To Be Wordless

Kunwar Narain8217;s verse conveys what prose may not

No Other World: Selected PoemsKunwar Narain
Translated by Apurva Narain
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Kunwar Narain8217;s verse conveys what prose may not

Kunwar narain is one of the finest Hindi poets of his generation, a meditative poet of unsurpassed brilliance. His poetry is an astonishing combination of deep thought and controlled lyricism. It is profound, but lightly carried; never for a moment forgetting that a poem is not a self-indulgent exercise, but a compact between the reader and the poet to ascend to a point of self-consciousness where ordinary prose cannot. There is a fundamental honesty in his oeuvre. Despite its depth of engagement with different facets of existence, it is poetry, that unusually for its age, is meant to be read aloud; its aural quality as much a part of its force as its meaning.

Poems like 8220;Chakravyuh8221; or 8220;Lucknow8221; have this double effect: a profound unfolding of meaning made more forceful by the peculiar rhythms and metre in which they are expressed. The range is also impressive: at times deeply, but never inaccessibly, philosophical; at times engaged in a minute observation of nature; at times a subdued political protest; at times an ironic engagement with history; at times an engagement with one8217;s own inner demons.

Kunwar Narain is quietly unsettling, his revolt all the more effective because he gradually builds up to it. What Shrilal Shukla once said about his stories is equally true of his poems: they end by jolting you in an unprecedented way, leaving you 8220;wordless8221;. But it is this wordlessness that has a far more profound effect on you than the torrent of words that others hurl at you. But it is also poetry of quiet affirmation, a penetrating scepticism, whose purpose is not to destroy, but generate clarity.

Translations are never easy. Much of Hindi poetry and its references depend on grasping specific words in the context of a tradition. For instance, how does one translate the wonderfully evocative line in 8220;Lucknow8221;, 8220;shaame awadh ko shaamate awadh ki tarah bitaya8221;? Or give the technical resonances of the term ulatbansi in 8220;Aaj Ka Kabirdas8221;? But it is a measure of Kunwar Narain8217;s accessibility, and the success of these translations, that they mange to overcome these challenges. Apurva Narain8217;s translation will definitely set a new benchmark. The translations are luminous, evidence of someone having wrestled with the inner meaning of the poems. The judgment calls, on when to translate and when to paraphrase, when to emphasise rhyme and when to privilege meaning, are very well made. For those not fluent in Hindi, the translations will serve as outstandingly readable poems in their own right. And for those fluent in Hindi, they open up new vistas of interpretation. This volume has both the Hindi and the English versions.

Those familiar with Narain8217;s work might quibble over one or two omissions, but on the whole the selection is judiciously made and insightfully organised around themes 8212; early meditations, rough roads of history, journeys, the river does not grow old, trees, an intriguingly titled section, mirrors and shadows, remembrances and humanesque, all titles that give a fair sense of their content. Many of the poems have their share of surprises: a minute observation often moves on to an unexpected thought, like ruins leading to a meditation on the ironic nature of history.

If there is a dominant theme in this selection, exemplified in the admonition in 8220;Abhinavagupta8221;, it is a sense of the world that can never be fully made. It is not a message of despair, but a mode of self-clarification. 8220;Chakravyuh8221;, on the death of Abhimanyu, has the searing line, in translation, 8220;the brave guardians of the siege/ who sided with their own, not the truth/ were cowards bent on deception.8221; 8220;Sided with their own/ not the truth8221; 8212; an apt description of our political condition.