Hindu Mystic Writings

The mystic poet

Hazrat Amir Khusrau of Delhi was one of the greatest poets of medieval India. He wrote in both Persian, the courtly language of his time, and Hindavi, the language of the masses. The same Hindavi later developed into two beautiful languages called Hindi and Urdu. A disciple of famous Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, Khusrau’s contributions towards the development of Qauwalli , South Asian Sufi music, and Indian Islamic mystic culture, Sufism, were very important. He is also credited with the invention of Sitar and many other musical instruments. Khayal and Tarana, two popular forms of Hindustani classical music, are believed to have been discovered by him. Amir Khusrau is also remembered as a founder of the Ganga-Jamani Tehzeeb or the Indian culture “which is a synthesis of Muslim and Hindu elements.”

By writing in Persian, Khusrau reached out to the upper crust of society. For the masses, he wrote his poetry in Hindavi. Across north India and in Pakistan, even now, we come across Khusrau’s poetry on a daily basis (remember his geets , qauwallis and riddles) but sometimes we are not aware that it was written by him. At times, he had beautifully mixed these two languages. The best example is Zehal-e-miskeen makun taghaful, duraye naina banaye batiyan; ki taab-e-hijran nadaram ay jaan, na leho kaahe lagaye chhatiyan . (Don’t be heedless of my sorry state/ He rolls his eyes, he makes excuses/ For I cannot bear the separation, Why won't he take me in his arms?) Here the translators have tried hard to provide us the exact meaning of the poem but how can he translate the lilting effect of the Persian words or the melody of the Hindavi or Brijbhasha phrases. Nobody can. In other words, translating a poet like Khusrau — specially his Hindavi poems which are rooted in the Indian folk culture — will always be a difficult task..

The same constraints must have been faced by Paul Losensky and Sunil Sharma, the translators of this wonderful volume titled In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau . Paul Losensky who teaches Persian literature at Indiana University has translated the Persian ghazals.

Sunil Sharma, a professor of Persian and Indian Literatures at Boston University, has taken care of rather more difficult and almost untranslatable Hindavi poems. The translators have done a commendable job by taking Khusrau to those readers who do not understand Persian and Hindavi. At some places, however, the duo has gone for literal translation rather than trying something poetic. Further, if the original texts of the poet have been included, particularly in the case of Hindavi poems, side by side of the translations, it would have given more pleasure to the readers familiar with Hindavi or Persian.

Brooks Lampe | Hindu Surrealism: George Kalamaras | the the poetry ...

. The poems are stoic, even, one might feel, mechanical. The method is pretty clear: self-contained sentences/lines that center on a contradictory or surreal image are placed almost at random into an anti-narrative, illogical sequence. The subject matter “emerges” through the images and linguistic gestures, relying heavily on symbolism and archetypes in a style reminiscent of Deep Image poetry. Formally speaking, it’s pretty formulaic stuff, which is probably why I feel guilty for loving it so much.

By writing each poem exactly the same way, Kalamaras creates remarkably even-handed and meditative thought “progressions.” Some images have little effect, but often he “hits it” for several lines, and it’s just “whoa!”:

Perhaps a more contemporary move, Kalamaras mixes in the occasional verbal gesture, pastiche, or otherwise “flat” sentence to vary his register. This is a good idea, in my opinion, as it juxtaposes various linguistic modalities, extending the disparity to language and not just imagery. It’s also pleasant aesthetically for reasons I don’t feel awake enough to articulate:

I think the future of surrealism is in Language poetry, whereby surrealism’s psychological and metaphysical starting points merge with the theoretical and rhetorical modality of Language poetry. This would imply a move away from the Romantic ego as the author of the text, a position reflected in Kalamars’s non-egoistic voice, as he withdraws himself from the lyrical surface of his work. The mechanical, almost inhuman speaker of these poems, nevertheless, “chances” upon the occasional magic. So, while Bly and Deep Imagism is a fair comparison on many levels, Kalamaras forgoes self-consciousness, pretending not to know his phrases (such as the book’s title) are just as delicious as the butterflies on the cover.

And one can only hope to get a blurb like this: “ The name Kalamaras means, as everyone knows, He Who Channels the Throat Songs of the Inflamed Detectives of Southern Surreality.” has both the critical edge of a good journal and the informal, discursive nature of a blog. Readers and their comments are a valuable part of this blog, and we heartily encourage comments that spur debate, provoke self-examination, or attempt to expand upon the ideas from the posts themselves.

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