"On Recollections" / Poems by Muhammad Shanazar

"On Recollections" / Poems by Muhammad Shanazar





Muhammad Shanazar





A Race


Thinking on the childish longings,
Makes me laugh and takes again,
To the golden age when I played,
With the boys of the same size and age,
All we often ran and raced,
To see the end of the ball of the Earth,
Or touch the bending horizon,
Too blue, too near, too clear,
And to attain crimson hue of twilight,
Ah! But returned,
Out of breath with empty hands.
 
When we played in the meadows green,
The wings of the Moon-soon winds,
Did bring on the plains of the Punjab,
Flocks of clouds thick and dark,
Drifted by shepherds with sticks unseen,
That seemed landing upon the pastures,
We ran and raced under or along,
To possess the lowering object in hands,
Ah! But returned,
Out of breath with empty hands.
 
Oh! My friends I have been convinced,
 the thought that the floating world,
Is made of vapour or condensed clouds,
For in the days of youth, grown up age,
I ran the race with the faster pace,
After the world but could not catch,
And brought me now to the brim of grave,
Ah! But out of breath with empty hands.




Magnetic Force
 
With the Baraat [1] we went amid the pipes,
Peeling forth the sounds casting magic,
And rhythmic beats of the drum beaters,
Did lead us to the fairy world of negation,
Where from a man can behold the truth,
Luminous clear from distance very close.
 
Hobby horse would no doubt amuse us all,
That led the procession alluringly colourful,
And dancing, jumping kicked each passer-by.
 
In streets of the village on both sides,
The damsels clad in the new gaudy dresses,
Stood smilingly with overspreading shyness;
Holding the glasses of sugared milk warm,
They giggled, they chattered and chuckled,
The words dropped from their delicate lips,
As the dewdrops from the moisty petals fall.
 
Then we were received, feasted like guests,
All young and old then sat in the circle large,
To   join the couple in sweet companionship,
On the hazardous, serpentine route of life.
 
Then Palki [2]  covered with deep red satin or silk,
Was brought and the bride with heart piercing
Shriek she did enter into the frame wooden,
As the young men lifted upon the shoulders,
The attached long shafts of the bamboo brown,
Someone would throw up a handful of coins,
Silvery, shining, and they came rattling down,
All looked opened mouths, extending hands,
Alert ready to catch them as they came down,
And some in vain groped, some fell prostrate,
All stiff backs bent and all erect heads bowed,
Like the grazing sheep in the pastures green,
I astounded, coins might have magnetic force.




A Chorus
 
When at the moon-lit cold nights
Came out we all the girls and boys,
To be amused with hide and seek,
The long low wailing howls of dogs,
And heinous shrills of the little owls,
Cast fear, I became horrid recoiled,
Threw each of us a handful of dust,
To the direction of ominous harbingers,
To impede an instant invading calamity.
 
Often then in the foggy morn we found
A robbed body in the thick shrubs,
With perforated chest, broken bones,
Lacerated belly, or stabbed heart,
For a few pennies, or a ring of gold.
Some fierce animals in the human form,
Disturbed peaceful silence of the village,
As flings someone a big boulder,
From the height, down into the deep water,
And the waves raise commotion around.
The bold moved indignant, the timid horrified,
The women young and old circumscribed,
The widow with broken bangles dishevelled hair,
And moved around her, striking hands,
On the scarred faces with force full,
The head clouts binding around the waists,
With loose lurking ends swaying behind,
Circled they bending with rhythmic beats,
Protested against the deed producing voices,
The clamorous cries of lamenting chorus,
Spread horror in the pastoral spheres,
Making death for the alive too frightful.
 



A Veteran Of The World War II
 
In my early days of childhood, I beheld a man,
He was in his eighties with thin wobbly, shaky legs,
Slits slots were on his heels, broken were his boots.
 
Though they were dingy soiled yet he wore
A ragged shirt and old brown pants of army,
And he too wore one glassed frame of glasses.
He spoke to the street-kids with kind words,
But with quaking, quivering voice.
He always carried upon the bent structure of body,
A big bag hung on his shoulders behind,
Containing contents of the dotage.
 
He was expelled out from the house of his own,
By his sons, daughters and daughters-in-law,
And he roved, moved but not afar from the village.
When his belly beleaguered, harassed him,
He knocked at any door in front, in the street,
And fed it with the home-baked bread of charity
Soaking in water or pasting with the paste of chillies,
And he slept carefree in the mosque,
Or in summer under the trees in cool shades.
 
When he was in a good jolly, joking mood,
He used to tell us the Tale of Two Cities,
How the splendour was smashed shattered in seconds
How humanity went through cumbersome holocaust,
How he carried out his missions by hitting the targets,
How he lived in the trenches smelly with explosives,
How he was captured, encaged into the prisons of Japan,
While fighting for the crown and glory of Great Britain.
 
 
 
 
 The Sky Doesn’t Protest
 
In the early years of my flavoured childhood,
Could not I differ between an evil and a good,
And went to the forest afar with my age fellows,
To collect, to gather the dry sticks or fire wood.
 
In summer seldom the swishing winds blew,
The grains of sand and contents of dust flew,
And made the clean spheres reddish brown,
We bundled the fuel as the harsh winds grew.
 
Contending the winds, to home we returned,
On each step blurring, blowing blows burned,
And we rested on the way beside the old well,
Wherefrom damsels obtained water churned.
 
They talked themselves with the concern deep,
About some innocent murder, they did weep,
Then I understood why the sky grew vague,
Why did winds raise dust, why they did beep?
 
Ah! The sky now doesn’t protest, nor frown,
Nor change colour from blue to reddish brown,
He too might have grown accustomed to blood,
Though Man is killed in each village, each town.
 
 
 
 
 To The Banyan Tree
 
“Oh! Overshadowing, evergreen Banyan,
Where have gone my vivacious playmates,
Who climbed up your reverend shoulders,
Clambered down by lowering, lurking roots,
And while playing they the run-and-catch,
Did hide themselves in the leafy boughs,
Mimicked the cuckoo in voice and tone?”
 
“Oh! Where have gone the contestants,
Playing cards sitting in the circles,
Patting hard upon the cards thrown,
Challenged with hope to win the game,
Pleasure they had, is unknown to the kings,
On the conquest of the distant continent,
Possessing oil-fields, fertile watery plains?”
 
“Oh! Where have gone the colourful damsels,
That swung ere the moon-soon winds blew,
Behind their necks fluttering Anchals1 flew,
Like the wings of hovering butterflies?
My eyes moved with the oscillating sight,
Now dashing down, now rising to the height;
With wonder I stood aside to understand,
They were nymphs or the earth pertained.”
 
“Oh! Your pensive thoughts have maddened me,
Why they broke the bonds, confounds me,
That ten-generation devotedly strengthened.
Though white blood runs into my old veins,
And don’t have the human breathing heart,
Yet I weep and miss them more and more,
The tickling tiny feet might have grown old,
Or they might have cherished love for gold,
Or might have they found the cooler shades.”
 
“Since long no one plays the run-and-catch,
No one titillates my crude hard shoulders,
No longer I hear laughter of the real conquest.
No colourful damsel plies with my aged arms,
No ploughman comes staggering to have rest,
Snorts deep while the wind blows to the West.”
 
 


A Silent Forest
 
Today amid the thick forest,
I am here again on the high mound,
The central seat to administer
The cattle left loose around.
 
It is the same peak where we all
In the days of my childhood sat,
The reverend shepherds rested
Gossiped about the olden times
Narrated they life long experience,
And some twisted the fibres of jute
On the rotators to make cots.
 
Different noises of life gurgled
From all sides around,
The goats bleated, the hounds barked,
The sheep moved lazily after being fed,
The camels ate tassels of the trees
The donkeys brayed at the noon,
The bulls fought entangling horns,
The birds chirped in the shadowy branches.
 
Here are the patches where the old women
Of the village came to scythe grass green,
I see my mother too, carrying the stuffed sack,
Going back to home in the long queue.
 
At noon the damsels or the elderly ladies
Of the village brought our lunch
With pickle, or onions or sugar
Home baked bread smeared with butter,
And milk in the earthen pots.
 
We all excitedly waited for the moment,
Then gentle winds made us all sleepy,
We slept sweet sleep on the bare ground,
While the cattle sat, rested and chewed.
 
When evening encroached, we measured
The stretched shadows with our feet
To know the time of return,
And we moved exhausted to homes
Behind the trails of surfeited lazy cattle.
 
Ah! It is the same old forest
That often makes me nostalgic,
Melancholic memories begin to assemble
Forcing the tears to drop into dust.
 
Sounds of life come from neither side,
The trees stood dressless like ghosts,
Or like bony skeletons that haunt in dreams,
As if flesh of nature has been eaten away 
By the callous scavenger of modernity.
 
Now I being engrossed in the pensive mood              
Hear nothing but the dirge of doleful silence
While air passes through stiff dry grass.
             
 
 

Swaang
 
How quickly runs time with the paces quite inaudible!
And how speedily slips snubbing the stock of delights!
How sweet memories leave behind the spots indelible!
How pleasures vanish as seasonal birds take flights!
 
Hardly was I five years old and nothing was told,
About the polluting profanities of silver and gold,
I recall when my uncle took me to the village nearby,
To see Swaang 1 when the stars did shine in the sky.
Halfway I walked catching fingers on the boulders,
And halfway I travelled sitting upon the shoulders,
With legs around his neck, gripping his head tight,
On the serpentine way twisting now left, then right.
 
The drumbeaters, the pipers were crowded around,
By the villagers, dancing with the rhythmic sound.
Then they sat on the cots arranged, in the circle placed,
Some sat on the walls and some on the roofs abased.
They gathered to be amused with the crude players,
Who were babblers, gabblers and nothing but sayers.
 
All were excited, impatient and restless were the eyes,
They among themselves were strengthening the ties.
The women were banned, restrained to share the game,
One who dared, throughout life would have to lame.
 
Then entered entertainers in the yard wide, spacious,
With the seemingly model lady, beautified, gracious,
Her face was too powdered; too painted were her lips,
Her bosoms were heavy and fleshy thick were the hips.
When she pounded with her heavy feet on the ground,
The excited spectators cheered, the voices did resound.
Rhythmic beats, sounds of Ghanghroon1 them thrilled,
Loathsome sleeping hearts with pleasure were filled.
 
Blood rushed, ran into the veins of the young and old,
Some flung in the air notes and some did them unfold.
A shirtless short man dipped his torch in kerosene oil,
Kept in front of the lady to enlighten charm of the soil.
To make it clearer, more visible to the eyes capricious,
The mouths slobbered, and leapt the hearts lascivious.
 
The dancer’s flexible movements fascinated the minds,
And songs with the music transported even the blinds.
So they awoke the passions, which dormant remained,
Songs raked afresh wounds of the lovers that pained.
I recall, “Uncatch my wrist and wrench it not to break,
The glassy bangles,” I did listen between sleep and wake.
“What wrong I did, why do you remain afar annoyed?”
The viewers watched, cheered and vivaciously enjoyed.
 
In ecstatic joy I escaped, I was swayed to the fairyland,
Much more beautiful, charming, enchanting and grand,
Than the world where Man suffers, groans and moans,
Is tortured, troubled to the flesh and marrow of bones.
 
Dancers seemingly ladies appeared, and went away,
Turn by turn playing their roles during the short stay,
Before the villagers, sat to be amused and entertained,
In viewers, tongue-tied, confused I myself remained.
 
Then the end drew near, night was to fold the wing,
Then entered Mirza , Saibaan 2  to perform and sing.
When Saibaan was eloped by Mirza: the love killer,
The rain began to down pour, the voices grew shriller.
The rain-washed, the painted powdered Saibaan’s face,
Exposing black hard masculine skin devoid of grace;
The reality revealed putting end to my confusion,
Morning broke magic of Swaang, the world of illusion.
 
 

  
The Resembling Shadow
 
The creaking sounds did make me wake,
Fetched me back from the dream-lake
Of peaceful sleep, profound and deep,
Again did bring me to the world fake.
 
Rubbing the sleepy eyes I stifled yawn,
Waited, watched till the light of dawn,
My mother beside the spinning wheel,
Near my cot, she dragged and drawn.
 
The spinner was made of wood brown,
Her hands did move, the face did frown,
She raised her arm with twisting strand,
Then to the reeling spike it did go down.
 
She joined the strands when they broke,
To reply my questions she often spoke,
“The truth bears fruit and lie pointy thorns,
God loves those who love His needy folk.”
 
A feeble flickering flame copied the sight,
Her movements cast spell in the lamplight,
That threw the gigantic shadow on the wall,
Resembling the lunar’s, at fourteenth night.
 
 
 
 
 On Sustaining Strokes
 
A slight before the wintry nights,
The vivacious children of the street,
Signalled whistling with inviting voices,
That we all should come out of the houses,
To be beaten amusingly playing a game.
 
We couldn’t resist and came out all,
Gathered in the yard with no wall around,
And squatted in circle with bending heads,
Then was twisted an Anchal, pale or red,
Into a flog hard, longer than a yard.
 
One of the older moved and moved around,
And placed silently behind one of us,
On the turn next, he began to beat,
We ran and ran around in circles,
Sustaining strokes on the delicate backs.
 
While running around and being beaten,
I did feel perhaps the participants older,
Lashed to harden, toughen us more,
To face beats and callous odds of life,
When we would grow up, pacing on the path.
 


 
The Madman’s Song
 
While remembering I do dive deep,
Into the waters of the remote past,
And bring out the shining jewels,
Of the sunken memories at last.
 
I recollect a man called mad,
Roved he around despised, sad,
Carried he upon his singed shoulder,
A long club of bamboo brown,
With empty cagelets hanging along,
Walked he through the meadows,
Bareheaded, with crude hard feet,
Harrowed face, ashes upon his mouth.
 
All the time asked he the village folk,
“Haven’t you seen my love, my hope?”
In fact at the very wedding night,
His father, his wife did elope,
Since then he did nothing but roved,
With hopeful eyes, but lips dried,
Always heaved he the sighs deep,
As a furnace worked in his breast.
 
He often named his beguiling love,
I recall a song he often sang roving,
“The scent flowed out of the vials,
They contained perfume no more,
Commodities ran short from the market,
The shops lay empty, desolate behind.”



 
The Sport-Rabbits
 
When avarice, greed and cupidity,
Sleepingly work in the hearts of the members,
Of the family living in the system combined,
They bring out axes, daggers and clubs wooden,
And rate blood: the red substance very cheap.
 
I recall one of the hurts my mother sustained,
It was the moon-night: the last eve of the Ramadan:
The month of patience, tolerance and tongue controls,
When Man nears himself God: the creator,
And is revealed secrets of the entire scheme.
 
The village folk stood on brims of the roofs,
All were gazing to the west with thrilled looks,
To welcome the Eid crescent: the harbinger of pleasures,
My dreadful uncle started bickering with my mother,
That assumed the form of uproarious quarrel.
The incensed uncle pulled out rough acacian cudgel,
Advanced unjustified to assault the exhausted woman,
Who scuttled for her life but the chaser had legs long,
And began to batter with violent aggressive blows,
The helpless woman shrieked, made calls for help,
But no one rescued from the hands of wangling champion,
And soon she lay there in the middle of courtyard,
With the injured head and a broken leg, all over bleeding,
The whole yard was sprinkled with the drops of blood,
The spot where her head placed retained a big pool,
Of the red substance: ever worthless in the human history.
 
The callous neighbouring women of the village gathered,
A few cursed the deed, but many amused themselves,
With the spectacle and might have derived pleasure too,
I stood stunned beside my bleeding injured mother.
She remained on the bed for the months six,
No supporting agent of the law came to assure justice.
 
In the days of winter at noons while she lay in the sun,
I played with my small friends and ran around her bed,
And often I helped her in turning the side when it pained,
Once I stood beside her bed with the thumb in my mouth,
 She cryingly said,
“We have been sent in the world of monsters,
Where the mighty prey upon the weak fearing no law”,
Now when I stand on the brim of grave, it is realised,
It is true; it is true, undoubtedly it is true.
The potent individual preys upon the weak,
The fierce families make the poor their victims,
The atrocious nations make the feeble their sport-rabbits.
 
 

 
The Discovery
 
In the wall-less wide dusty yard,
My heart urged to be amused,
But I found nothing around,
And would play with toyless hands.
 
Standing in middle of the drawn ring,
I moved my body round and round,
Stretching arms like a Turkish dervish,
Who tends to gain ecstatic heights,
Till made me giddiness thumping fall.
 
Lay I with forcefully opened eyes,
Watched the trees, houses and ricks,
Running around making sacred circles,
As if I were the pivot of the world,
And all they the tributing pilgrims.
 
The figures then slowed, slowed down,
I rubbed my eyes and pondered finding,
The circling objects standing still,
Ah! At the discovery I was shocked,
By the circling world I was mocked.       

 

 
 
 On The Fall Of Dhaka
 
When we all were small girls and boys,
And played with dolls, and ball like toys,
Were often asked to drift and lead the cattle;
To the nearby meadows, farms and forest,
To have them grazed from morn to eve,
And freshened them with the water clean.
 
We the little masters of cows, goats and sheep,
Letting them loose sat at the top of a mound,
Among the old reverend shepherds,
Who told us the tales of olden times;
Ups and downs of the world they had seen,
How they fought the World War Second,
How they did see the roaring fighter jets;
How the rumbling sounds of the shells,
Did resound and reverberate in the valleys,
How they did watch meadows, fields and farms,
Littered with the human blood flesh and shreds,
How the two shining glaring cities of Japan,
Were obliterated casting perpetual horror.
 
One day as we sat in the sunshine of December,
Among us someone broke the depressing news,
That our one hundred thousand sons of the land,
Spotting, smudging, smearing the whole history,
Surrendered themselves throwing the weapons.
 
We the little masters of cows, goats and sheep,
Sat sad and silence prevailed wrapping us all,
As in the days of frost often fog envelops,
The visible objects and blurs the beauties,
The waves of rage and wrath formed and broke,
Emerged and submerged in the ocean of heart,
Then someone of us set a bush on fire,
We all then ran, made the torches of the sticks,
And soon the whole forest was on fire,
We all wished the entire world be burnt,
For we had lost our dear Dhaka.
 

 
 
Revision
 
Often I flip back the pages,
Of the bulky book of time,
Revision rakes afresh
The dormant memories,
Pleases or makes me sad,
Pangs begin bubbling,
Pleasures spring up again,
As subterranean channels
Find out from fountains
Their way when dug deep,
Or blocking ooze is removed.
 
Who knew cheerful lass,
Walking with a frolic gait,
All alone in the deep forest,
Offering ripe sweet berries,
Plucked with the soft hands,
Streaked, stippled, scratched,
Spotted with the dew of blood,
And who clang on listening,
To the fluttering birds in the trees,
The stirring rabbits in the bushes,
Would be my love my mistress,
And break the heart in twain,
The waves of time would drive
Us apart never to see again.




A Visit To The Deserted House

 
Ah! The ties of the golden age have been razed,
Removed by the sharp double edged razor of time,
The whole period swings before my invisible eyes,
The memories spring up like impatient mushrooms,
Out of the heap of memories:  undisturbed scrap.
 
I see the faint, faded image of my mother sitting,
Exhausted on the sill of the door, engrossed,
Absorbed in profound thoughts devising the device,
To encounter the reserved worries of tomorrow.
I see my father sitting on the cot, drowsing leaning,
Against the wall in the sweet sunshine of winter,
And sometime an abrupt snort jerks, awakes him.
 
I behold my uncle in one corner weaving baskets,
With the mulberry wet flexible sticks bending them,
And twisting, recollecting the strength of all muscles.
 
I see a few hens clucking in the mud-plastered yard,
Tempting, attracting the chicks to the scattered crumbs,
The baby goats dozing, nodding sluggishly in the sun,
The young fluffy soft dog woofing, growling, yapping,
At each extraneous and unconcerned disturbance.
 
I hear the chorus of muffled, miscellaneous sounds,
Of cattle while they were led to the green meadows,
And they passed through the street in unending train.
 
Who cast an evil wicked eye upon the pastoral land?
That pleasures and sweet joys are jailed, imprisoned,
Behind the bars of avarice, cupidity, self-indulgence,
And desertedness hums over the bloated corpse of life.
 

 
 
A Guiding Whisper

 Ah! My mind often brings me behind,
To the unpolluted visionary age,
When my heart wished to dissolve,
Physical entity of my own being,
In the burning passion: love of God.
I wished to melt or freeze myself,
Standing in the scorching sun,
Or in the cold winds chilling the bones,
On some sandy rock to worship,
To adore Almighty shedding beads of tears,
That might make channels on my cheeks,
And spend the span of life with angelic modes,
But some time a low guiding whisper,
Emerging from some deep recesses,
Of the fathomless world of inner-self
Would spring up to converse to me,
“Picking up a few thorns from the path,
Where from advances mankind,
With bare sore feet is much better,
Than the seclusion of seventy years.”
 
 
 
 
The Old Mother Smiled
 
Now the spheres are sooty sable, 
Man has adulterated Nature with His murky works, 
Black rains pour down from the heavy clouds, 
And rain-drops fall down not to wash 
But to discolour and deform us more, 
To broaden blackness on the surface of the Earth, 
The downpour seems to be 
The harvest of our own transgressions. 

Ah! I remember the time of my childhood, 
When polluted contents 
Hadn’t enveloped yet rotundity of the Earth. 
In summer and spring times often after the rainfall, 
When the skies around the Ball became too clear, 
I felt enclosed in a huge transparent multicolour globe, 
And discovered the rainbow in the sky. 

While standing on the Earth I imagined 
The Old Mother of humanity oscillating with full splendour 
On the swing made of ropes of seven colours, 
Smiling on contentment of the children underneath.




Replacement
 
Amid the village is a deserted house, 
That gives depressing impressions to the onlookers, 
The windows and doors are shabby broken
There dangle bats on walls at nights, and crows caw
At noon in the branches where nightingales sang, 
And often at nights mysterious sounds we hear.

Ah! Four decades ago it was inhibited, 
Noise of the children spilled out of its walls, 
They all played hide and seek with the befriended kids.
I too played believing in the innocent notion 
That time and tide couldn’t part us asunder, 
Whether rains rain and clouds thunder, 
But my self-assumed belief proved fragile, 
Then the shocking moments approached, 
And occupants departed to a better dwelling abroad.

I often recall the moment when they departed,
The whole village gathered, men, women and children wept, 
Their eyes were red as if blood would drop soon; 
They were kissing, embracing the departing fellows, 
I wept too stealthily, and felt as if my soul was being torn apart.

Now after many years their descendants come and go,
Nobody receives or bids them farewell, nor do they bother anyone,
And each time they visit, they replace on the gate,
The rusty lock with the new one.
 



The Snatchers
 
When I was a kid, and at noon hungry,
My mother gave me a bit of bread
And I ate moving in the street only in a shirt,
And sometime went
To the farther end of the street
But the crows
Sitting on the surrounding walls
Or edges of the roofs dived
One of them snatched the piece
And other cawed on the walls,
Or in the trees or on the roofs.
 
I returned weeping and wailing
Clang to my mother,
Who wiped my tears
With a corner of her clout
And gave me another,
Reprimanding that I should eat
Sitting beside her
While she churned milk;
And I sat in her shade
In the dusty courtyard
Extending my naked legs on the ground
And ate the piece with relish.
Now I am a grown up man,
My mother has passed away
No one is to wipe my tears,
I earn my bread
The crows still dive to snatch the pieces,
But now they don’t caw on the walls,
Or in the trees or on the roofs.
But they sit either on a throne,
In the assembly or senate halls
Or chambers of commerce
Or live in the societies of defence.
 
 
 

To The Shadow Of My Own
 
I remember you my attendant,
You have been with me since I was born;
I recall the moment when I saw you for the first time,
I was appalled thinking you some small agent
From a fairy-land, all time spying me,
Then I ran and ran to leave you behind
But you ran too as fast as I could,
And I exhausted, out of breath fell into the lap
Of my mother where you were no more.
You all the times in my childhood remained with me,
In front, behind or beside. In the morn and eve
You were stretched in lengthwise 
And at noon you shrank like a coiled snake.
In the days when I led cattle to the pasture,
In the evening I measured you with my bare feet,
Sometimes you lengthened more than fifty yards.
In my whole life you have been
Imitating me in my modes and manners,
I walked, you walked too; I stopped, you stopped too;
When I sat, you squatted too;
I assumed no one but you were an inseparable figure,
And so I passed my life in the same belief.
Alas! It was my false faith in you,
Now I am being drawn to the dark cave, utterly murky,
You will vanish like a fair-weather friend,
Leaving me behind all alone,
My deeds either good or bad will replace you.
Adieu! My attendant,
See you again hereafter in the celestial world.
 
 


A Collective Grave Of Traditions
 
I have journeyed
A way long way,
On never ending
Route of time
I have left far behind
My youth time,
And moments mixed
Bitter and sweet,
Mild and harsh.
I remember the sturdy
Village folk,
Men and women
Of the past years,
With whom I worked
In my childhood,
When came back
After the school hours.
 
In the month of May,
Beneath the hot sun,
They thrashed wheat
With yokes of oxen,
To change straw
Into heap of hay,
And separate
Grain from the silage,
With rural instruments:
Flails and rakes.
Whole the day
We moved, move around,
Catching cord
Of the inner ox of each yoke,
All the time
Pulling them inward,
Lest they should break
And go astray,
Behind them they dragged
Rough whoopers,
Made of bushes
Inter-twined with grass or straw.
 
The muscular farmers
Raked the circle of trodden straw,
Time and again,
The old women brought meals twice:
One at the noon
And the other afternoon,
And we all ate with a profound relish;
The taste that the meals gave,
Never was found
Even at the five star-hotels.
When evening befell
We all gathered hay, in longitude
Like a collective golden grave,
And at night we all assembled
For the great feast at farmer’s house
Whose wheat was thrashed.
 
Now I go through years
Of the mechanical age,
And no one is alive
Among those men and women,
When I sit alone,
The memory of those moments,
Stings me like tingles
Of the golden snakes,
I often recall brawny village folk,
With the invisible eyes
See them working, in the gain-yard
With turbans on their heads,
Rakes and flails in hands
Or on their shoulders,
I also see my mother,
At a the distance, bringing
Contents of meal on her head,
My appetite begins to grow,
And mouth begins to snivel, 
I see them all making
A grave-like heap of hay,
In the grain-yard as if they make
A collective grave of traditions.
 
 
 
 
On Harvesting
 
Life is fleeting,
Its days and nights when pass
Leave behind a stock of memories,
I recall time when I was a child
And I harvested wheat along with
My parents, uncles, brothers and sister
We used to sit in a long line and divide
The crop in rectangular long pieces,
And our sickles moved vigorously.
Sometimes my fingers were injured
Or bruised, my mother tore
A piece of her anchal
Wrapped around my fingers
And lovingly asked me to be heedful.
Then a time came we harvested,
When my brother and I were married,
Two more reapers were added to the family,
It was the loveliest time we had had,
My father was averse to harvesting,
He often avoided the work
And moved on edges of the farms,
When my mother exhausted
She stood akimbo surveying the crop,
And I often looked at the route
Where from my aunt brought lunch,
At noon we had meal
With oven-baked loaves smeared
With butter; lassi, sauce and hacked onions
Were other items of the lunch.
Then we snoozed in the shade
Of mulberry or sissoo tree, the short sleep
We enjoyed ourselves on the grass,
Even the kings mightn’t have tasted
On the cozy beds made of ivory or gold.
 
Then a long pause of time ensued,
I did nothing worth-mentioning
Today after thirty years
I again performed the pastoral practice,
On the same farms but with sons
And daughters, nieces and nephews,
The changed young reapers,
No one was there from the older ones,
My parents, uncles
And the eldest brother are no more
In the world, but in imagination,
I felt them all sitting in line, my mother
Standing akimbo surveying the crop, 
My father avoiding the work
Lingering on the edges with slow steps, 
Uncle doing the double job:
Reaping and managing the cattle,
My mother leapt tearing a rag
From her anchal to bind my finger
When the sickle gave me again a fresh cut.
My melancholic deepening mood
Taught me well, we all are peasants,
We sow and reap turn by turn,
And when harvest is done we leave
To snooze in the cool shade,
Either of mulberry or sisso of Death.



1]  Marriage procession
[2]  A wooden decorated frame attached with two long bamboo shafts to carry the bride.
1   A thin colourful piece of cloth to cover the head, used by the continental women and girls.  
1  A crude play performed before the wedding to amuse the participants in olden times.
1  One of the small pieces attached to the anklets to produce musical “chink” like sounds when dancers beats feet on the ground.
[2  The romantic characters of a folk tale.