A Farewell Poem

Haroonuzzaman

(Translation of “Veda Kabir Prasthan Kabita” by Mojaffor Hossain)

I

Like conjoined twins, Nishchintapur, a village, and the Bhairav, the near-dead river in Meherpur, were inextricably linked. With the river going wayward, year after year, the geography of the village underwent many changes. A bird’s-eye view of the locale gave it a look of a river-village, drawn on a canvas by an amateur painter. Like a snake, the river flowed in sweeping meanders while the village enthusiastically followed the river’s same winding course up to a certain point, and then it took a U-turn. On the other side, it was the grassy wilderness. As far as the eye could see, it was an endless stretch of paddy-land where, villagers believed, the sky and the land converged, and from there on, it was the beginning of a country called India. The village could stretch for some more space toward that end, but for reasons unknown, finally, it forced its way into this side.

As a result, the area of the river couldn’t become bigger on the other side; therefore, the places where the river bent, people started to build their new habitation. Wherever the river showed signs of lapsing into inertia, people snapped up parts of its body.

The enclosure on which the house of poet Veda stood was extended up to the river. They had been living there for generations. On paper, he was the owner of two bighas of land under one bounded plot of land, but Billah chairman grabbed around seven Kathas (1 Katha=720 sq feet) of land, registering them as Char (a strip of sandy land rising out of the river’s bed). Billah wasn’t an elected chairman – whether or not someone had been a chairman from his seven generations was a matter to consider. Ten years ago, once Billah had gone to the polls as a candidate for the position of a chairman, but the votes he had bagged was so shamefully minimal that it was worthy of discredit. From then on, not only Billah had been given the word ‘chairman’ as an add-on to his name but also allowed him the nod to exercise some ethereal power. On the other hand, poet Veda was least bothered about losing land. He was the only poet in the neighbouring villages; therefore, why should he need to think so much about the earthly matters – land and property? Besides, he didn’t have any children of his own; therefore, why should he have to rack his brains about what would happen to his successors? His wife – Misri Shundori – looked like a camel: long-necked, with long slender legs and broad cushioned feet. Even though her figure didn’t have an iota of charm and beauty, her parents appended the adjective ‘Shundori’ at the end of her name. Veda didn’t put in enough efforts to prune the tag-on, either. He preferred Shundori to Misri, instead. Neighbours had their best of time, poking fun at his choice. As Veda was a poet, he was not supposed to think much about trivial matters. He had more serious things to think about – he should be into poetry; he should mull over poetry. Except for Veda, there was no other poet, before or after him, in two nearby villages, including Nishchintapur – a picture-perfect village. If a person of unsound mind looked around the village observantly, he or she would become a poet. Sadly, there was none since Veda’s born days. For this reason, Veda thought he was endowed with poetic talent since his birth; therefore, being a heaven-sent poet, he considered writing poetry as his divine duty. Under any circumstances could he let his genius go off the right track being tangled up in domesticity? So he kept on sharpening his poetic skills as a matter of a daily routine. Also, he took it as the religion of the material world.

The way Veda would practise writing poetry was way different from other poets – he wouldn’t write poems with a pen on a piece of paper; he would write them in his mind. It was as though sowing and harvesting were all done in the mind! Barely did he let one or two words slip off his mouth. If someone was lucky, chances could come his or her way to be able to listen to those words. Although the people didn’t have the opportunity to listen or read his poems, his name as a poet had already spread out across the villages; even the literature-enthusiasts of Meherpur town knew his name. Also, they looked up to him in great veneration! Intermittently, surface mails would come from the town inviting him to attend literary functions there. But considering writing poems as a strictly personal pursuit, poet Veda would keep himself away from all kinds of activities pertaining to social formalities. Twice or thrice a month, he would go in for writing poems routinely – on his way to the river bank, he would take a oil-smeared pati (a finely woven mat of a kind of aquatic grass) along; with his legs folded, he would sit down in the middle of a paddy-field on some days, and he would meditate on poems. While Veda was on his way to his house, if someone asked him the question: “Why don’t you let us listen to what poems you have composed today?”, or if the same question was asked by his wife after he returned home, he would reply as a matter-of-factly: “How shall I let you listen to them? I haven’t woven the poems with words. Today I have created the poems with smell.” He would come up with different answers some days: “Today I have constructed poems with grasshoppers and about the paddy-grains when they are misted over. The colour they have produced can’t be expressed by putting them into words! With the sun peeping through a chink in a shroud of morning fog, everything gets hot enough to evaporate. If it stayed for some time, I could show it to you guys.” The day Veda would sit down on the bank of the river and if someone asked him as to whether or not he had been able to put together some poems, he would reply: “Indeed, it has been an exciting experience to dream up poems today. But whatever the poems I have created today have been with water; therefore, they have been carried away slowly by the southern wind. I couldn’t hold on to anything.”

It wasn’t always true that he didn’t weave poems with words. The day he would make up poems with words, he would voluntarily necessitate action to gather up some passers-by, beseeching them to listen to what poems he had spun with words: “Come on, let me read out my poems to you.” Of their own accord, around twenty people would come together to listen to him, not because they had special interest in poetry but because they didn’t understand what a poem was all about. The loose assemblage would constitute diverse groups of people – the educated, peasants and shepherds. After a pause, Veda would say: “It is the fathomless depth of sea; there is an unknown endless sea in the world only!…” Again there was a  slight hold-up, and then he would start walking off. After taking  a few paces forward, some people would stop him on his way and ask him: “Have you created that much only, spending the entire afternoon?” Someone from the crowd would become infuriated: “Veda, you can’t get away without letting us listen to the total poem.” Naively, he would say: “I haven’t composed the whole poem with words. The poem has a waft of air into it and has the rainbow that suddenly makes its way up the western sky. Can you tell me how I can put them into words and let you listen?”

The day people were not ready to accept no for an answer, Veda would go a bit further in his explanation: “Constructing a poem is like food made in a certain way. If vegetables are boiled, can it be mouth-watering? Don’t you think different spices are needed to be added to make it into a tasty curry? It’s the same with poems: they require spices, too. One can’t have the taste of the vegetable curry by having a look at it, one has to feel the sensation of the flavour perceived in one’s mouth or throat. Likewise, it is never enough to take pleasure in reading or listening to poems, they have to be taken in to get the message. Can you tell me how I can bring that sense of fulfilment into being and pass it round you all?” Veda wouldn’t say anything more than this.

The days he wouldn’t go anywhere to have his poems entwined with or without words, those days he would keep seated with his whole existence being stricken with dreamy languor, day and night. Sometimes, he would sleep like a log for two-three days at a stretch. After staying in between doziness and wakefulness for three days and nights and being asleep for two-three days and nights non-stop, he would wend his way across the village to go to his destination, clutching the pati in his flank. On that day, he wouldn’t talk to anyone until he returned home. If someone would ask him anything on his way back home or if his wife wanted to know something from him on his return to his home, he would either gesticulate or walk off briskly, going through the motions. Even after he came back home, he would remain filled with dreadful depth of glumness. It looked as if he had been totally swallowed up by the mixed feeling of the evanescent effect of pain after childbirth and tranquility of heart.

Poet Veda had some prestige in the village. Villagers believed that he had supernatural power to control Nature. The day he would sit down to think up poems, the Nature around him would undergo an exhaustive change. To utter amazement, villagers could see that Veda was relaxing in a seated position in the soothing and refreshing shade of Nature, while almost the entire village was simmering in red-hot sunlight. Always, Nature would arrange something special for him. In a village gathering, the comparatively younger peasants used to say that they in their own eyes had seen Veda, with his eyes closed, summoning up rain and that he had been sitting in the pouring rain, having no raindrops falling on his body; or they would say that a chunk of cloud would descend on him as if it was almost touching Veda’s head; or they used to say that some unspecified birds, at times, would sit beside him as if they had something to talk to him. This was how people gossiped about the way Veda would come up with his poems. Nobody even tried out whether it was true or false.

Veda’s wife knew it very well that he wouldn’t do any domestic chores; neither had he done any household work before. Although she was well aware of his lack of interest in family duties and responsibilities, she would constantly keep whining about it. As she would do it on a regular basis, it became her habit. In an effort to create poems, when Veda would return home after remaining slumped in a state of stupefaction for two-three days, Misri Shundori would refrain from falling-out that day, precisely. On the other hand, Veda’s mind would go pit-a-pat, and he would feel like giving Misri a hand with the tidying up. When he saw Misri not saying a single word, a sudden change in her usual behaviour, Veda on his own volition would try to strike up some sort of conversation with her. Behind the house, there were two babla (the accacia) trees – one was a young tree that had grown under the cover of the other one. Languidly, Veda would keep looking at them and would become listless. He would reminisce about his mother and about his yet-to-be-born child who would never be born, perhaps.

 

II

I was a boy from the same village. Perhaps, I heard about Veda, and perhaps not. We had our house in the same neighbourhood, far away from the river. While I had been flying a kite, the thread connecting the kite and the spool got snapped once, and someone from among us shouted: “Look, it has fallen on the thatched roof of Veda’s house!” That was the time I had heard about poet Veda first.

“A poet’s house?” I asked briefly. Nobody noticed, even I did not. I couldn’t understand how it slipped out of my mouth. Once I had heard about Veda from my mother. “Your man couldn’t be made into a human being. Tell Veda to put his mind to his family matters, giving up his mania with poems. I’ll tell your brother to arrange a plot of land for you guys.” I could understand that the woman my mother had been talking to was Veda’s wife.

I met Veda much after that incident. It was when I was supposed to go to the playground, located in the western part of our area. Our house was in the north side of the neighbourhood. To take a shortcut, I was walking along the isle in the middle of the field. All of a sudden, I could hear someone breathing deeply. A shudder went down my spine as an eerie silence descended over the area. I couldn’t muster enough courage to look around.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s me.” I turned my head around, and in close proximity, I saw Veda sitting in a corner of the paddy-field, taking up some free space. No one or nothing was around. There was only a man, wearing a tattered white punjabi (a wearable traditional clothing in the sub-continent).

When I was at the university, I resolved to write poetry. Little Magazines were publishing my poems then. Meanwhile, I along with my friends decided to bring out a Little Magazine, and accordingly, I took the initiative. One day I remembered poet Veda while I was collecting different kinds of writings from the writers. While holidaying at home, I went to Veda’s house in an afternoon.

As I was standing on the compound of his house, Veda’s wife brought me a broken chair to sit down. She told me to be careful while sitting down as one of the back legs was unsteady. Veda’s wife looked to be in poor health; also, she became grey-haired as she advanced in age. There was no resemblance between what I had seen her before and what I saw her: except for her eyes, everything changed. Meanwhile, Veda came out of his room, wearing a torn vest and a lungi (loincloth), and then he sat down on a hessian mat, spreading it out. Looking at his sitting style, I could recall that the man I had seen the other day in a corner of the paddy field was nobody but he. I couldn’t understand what I would say.

“Is your mother okay?” Veda’s wife asked me while plastering the chula (an earthen stove) with cow dung.

“Who is his mother?” Veda Chacha (uncle) said in a low voice.

“Nosiroon bubu.”

“Oh, you are a boy from the Mia family!” Veda said.

“Do you know my mother?”

“I know your father.”

“Your father was his friend.” Veda’s wife interjected with a piece of an additional information.

“Not exactly friends. We were together in a school for some days.” Veda said in a circuitous way.

“Will you let me listen to one of your poems? I have heard that you write good poems.” Listening to my words, a smile shimmered on his face only to fade away after a while.

“He doesn’t compose poems anymore. He has left doing all those creative activities.” Veda’s wife replied despondently.

“Why? Why did he give up writing poems?” I asked eagerly.

Veda’s wife didn’t reply, neither did Veda. Rest was all silence for some time. Breaking the uneasy calm, I said: “It’s alright. It is okay if I get one of his old poems. As I am bringing out a literary magazine, I’d like to publish chacha’s poems. However, I’ll come some other time to collect the poems.” As soon as I was through with my sentences, I got up to leave the place. However, they preferred not to respond. I thought the villagers would know about the reasons why Poet Veda had stopped creating poems. All should go to the bottom of the question to find out an appropriate answer as to why he had left making poems. Certainly, the reason shouldn’t be taken so lightly. Being a student of literature, I knew that it wouldn’t be possible to stop writing poems by giving a formal declaration. I went round different areas and addas (places where people gather for casual conversation) in the village to have some information about Veda. I was surprised to see that nobody knew anything about Veda. Filled with wonder, a group of people said: “He is still alive!” Some even posed a counter question: “Which Veda?” It was as if there had been no person called Veda in this village!

Among the neighbouring villages, he was the only poet – Poet Veda. How could he recede from view of the villagers? I asked my mother: “Do you know anything about it? Didn’t the wife of Veda chacha visit you?”

“After Veda had gone traceless, Misri came once. It was four years ago. She cried her heart out, continued to shed tears for some time and then left. Off and on, I send her some rice and lentil through someone. I would like to go and see her, but do I have any way out?”

“Veda had passed from sight, what do you mean? Where has he gone?”

“Nobody could come by a clue as to what had gone wrong. He ceased to be visible since the afternoon he had gone to the riverside to create poems. And he never returned. At times, it’s rumoured that he has been seen somewhere in the field or near the riverbank. What is fact is that he has never returned home.”

I didn’t say that Veda chacha had returned home. Also, I didn’t tell my mother that I had seen him in his house.

I was having a conversation with my mother in the kitchen. The next morning I woke up before dawn, and I showed up at Veda chacha’s house. Standing on the compound of the house, I could see his wife trying to spread out the stem of puishak, a leafy creeper, on the dried-up branches of a jojoba tree, situated in a corner of the courtyard.

“Sit down.” She said. Lowering her tone to show warmth, she again said: “Please be seated.” I sat down on the same chair that I had seated myself earlier. Carefully, I took my seat.

“I came to see chacha.” I said. She didn’t say a single word.

“There are some parched rice at home. Shall I give you a little?” She said after a brief pause.

“I don’t eat anything so early in the morning. I’ll go back tomorrow; that is why, I have come here to collect one of his poems.” I replied.

“Is my sister doing okay?” She enquired.

“Hmm. Not bad. She was talking about you yesterday. Don’t you visit her these days? If you go, she will be happy.”

“When your chacha was around, I would go often. I don’t get much time now. I have to do everything on my own.”

“Chacha is not around – what do you mean by that? Didn’t I see him sitting in front of you the other day. We had chatted a lot, too.”

“Always I see him. We talk to each other the whole day. At times, he takes his food with me.”

“But why did you say that he was no more?” I asked.

“One day he left. Without telling me anything, he left. When he was in the land of Nod, he would remain under a spell and say that he would disappear one day. It was as though he had something stashed away somewhere. I couldn’t make sense of his mumbling speeches. What I could only comprehend was that he would go away.”

I had seen him clearly the other day. I had seen him seated on a torn mat near my legs. He had a torn vest and a lungi on him. I had got the sniff of his body smell. This couldn’t be untrue! Even if chacha had receded from sight, surely, he returned.

Without uttering a single word, Misri released the two ducks from the clay-made cage to go toward the river and said: “Move! Come back right before noon. Go back once again right before the sundown. I’ll go myself to take you there.”

To me, the poet’s wife didn’t seem like a normal person. While I came here, she had been talking under her breath to the climbing pui-plant: “Don’t let go, hold tight! You are getting bigger; how much trouble will you give me?

I didn’t take it seriously then. I was consumed by a preternatural feeling. I was under the impression that poet Veda was sitting just beside me. I thought Veda was not more than an ephemeral name. I felt the name was reeking of stinky smell. Before getting up from the chair, I shook it hard, and a leg of the chair came off falling on the ground, without making any noise.

 

III

On my way to the university, I noted down my following observations while I was in the train:

Note-1: once Misri Shundori had given Veda a piece of her mind for his mental involvement in giving birth to poems. She herself became his poetry today.

Note-2: most probably, Veda’s passing from sight was the best poetry he could ever create.