Only He, the Father, Mother and Friend of all 

Will rejoice and rejoice still more, 

When His child excels, shines and outshines; 

Others will scale in envy, 

and scape his fall with wrathful eyes, thousandfold. 

Never I thought of Him; 

Never I worshiped my own Father; 

Never I slept on my own Mother's laps; 

Never I cared for the One and Only Friend of men; 

How many births I want to be born to make amends! 

So my Sage! so be thy grace; 

Your falling tears shall consecrate the blessing. 

***

4) Agnihotra 

Brahma Muhoortha. 

Hour of gods. 

Darkness about to beget its dawn 

The early hours have begun their roads to morn. 

The darkness is too thick and visible 

The stove has begun to burn in the kitchen; 

The flames remember the setting sun, 

Tamed by the bowl of milk placed on. 

I thought somebody was at my doors; 

Some friend to chat in dhyan; 

I came out to see 

The East about to light its oven. 

Perhaps it was the east that tapped my doors; 

Ah me! I have forgotten my stove in the kitchen... 

Oh! the milk has kissed the flames 

and dropped to the stone beneath the burner. 

I put it off and came to the front yard 

to close the doors. 

Who forgot to put off in the East? 

The milk of Sun has kissed the Sky 

And dropped to my doors beneath. 

Who delivers the milk over there? 

And where is agnihotra? here or there? 

The calves are licking the dripping teats; 

The rays of Sun touch everything 

Agnihotra is complete. 

***

5) Aging 

Scaling the walls of Time 

The tender feet turn into tottering legs. 

The big boy turns grey 

Revenging all the big things of his early life; 

A pralaya measured from birth 

Maturing in the mortal death. 

Time universal metered in subjective stops; 

The shrunken space is tanned again to distances; 

Consciousness unawares being drawn 

into several maps of experience; 

mentally constant in a physical change 

turns the code to a physical stop; 

Mind walks where the legs were once 

Dreaming through miles of spatial joy; 

Man born as a little being 

Grown tall to become a child again; 

Vamana grows into Vikrama, 

Becoming back again a Vamana, 

Measuring the world in triple ways 

Through body, mind and soul; 

Leaving all he learnt 

As the giant soul of the textual world, 

Mahabali, the ever present scribe. 

*** 

6) Markets  

Markets are marvelous in a way; 

Poets dislike them they say; 

But I find them homely 

And I can write their charms; 

Anyhow they do me no harm. 

A corner in a market is my coveted place; 

The jostles surround 

Leaving a sort of calmness in that bay; 

Perhaps the left-over of everybody 

Or further still the lost for ever of many; 

The shops make you feel differently 

Each in their own way uniquely; 

One will make you feel an icon of style; 

another one will make you a glutton; 

still another makes you a flying angel; 

yet another making you a connoisseur of arts; 

But one shop is there, which I dislike; 

The repair shop of anything; 

What you have valued so far 

is devalued with a vengeance there. 

The road-side shops  breathe 

an air of anti-establishment, cheap and fair. 

The soul of market is ennobling somehow; 

I like to sit in a corner, 

Where the passing jostles surround, 

Leaving the bay in calmness. 

***

7) Knotted fine little thread 

Who is greater? 

God turned into a man; 

Or a man turned towards God; 

Or a man whose God is a Man of God? 

God descends to man 

As an answer to abundant prayers; 

Man ascends to God 

By the rising call of aspiration; 

A man devotes himself to a Man of God 

Out of what? 

The knotted fine little thread, 

Not enough to tie, 

The reason, do you know why? 

Which is greater? 

The knotted fine little thread 

Or the reason that is behind? 

None can say 

or who can say? 

Or how can anyone say? 

*** 

8) The story of Yayati 

The story of Yayati 

in two words 

once more 

in one word 

again 

in one letter 

Z 

wordless 

dot dot. 

Youth begetting old age, 

getting a lease of youth 

again to become old 

forever. 

***

9) May be 

May be.... 

Sometimes you are made to think 

It's better to be a petty-shop wala 

Than to be a great soul. 

Sometimes you feel... 

May be. 

***

10) Darkness is soluble 

Power-cuts for two evenings 

Unbearable 

wretchedness man-made 

Darkness tangible stretching time 

till midnight 

downloaded from the sky 

and the sparks uploaded 

overseeing our avastha. 

Thick of guilt is tanned 

by the invisible hands. 

Consciousness made more visible 

Cosmic scales rehearse the final showdown 

Blinkers in the sky 

bear the contrast 

for the dotted darkness around the candles. 

Prometheus deceived by men 

And Zeus in laugh over the unchained god. 

Is that the laugh? 

Or perhaps the aeroplane is on. 

Whatever, darkness is soluble in poetry. 

***

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

***

Knowing Hinduism -- Triple Lights

THE TRIPLE LIGHTS 

Divine Revelation 

Debating Reason 

Devotional experience 

These are the triple lights that form the basic canons of Hinduism. 

Vedas or Shruthi is the light of Divine Revelation. 

Brahma Sutras is the light of debating Reason. 

Srimad Bhagavad Gita is the light of Devotional Experience. 

All the three lights bring to vision the same reality. 

What Reason understands of the Revelation, Experience confirms. 

Shruthi, Yukthi, Anubhava are the words used by the great Adisankara for Revelation, Reason and Experience. 

But what is the basic proof of Religion according to Hinduism? 

Is it reading, debating, being emotional, building an empire of the faith? 

Not anyone of these. They mean nothing, if the basic proof is not there. 

The basic proof is not believing something. 

It is 'Seeing God'. 

To see God is the basic proof of Religion. 

 

It is the Vision, which the words explicate. 

Beholding is the base, believing may be only a prop on the way. 

The Vision is not concrete. It is the Transcendental Vision. 

Words are not mundane but they descend to the earth carrying the pure warmth of Divinity, only to form the ascend back along with men. 

Some years back I wrote in the series "ethu bhakthi?" dealing with what is devotion this observation -- 

Unless and until one understands that Bhakthi is something which encompasses man's reason totally, it should be understood that his dawn is yet to come. 

Hinduism is the project of man, which started when he discovered that there is really, God. 

*** 

Knowing Hinduism -- 6

All the world religions talk about something in Heaven, which man must reach. 

Religion is other-worldly, according to them. 

They compensate that aspect of their religions by doing social service, as the main practice of their faith. 

Of course they combine it with propaganda. 

But the main idea is that Divinity is something from above into man or from outside into man's life. 

So religion as an institution of training men to mourn and wish for a super reality is inherent in world religions. 

But Hinduism never talks of religion as such. 

It always speaks of Dharma. 

Dharma is the reality as it is in principles. 

From atom to cosmos Dharma runs like a golden thread. 

The sustained, becomes the sustainer, through out nature. 

It is best for man to find out as early as possible his place in this universe. 

Fulfill your place in nature and that in turn will fulfill your nature as a man. 

According to Dharma, you have the final beatitude always in you, carrying it through all stages of the growth. 

The troubles start when you act in neglect of your value in Dharma. 

Divinity is not somewhere. It is, has been, and will be shining in your heart. 

In the heart of every being, He resides and moves the world. 

*** 

 

Knowing Hinduism 5

To speak of abstractions is good. 

But life happens to run on details. 

That too daily, domestic concerns and cares. 

We are impelled to actions more out of necessity than out of intellectual commitment. 

Human being is an acting being as much as a willing being, as much as a knowing being. 

To know, to will and to act form the three facets of the self-same soul. 

Jnathruthvam - the faculty of knowing; 

karthruthvam -- the faculty of acting; 

bhogthruthvam -- the faculty of enjoying 

describe the three facets of the Soul. 

These three facets form the basic psychology of any individual. 

So any spiritual practice must incorporate in itself different strands of these triads. 

Hinduism has devised four such modus operandi -- viz., 

the four Yogas -- the Jnana Yoga, the Karma Yoga, the Bhakthi Yoga and the Raja Yoga or the psychological Yoga proper.

*** 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

*

Knowing Hinduism 4

It is great and grand enough to be universal and all inclusive, just like the Sky and the Sea. 

Hinduism is of course a beautiful circle. 

But are there any books of reference, in times of preparatory years and the beginning steps of one's spirituality. 

Any definite anchor to stay floating and not to drift aimlessly. 

Even birds which fly inter-continentally, do carry some chart of instincts in their flights. 

The Soul after all, does have its beginning in self-realization, in the mortal coil. 

Books are indispensable in any religion, even in those religions which have dispensed with gods. 

Hinduism prescribes three prime most important books. 

It has garnered all its spiritual values in there, in those three books. 

Upanishads, 

Brahma Sutras 

Bhagavath Gita. 

Upanishads proper are called the Vedantha, the culminations and conclusions of the Vedic inquiries. 

Vedanthas are also called the Sruthis, the Revelations heard. 

These three books are called Prasthana Thraya. 

Three Books based on the primacy of three facets of spiritual quest. 

What are those? 

Sruthi, 

Yukthi, 

Anubhava 

Revelation, Reasoning, Experiencing. 

The Book that is based on the Revelation is Vedanthas or Upanishads. 

The Book that is based on Reasoning is Brahma Sutras. 

The Book that is based on Experiencing is Bhagavath Gita. 

Man comes to know of God only when He informs of His presence through some ways. 

He is not of the category of concrete things. 

He is definitely abstract. 

He is the abstraction of abstractions. 

So He is known more clearly through Words. 

For only words can connote more than concrete the abstractions. 

Hence the Book of Revelations. 

Then comes the Book of Reasoned out arguments on the Upanishadic concepts. 

Human Reason is given full scope to analyze and understand the Heard Book of The Divine. 

Textual exegesis and hermeneutics form very important tools along with the philosophical understanding of the Grammar. 

Only then ensues the study of Brahma Sutras or Vedantha Mimamsa. 

Then comes the Book of Experiencing, viz., Bhagavath Gita. 

The whole Gita pours out of the involved experiencing of Sri Krishna, the greatest Vedanthic teacher ever born. 

*** 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

*   

Knowing Hinduism - 3

The Devotee's passion is to see his Chosen God as the Ultimate and God Almighty of the universe. 

The Jnani's passion is to merge in the Ultimate. 

Both ways are seeing the same thing from different perspectives, provided, you don't get sabotaged by fanaticism or snobbery of intellectualism. 

If by becoming narrow in your chosen devotion, you become more spiritual, then your narrowness is blessed. 

If by becoming more universal and more abstract in your inner most mind, you go nearer to the Ultimate Soul, then your universal and abstract outlook is blessed. 

What matters is, are you going towards the Centre? 

If the circumference takes you towards the centre, then it serves its central Soul. 

If the radii take you away from the Centre, then the radius is wretched. 

But Hinduism is a Beautiful Circle. 

The radii never take you away. 

And the circumference never makes you dry. 

Did I say a beautiful circle? 

Yes, and more than that, an enchanting spiral and an engulfing spherical. 

An expert artist is fond of free variations of his tunes. 

Never is he content in striking a mono chord. 

The God of the Hindus is highly aesthetic. 

Art seems to be Its passion. 

It rejoices in the sight of the ardent soul. 

It comes unseen as the abstract vastness. 

It hides Itself in the heart as the possessing Love. 

Treading the solo path, the soul takes to wings every now and then. 

To arrest it in any single walk may become an injustice to the Infinite. 

To feign a vastness where you have to feel pangs of Love may be an act of deserting the Centre. 

Who knows which soul is in what delicate equilibrium of spiritual growth? 

It is this mystical humility, the real concern imbued with  spiritual expectation, that is at the heart of all the systems and paths of Hinduism. 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

*** 

Knowing Hinduism - 2

The meaning of the word Ishta Devatha Nishta is - 

Ishta - one's own liking; 

Devatha -- Godhead 

Nishta -- deeply involved practice. 

So this 'deeply involved devotion towards one's Choice of Godhead' is never allowed to become, in any way, fanaticism. 

Because, even from the Vedic times, the Universal Idea has been firmly implanted in the Hindu's mind. 

'There is but one Truth; Sages have been calling it by different names' 

'The water falls from the Sky and flows through many ways to the self-same Sea; likewise the devotions towards many Gods ultimately reach the self-same Kesava' 

The same thought is given in a sloka of Siva Mahimna stotra. 

So the General and Universal aspect of Hinduism always worked in tandem with the individual worships of Chosen Gods. 

This two layered structure was organic rather than artificial. 

It was not an outwardly agreed upon arrangement but something which was evolved through the internal exercise of coupling the vast spiritual freedom with inevitable human limitations. 

The human nature was at no time ignored. 

The transcendence of abstractions was at no time lost sight of. 

The whole field of Religion was a veritable education for the Hindus. 

Any human being can start anywhere and go by his own path unhampered by any sort of sojourners' pressure. 

You unto your path 

Me unto mine 

And for us there is 

Always the Divine. 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

***

Knowing Hinduism - 1

I was thinking of starting something on 'What is Hinduism?'. 

For long it was getting postponed, one thing or another came in to cause the delay. 

On transfer I had to commute between a far off village and my residence. It was taking me more than one and a half hours of train journey. 

How to kill time and boredom? 

Books, yea, they have been my very good friends all along. 

So some book or another came to my help and kept me company, in a great way. 

So it started I think in that way. 

Young students, IT boys and girls, talking about sundry things, how we locked into this interest, into What is Hinduism? It is difficult to recapitulate now. 

Some body asked something like 'Was there anything like Hinduism in the past?' Is not the name itself  something new and given by others? 

May be . What of that? In fact no religion bears the very same name which it had in the beginning. Was Christianity called so by Christ and the disciples? 

Buddha himself called his path as Arya Dharma, not Buddhism. 

Therefore can we say 'There was not any Buddhism in the past'? 

The same holds good for Hinduism. 

Why should double standards be adopted whenever Hinduism is talked about? 

Perhaps some vested interests at home and abroad have their own reasons to pop up such doubts in the minds of the Hindu people themselves. 

While talking about Hinduism we will be careful enough not to fall a prey to such shifts in approach. 

Also we must give Hinduism all the margins that we allow for other religions. 

And another point. Who am I to explain about Hinduism? 

Am I any realized soul? No. 

I am born in Hinduism. I was brought up by my parents, taught by my teachers and I grew in Hinduism. 

I have grown in Hinduism and Hinduism has gone into my feelings and emotions. 

Of course I have studied a lot. Right from the Vedas, across the scriptures of the World Religions, lots of literature, philosophy, science -- enough to make a talkative of me. 

But always I shy away from imposing my ideas on others. 

Management theory may say, 'Hey! you lack the basic quality of management'. 

But what to do? men are different. And I prefer to stay as myself. 

Perhaps that was the reason why those young minds were fond of asking me such questions and also pursuing in getting my replies. 

Anyhow it was gala time and my travel was a joy. Otherwise what a boredom would have set in the two and a half years commuting. 

Thank you little hearts. You all sweetened my time.

* 

What is Hinduism? 

If you call it a Religion, then why are there so many religions within it? 

Any religion, does it not fall into a simple formula like, say, 'one God, one Book, one Master'. 

Can you say that Hinduism has this simple pattern? 

If yes what is that? 

If no, then, can you explain how Hinduism can be called a religion? 

One religion is not like another religion. 

There are some common aspects, but again there are aspects peculiar to that religion alone. 

We can't say Christianity is exactly like Islam, or like Buddhism and so on. 

That too, when we are talking about a very great ancient religion, passing through various times of Hindu society, we can't apply blindly this formula. 

There are very real structural differences between religions. Thats the point. 

Seemingly there is a similarity, like -- God, Book, Master. 

This GBM formula holds good for the various paths within the fold of Hinduism. 

SriVaishnavism, Saivism, Saktham, Kaumaram, Ganaapatyam, all so many separate paths or Sampradayas or Samayas, they all fulfill this formula viz., GBM -- GOD, BOOK, MASTER. 

Just ask any devotee of Vishnu. He will say clearly what is his chosen God? what are his prescribed books? and  Who are the Masters of his path? 

He will be as clear as any other religious devotee. 

The same with a Saivaite, he is very clear about his books, God, Masters. 

A Saktha is also like that. 

But in Hinduism these devoted worships of the Chosen God are called Ishta Devata Nishta. 

Is this Ishta Devata Nishta in any way a form of fanaticism? 

Most definitely not. 

Because in fanaticism, what you choose to follow, you begin to think as the only truth. And all other religions become so many barren paths in wilderness. 

Your duty becomes changing other people. 

To tolerate such blasphemies becomes a sacrilege, according to what has been preached to you. 

You become bad in the eyes of your Most Righteous God, if you don't obey your scriptural commands, exhorting you to make the world, a uniform place for your One and Only God. 

Such a mentality is fanaticism. 

But in Ishta Devata Nishta, the idea is 'I want to worship the Ultimate Soul in this form. I know that it is really He, who resides in everything and also is the soul of others' Gods. He has assumed various forms to cater to the devotions of various types of religious people throughout the world. But this is my chosen Ideal. I prefer to worship in this way. In the same way, I do understand your choice of your own God. I respect your right to your chosen way of worship. Afterall is it not true, that all worships go to my Beloved in reality? Then why should I not wish you good luck in your spiritual endeavours. God speed! 

Srirangam V Mohanarangan 

***

Doing Sangam Poetry Again

I am composing some pieces in AintiNais in lines of Sangam poetry. This poem is an instance. 

AintiNais are poetic topos of love symbolised by the actual landscapes of hills, forests, lands, seas and deserts.  These symbolise the feelings of Intimacy, Waiting, bickerings of love, pangs of uncertain isolation and separation respectively.In Tamil grammar these are named as kuruJji, mullai, marudam, neydal and pAlai. 

I am following the global scheme in transliteration here.)

kaDalalaich cErppak kaZindupaDu pANAL 

vaLaiyudirp pazalai poGgu nuRai pUppa  

aLaie ArvamoDu kAnalaG kurukum  

talaippaDu piLLaich cettena tanAatu  

mInmaRap puNNum mennaDai azaie 

kAnan mAlaik kAmar neJjam  

tuyarpaTat tOnRum tolliruL ollena 

payiRRinir pAnmaip paLiGkuTai nuNkaN 

kuyiRRiya cilkatirp paTimaiya kATTi  

nilavu kuvittanna nIniRa neDuGkaDal  

pulavu nARum punnaiyam veNmaNal  

kalavi nIttanna kanniyin pazandu  

nAvAy maiyiTaip pirindanam  

mEvA tuRaivan pARpaTu neJjE  

கடலலைச் சேர்ப்ப கழிந்துபடு பாணாள்

வளையுதிர்ப் பசலை பொங்கு நுரை பூப்ப

அளைஇ ஆர்வமொடு கானலங் குருகும்

தலைப்படு பிள்ளைச் செத்தென தனாஅது

மீன்மறப் புண்ணும் மென்னடை அசைஇ

கானன் மாலைக் காமர் நெஞ்சம்

துயர்படத் தோன்றும் தொல்லிருள் ஒல்லென

பயிற்றினிர் பான்மைப் பளிங்குடை நுண்கண்

குயிற்றிய சில்கதிர்ப் படிமைய காட்டி

நிலவு குவித்தன்ன நீனிற நெடுங்கடல்

புலவு நாறும் புன்னையம் வெண்மணல்

கலவி நீத்தன்ன கன்னியின் பசந்து

நாவாய் மையிடைப் பிரிந்தநம்

மேவா துறைவன் பாற்படு நெஞ்சே.

This belongs to neydal tiNai (poetic topos of uncertain isolation symbolized by the landscape of seas). The tuRai (psycho-drama or the mental flow of the dialogues of the personae) of this poem is the exchange between the Lady and her friends. 

To do a workable translation of this piece -- 

"The wasted day is about to end 

Like waves of seas in strife with banks 

The colourless pangs of separation 

Loosen the bangles off the wrists 

Abounding like ripples of wasted waves 

Kuruku, the charming bird of sea-bed gardens 

Always searching for its choicest preys 

Forgetting fish walks indrawn in slow pace 

As if bearing the first blossom of life. 

My enchanting heart in gardens of this eventime 

Should it suffer still more? Lo the darkness there 

Coming in speed with speedy haste. 

With photo lens of supreme quality 

You who show the captured pics! 

The blue long seas and heaps of moon-drop sands 

Smelling dead fish now with wasted sands of punnai 

Look pale and whitish bleached like a deprived virgin 

My heart, alone here, separated 

From The Lover sea-borne on that day." 

(Of course I have to work a lot on this translation. You can see this link for the Tamil version and also for the two commentaries I have written on this, one general and another in lines of the South-Indian SriVaishnava mysticism. )  

Srirangam V Mohanarangan    

Passing Clouds

Words  are  passing  clouds

Men  are   hills,  standing  tall.

The  clouds  do  cap  the   crests,

Becoming  prone  to    pour.

But  they,  the  clouds  do  drift,

heeding  not   the  calls   of  hills.

Answer  they  the  prayer  

Of  parched   lands   somewhere.

Clouds  do  reachback

To  commune  with  hills  and  crests.

Again  they  hear  the  call, 

Adrift   away   from  persistent  hills, 

Towards  thirsty  lands  somewhere 

Or  over  dense   forests   on  the  way. 

Who is in there? --2

 

The other day I was talking to a friend.

She was asking me

'how could you do that?'. 

 

Well it is customary in my experience that people do ask me  sometime or other this question. They  have known me  before.  Based  on   that   they  have  least   expected  that  I  will  be able to do that.  But really even I do not know that I can do somethings which I have done.  Examples will be tedious. You can find   one   even  from  your   own  experience.

The point is why I can't be sure about myself. 

 

Sometimes I am tempted to say, as I said to her on that day,  'Nowadays I am not able to  predict  or   predicate anything of me. Rather I  resist  to  rely  on  any of my own self-normations.   If  I  am  not  sounding  mystical I can say  'I am but a gatekeeper to the fellow inside,  whom I don't  know  about  except  what he gives  me  to know.' The funny thing is the fellow  inside  is  really  --  me !
 

We are born to the knowledge we profess  and we transcend  the same in no time.
Right from the moment of birth somebody is writing the story -- from inside out  and reading the scenario from outside in.  

 

He is calling himself as he was and,  so far, many  identities  have  been   changing  over and over with time.  A small boy with shorts kicking an imaginary football in a wayward pebble thru the streets, taking out the groundnut cookies from the trouser pockets and pelleting in as going along and singing some ditties and hooing back to the call of some buddies ---Is  he  the same  script-writer,  the  one  just now?

 

May be  or   may be not.

 

Srirangam memoirs

 

'Srirangam  is  like  any  other  town  of  heritage  and  tradition'--if  you  are  able  to  say  this  I  can  only  envy   you,  for, it  is  an  impossibility  with  me.   The  whole  town  is  so  palpable  and   seems  to  speak  from  every  stone  and  sing  from  every  twig.    'I  will  rather  be  a  stone  inlaid  on  the  steps  towards   your  portals   and   enjoy  the  blissful  sight  of   your  sweet  lips'---so  sings  the  Kulasekara,  the  Alwar  from  the  hilly  regions  of  the  South India.  He  was  right  given  his  involvement,  drowned  in  the  love  of  the  Divine, reclining  in  between   the  two  rivers,  the  Cauvery  and  the  Kollidam.

 

 

See  the  original  fervour  of  the  Alwars  and  the   Teachers  like  Alavandar,  Ramanuja  running   thru  the   participants  in  the  foray  in  the  picture  capturing  a  scene  that  happens  every  year  in  November-December  on  the  7th  day  of    the  Nights  of  ten  - Iraap pattu. The  occasion  is  about  a  theft  that  happened,  involving   one  of  the  12  Alwar  saints  of  SriVaishnavism, viz.,  Thirumangai  Alwar  or  Kaliyan  or Parakaalan.   This  Kaliyan  seems  to  have  been  a  chieftain  of  the  place  Thirumangai  before  being  chosen  by  the  Divine  Recliner  in  Srirangam,  that  is  before  becoming  an  Alwar  and  he  was  a  terror  to  his  enemies  and  also  at  times  to  the  wealthy,  plundering  them  to  feed  Vishnu's  devotees,  so  it  is  told  in  the  chronicles  of  old.  Why  he  chose  to  become  a  militant  communist  for  the  cause  of  SriVaishnavism  at  those  times  is  elusive  and  awaits  careful  analysis.  But  this  anamoly  between  precepts  and  practice  was  perhaps  brought  home  to  him  and  he  was  put  in  proper  tracks,  it  seems ,  as  hinted  by  this  story  handed  down  thru  tradition  and  the  old  chronicles.

 

 

The  story  is :  Kaliyan, in  his  usual  plundering  spree,  seems  to  have  one  day  laid  upon  an  unusual  couple,  newely  wed  and  returning  back  with  their  retinue  of  relatives   and  matrimonially  ceded  wealth.  The  unique  couple   were  unresenting  in  parting  with  their  riches,  much  to  the  surprise  of  the  waylayer.  Ofcourse  he  had  a  lingering  doubt   that  behind  all  these   docility  there  may  be  afterall  a  play  of  magical  charms  or  binding  by   mantras.  But  everything  went  ok  and  it  could  have been  left  at  that.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  While  tying  the  final  knot  of  flyoff,  a  ring  at  the  finger,  somehow  seems  to  have  escaped  the  scrutiny,  was    glinting  as  if  mocking  the  expertise  of  decades.  It  was  too much  and   the  bridegroom  at least  could  have  volunteered.  So  smug  He  stands  thinking  he  can  make  off   with  this  jewel.  But  He  seems  to  hesitate  to  part  with  even  after  threatening   and   smilingly   suggests  that  he  can  take  the  ring  if  he  can  remove  it  from  the  finger.  All  this  audocity  and  keeping  cool,  something  is  wrong  from  the  start!  But  Kaliyan  bent  on  his  perfection  even  tried  with  his  teeth  to  get  a  purchase  on  the  slippery  ring. 

 

But  in a  moment,....  what  happened  to  him?,  something  is  wrong  from  the  start,  is  it  so ?  , after  all  he  may  be  wrong;  only  now  everything  is  becoming  ok,  what  am  I  doing  all  these  days?  why ?  for  what ?  What  is  this  change  of  mind  that  is  happening?  Is  this  person   real ?  or  is  he  adept  in  some  black magic  or  is  it  black magic  or  revealing  magic  of  wisdom  that  I  have  been  in  search  in  vain  all  these  days.  Is  he  the  one  blessing  me  by  the  chance  contact  I  ventured.  So  childlike  he  seems   but  this  calmness  and  the sure air  about  him  is  something  odd   but  I  have  to  give  it  to  him  that  he  is  bewitching.

 

 

Hey..  you..what   mantra  have  you  been  chanting?  come  on...   what  is  the  magic?  You  can't  move  away  without  telling  me.  Suddenly  I  am  loosing  all  the  interests  in  my  old  ways  and  a  change  is  coming  over  my  mind.  Comeon,  tell  me  that  mantra!   That  mantra,..  hey  you!

 

 

The  bridegroom  beckoned  him  to  come  near,  for,  he  can  spell  the  mantra  only  in  his  ears,  which  should  not  be  audible  to  others   if  at  all  it  has  to  be  effective.  Reluctantly  the  plunderer  went  near  his  prey  and  lent  his   ears   and  the  chronicle  says  that  he  never  came  away  from  that  delicate  vicinity  and  not  only  his  ears  but  his  all  soul, mind,  words  and  actions  he  dedicated  to  the  mantra  he  heard  at   the   decisive  moment. 

 

 

The  chronicle  says  that  it  was   the  plunderer  who  became   the  plundered  at  last, plundered  in  more  than  one  ways   and   pledged  to  new  realisations,  which  he  was  postponing  by  himself  all  these  days.  

 

 

The  overture  just  before  the  said  moment  is  the  kinesthetic  foray  that  is  captured  by  this  picture[shot  by  Surendar] 

 

http://thiruvarangan.blogspot.com/2005/12/blog-post_01.html      

                                

    
 

Homage To Aristotle

 

        Never   before   mankind  owed  so  much  to  a  single  person,  as  in  the  case  of  Aristotle; this  is   paraphrasing  an  important   observation  of   Ayn  Rand.   To know  what  is  that   great  debt  is  to   study  the  history  of  man's   ideas  and  terminology.  When  faith  and  imagination  were  ruling  the   conceptual  world  he  rigorously  chartered  the  rules  of   logic  and  syllogism.  When   meta-narrations   were  put  forth  in  the  place    of   philosophy ,  he  boldly  spanned  out  the  obscure  field  of  metaphysics.  When    poetry  was  shown  the  way  out  from  the  so called   republic of   man,   Aristotle    established   Poetics  in  its   essentials.    When  the  world  was  dichotomised   into  ideas   and  things,   into   prototypes   and  its  corrupt  copies,  into  world  of  essences   and  things,  he  openly  repudiated  such  unnecessary  and  dangerous  dichotomies, be  it  even  from  the   mouth  of  the   teacher.     Instead,  he  advocated  the   existence  of  things  and   accomodated   the   essences   as   epistemological.    In  the  field  of    ethics ,  man  is  yet  to  write   his   own   revised   book   updated.    Politics   still  prefaces  itself   with  the    Stagirite's   handbook.    In   zoology  he  is  but  the  recently   retired   head  of  the  department.   

 

        He  has  erred  in  some  places   of  his  huge  output.    Men  were  not  lacking  in  trying   to  adjust  their  burdens  of  debt   by  shifting  over  critically   on  his  errors.     But  the  change  of  shoulders  underlines   the  debt    rather  than    undermine  it.      Say  whatever  one  likes,  no  one  can  deny  the  immense  clearing  he  did  in  the   field   of     methodology. 

        

        Last   but  not  least,    is  his    unassailable   contribution  of  the  law  of   identity,  which  says   that    the  existence  and    the  non-existence    of    anything  can  never  be  true  in  the  same   instant.      Simple  !     you  think  !      But  do  you  know  the  whole  logbooks  of  human  destruction   and   repeated  sacrileges    on    life   and   thought    the  world    over  can  be  zipped   into    a  mere  footnote   of     ignoring  this   seemingly   tautological  law.     The  more  I    study   Indian    systems  of  thought,     western  philosophies,  logics  of    Nyaya  and    navya  nyaya,  the    literary    theories  of  the  east  and  the  west,     systems  of  China   and  Persia,     the  intellectual  output  of   Syrian,  Hebrew,  Arabic  and   Latin   aristotelians   of   Middle  Ages,    the  more    I    perspire   in  reverence   towards    this   Master.    He   has   taught   me  that   this  wide   world   is   my   home.     

  
 

TWILIGHT

Down the river on the banks
Walking with the doubting Sun behind
Donkeys being dutiful
Driven through the twilight to dark huts
Barbing birds were lisping
Blossoms of night
The spying wind beating through
The chatting river grows silent
Fish do hear a chant
Fearing the secretive sky
The lame clown is whistling forth
On the rails from bank to bank
An old song is calibrating
Memory through the empty space
The speakers cough the aged tunes
Rough pebbles make a quiet laugh
A silent thought is born
The east is at rest
Waiting for its morn.

ROOTS UP IN THE SKY

The raging heart retaliates thunder

Shooting lightnings through the head

Breaking passes of brief meditations

Breathe the eternal air through time

Beneathe the yonder eye of heaven

Bellows of living begetting man

Brows of ape browsing the nadir

Furrowing through footprints in time

Fun in wars frolicking peace

Pun in progress prefacing destiny

We have come through ages past

With roots up in the sky

Aswattha thus spake the Divine

As we cyber-kins connect again

Connetting sparks of the Divine.

New Year Greetings with a child's artsmile

When I visited my brother's daughter, a little child, she was entertaining me with her world of interests about the dragon fly sitting on the leaves of a tree, a garden lizard sleeping in its couch of mud hole in the ground, the caterpillar and oh a world, a world really, of things and concerns.!! How much I miss that world of little great concerns! When I started, she wanted to present me with an artwork of her, freshly penciled for my sake just before I came and this is that one. I am staring at this work, wondering what colors have gone into her language. Green, orange, yellow form one layer of her expression. Green margins the layers of pink and red on the bed of black. In between these a splash of thick blue and sky blue buffers the two statements. Yea, a New Year's greetings from a child's mind reads in me multi-meanings coloring suggestions again and again.

Textual deferrance on the Vision

Vedanta talks of ' tat upanishat '. Here upanishat resolves into upa + ni + sat. 'Upa' is to be near. 'ni ' is before; 'sat' is to be. i.e. upanishat is to be in close proximity before or in front of. As a free adaptation we can say ' to be in close encounter with truth'. In the thought level we can say to approach truth is to do many levels of abstraction and attain the ultimate concept by removing the hiding layers of concreteness by the process of abstraction. When such a moment of conceptual realisation occurs, the Vedantins of the Forest-books always indicates such moments as ' this is upanishat'. We can say in other words that the concrete levels screened off the truth or the process of abstraction prepares the aspirant for 'seeing the truth'. This preparatory process consisted of ' hearing, thinking, meditating' -- sravana, manana, nidhidhyasanam --reading, studying, understanding and being totally involved in the concept.

The same epistemological formations were rolled into the concrete model of ' Archa ' , viz.,the temple. The physical screen delayed the vision and deferred the experience and in the mean time giving scope for reciting the canons. The text operates on the 'delay' and ' deference ' till the moment of ' vision' happens. Waiting for the vision is actually going thru the process of abstraction, which process is mapped out in the texts of the canon and hence going thru texts is expected to be of the rigor and value of the process of abstraction. Hence, the recitation of texts before the screen and before the vision. 'I know how to wait ' - so says the protagonist of the novel Siddhartha, by H.Hesse.' Be hungry, be alone, be awake ' so says the Tamil saint. Waiting is an art, not ofpatience, but of acceptance. To live with the creative tension of hope and possibility, and total acceptance of the given moment as an accomplished target calls for unique sensibilities of the soul. But only a poet knows how to loose the balance of mind during waiting, only to encash it as immortality of words.
Thirumangai Mannan, the robber-turned-saint of SriVaishnavism, in great hunger of the concrete visions of the Transcendent Divinity, explored all the templed spaces of theological fervor and in his go-around, he came to the place of Thiruvindalur. It was offtime for the vision, with the curtain postponing the DARSANAM--revelation. The saint became frustrated and in a shrugg-off he comments, ' Indalureerae ! vaazhndaepom neerae !! ' --' Thou Lord of the town Indalur ! Be like this foever rejoicing in thine own vision unto thyself [not giving me your Darsanam] '
Surely, it will not be for the reason that the temple gates are closed in the nonscheduled hours, that the saint is frustrated. But he is waiting in more than one level for the multiple visions of the abstract and his frustration is a way ofdilating the recessed meanings of the tension. The whole transaction of the saint is made unavailable to us not because of the opaqueness of the words, but because we may not enter the enclosure as we should. What we lack in the propriety and preparedness, we may make good by artful sharing of the words, which map out the tension and manipulate the vision.
This was an instance of a devotee already sharing by involvement the canonical space created by faith and textual attributions. To see another instance of a poet proper entering the hyper space of devotion in his own right as a man of poetry, and waiting at the threshold of vision and meeting a like situation of deferred DARSANAM,

' Open the gate, thou gate keeper !God of the wheel and Lord of the oceancommitted ourselves to Him, by devotion,dipping in births daring ports at last , at the edge of time, before the turn around before the towering bell turns the clockwe have entered the portals rich, And open the gates longlive. '[aazhi iraivarkkae aatpattu yaam palkaal paazhir piravi patindhu thurai pukunthu, oozhikkadai naalin ongu mani vaayililae vaazhi ivann adaindhom, vaayiloi ! thaall thirravaai]---tr. of a verse of Thiruloka Seethaaram.

Here the poet awaits confirmation rather than the vision. For him, the vision has been already vouchsafed by the poetic perception of the plural possibilties of the word and the world in tandem. Here he is trying to attain the abstract certainty of the poetically epistemical ' visions' he lodged at the outset.

Some musings on the sonnets of Shakespeare

I was translating some sonnets of Shakespeare into Tamil. I was wondering why the bard thought it so important to advice a young man like me to marry without fail and to impress on the mind of the lad the sanctity of wedding and begetting. Was it perhaps to himself? Was it a soliloquy? Naturally talking about marriage engenders considerations of immortality and furtherance of life which otherwise ends with the individual. People have speculated long about the dark lady, the young man, even a Lord and what not. But why a poet like Shakespeare should dilate so much on a predominantly prevalent theme like marriage for a total length of say 156 or 154 sonnets? I am trying to read in between lines and attempting various interpretations but the persistant mystery seems to be evading.
'Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spendUpon thyself thy beauty's legacy?Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,And being frank she lends to those are free.Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuseThe bounteous largess given thee to give?Profitless usurer, why dost thou useSo great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?For having traffic with thyself alone,Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,What acceptable audit canst thou leave?Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,Which, used, lives th' executor to be'
Was it death or progeny or pragmatic sensibilty which prompted W.S. or none of these but something else? I am having my mind open to any chance hints or insights from the poem or anywherelse.

FIRE, the early love of Man

Fire, the old friend of man, is even now fresh and interesting to look at. Manifold forms of energy have not made this raw guest in any way less wonderful. But what was his reception in the days of old when darkness, dampness and dangers from the wild were making his absence acutely felt. He was a God once ! Now may be a utility. Who can access those primordial times and see his world, where men and cattle worshipped him devoutly? If at all we can do that, I think it should be through Rig Veda, the oldest log of subjective reactions to the outside world and the symbolising initiatives toward the abstractions. This god Fire, or Agni as he was called in Rig Vedic times enjoyed not only worship but also teasing and humour at the hands of the devotees.

In R.V.10.79 he is portrayed as a magnificient immortal making visible his might among the mortals. Do you know his might? With a touch of humour the poet says, "he is of two jaws rent asunder, devouring everything in without masticating anything". A glutton impatient even to chew!

His head is in a cavern safely sheltered off. His eyes are wide, viewing all. His tongue gulps in even a forest without chewing. So naturally the worshipper is doubly careful! He stands at a safe distance and raises his two hands up away from the touch of his tongues and offers oblations.

Not only that. He is born of the mother earth. But how he ravages her creeping over her as a child and swallowing trees and even licking out the hidden roots in her crevices.
He was made from the two logs of wood churned to friction. Once he is born, the Fire devours the parents! The poet makes a dig at Fire saying "see! I am so devoted to my parents and respect them. And I am only a mortal. But this one, he devours his parents immediately when he is born and He is called Immortal!"

The poet asks this god, "what wrong, what sin you have committed among the gods, that you are let down like this on the earth here to hunt for your food over dale and vale?"

The symbolisation and the subjective interaction with a primordial natural element being so much suffused with bristling humour speaks of that age in a modern tone and makes credible the possibility of not only fear and mystery, but also humour and certainty and subjective gregariousness with the greater questions of life being the initial conditions of theology.

Translating the divine girl

karuviLai oNmalarkAL ! kAyA malarkAL !
thirumAl uruvoLi kAttukinRIr,
enakku uyvazhakku onRuraiIr
thiruviLaiyAtu thiNtOL thirumAliruchOlai nambi
varivaLai ilpukunthu vanthipaRRum vazhakkuLathE !
(nAchchiyAr thirumozhi 9.3)

Lovely blossoms of karuviLai !
Flowers of kAyA !
You are showing me the complexion
Of ThirumAl's shining form.
Tell me a way to survive.
The great Lord, full and complete, of ThirumAlirunchOlai
Whose shoulders strong are the playful prop
Of the goddess of wealth, Thiru.
Is it just for him to enter our house
And snatch my lovely lined bangles by force?

When I read this to a friend, his ready comment was, 'it's too literal, do something about it !'. What is too literal and what is in proper idiom changes with the language.
Here, 'showing me the complexion of thirumAl's shining form' tries to translate the original, 'thirumAl uruvoLi kAttukinRIr'. The flowers kAyA and karuviLai, left untranslated with cognate names in English are addressed by the implied speaker as resembling thirumAl in complexion by means of their color and shine.

'ThirumAlirunchOlai nambi' of the original indicates the deity in the temple of the place, ThirumAlirunchOlai. The word 'nambi' means 'one who is full of good qualities,
accomplishments and exceedingly noble'. This word 'nambi' plays a vital role in suggesting a subtle humour to the poem. But the translation is yet to catch that humour.

'whose shoulders strong are the playful prop of the goddess of wealth, thiru' by being overly literal goes too awry from the passing of the proper mood and sense of the original, 'thiruviLaiyAdu thiNdOL'.

What is 'snatching one's bangles by force' as per the target idiom of English?

So the target language changes the poem and the translation, if successful, is but a deception. But this deception has to be made efficient in communicating the original, however. Shall we attempt at a deception now?

karuviLai ! kAyA !
Oh! you flowers and blossoms
of shine and color !
Form of ThirumAl you resemble,
Can you suggest me a way to survive?
The God of ThirumAlirunchOlai,
so noble is He and so strong-shouldered,
Thiru, the goddess of riches, ever rejoices in Him.
Is it right on His part to force His way into our home
And snatch everything, including the bangles on my wrist?

Victor Hugo

It is just amazing what an appeal the French giant is able to make even now. Of course many criticisms have been levelled against Hugo to the effect that the writer is sometimes inordinately eloquent and the interludes become books by themselves so that the reader is left at largesses to manoeuver his way back to the link in the story. But, for myself, I found these interludes very interesting. And moreover as a man of India, southern Tamilnad, in Srirangam I had already been exposed to the epical styles in Ramayana and Mahabharatha and as a result Hugo found his peers in my reception of reading. More so, I think he was writing about the universal men in his characters, which justified perhaps the wide strokes he tended to make quite often. But how can he remain so gripping in his story telling, all the while so abstract in his philosophical observations. A good story telling means being attentive to the particulars and to match this with intense abstractions running to pages and more than that, altering between these two quite often. No wonder I call him a giant.

After I joined my job, the first thing I did was to buy a copy of Penguin Les Miserables and take that to Neyveli where my father was staying at that time and to read out to him pages after pages of cherished text-places. A transport of interests between father and son! Especially I remember the first scene where the priest goes into the woods to meet the renegade, dying of old age but still a terror in the quarters. One thing I found in Victor Hugo was in his novels the arguments and dialogues do act and do act right before your very eyes. I have found this talent in rare instances, may be a couple of them, right now the one other novelist coming to mind is Ayn Rand.
Another feature of Hugovian novels is the choice and the volitional thrust of decisions, which the characters make. The articulations of the deciding process are phenomenal.

Poetry

The world has become too strange to poetry.
Poetry has to blossom in the person and become contagious.
Poetry can never become prose or its substitute
Infirmity in poetical perception covertly touts prose in its place
Poetry always happens
taking inputs from unforeseeable quarters
Poetry is creative irregularity
madness of connotation
A conflagration of words and meanings
Never a guided tour
Being a venture into unchartered regions

VENU AND THIRULOKA SITHARAM

It was a day of Naachiyaar Thiruk kolam* in Srirangam. It was the later part of 1970s. The Tamil poet, Thiruloka Seethaaram and other friends visited my father, nearing dusk. When refreshments were over, talks wandered here and there; topics were changing and discussions cropped up to dissolve in further musings. My father was ever a terrible conversationalist and table talks were always lively whenever he was around. Slowly the drift was towards Shakespeare. My father commented that without the help of commentators like Bradley and others, it was always difficult to understand the Bard and hence the perennial value of annotations on Shakespeare. 

 Thiruloka Seethaaram, a man of original thinking and independent development, sprang on the moment and countered my father saying, " how can you say that ? has the poet written directly for you or for any mediator to expound to others ? what are these commentators? throw them ! go to the poet directly ! labour pains and poetic strains can never be had by proxy." 

My father was a man never yielding to a point in arguments. Nothing was sacrosanct and nobody towered high when he began to charge with his battery of arguments. He immediately countered back the Poet saying, " all such arguments are ok with regard to geniuses like yourself. But what of the common run and less endowed like us who need some prompting at least". 

Immediately the piece of soliloquy in Hamlet, ‘to be or not to be’, was taken as a test piece and analyzed . After some time other friends who were there were already feeling a little sleepy and assumed all sorts of resting postures. But the two concerned were not aware of the passing time, it was already 11 pm, and with recurrent renewal of energy they were going on and on. Thiruloka Seethaaram was arguing that all commentaries were a waste standing in between the text and the reader. The text can and should speak for and by itself, that Prof. C S Kamalapathi, who was my father’s friend and guide in dramas had exploited the emotional involvement of my father and injected such slavish dependency on the commentators. ( I was wondering how my father would retort to that) But my father took it in his strides and replied , “ not so ..the said Professor out of sympathy for the students that they need not unnecessarily waste time on already clarified aspects has brought to the knowledge of us such foregone efforts, and thereby we can start from others’ endpoints. It is the natural way of growth, to learn, to accumulate lessons learnt and pass it on to the coming generations. Where the forerunners stumbled that is the light for the later to better. The ways of the exceptional cases like the poet do but stress the natural process and never disprove it. 

At last it was half an hour past midnight and the two came to a halt of mutual appreciation , accepting to disagree . I remember it vividly even now as a battle of giants. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan

  *Nachiyar Thirukkolam --In Srirangam temple during the month of November-December a festival of recitation of the whole corpous of 4000 divine hymns of Alwars is conducted for the past 1500 years. In the middle of the 21 days long festival comes Vaikunta Ekadasi, on which day the Deity himself act out the role of a religious aspirant towards salvation. The day previous to that , the Deity adorns himself as the goddess consort, Nachiyaar( the Lady of the divine household). It is called Nachiyar Thirukkolam- in the Guise of the Lady. 

*my father-R.Venugopal

VENU, THE MARVEL

Drama was the extrovert front of Venu’s talents. His introvert mode of aesthetic realization was with poetry in the form of say, reading closely Kamba Ramayanam with the exegetical interpretations of Sri Vai.Mu.Ko swamy . I still remember the nascent glee when he bought the Sundara Kandam, Kamba Ramayanam with VMG’s urai in the Nambillai sannidhi in the south gate Srirangam. ‘Aandakai aandu av vinnnor Thurakka naadu arukil kandaan’—‘the manly one then beheld there the yonder world of heaven celestials well nigh to his watchful gaze’ so began the SK and there began my coaching in expounding Kamban on stage. Twenty hymns with the VMG’s explanations were targeted to my memory to be recited and narrated at any time on demand. A following Sunday found us in Dr. Vas’ stores in Thennur in the house of Sami Periyappa (eldest of my father and his brothers) I still hear the baritonical gurgling laugh which greeted me at the threshold. After a hot coffee I was commissioned to do an extempore exposition of Kamban - in- memory . Dr. Vas was jubilant and immediately commissioned all the inmates of the stores. There were ‘aahaas’ and ‘see this small boy’ in liberal measure. 

The forum informal then reminiscenced about the days when my father was one of the inmates when he was a bachelor. There were lots of stories for the picking. For instance, there was the story about one Brhamma Kabaal swamigal, a mendicant noted for his coin-toss gimmicks. The swami used to keep some rupees exchanged into brand mint coins and by a sleet of hand used to toss coins on the prostrating devotees giving them to believe that he had nothing to do with such divine signals. Venu was the ‘sando’(boxer) in the complex and sometimes argued a point with his hands when persuasions were pooh-poohed. So people brought now and then domestic cases to his panchayat. His judgements, decisions, leads and tackles were always appreciated by Dr Vas and others. The swami , perhaps fearing Venu, used to placate him by saying that Venu had shed off 10 of his births by showing respects to him, whereas Rajappa , of the Dr.’s household increased 10 more by his disrespect towards him. Dr Vas was a religious man and firmly believed in saluting the ochre robe wherever and whenever seen. Somehow the swami went away and nothing more was heard of him. 

Then there was the story of waiting for the Mahatma. Venu took the boy Ramakrishnan to see Gandhi. Dr Ramakrishnan still narrates with the nascent relish, the story of the waiting. My father was an ardent admirer and associate of Prof. C.S.Kamalapathi (seen in the right) and together they founded SHAKESPEARE HEAD PLAYERS and staged more than a dozen dramas of the Thespic Angel of the Avon, Shakespeare. Those were simple days and people were simple. The thatched roofs and the rustic porticos invited the people in , induced the people to go out, mingle among themselves and meet the strangers. The raised up vertical streets nowadays cleave even a single man into his sleeping part and waking part. He is now in the predicament of meeting himself first before beginning to come out. 

The present generations have not done their homework. The integration of the past , the interpretation of the present, and the intuitive construction of the future is an important task but sadly neglected. Heaping the blame on the modern way of life is one excuse. The modern life has its own virtues, say, better living conditions and more and more people realising their dreams. What we do with this material prosperity is solely dependent on a rare thing to be attained viz., Wisdom. It was available with people in those days, now become a rare commodity.
Srirangam Mohanarangan 

***

A POET'S WAY OF CRITICISING ANOTHER POET

I was reading the UttaRarama Charitham by Bhavaboothi. I find him so adept in portraying the poignant moods of characters. The time he has chosen is also apt. The later part of SriRama's life, given to much recapitulation and nostalgia, provides a suitable thematic space for Bhavaboothi( Ist quarter of 8th cent.- Dr. Bhandarkar).

There are some stories which speak of the connection between Kalidasa and Bhavaboothi, though not historically valid but show the veins of criticism, registered by the succeeding generations of readers. One such story is interesting. After finishing the URC , Bhavaboothi wanted to have an opinion of the master-poet, Kalidasa. So he approached him and found him playing the chaturanga, a form of chess. After hearing him thru, Kalidasa wanted to give a hint for bettering the text in one place. Perhaps he didn't want to do it openly, for the reason that Bhavaboothi may be estimated low in the eyes of the beholders, but all the while the hint should reach the literateur. So what he did you know, he took some chewing leaves and pasting it on the back with the edible lime, he commented that சுண்ணம்(calcium) is a bit excess. The onlookers thought that Kalidasa was commenting about the pan leaves and the lime paste overleaf. But the message reached Bhavaboothi and made him thankful. Let us see about that.

In the first anka of the play URC, 27th verse reads

kimapi kimapi mandam mandamAsakti yogAt
aviralita kapOlam jalpatOrakramENa
asitila parirambha vyApruta ekaikadOshNo:
avidita gatayAmA rAtrirEva vyaramsIt

we were mumbling in whispers soft, random
in deep love entangled, cheek to cheek
lying close, one in another's arms embraced
night alone was over
with its watches passing by.( translation mine)

In the line 'night alone was over', by adding one anusvara, m, in the original rathrirEva becomes rathrirEvam, meaning 'night was over thus'. Eva in sanskrit means 'only', 'alone'. Evam means 'thus', 'in this manner'. Bhavaboothi originally while reading out to Kalidasa wrote only 'Evam'. In the verse it meant that the lovers SriRama and Sita were calling back to memory the bygone days in the forests and on one such occasion of intimacy the night time passed by in the manner described. Deascribing like this is not remarkable for a distinguished poet. So Kalidasa suggested that the letter m is an excess in the word 'Evam', removing it 'Eva' will be more natural, aesthetic and apt. How? In intimacy, it is but natural for the lovers to be unmindful of the passing time, even at the end of night.

So to say that night time only passed by leaving us still in whispers will be more aesthetic. In sanskrit this m is written at the top of the letter as a dot, which is called anusvara. So when Kalidasa, in his gentle way pasting the lime over the back of the pan-leaf and said one atom of lime was in excess, Bhavaboothi understood that he meant an anusvara, occurring in some descriptions. And finding out the anusvara in Evam was a child's play.

***