Ornaments of Hindi
I think I’ve known Hindi ever since I could talk. That sounds so sensible that it almost doesn’t. I say that not only because it is my mother tongue but also because I’ve lived with Hindi; with Champak and Bal Bhaskar in the morning and because I’ve ended my days with Dinkar wishing for a jhingola.
Hindi poetry has its roots in the rasas of Sanskrit and in the wit of Śaursenī Prākrit’s jesters. Somewhere along the way it met with Apabhraṃśa to become what it is today.
It is hard to define poetry. It is even harder to put it in a box of an “ism”. It is everywhere; in a way that you cannot live without it and in another where it consumes you.
On a personal level, I think it was Muktibodh whose mark on Hindi poetry is incomparable.
Gajanan Madhav ‘Muktibodh’ understood melancholy like no other Hindi poet.
One of the pioneers of the Nayi Kavita, Muktibodh was born in present-day Chambal, Madhya Pradesh.
Apart from being a poet and an essayist, he was also a literary and political critic.
I believe, where prayogvad or experimentalism meets nihilism, Muktibodh resides there.
सचमुच मुझे दण्ड दो कि भूलूँ मैं भूलूँ मैं
तुम्हें भूल जाने की
दक्षिण ध्रुवी अंधकार-अमावस्या
शरीर पर,चेहरे पर, अंतर में पा लूँ मैं
झेलूँ मै, उसी में नहा लूँ मैं
इसलिए कि तुमसे ही परिवेष्टित आच्छादित
रहने का रमणीय यह उजेला अब
सहा नहीं जाता है।
नहीं सहा जाता है।
ममता के बादल की मँडराती कोमलता--
भीतर पिराती है
कमज़ोर और अक्षम अब हो गयी है आत्मा यह
छटपटाती छाती को भवितव्यता डराती है
बहलाती सहलाती आत्मीयता बरदाश्त नही होती है !
punish me, make me forget it
make me forget that i ever existed
make me wear
this dark night of the abyss
that our separation is
on my body, my face
make me
live with it
make me
bathe in it
because
i can’t bear with
being surrounded by you
or being smothered
with your love
this grace of your being,
your embrace
leaves me weak
your love scares me
your gentle caress
leaves me gasping for air
The above stanza is from Muktibodh’s poem ‘Saharsh Sweekara Hai’. Here, Muktibodh’s fear of losing his beloved has grown so strong that he only feels safe in her arms. Realising that he has this parasitic relationship with his beloved, he asks her to leave him because now the love he shares with her has started to consume him. The poet feels that he cannot function without her and wants to escape this all-consuming dependence.
The poem is a journey of the poet’s acceptance. As the name suggests and also the first few lines of the poem say, he has accepted everything in life with open arms. As the poem progresses, the poet comes to terms with the love that is consuming him. He tries not to fight it.
We’ve known Subhadra Kumari Chauhan with her poems like ‘Jhansi Ki Rani’ and ‘Jallianwala Bagh Mein Basant’ to have been written primarily in veer rasa, but a large number of her poems have been for children and probably for herself too.
Born on 16th of August 1904 in Prayagraj, Subhadra had started spending time with the likes of Mahadevi Varma early on in her life at school. As her junior at the Crosthwaite Girls' School, Mahadevi too looks back at her time with Subhadra fondly in one of her writings.
‘Kadamb ka Ped’ is one of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s
children’s poems.
What separates Hindi children’s literature from the others is its simplicity. It is devoid of references related to outside of the world of its own, like Alice’s isn’t. It is pure.
यह कदंब का पेड़ अगर माँ होता यमुना तीरे।
मैं भी उस पर बैठ कन्हैया बनता धीरे-धीरे॥
on the banks of yamuna, had been this kadamba tree
i could have been krishna, climbing it without a worry
The poem talks about a child’s wish to be like Krishna, teasing and hiding from his mother and finding joys in little things.
The Kadamba tree near Yamuna takes the reader back to the legend of Krishna and Yashoda sitting near the Kadamba tree and her witnessing the cosmos in Krishna’s mouth.
- Trishala
