GANDHI AND POETRY Poem by Koyamparambath Satchidanandan
GANDHI AND POETRY
One day a lean poem
reached Gandhi's ashram
to have a glimpse of the man.
Gandhi spinning away
his thread towards Ram
took no notice of the poem
waiting at his door,
ashamed at not being a bhajan.
The poem now cleared his throat
And Gandhi glanced at him sideways
through those glasses that had seen hell.
"Have you ever spun thread?" he asked,
"Ever pulled a scavenger's cart?
Ever stood in the smoke of
An early morning kitchen?
Have you ever starved?"
The poem said: "I was born in the woods,
in a hunter's mouth.
A fisherman brought me up
in a cottage.
Yet I knew no work, I only sing.
First I sang in the courts:
then I was plump and handsome
but am on the streets now,
half-starved."
"That's better," Gandhi said
with a sly smile. "But you must give up this habit
of speaking in Sanskrit at times.
Go to the fields. Listen to
The peasants' speech."
The poem turned into a grain
and lay waiting in the fields
for the tiller to come
and upturn the virgin soil
moist with new rain.
I am not Indian born, but I always put The Great Gandhi on the Highest paddestall, his name only is a famous, world famous name, but in Poetry as created here, I dare not! Gandhi ought to be praised and honoured.
How to ask the Gandhian followers to promote the khadi clothes and home-made stuffs? Is it not poetical, Gandhi running the charkha and spinning thread? The sweat of the tiller, the plowman, the farmer converting into the golden wheat sheaves, paddy crops, is it not poetry?
Gandhi And Poetry as a poem again demonstrates the same use of with and irony, realism and satire in discussing Gandhi, his Gandhism and Gandhian Studies and the Gandhists following the Master and their application in our true life.application. Poetry and Gandhism, how to take it? How to align them? How to apply Gandhism in poetry?
A profound allegory on lift, ahimsa and hypocrisy. Only Satchidanandan Sir's pen can produce this.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/27/2024 11:17:13 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Therefore, to write this poem, The Great Sir Gandhi is now in disguise, I reckon. Thank you for sharing this remarkable poem.