If you're in Madison, don't miss this reading.

Translator: Crazyfinger

Translator's Note:
A friend of mine alerted me to this new poem by Afsar, asking if I wanted to give it a shot translating it during this weekend. Here it is.



1

Will the sunlight blazing outside
Know of the darkness inside!


The voice
Strolls into stillness for a breather
For a while, to come up for air

-2-

In between the tangled embrace of the trees
A white streak, opening slightly
Leads into somewhere
Its signs in my ears
Ever a dulcet music

-3-

In between the huddled houses,
Intertwined thicker than the woods
A narrow alley
Sparkles like a moonshine
The roar of its silence
A storm that hasn't spoken


-4-
You and I
One moment the screams of two ripples
Then in another moment,
Dreams snuggled
Under the covers of sleep

-5-
As such the petitions were always losing!
Anyway haven't got in hands
The rope bucket
To bail up the deeper voices

-6-

Be it a word that lay severed
Or a cry that lay fallen
Don't make the final cut on any of it!

-7-
Save these few morsels
For the empty stomach
Of that troubled pit
That arrives from far away

(Original poem in Telugu: "naalugu metukulu" published in Poddu.

The interrupted line sighs;

the suffocation of sudden silence;

someone pants at the rear,

fitfully.





The road flies back;

each scene flits past

along with the footsteps;

silence has so many faces.



someone walks on either side;

hazy, indistinct;

somebody gasps behind the shoulder;

the poem stops.





Translated from Telugu by D. Kesava Rao

I know you’re searching for hundreds of reasons

to justify all these killings—whatever.

You know, I’m simply looking for those lives

that are lost forever.





Have you ever let even a small blade

you chanced upon

go unused?

I’m confident of the spoils you collected

during your battles.




But hereafter this story

will be written by the severed thumb

of Ekalavya.[1]







And the justifications

that you weave

may be true for you,

but for me they’re lies

loftier than the Himalayas.



Now I search for the cries

that were buried under the weight of the Vedas.



I need to trace out

the black bodies crushed under your iron feet

so that all the mornings now be brightened

with a black slogan.





Who cares who am I?

When you never hear the thump of my heart

but always notice the color of my skin?



Who cares what my body is?

When it’s meant to stoop down,

to honor you!




Who cares where I live?

When I am always cast away from the village,

destined to nestle in pitch darkness.






All these lush fields now wear greenery,

borrowing my tears

and nothing remains for me.


I have lost all my breath, forever.



Who cares how the sun rises here,

when the sunshine, damp with my sweat,

is meant to bloom a rainbow for you only?



Whoever would be me?

When my body is meant only

to be shattered to pieces

and burnt to ash?




Who cares who am I?

When my body is only to be destroyed

and thrown into the gutters!






You cut my breath as rudely, as simply

as you cut my harvest every year.



Don’t say anymore.

Your eyes are red with my blood.


Don’t pat my back

with a dagger that cuts my throat.





My dear poet!




I know this delicate midnight breeze

keeps you occupied.

How long this slavery to white poems?





Poet,

now I’m terrified of white flowers.

In a world where my every step

touches upon a bloodied corpse,

I fear green fields.

Pure blue skies

unnerve me.



I’m sorry, my lord






My poem is not your slave

it’s a sickle with its head to the sky.


My poem is not a damsel timid in your moonlight

it’s a tiger prowling in a shadowed forest.


To say a final word,

My poem won’t be your grand Constitution

devoted to your happiness

at all costs.


*






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] A lower-caste character from the great Indian epic Mahabharata. Ekalavaya wants to be the disciple of the great archer Drona who refuses him as a student because of his low caste. Drona promises Arjuna that he will make him the greatest archer on the earth, but Ekalavya surpasses Arjuna, while using a clay image of Drona as his teacher. Arjuna becomes jealous of Ekalavya. To appease Arjuna, Drona goes to Ekalavya and asks him for a gift--as compensation for his teaching, Drona asks for Ekalavya’s thumb. A sincere disciple, Ekalavya cuts off his thumb and presents it to Drona.

Tr: Jessica Athens

I am some limb or organ under a head of vacuum

From whence I was born, how I grew up,

Just at 47 how I blew up,

Since none of you told me anything ..



Every limb of God you butchered and divided up

Amongst yourselves, or robbed it perhaps,

Since all of you didn’t leave me anything ..



I am a shadow sans body,

A soul delivered in shame and

Thrown away over some wall.


I roam through country after country

I imagine that all countries are mine

Each hamlet each home, I imagine mine, but

Even a bee is unable to tell my address.


Somewhere here, saffron hands are cutting away

The piece of land under my feet.



From somewhere there, all the dust from demolished domes

Settles on my fluttering body, building up a tomb.


Covering up my eyes with eyelid blindfolds,

Someone is pilfering the cool flesh of my body.


I turn into a corpse unrecognizable to me,

I crash onto the bloody roads of Bombay.


It’s not clear who is crossing over me which way.


Truly, the resident of a vacuous world I am.


Everywhere, any time, a migrant I am.


Drowning half of me in darkness,

I imagine the other half is all brilliance – such delusion I am.


I jump into the inner spirals within myself

In order to murder the soul of time, each and every moment.


I won’t ask for half a kingdom or the state of Anga (1)

I don’t have a tongue to ask for my own torn nerves back (2)

Does the corpse have some land to hide in? But for the living,

A piece of land is enough, a shade over the head – this I proclaim.


The spot you stand on – that’s the most holy place.


Come, divide me by myself, I say,

Not by forty seven.


All my laughter, my cries

My insults, my doubts

My rapes and my murders

They’re all yours too! I say.


This is my mother’s womb-water! Don’t spit in it – I pray.


Oh my enemies who divide and rule!

No one can split me into two

No one can blast the pupils of my eyes.


*******************

Notes: (1) anga raajya: the kingdom of Anga. When Pandavas and Kauravas are displaying their prowess of martial skills, Karna steps up to challenge Arjuna. To prevent a conflict there and to insult Karna, Guru Drona asks Karna to reveal his ancestry. When Karna falls silent in shame, Duryodhana makes him the king of the Anga State on the spot.

(2) This incident too has some puranic reference, but I’m unable to recall at the moment.

Tr: Nasy

broken pillars speak out
as winds walk through their flattened arms
a thought hanging down from nowhere

now my time to stretch the hands
to reach up,
as the ruins are falling down

never seen this home
in its entirety;
for me, it's an empty village
deserted a while ago;
a swarm of words that limp around me.

now my time to straighten
my body
to sew it nerve to nerve.

moments and days mumble the same utterance
breaking their neck of nights
days never end:

time lost never found.

a dream strewn after a sleepless darkness
living through its white night.

the making never happens

(Published in www.museindia.org)

call this morning yourself
honking each word into your dead ears
hurling each breath into your blind eyes


waking up early to break certain things from the past and to wet hands, feet and face from their smelly filthiness with fresh water reciting the holy verses and performing the prayer turning towards any direction – not the fixed one.

I resist any fixation and
my direction is fluid and slips away like water.


mornings are well-written prefaces of a book,
a face that washes off its last night’s
dirtiness of mouth and heart too.


call this morning yourself
pouring several drops of purity into your senses


scrubs your present
from its dirty and tense limbs.


the world is empty out there,
call this morning yourself,
recite the morning verse deafeningly
right into your dead ear!

here is the wild flower that cuts my eye
that encloses my eyelids
and then I’m just a word broken.


do you know the old story of the eyelid
that fenced the horizon?
as far as your vision travels, it digs a deep well.
and then the well becomes the world.


the droplet on this leaf is a frozen ocean
that sculpts water too.
my words are chips of ice that never melt.



do you know the old story of the stone
that makes the eye flower
as far as you extend your arm , it raises a hill too.
and then the hill becomes the image.


I can see everything in this world of mine
an earth too, except for the sky.
let the head that is rooted in the soil bloom.
and then you see a green leaf with a chest as broad as heaven.


that one is the word
never written. *

The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Asian Studies

Fall 2010: Asian Studies Course (ANS 340)
Indian Poetry and Religions

Global Cultures and Writing Flag Course




Instructor: Afsar Mohammad, Ph.D

Class Meetings: Tue and Thu 11 to 12:30 at SZB 286

Office Hours: Tue and Thr 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. or by appointment

Office: Homer Rainey Hall 3:102

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This course focuses on the intersections of religion and poetry in the history of Indian literature. The basic question that we explore is: Why religion and poetry are deeply connected in the making of Indian religions? From the Vedas to the recent post-modern/post-colonial manifestations of religious devotion and expressive forms, poetry continues to play its central role in the making of Indian religions. We focus on several streams of poetry beginning with the Vedic to contemporary and study various intersections of religion and poetry. Most importantly, we try to capture the contours of the Indian religious poetry expressed in multiple settings and many variations that include hymns, chants, bhajans, and long poetic narratives along with the new poetic conventions that deal with caste and gender identities as well.
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Required Texts:

1. Donald S.Lopez, Jr. Religions of India in Practice, Princeton University Press.
ISBN-13: 978-0691043258
2. Paula Richman, Extraordinary Child, University of Hawaii Press.
ISBN-13: 978-0824810634
3. Vinay Dharwadker (TR), Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs, Penguin India.
ISBN-13: 978-0143029687
4. Syed Akbar Hyder, Reliving Karbala, Oxford University Press.
ISBN-13: 978-0195373028
5. A.K. Ramanujan (TR), Speaking of Siva, Penguin Classics,
ISBN-13: 978-0140442700
6. Narayana Rao, (TR), God on the Hill, Oxford University Press.
ISBN-13: 978-0195677096
7. Verses From the Center: A Buddhist vision of the Sublime


Grading Scale:
92-100 A
89-91 A-
86-88 B+
82-85 B
79-81 B-
76-78 C+
72-75 C
Class Attendance and Participation:
Regrettably, excessive unexcused absences and persistent failure to prepare the assignments on time have deleterious effects on final grades for the class. On the other hand, vigorous and informed participation in class discussions can help a grade. Other factors, such as student’s progress or effort in the course, may also affect final grades for the class.
Assignments:
1. Informal and Formal Weekly responses to be posted on a blog. (500 Words): 10%
2. Book Review (800 Words): 15%
3. Mid-term paper (2500 Words):15%
4. Peer-review of the mid-term papers: 10%
5. Final paper (2500 Words): 25%
6. Class Presentation: 15 minutes (plus 10 minutes Q & A): 25%

Instructions:
1. Students have to sign for weekly responses and class presentations in the first week of the semester.
2. Students should be prepared to work in groups in and outside the class. Peer-review of the mid-term papers is just one form of this group work.
3. Students have to submit well-edited and proof-read writing assignments. Failure to meet the basic writing requirements is an automatic low grade. Please do not submit rough drafts or drafts in the progress and try to consult the Writing Center on the UT campus before submitting any writing assignment.
4. I’m very particular about the class presentations and you should submit the outline of your presentation one week before the class presentation. Be prepared to a formal question and answer session after every presentation.

A Note on Peer Review:
1. Students share the mid-term papers for the purpose of peer review. The class is divided into several groups and each group shares and discusses the papers. The instructor will ask each group to present their discussions to him and makes suggestions.
2. Students share and discuss presentation outlines and major arguments in the presentations.
3. Students share and discuss presentation outlines and major arguments in the presentations.





Tentative Calendar

August 26th: Introductions

Aug 31st: Reading: Anthony Yu “Literature and Religion” (PDF on the Blackboard)

September 2nd: Reading: Introduction from “Religions of India in Practice”

Sept 7th and 9th: Hinduism and Poetry

Devotional hymns from the Sanskrit / Guy Leon Beck

Sept 14th and 16th: Verses from Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata (PDF on the Blackboard)

Sept 21st and 23rd: Tamil game songs to Siva / Norman Cutler
Tamil songs to God as child / Paula Richman

Sept 28th and 30th: Women's songs for auspicious occasions / Lindsey Harlan
Songs of devotion and praise. Bengali songs to Kālī

October 5th and 7th: Speaking of Siva

Oct 12th and 14th: God on the Hill

Oct 19th t: Sikh hymns to the divine Name / Hew McLeod
21st: Open
Oct 26th and 28th: Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs
November 2nd and 4th: Buddhism: From Nagarjuna to the neo-Buddhist verses
Selections from
“Verses from the Center: A Buddhist vision of the Sublime”

Nov 9th and 11th: Reading: The Extraordinary Child


Nov 16th and 18th: Muslim Poetry and Sufism
Sufism: Readings from Schimmel (By email)

Book Review Due: Nov 18th

Nov 23rd: Reading: Intro to “The Battle of Karbala”

Karbala and Muslim Poetry (Lecture and Discussion)

Nov 25th: Thanksgiving Break

Nov 30th: Reliving Karbala: A Conversation with the author Prof. Syed Akbar Hyder

December 2nd: Last Class Day
Final Paper due: December 10th