Ashok Vajpeyi

We have not given up hope
though we know
in the end
we will live in the place
we do not wish to.

At the beginning
we will be unhappy
even restless,
we will not like -
the peepul tree opposite,
the ever-coughing neighbour,
children yelling out film songs
tunelessly,
hordes of pariah dogs barking
throughout the night,
the unseasonal weather too.

Then we will reassure ourselves
what have we to do with all this -
a few days more
and we move on.

As time passes
in the evenings
we too will sit on the platform
under the peepul tree,
greet, with folded hands,
the old man passing by,
scatter grains in the courtyard
for birds to peck at.

We will then hedge
our small piece of land,
musing one afternoon
that we need to do something
since we have to live just here.

There will be hope
but like an old garment
its colours will fade
with time,
then we will hang it
over a peg.

We will stop then
going for walks
beyond the bend
and like a word
from an old song
forget there was a place beyond
where we hoped to live.

Neither here, nor there
neither in hope
nor in despair
we will remain just there
where we do not want to.
...

The day will be brimming with people
night shelters full
we will find a place
only at dusk.

In the ledgers of the ageing gods
there will be no mention of us
the documents
that record virtues, vices
will have no transactions
in our name.

At Heaven's gate
we will stand bashful,
in the frightening din of Hell
defeated we will be.

In the remaining flame
of our courage
we will get lost
midst lanes and houses,
our lost forefathers
meandering, empty-handed.

From a divine window
we will look at the earth,
not recognizing
our small house.

In our love, alone
as always
in our courage, alone
at dusk
all alone.
...

Consigned to a shallow river
are father's mortal remains,
mother keeps appearing often
in poems,
spread in front
a neem tree, its ancestral shade.

Time that has gone by
comes again,
like a metre, repeating itself.

We are not
what our forefathers were
and our parents,
yet again
we are what they were.

Our home is the one
made by our forefathers -
like water we flow
here and there
carving a path,
meandering, happy
coming down a slope,
from the rock
into a waterfall,
like an unexpected shower
in the evening
waking up the plants at night
becoming a wonder
in the morning glow,
do we arrive in the end
at the shores of our forefathers?
...

How will Mother know
we have come back
to her home
after so many years?

For a while she will be surprised
thrown into disbelief
by our faces laden with dust -
then she will recognize us
scaling heights of joy
plumbing depths of sorrow

Her home will not be
near the Ganges
or under the shade
of a sacred grove,
she would have rented out
a house, as usual
in a crowded locality
filled with noise.

Then Father will come
as always look at us
without a word
finish off his dinner
laid out on the table
clearing his throat
search for some sweets
in the cupboard.

Tired we will fall asleep
wake up next morning
as if living there
for years,
leaving one home
we will move on to another
as if it were
the same home.
...

From the heap of names, future and dried-up leaves
growing despair and incongruous childhood words
from tales entangled in time, darkness
verandahs and a rickety basket
what shall we offer
in our cupped hands, as a prayer?

Looking at the deeply etched lines in our empty palms
the unclear silence dried up on the lips
what can we offer to our God
who has deserted us?

We will keep waiting, window wide open
hover around the threshold of possibilities
dejected, we will look at
the blown-out lamps and dried-up flowers
we will sit in a corner
of a temple, aimless.

We will go out
like an uproar spreading
we will come inside
like silence.

Like an interpolated passage
expelled from holy scripture
where shall we go?
...

After the end
we will not stay silent

We will not quarrel again
we will seek again
break confines once again.

To the earth
water fire
and the air
we will say again
come, give us form
give us an image.

The one
that existed before
which Death mistakenly feels
has been erased forever.

After the end
we will not be done with -
here we will hover
around life -
spreading like a scent
like a breeze blowing
alive like a memory.

Finally
we will evade death
return again -
after the end
we will not stay silent.
...

After the end
there will be nothing
no turning back
no change of form
no beginning either.

No more
the wondrous glow of the body
the dark gloom of the soul
nor
the warm memories of love.

No weak tea
with just a little milk
no peeving
at the mismatch
of buttons and buttonholes.

There will be
no tree of wisdom
no stillness of the lake
no scheming victoriousness
no blue feathers falling quietly
in jungles and barren lands.

There will be no lacklustre gods
no flag-waving goons.
After the end
there will be nothing for us -
only for those
for whom there will be no end.

After the end
will only be
the end
for us.
...

Like a bird
effortlessly, almost unseen
will come one day
the messenger of Death.

We will never know this
our ancestors will
hovering around our homes
like unseen birds.

Then one day it will come
like sunshine -
warmth spreading over our body,
like a child
led by the hand
for an early morning walk.
it will take us along.
...

No, not only will the soul be scorched
in love
the body too
in the heat of its flame.

No, not only will the body be burnt
in the last rites
the soul too
will turn into ash.

In love or in death
there is no fire
which will burn only the soul
or just the body.
...

We live in our ancestors' bones -

we pick a word
and the syntax of some earlier century
is disturbed,
we open a door
and the sound echoes somewhere in an ancient house -

we live like worms
under the thick cover of plants.

We leave our children
with our ancestors
when we go to work.

We carry in baskets
our burdens and time.
We eat simple food, drink cold water and walk on
along the road to eternity
gradually fading
out of the scene
so completely that if someone looked
they wouldn't be able to tell
that we ever existed.

We live in our ancestors' bones -
...

Our house lies on the route
the parrots take
to go to the jungle
and to come back from there.

Green lines of countless parrots
go to and fro in the sky above us
and a few of them
even stop to rest on our trees.
We live in the city,
how could we know
from what jungle to what forest
from what daybreak to what workplace
the parrots go every day -

often my daughter and I
place bets
on which flock of parrots
will stop or not stop on our trees.

the parrots don't see us
because their sights are always
trained on the trees and their fruit.

The parrots
turn into a green sky
and cover the earth.
the parrots leave the earth behind
like half-eaten fruit.

My daughter
chases after the parrots,
to save the fruit,
the earth.

In the sky, in the dark
the parrots vanish into the distance.

My daughter is left standing
shining with green
caressing the earth, comforting it.
...

Now when nothing remains between us
except some sadness and regret
and we've forgotten
your anger, your failures
your apprehensions about me,
we can see that
while prestige may be easy to come by
dignity in life only comes with great difficulty.
Life is a miser with dignity
and we've both had delusions of possessing it.

We were able to forget
no insult, whether from gods or devils,
even though such forgetting is natural, even necessary
to get through the struggles of life.
Why did we find
insult more memorable than failure,
perhaps it is a familial failing,
the self-respect of a farmer's son,
the self-deception of a small-town poet.
It's thirty-five years since you left
and I am older now
than you were then.

You never had the time to understand me
and I was always trying to test you:
now when nothing remains between us except some sadness and regret,
if you saw how weary I am you'd feel
that in my wilfulness, in my unwillingness to let an insult pass
I have only emulated you:
the truly sad thing is not
that so many years passed in misunderstanding
but that
in the end I've turned out to be a pale imitation of you
which neither you nor I
ever suspected
or desired.
...

Setting his own pace
Mallikarjun Mansur comes in
late
and marches ahead of time

ahead of a time
that's filled with confusions, riddled with wounds
that's growing more and more inconsequential,
a time that trails him
grovelling
destitute and crippled
begging for alms with outspread hands -
panting

Mallikarjun Mansur
advanced in years but standing tall
leans over
death
keeps a hand on its shoulder
stops and lights a beedi
then starts walking once more towards some new destination

his saintly hands take nothing for themselves
they only give wherever they go
and so he sings his way through the wide world
if god
came this way
he would not be able
to tell himself from Mallikarjun Mansur
...

There's a river mentioned in the Puranas, called Shubhsrava. An ancient river: who knows what unknown forests it flows through. What sort of vegetation grows on its banks, what tributaries come and merge with it. Where is its origin: how small, almost imperceptible. Insubstantial in the beginning. Gradually taking on the shape of a river. Full of water, full of plants, full of fish. Full of sound, and brimming with waves of beauty. A river of childhood: a young river in the abode of ancients. A river untouched by gods. A river untouched by geography. A river of only words. A river made up of words. A river that flows beside the pure and radiant, then disappears. A river called Shubhsrava, yet unnamed. A river held in an infant god's scripture. An impossible river, a hidden, a vanished river. A river in Shubhsrava: a river in every river. Flowing from the Puranas down to these words: a river, Shubhsrava.
...

Two deep red eyes of light
are trained upon the road
that passes close to the darkness
of my home.
In the fog that sleeps upon the lake
someone laughs
a giggling grey laughter.
Over the tops of the dark lines of trees
someone laughs.
The sky become overcast - black
- my home, released from the deep red eyes
emerges and sinks
in the darkness, on the road,
endlessly in the dim yellow light…
...

From a requiem for Kumar Gandharva

The grass growing on the ruin's walls
is a green sign from the earth
that it's time
to return to dust.
Being has a time
has colour
has turns and descents
nonbeing is timeless, colourless.
Time
sitting on a branch of a tree in some garden
nibbles away like a parrot
at being -
in nonbeing, there's not even a footprint of time.
Time knocks
on the door of a house
where no one lives.
Time stands with its begging bowl
outside that door
from which no one will emerge.
There is no time now
no provisions for the journey
no tired feet
no sweat on the brow.
The steps leading to the temple
the final cries of sacrificial animals
the bloody end
of goat song.
In the sunlit darkness of blood
the scream of stone
the call of grass
the cries of greenery.
Being
earth
nonbeing
sky.
...

EVEN THERE,
where
the stretched-out
long and burning hands of iron
are chopped off by the machine
I'll sleep soundly
and without getting caught in a nightmare
as usual.
All your words and gestures may fade
but I'll remember you;
in an endless summer
the sense of seasons will be lost
and yet I'll recognize

those fragrant days
when your fresh youth blooms in my arms.
A deadening noise will be all around
and my heart like melted incandescent iron
will flow towards you
in numberless streams:
and quietly, you will mold it

into happiness.
Then one night
your blood and
your heart and
your love
will grow heavy like the steel
and when I shall call you
from beneath the railway trains
calling people and coal
from behind the lamp posts
keeping watch over tranquil towns:
the earth will be dumb
like dark and heavy fear;
and the over hanging sky
will be still like death,
my innumerable parts will wait
for you
at the machine-gate.
...

She held a bird
in her hands
rearing to brave
the sky—empty endless blue.

He was an ancient
humpbacked rock
crouching in wait
for them.

He was aflame with desire
The bird with waiting
The sky was there
without desire
waiting for nothing.

He was both simple
and profound.

She was a girl
He a god.

And this is a
poem before
the tragedy.

The sky is
a benevolent but
a greedy poet.
...

The old world of
gods had died before
I was born and
ever since I've listened
to the endings of legends
about the end
of this wonderful world
without understanding
a word without
desiring to save it or
striving to reshape it
to my heart's desire.
I've never cared to
fight for it because
I'm not a warrior because
wars bore me besides
I never learnt to pray.

I know nothing about this
world other than the
unwithered compassion
of my mother and
the unwithered passion
of my lover, I've
never known of anything
else worth knowing
in this world.

But sometimes my innocent
eyes had patience enough to
penetrate the weary wombs
of nights to where
the heavens howled and
the dead gods moaned
in grim compassion.

And sometimes my straw
light soul was potent enough
to show me visions of
shapes and rocks dancing
to the bloodred music of
birth in the
alert daylight.

And now at last
I know that when,
When we all perish in
that inevitable apocalypse
the nearby heap of things will
become quick and human
and our end will
be beautiful for
those heaps of things.
...

A flame bursts
out or the glory
of blood you know
In the midst of
all clamour and quiet
alienation from
things it is
desire—that
single form of prayer
that keeps one's heart
from sinking.
...