KETEKI
By RAGHUNATH CHOUDHARY
(Rendered from the Assamese
by Prof. P. Goswami)
Translator’s
Note: Keteki is the Assamese for the Indian nightingale with
its haunting cry heard in open heaths and at the dead of night. Sri Rashunath
Choudhary’s Keteki, published in 1920, is a paean to this bird of
mysterious voice and no less mysterious presence. It consists of five ‘Waves’,
of which the first and second are here rendered into English.
The
Keteki had haunted the Poet since his childhood days. It was rather late
in life, in an orangery a few miles from Gauhati, that he was shown the bird by
a Mikir tribal dwelling there. It was a sort of revelation and the Poet set
about celebrating this voice, this mystery, which had for him the message of
sympathy and love and appeared as the awakening pulsating through the universe.
In language which is simple and repetitive as in the folk-song of the
countryside, the Poet describes the reactions produced by the bird’s music in
his mind and in the life of Nature.
The
Poet’s early life (he was born in 1879) was one of considerable suffering and
bereavement. He had a fall from the verandah and this lamed him for life; he
lost his parents, and what property he had his relatives managed to take away.
He grew up with his uncle at Gauhati. He did not marry. Late in life, before
and during the World War, he came to edit two magazines. This editorial work
brought him in touch with younger writers whose standpoint he can appreciate.
During these two or three years he has suffered considerable physical pain. He
fell twice and thus twisted his wrists, he had fever and somehow managed to
lose the power of one of his eyes. But nothing seems to daunt-him: at present
he is leading the Peace Movement of the State.
With
just a few years’ schooling, what little learning the Poet has is culled from
Assamese, Bengali, and Sanskrit sources. His greatest teacher has been Nature.
Personal sorrows and a sense of loneliness seem to have
drawn him to the beauties and soothing features of Nature;
and birds, especially, came to symbolise for him all that he
has missed in life. Before he composed his Keteki he had anticipated
this major poem in one or two lyrics on the Keteki and the dahikatara.
Rightly has he been entrenched in the Assamese reader’s heart as Bird-Poet.
In this poem is a synthesis of a Western way of looking at Nature with an
Indian way of expression. It is undeniable that modern Indian poets have been
deeply influenced by the mystical attitude to Nature of the English Romantic
Poets.
Whence have you come,
my pet,
Which way are you
flying,
and why have you come
this far distance
roaming all alone?
Shunning
habitation in this desolate region,
in
language that cannot be followed,
what
you are crying for
I
cannot make out, O bird!
What treasure, rare to
gods, have you brought?
to whom will you give
it?
or perhaps, the best
there is in this land
you are carrying away?
On
peaks of unscalable mountains
do
you make your melody,
sometimes
on banks of streams
you
break the silence.
In lone forests, in
open heaths
what do you carry
about in your mind?
where have you left
the jewel of your heart
to move about so
disconsolate?
I
cannot make out, insensitive that I am,
what
so obsesses you,
what
you wail about,
what
it is that gnaws at your heart.
Your parents, your
brothers, all you’ve left
you have left your
birth-place,
and the nest that you
made of leaves and twigs,
what magic potion made
you do so?
This
land is not the Nandan garden,
it
is not Amaravati,
there
ale so many paths–true and false,
there
is so much trouble.
Do you realize, O
bird, that in the magic forest
you are sojourning,
magicians in magic
guise will
catch your neck in
meshes?
The
snares of delusion
the
wicked hunter has laid out well;
consider
what you do, O bird,
cautiously
do you move.
You have come
expecting
some rare thing to
find, to peck at,
there’s a lot of
tempting things,
you might get
befooled!
Selfless
love you won’t find here,
you
won’t find real happiness;
who
will proffer you tender words,
who
will realize your grief?
To share your weal and
woe then
is there anyone–
mate in life, half of
your soul?
has she accompanied
you?
Though,
O bird, a puny creature you are,
and
poor in strength,
there
is in you a world of love
to
pour forth day and night.
For the welfare of the
world
did you take bird
shape,
with the pure thread
of love
the entire world did
you entwine.
It
is
that
carefully shaped you,
to
hand on the taste of love have you come
in
the guise of a divine messenger.
Reaching out your neck
this way and that
what do you peer at,
at whose separation
does your heart melt?
Whose
message have you brought, dear,
to
whom will you speak?
at
your melting voice
so
deeply I am moved.
If you have brought
news of loss
do not let us hear of
it,
if you have brought
news of union
sing out in tender
melody.
The
moment you came you entranced the seas,
entranced
the hills and forests,
with
one nectar-flowing note
you
entranced the entire world.
In desolate and desert
lands
you sang your
vitalizing song,
and in ground that was
dry and barren
you made a superb
garden.
In
the kingdom of love you became queen
and
did wonders,
pouring
streams of melody
you
decked Nature in youthful raiment.
I was deep in the
sleep of delusion,
neither sensation nor
consciousness I had,
then you sang and
roused me
and now I am wild with
joy.
In
the palace of illusion I was seeing
a
series of transient dreams,
at
your song loosened
the
ties of my obsession.
Though I was born a
mortal
following the ways of
the world,
it was your song which
taught me
of divine love and
affection...
It
is because you come with the message of love,
there
is the speech of affection,
the
soft smile, the sidelong glance;
of
the dispirited you are the stay...
It is Spring, the
mango blossoms,
the jack-fruit buds,
and the sweet-tongued
cuckoo to see you
comes with her hair
parted.
She
is not good to the eye,
her
body is black,
but
singing on the soothing fifth note
she
carries the merchandise of love.
At your music the maid
Bahagi1
decks her youthful
person,
with you comes your
associate
the cool southern
breeze.
In
the gardens, shrubs and creepers
put
on new foliage, and
making
superb arbours,
happiness
on earth they spread.
At the gate of the
tree-shaded cottage
there is the red asoka
it now pays you homage
and proffers clusters
of blossoms.
The
soft breeze stirs softly
the
greenery of grass,
how
they sparkle in the sunrays–
the
bead-like pendulous flowers!
Various fragrant
flowers
their fragrance waft
and tender you
the affectionate
greeting
they cherish in their
heart...
Alighting
on a tree at early dawn
you
sing songs of the morning,
the
silent earth rises
and
stirs wave on wave.
The dahikatara in
amourousness
frisks in various
modes,
it but memorises your
music
to pour it out again.
At
the brink of the marsh
the
chakravaka calls out,
and
the stirring music
vibrates
in the body of the wild duck.
It is at your music
that innumerable birds,
in various dulcet
tunes,
in deep forest and
wild valley,
in praise of the Lord
sing...
You
have another associate,
the
songstress maina,
she
moves gracefully among tall trees
and
sings Bihu songs. 2
The heart of the
songstress, as it were,
is full of passion,
how it perches and
sings.
how moving the music
is!
It
is you who taught wild birds
to
sing so pleasingly
and
the artless Flower-maid
to
raise her veil and see...
Your mysterious magic
voice
takes on different
shapes,
for joy and sorrow
in the same tune ring.
How
wildly you sing
at
dead of night,
how
you shoot your charm
and
hit the soul of the chakravaka!
At separation from her
lord, the sad bird
becomes mad, as it
were,
and reaching out her
neck for her love
in mistake she but
peers at you.
At
your music of separation,
the
wives that are left behind,
remember
their sojourning husbands,
and
indulge in unaccountable thoughts!
The words of love
spoken in days gone by,
the joys of meeting,
on the strings of
their tender heart
how you play those old
memories!
What
is it you sing, O bird,
that
entrances heart and soul,
that
saddens the mind
of
these poor ladies?
How at your voice
the mind of a person
responds!
I cannot describe what
he thinks,
whose image he
cherishes.
At
your voice the shy daughter-in-law
stops
weaving at her loom,
the
shuttle stays in her hand
and
speech she loses.
The same voice makes
marriageable girls
forget themselves,
and the spindle in the
spinning-wheel
stays unmoved.
Cheerfully
talking of their sweethearts,
young
girls
swaying
like the duck,
were
going to the ghat,
When stealthily flying
there
from a roadside tree,
with full passion,
what was it you sang,
that put them in a
flutter?
With
hearts yearning and enraptured,
they
stood gazing at you,
from
their hair loosened and fell
the
malatis that were there.
You stole their hearts
and flew away,
only left their minds
unsettled,
now toes that are like
champa buds
get knocked off
against the road...
1
Bahagi, personification of the Spring, from Bahag or Baisakh.
2
Springtime songs sang at the Biha festival.