Jawaharlal Nehru and the Poets.

The Discovery of India by Shree Jawaharlal Nehru, Chapter 4, Epics, history, tradition and myth. 99. Penguin books.

Gradually the days of the Vedic and other gods and goddesses receded into the background and hard and abstruse philosophy took their place. But in the minds of the people these images still floated, companions in joy and friends in distress, symbols of their own felt ideals and aspirations. And around poets wrapped their fancies and built the houses of their dreams, full of rich embroidery and lovely fantasy. Many of these legends and poets fancies have been delightfully adapted by F.W.Bain in his series of little books containing stories from Indian mythology. In one of these, The Digit of the Moon, we are told of the creation of woman.

‘In the beginning, when Twashtri (The divine Artificer) came to the creation of woman he found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation, he did as follows: he took the rotundity of the moon, the curves of the creepers, and the clinging of the tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephants trunk, and the glances of the deer, and the clustering of rows of bees, and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the kokila, and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the chakravaka: and compounding all these together, he made woman and gave her to man’.

In line with F.W.Bain, contemporary poet, J.J. Judilson writes about the practical implications and limitations of the divine artistry by the Twashtriji.

He Rules The World; She Rules Him..

Herculean was his built,
lilly-ean was she to the hilt.
Together they made the frame,
immortal, perfect to the hall of fame.

He ruled the world,
king of the herd,
she sewed him bad,
goregon to the unlucky fad.

Conquered were the nations,
manicured were her nails and mansions ,
skyward were his passions,
pampered were her bashes and bastions,
stone was he in war,
pearl he becomes in the sinful hour.

Wise ,wise,wise said the masses,
ripe,serene and silky were her trespasses,
wineful and sinful,bashful and soulful,
berserk,sinister,but only a handful,
for this monsterous,material lady,
he was just a big sugar body.

The world was his hunting ground,
he shoots the stars with his hissing sounds,
on the search for the wider horizons,
rubbing shoulders with the lesser scions.
the night brought with it a melancholy tune,
she was there with him in her ,
ant ruling a sand dune.

Miserly was he in art,
masterly was she in it, lady Mozart.
reptilian would be her ganglia,
avia would be her crania,
into his heart she will crawl and fly,
still he will be ,till the moment he dies.

The laws of nature are few and crude,
the silence, the truth is not new and few.
harsh is the reality,
mushy is the incredibility,
bickering on it will not make you a deity,
move with the flow, be it fast or slow,
he will always move the world, she will always move him,
merrily aho...

This poem was written by the author at Agfest 2006, an annual festival at college, in 30 minutes at an extempore creative writing contest. It won the first prize and the 'attention deprived' author managed to garner a few fans in the campus.

PS: This is what writer’s block does to me.

PPS: Blogger.com should allow only a certain number of posts over a period of time. Blogger.com is unfairly biased towards people with verbal diarrheas and lets them unfairly steal the limelight from the constipated ones.