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 as he was no bhajan.
The poem cleared his throat
and Gandhi looked 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 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 his hamlet.
Yet, I know 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 the new rain.
(Translated from the Malayalam by the poet)
Very poignant poem, profound thoughts and deep analysis of the relationship of Gandhian philosophy with aesthetics... Extraordinarily brilliant. I have been enamoured by reading the original in Malayalam.. The translation, done by the poet himself, is equally good..
The discourse is not between Mr.Poem Personified and Gandhi, but Satchidanandan from Thrissur, Kerala and Gandhi at Sabarmati Ashrama, Namboodaripad and Gandhi.
What is Gandhism? What Gandhi dreamt, preached, did we follow them? Gandhism not in theory, in practice should be our motto. The dignity of labour is all important.
Gandhi and the poet, Gandhsim and poetry, Gandhi at the hand loom wheel spinning yarn and hinting the poet to write the poetry of ground realities arther than presenting him as an icon.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/25/2024 4:38:30 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Oh, it is a nice poem, an extraordinary one where one can see how dreams are transformed into reality, lethargy into karma! Gandhi and Marxism, if it is not, socialism is the point of deliberation. Was Gandhi not a socialist? Was Gandhi anti-communist? No, no is the answer. He was also a socialist, but of a type. Gandhi pinning thread, rounding the charkha. and the poet into the dreams of his are but the ideas giving a base to anti-thesis.