Addictive Drinking is a ....
Third World Mentality
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Poems From A Big Book By Seori Autar |
New York, March 7, 2005: During my recent readings, I came across some wonderful writings by stalwarts of the past. In reviewing, "An Anthology of Indian Literatures," (Edited by K Santhanam, 1969), I perused through writings from various parts of India.
Poems of the East always intrigue with their historical and often mythic imagaries. Perhaps this can be attributed to the writers' ability to compare and draw from Eastern and Western works. Thus we see new creations of interesting works of art.
From Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and Bengal to Gujarat, the poetic writings and philosophical thoughts, plays, dialogues, short stories and prose works depicted shades of spirituality weaved into them -as depicted in the following Kashmiri poem by Habibullah (1555-1617).
"I surrendered completely to love,
And God is pleased with me.
Be true to love and you will have
A taste of the wine which fills the River of Life
That brought us hither; from whose waters
God hath made every living thing.
Some drink cup after cup unceasingly;
Some, while drinking, attain to the goal;
Some wait and wait, unavailingly."
The above poem talks about love's power without the mushy emotional content, and the writer is convinced that "God is pleased." Meerabai (15th Century) also talks of love -
The tribal woman offered Raama plums
biting each one
to see if it was sweet!
Low clan,
She.
Yet Raama ate them
For they were given with love,
Yet, he ate those leftovers..
As I continued reading, one Bengali short story by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay told of a monk's attempt to bring the Goddess Saraswati to earth - and he succeeds according to the story! The last poem excerpt originally written in Hindi during the late 1800s goes into an interesting dialogue between the Earth and her son. The poem is very long, so I have excerpted just the last stanza. Enjoy and keep on reading and writing!
"Earth and her Son"
by Maithili Sharan Gupta
????Son asked, Tell me mother, what is your will?
Earth replied: To see you greater and greater still
But of my teeming family
Though you are chief and occupy
The highest order, you must be
Exalted by humility
You must have the courage to lay aside
All pretensions of false pride;
Your private will you must enrol
In the militia of the whole;
All distinctions you must efface
Of caste and class, of land and race,
And as citizen of the world must be
The servant of humanity:
Not fear but love, not might but right
Must rule your thoughts and deeds aright
So rise to your full stature, stride
The unimagined heights to reach
With all creation at your side,
Each for all and all for each.
Those powers of mind that were bent upon
Destruction as their baneful aim
Shall vaunt a worthier victory won,
And I be proud that I can claim
To be the mother of such a son.
Seori Autar is a community activist in Richmond Hill, Queens.