I’ve been doing some research on Indian writers from the 1930s-1960s for a long-term scholarly project, and in the process I’ve been learning a bit about Hindi and Urdu writers I didn’t know about earlier. In Hindi in particular, I’ve been interested in the “New Poetry” (Nayi Kavita) Movement, with a small group of experimental writers adapting the western, free verse style to Hindi. (I may talk about some other topics later in the summer if there is interest.)<\/p>\n\n
For a little background on Hindi literature in the 20th century, you might start with Wikipedia; it’s not bad<\/a>. The New Poetry movement came out of a general flowering of Hindi poetry from the early 20th century, a style of poetry known as Chhayavad<\/i><\/a> (Shadowism). Mahadevi Verma is one of the best known writers in this style; another notable figure is Harivansh Rai Bachchan<\/a>, Amitabh Bachchan’s father (and actually quite a good poet).<\/p>\n\n For me, the Chhayavad poetry sounds a little too pretty (“precious,” as they say in Creative Writing class), though I must admit that part of the problem is that I simply don’t have the Hindi vocabulary to be able to keep up with the language the Chhayavad poets tend to use. I prefer what came after, especially the New Poetry movement. The “New Poetry” style roughly resembles the modernism of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Hilda Doolittle in English literature. The language is stripped down and conversational, rather than lyrical. Some poets, like Kedarnath Singh, focus intently on conveying, with a kind of crystalline minimalism, pure images. Others are somewhat more conventional.<\/p>\n\n Below the fold, I’ll give some examples of a few favorite poems from the “New Poetry” movement, with several poems in both transliterated Hindi and English. [UPDATE: Look in the comments for three poems directly in Devanagari]\nMy source today is mainly Lucy Rosenstein’s “New Poetry in Hindi”<\/a>, which is available on Amazon for interested readers. (The nice thing about this volume is Rosenstein’s choice to print both the Hindi originals as well as her translations.)<\/p>\n\n In her introduction, Rosenstein describes how modern poetry in Hindi emerged after 1900, with Mahavirprasad Dwiwedi’s promotion of poetry in Khari Boli Hindi<\/a> (earlier, poetry had mainly been written in Braj Bhasha). There was an early spurt of nationalist poetry, but, partially under the influence of English Romantic poetry (Wordsworth and Shelley), a movement calling itself “Chhayavad” emerged in the 1920s. Here is an example of a few lines in the Chhayavad style, from Sumitranandan Pant’s<\/a> Almore ka vasant (Almora Spring):<\/p>\n\n It may be that my own limited Hindi renders poems like this somewhat inaccessible, at least in the original. More generally, operating from the translation, I put poems like this under “sounds pretty, but…” (That’s my personal taste. I have friends who love writers like Pant and Mahadevi.) After the Chhayavad movement, the dominant stream in Hindi poetry seemed to split into two in the 1930s, with Progressives in one camp (Pragativad), and Experimentalists in the other (Prayogvad). Progressive Poetry was part of a major movement in Indian literature that began in the 1930s. This movement is usually called the Progressive Writers Movement, and it had major literary communities in fiction, drama, as well as poetry; it also had offshoots in many different South Asian languages (earlier I have written about some Urdu writers loosely affiliated with the Progressive Writers, Sa’adat Hasan Manto, and Ismat Chughtai). As the name indicates, this was writing largely motivated by a desire to make a political intervention. A fair amount of the writing was anti-colonial, and much of it was oriented to social and economic reforms within Indian society. Just after the Progressive trend in poetry began in the 1930s, a much smaller group of Hindi writers initiated a new, experimentalist style. Much of this writing avoided big political themes in favor of more abstract meditations. (Importantly, many of the writers in this movement overlapped with the Progressive Writers, and some were card-carrying political activists (i.e., communists). They simply didn’t bring themes from the political world into their writing. Initially the movement was spearheaded by Agyeya (also sometimes spelled Ajneya in English; his real name was Sacchidananda Hirananda Vatsayan), beginning with an anthology called Tar Saptak, in 1943. Agyeya (whose pen-name literally means “Unknowable”) is a really interesting character. He was educated at home initially, as his father didn’t believe in formal schooling, though he did go on to get a Bachelors of Science at a British college. He also started an M.A. in English, but didn’t finish, after he got involved in the independence movement. According to Rosenstein, Agyeya spent three years in jail (1931-1934), which proved decisive in terms of his development as a poet. He was a mass of contradictions – widely recognized as an activist and political leader, Agyeya was also deeply solitary in some ways. Raised as a traditional Brahmin, he also exemplified modernism in his intellectual and literary output. Here is an example of Agyeya’s poetry, in the Experimental (“New Poetry”) style: Another favorite New Poetry writer is Raghuvir Sahay, who came of age a generation after Agyeya. Here is an example of a Raghuvir Sahay poem I really like: Another poem in Rosenstein’s collection that clicked with me is by Shakunt Mathur, one of the leading female lights of the Experimental\/New Poetry movement. For now, I’ll just post Rosenstein’s English translation of a Mathur poem: (I can post the Hindi if there is interest.)<\/p>\n\n Clearly a feminist sensibility! Incidentally, in Hindi some of the lines rhyme, which Rosenstein reproduces in her translation. The language is simple but elegant and the picture she’s painting seems true – and this combination is what I like most about the “New Poetry.” Finally, here is Vinay Dharwadker’s translation of Kedarnath Singh’s “On Reading a Love Poem”. This poem isn’t included in Rosenstein’s volume, though several other wonderful Kedarnath Singh poems are in her collection. Kedarnath Singh (b. 1934): ON READING A LOVE POEM<\/p>\n\n I hope you enjoyed at least some of those poems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been doing some research on Indian writers from the 1930s-1960s for a long-term scholarly project, and in the process I’ve been learning a bit about Hindi and Urdu writers I didn’t know about earlier. In Hindi in particular, I’ve … Continue reading Vidrum ou, markat kee chhaya,
\nSone chaandee ka sooryatap;
\nHim parisal kee reshmee vaayu,
\nShat ratnachhay kharg chitrit nabh!
\n\nCoral and emerald shade
\nsun’s heat first gold then silver;
\nsnow mountain scent on silken breezes,
\na hundred jeweled brids painting the sky
\n(Translated David Rubin) <\/blockquote>\n\n
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<\/p>\n\nChup-Chap<\/b>
\n\nChup-Chap Chup-Chap
\nJharne ka svar
\nHam mei bhar jay,
\nChup Chap Chup Chap
\nSharad kee chaandnee
\nJheel kee lahro par tir aay,
\n\nChup-chap chup-chap
\nJeevan kaa rahsya
\nJo kahaa na jay, hamaaree
\nTHahree aankho me gaharaay,
\n\nChup chap chup chap
\nHam pulkit viraad me Dubei
\nPar viraad hm mei mil jay
\n\nChup Chap Chup Cha … ap
\n\nQuietly<\/b>
\n\nQuietly
\nMay the murmur of water falling
\nFill us,
\n\nQuietly
\nMay the autumn moon
\nFloat on the ripples of the lake,
\n\nQuietly
\nMay life’s unspoken mystery
\nDeepen in our still eyes,
\n\nQuietly
\nMay we, ecstatic, be immersed in the expanse
\nYet find it in ourselves
\n\nQuiet … ly …
\n(translated by Lucy Rosenstein)
\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\nAaj Phir<\/b>
\n\nAaj phir shuroo jeevan.
\nAaj meine eik chhoTee-see saral-see kavitaa paDee.
\nAaj meine sooraj ko Dubte der tak dekhaa.
\nAaj meine sheetal jal se jee bhar snan kiya.
\nAaj eik chhoTee-see bachchee aayee, kilak mere kanDhe chaDee
\nAaj meine aadi se ant tak eik poora gaan kiya.
\nAaj jeevan phir shuroo huaa.
\n\nToday Anew
\nToday life started anew.
\nToday I read a short, simple poem.
\nToday I watched the sun set for a long time.
\nToday I bathed to my heart’s content in cool water.
\nToday a little girl came and shouting with delight climbed onto my shoulders.
\nToday I sang a whole song, from beginning to end.
\nLife started anew today.
\n(Translated Lucy Rosenstein)<\/blockquote>\n\n
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<\/p>\n\nYou should be beautiful, the house should be beautiful<\/b>
\n\nWhen I return home tired you should be beautiful, the house should be beautiful
\nEven if all day sweat poured
\nHowever many clothes you sewed
\nEven if the child doesn’t yield
\nAnd the potato is half-unpeeled
\n\nWhen I return home tired you should be beautiful, the house should be beautiful
\nAll storms in the house should be stilled
\nYou should look at me with eyes filled
\nWithout flowers in your hair,
\nShowy clothes, flirtatious air
\n\nWhen I return home tired you should be beautiful, the house should be beautiful
\nReclining on the sofa,
\nYou should be reading a foreign journal
\nThe house should shine like crystal
\nMy steps’ sound should startle you
\n\nDon’t write poetry, beauty, I am enough, you are loved
\nWhen I return home tired you should be beautiful, the house should be beautiful.
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<\/p>\n\nWhen I’d read that long love poem
\nI closed the book and asked —
\nWhere are the ducks?
\n\nI was surprised that they were nowhere
\neven far into the distance
\n\nIt was in the third line of the poem
\nor perhaps the fifth
\nthat I first felt
\nthere might be ducks here somewhere
\n\nI’d heard the flap flap of their wings
\nbut that may have been my illusion
\n\nI don’t know for how long
\nthat woman
\nhad been standing in the twelfth line
\nwaiting for a bus
\n\nThe poem was completely silent
\nabout where she wanted to go
\nonly a little sunshine
\nsifted from the seventeenth floor
\nwas falling on her shoulders
\n\nThe woman was happy
\nat least there was nothing in her face to suggest
\nthat by the time she reached the twenty-first line
\nshe’d disappear completely
\nlike every other woman
\n\nThere were _sakhu trees
\nstanding where the next line began
\nthe trees were spreading
\na strange dread through the poem
\n\nEvery line that came next
\nwas a deep disturbing fear and doubt
\nabout every subsequent line
\n\nIf only I’d remembered–
\nit was in the nineteenth line
\nthat the woman was slicing potatoes
\n\nShe was slicing
\nlarge round brown potatoes
\ninside the poem
\nand the poem was becoming
\nmore and more silent
\nmore solid
\n\nI think it was the smell
\nof freshly chopped vegetables
\nthat kept the woman alive
\nfor the next several lines
\n\nBy the time I got to the twenty-second line
\nI felt that the poem was changing its location
\nlike a speeding bullet
\nthe poem had whizzed over the woman’s shoulder
\ntowards the sakhu<\/i> trees
\n\nThere were no lines after that
\nthere were no more words in the poem
\nthere was only the woman
\nthere were only
\nher shoulders her back
\nher voice–
\nthere was only the woman
\nstanding whole outside the poem now
\nand breaking it to pieces
\n\n(translated by Vinay Dharwadker) [SOURCE<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n