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Its nature is not lithic,
Not etched,
You cannot run your fingers over it,
Malleable and foldable for some,
Yelling, “Come, come,
Buy a packet full of love…”
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From the absolute beginning
Love, not lithic in nature,
Etched if anywhere, then in atoms;
Ride like the wind to feel it;
A malleable, foldable sweet memory
For all those who fall
In love, just like in the absolute beginning.
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Unabashedly bold and free, vivacious and ebullient, adamant like the silent stone, transforming every micro-second, Nature rules… and the ones living close to it celebrate and sing, enjaaee enjaami…
Flowers shining bright, the rich yellow, orange, mahogany, red and white, the bugs, caterpillars and flies, the upside-down dancing struggling beetles, the sun-soaked green leaves, together – even when captured in a glorious painting – sing enjaaee enjaami…
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Whose is this land, this divided piece, this circled boundary, that 12 acres, that mango orchid, that dry-wet soil, that cool-cool well, that fragrance casting spell… certainly it doesn’t belong to the ones who toil round-the-clock and sing, enjaaee enjaami…
Festivities when unearthed by bare hands, the swaying harvest and booming lives of the lords, shacky mud-roofed huts full of laughs and cries… all sing enjaaee enjaami…
Grandmas and old voices together have knitted the folktales, passing it with pickles and homemade sweets, carrying it closer than a life lesson, breathing it day and night, walking and singing enjaaee enjaami…
Like a tree, like a giant tree, full of flowers, then fruits and seeds, then sweat and blood, patiently bowing, accepting it all… walks an old bent figure, bare feet, singing enjaaee enjaami…
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Jackals, parrots, elephants, reptiles, dogs, cats, butterflies… give their share back, turn around, don’t flee… those sitting on margins know Noah and the King, then who will ultimately sink? I sing enjaaee enjaami…
The fiery soul that burns itself, weeding the flower bed and burning the dead, it runs the life, it spins the earth, decorating the darkness, breathing lightly it sings enjaaee enjaami…
So how can you forget, threaten, betray, walk astray…? Come, not in repentance but acceptance for then your blinded eyes will see the majestic drama, lament if you must, cry and shed it before you sing enjaaee enjaamee…
So listen, listen to the storyteller, the old voice-heart beats well, this beat matches your beat and look, your mind watches you sing enjaaee enjaami…
Enjoy/ Enjaaee (my dear mother/ dear lady) Enjaami (my feudal lord, master) Vango Vango Onnagi (come together to reap the bounty of nature).
This wonderfully powerful Tamil song is sung by Dhee and rapper Arivu (who has also written it); the song revolves around Tamil migrants (and labourers and all our ancestors) who toiled on lands but always remained landless and suffered due to poverty; the song emphasises on how the earth, the nature is for all living beings and not for the wealthy class/ caste.
This thought-provoking, globally popular number, asks us blatantly to check if we are hurrying in the right direction.
Decode Enjoy Enjaami, read these articles –
What Arivu’s Enjoy Enjaami Tells Us About the Cultural Resistance to Caste
Enjoy Enjaami a tribute to Tamil plantation labour
Enjoy Enjaami – A welcome start, say Sri Lanka’s Malaiyaha Tamils
Enjoy Enjaami: Deconstructing the Politics Behind Arivu and Dhee’s Latest
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Wondrous are the ways of Nature
Capturing, hiding the sun in a leaf,
Revealing it in a colourful belief,
Fruits of absolute joy, a treasure.
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Giving life to all lives,
Giving shelter to all tribes,
The Nature plays a rhythm divine,
Transforming the woods into a shrine.
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Nature destroys the apathetic traders;
Blind, unforgiving, hitting with catastrophes,
Listening not to the heavens, the creators,
But to the Time that heals.
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A dense forest or a tiny plant,
Both are Nature’s marvel;
Her ethereal hands are the mantle
That blesses our lonely planet.
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This light and bright book, ‘Japan Haiku by Marti’, is a library to me that has a collection of thoughts, wise words of a wise heart.
Haiku, a form of Japanese poetry that is dated back to the 17th century, is a fruit that a poet bears in her mind. It tastes subtly sweet and brazenly true. (Truth tastes different to all people, what does truth taste like to you?)
Carrying oceans and mountains and all the seasons within, it takes me on a journey every time I visit it.
Shying away from nothing, neither life nor death, haikus sing about nature and dance in the present. They capture it fully, through the lives of those who craft it, the haikus capture the moment fully.
No less than an explorer or a monk who practices meditation, the haiku poets in ancient Japan travelled to witness the peaceful, dramatic, kind, unforgiving nature. They did not hurry and that is why could understand it all.
Fetching cold water from a deep quiet well, with wit and brevity, the haikus quench our thirsts in this manner.
I finished reading this delightful book (part of my Auroville collection) sometime back, but I knew the journey has not ended yet.
Earlier I had taken a haiku turn to meet Matsuo Basho, the master haiku poet, and today I found a hidden haiku trail that took me to visit Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali polymath.
“They reveal the control over the human emotions. However, they are never short on aesthetic sensibility. Their sense of aesthetics is marked by deep appreciation yet there is a mastery over expression.” – In Letters from Japan, published later as Japan Jatri, Tagore recorded his views on haikus and his experiences of visiting Japan.
Interested in reading Japanese literature, knowing their culture and art history, Tagore in 1915 wrote to Kimura Nikki, who had studied Bengali under him at Calcutta University, “I want to know Japan in the outward manifestation of its modern life and in the spirit of its traditional past. I also want to follow up on the traces of ancient India in your civilization and have some idea of your literature if possible.”
Knockings at My Heart is a collection of short poems by Tagore (discovered only recently and published in 2016) that highlights the impact of haikus on him.
Excerpts –
Let my life accept the risk of its
Sails and not merely the security
Of its anchor.
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The pomegranate bud hidden behind her veil
Will burst into passionate flower
When I am away.
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The mist tries
To capture the morning
In a foolish persistence.
The simplistic approach, depth of thought and brisk climactic acuity make this poetry form of the past very much of the present as well as of the future, for the passionate are always searching.
And so my journey continues.
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Fireflies, an epigrammatic poem by Rabindranath Tagore, is a perfect complement to this post.
My fancies are fireflies, —
Specks of living light
twinkling in the dark.
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he voice of wayside pansies,
that do not attract the careless glance,
murmurs in these desultory lines.
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In the drowsy dark caves of the mind
dreams build their nest with fragments
dropped from day’s caravan.
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Spring scatters the petals of flowers
that are not for the fruits of the future,
but for the moment’s whim.
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Joy freed from the bond of earth’s slumber
rushes into numberless leaves,
and dances in the air for a day.
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Read the full poem here.
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| Oceanic Waves by Cody Hooper https://www.codyhooperart.com/ |
So that the brush strokes are fine, so that the rhythm is right, so that the planet follows its trajectory, so that the Universe meets the end, everything has to be done perfectly.
Not the type of perfection that binds you, but the one which leads you to Nirvana. For perfection, concentration is a must.
One requires such a level of concentration that unites with the soul of the Universe. It then works wonders.
What is otherwise the glory of nature, the majesty of the mountains, the thunder in the sky? And evolution?
Meditation is the key, the answer to everything.
In a quiet mind, the peaceful colours of the Universe shine and bring along the eternal power.
Just a touch of this energy makes the mind sublime and supreme, no matter if only for seconds, the experience is life-changing.
If this is not Love, then what is? Loving oneself purely and believing that we all are one. The golden thread is common, it is absolute, it is present.
I remember a folk tale about a fool who once stated that he could see a bright light in everything, in everyone around him. The fool found the brightness overwhelming, he danced until he died.
People did not bother much, after all, who believes a fool, though they later started worshipping the fool.
Death of the fool became the foundation of a belief. The fool was a juggler, a perfectionist in his art.
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Though I know it is not raining
I hope it did; I am carrying
Colours of life that I wish I could
Mix in me, and then surely I would
Live. Often do people say
‘It was raining on that evil day’
I hope they won’t, because they don’t
Understand rain. They don’t feel rain.
Rainfall is the dancing of clouds and
The song of the Nature. The land
Becomes alive and happy; ‘I’ becomes
‘We’, playing with the paper boats
And all the musicians taking notes
Rain rain, rain-rain.
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Sujata – The Voice of the Unheard
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam – A tale of role-reversals and downfalls
Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (That which moves is called a car)
Mrinal Sen’s Aakaler Shandhane (In Search of Famine)
La Strada And The Round-Faced Clown
Sherni – Even in the dense jungle, the tigress knows her way.
Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Arthdal Chronicles is a South Korean fantasy drama TV series that takes us back to the Bronze Age in a mythical land named Arth, where different human species and tribes struggle to be on the top of the power pyramid.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
