History of Nations

 

Look at the history of any nation

What is there to be proud of?

The entire history of human race

Is one of exploiting the others!

 

The entire history of human race

Is one of looting from each other!

The entire history of human race

Are rivers of blood from the wars fought!

 

Full of the sense of the terrible

A congregation of demons and ghosts

The entire history of human race

Is roast-eating alive the deprived!

 

The mighty have turned the meek

Into slaves!

Murderers have made name

In history as rulers of the earth!

 

Search the whole earth!

Not a single place which is not a battlefield!

Past was drenched in blood

If not in tears!

 

Families that have gone cold

Crowds that were destroyed, 

Groans of helpless people

Resound in the course of history!

 

Enmity, selfishness

Cunning, jealousy, competition

Fraud, impersonations

Have marked the course of history!

 

Chenghiz Khan, Taimurlene,

Nadir Shah, Ghajni, Ghori

Whatever is the name

Each of them a great murderer!

 

Vikings, Huns,

Sindhis, Parsis

Pindars, Thugs have built 

A bridge of swords across time!

In the dark age of ignorance,

In hunger, anger

People provoked by

Unknown force rose up in arms!

Everything is their achievement

They are the rulers of the world,

Established their kingdoms

Made and enforced many laws!

 

All these collapsed like a pack of cards

When other forces raised their heads

History was born

When these forces clashed with each other!

 

The prolonged deceit,

Exploitations of the mighty

 Schemes of the rich

Cannot go on, even now!

 

The social order where

One man on the other

One race on the other

This atrocity cannot go on any further!

 

Ricksha puller in China

Mine worker in Czech

Ship slaves in Ireland

All the oppressed helpless ones,

Hottentot, Zulu, Negro-

Races across the continents

With one voice proclaim

The historical reality!

 

Why was what war fought

How long each kingdom lasted

Dates and documents

Do not give meaning to history!

 

This queen’s saga of love

The cost incurred in that war

Politics and declarations

Are not the essence of history!

 

The stories that were lost, unseen,

In the dark corners of history must

Now be revealed!

A truth that cannot be hidden!

 

In the civilization around the river Nile

What was the life of a common man like?

In the construction of Taj Mahal

Who were the coolies that carried the stones?

 

In the battles fought for royals

What was the courage shown by a common soldier?

Not the palanquin ridden by the kings

Who were the people that carried it?

 

Taxila, Pataliputra,

On the shores of the Mediterranean,

Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro

Cave fronts of Kro-Manyan

 

In the twilight zones of history

How did man’s story evolve?

What nation achieved what goal

During which period?

 

What sculpture, what literature?

What science, what music?

What light is the destination for this journey?

What dream and what victory its goal?

 

 

Kavita! O Kavita![11]

 

Kavita! O Kavita!

In my youthful ambitions

Surrounded by the aura of fragrant flowers

In the days when I thought of you as

A beauty that one can meet in auspicious moments

In a beautiful garden, a beauty unreachable!

The one that wanders on the paths of the sky!

For you, my life a tapas[12]

In my quest those minutes, that intoxication

Your form invisible surrounded as you

Were by the circles illusionary, feign.

 Weren’t there times when I pined for you in my

My cave, my pit, my darkness, in loneliness?

 

Under your influence

In my trained glances of perpetual pursuit

In trances tranquil

In my brain which hung like

Flowered arch of heaven

What roars what languages and what pictures

Passed through?

What colourful and strange shades of

Light and darkness did I see?

Through what energies did

My song acquire life?

The collectives of battle cries from all the corners

In sounds I had chosen for you;

In the cloudy midnight sky

Full of rain, the trumpets of the conch

The beat of the drums in the

Ferocious winds that reverberated in the

Waves of the mid-ocean;

 

That same night,

In the thick of the forests

Are they cries of different animals

Crossing the boundaries of any rhythm?

The deep inner endless music

Within the stars,

Earthquakes, the collapse of governments

Rebellion, war

Everything in your consciousness,

The appearing as of your cosmic form

 

Are they then the pictures that my mind’s eye shows,

The commentaries I hear                

When I think of you?

The diamond that blossomed in the pond of fire

The flying metal horse

The music of the drum

In the feverish cannon

 

What else did I hear?

In the sleepy midnight

The inner music of a young mother, dreaming-

Hugging her infant, just born, 

The sound of the infant dreaming

Of an ancient life in strange sleep,

In the hospital the sound of the blood flowing

In the veins of a patient lying with closed eyes

With the trance of the surgeon’s spell

In the twilight zones between life and death;

The mad ravings of an alcoholic

Slipping into a drain in an inebriated state!

 

The starving stomach of a prostitute

In wild demonic sex with half closed eyes

Her sad experiences erupt in music, terrible

The secrets that a head, beheaded, reveal

A mad man’s crazy mind sees cinemas

And cries out, like a wolf

The workers who have gone on strike

The fires of hunger, the cries of the wives

And children of workers on strike

 

Screams! Cries of anguish

The words of one million stars

The songs of one billion waterfalls

A hundred thousand echoes of waves of the sea

I heard them! I heard them all, My Mother!

The things I saw and heard

They came

In great numbers

Crossing the graveyards like lexicons

Breaking through the chains of grammar

Leaving the tight python-like hold of the meter

They came, the words

In a fast pace, running, galloping

They entered my heart!

In that whirlwind circles of words

That manifested the change

In what streets I wandered

Going in circles when

In the music I thus created

My sins and weakness purged

And a joyous exhilaration filled my heart

 I awakening for you and with all my senses alert

Whatever I wrote saw

Breathed, my life entering a trance like

State of Samadhi[13]

The inspiration that mesmerized me

Surrendering to that divine experience

The music that emerged by

The meeting of love under the star crazed…

My veins as the strings of veena

The kiss of the divine music

At the end of my life, death at my doorstep

The procession of those instruments of music

That held me in the wild grip like an eagle’s beak

The music transcends the joys and sorrows

A wonderful, profound, thoughtful, unparalleled

Solitary, unique, transient and eternal moment divine!

The Muse’s heart who has given me this bliss

Melting my heart, Grace Incarnate,

Kavita! O Kavita!

 

Perhaps on the day

You created hunger feeding

My ego while I was in my mother’s womb

Shapeless and sleeping,

Infusing life to my inner and outer senses

And sensibilities

As I entered this world

Experiencing the joys and sorrows

And as traveller and a mendicant was

In this world’s journey

Going about in confusion

You, Kavita, appeared with a hand of assurance

Drew me into your fold

Made me clean and pure!

The Graceful and The compassionate,

Anupamita, One with no parallel

 

Aparimita, One who is limitless!

Kavita! O Kavita!

 

Now, today, can you hear the sighs

Behind my bold imaginations?

That I will write some things and

That my writings would reflect my world

My passion shall reach fruition and

My songs will reverberate in the hearts

Of my race as an incantation

I strive to bring my sky closer to my world

 My ideas will be the sparks that light the diamonds

Which I shall share with my brethren

The ends of your stole

Fluttering causing waves

My word as your temple

My song as an offering to you

I will offer heartily

My creative fragrance sprinkled 

As pollen from flowers!

Oho! Delight divine! Treasure trove! Mother! O Kavita!

Kavita! Kavita! O Kavita!