Flooded The Heart With The Water Of Alakananda Poem by Suman Pal

FATHOMLESS -
My failure in recognize You with Your Meeting
Flooded the heart with the Water of Alakananda
With pleasure, read with fair arrangement
Inscription drawn on, inscription - curving and bending - beneath the hill on plainness
Who wanders lonely - find Him
Have You found - Fathomless - did You ever-
Falling from hand
Inscription drifting on water - Destined to float - if be not recalled
Fallen it still - Destined to remain fallen -
For picking it up
Poet dies drowning -
Floating in the Water of Alakananda.


(A translation of the Bengali Poem' Hridi Vese Jai Alakananda Jole ' written by renowned poet JOY GOSWAMI)

About the poem:

This poem presents the Upanishadic doctrine of Advaitism, i.e., 'I am Brahman' or 'I am divine.' (Sanskrit: अहं ब्रह्मास्मि aham brahmāsmi) .
The poet wants to say that Brahman, or God, is present in every particle of the universe. Brahman means that it is omnipresent and pervading all things. According to Kathopanishad, the divine soul, the original source of creation, manifests itself in different forms. Brahman is limitless, though it is our flaw that we can't recognise that divine glory in others. That's why we are running to die in the temple, mosque, and church to find God, who is in front of us in millions of forms. So, the poet is in utter despair as he fails to recognise the supreme divinity, he wants to drown in the water of Alakananda (drown himself in tears as a penance because only tears can make one's mind pure) .

In the other sense, the poet drowns every time in the glory of natural beauty. He wants to float in the water of Alkananda (a state of spiritual ecstasy) . In fact, the poet pervades the whole world; he himself is a whole poem.

(According to Hindu mythology, Alaknanda, or the Ganga, is the river of heaven. Alaknanda is one of the holy streams to emanate from the locks of Lord Shiva.)