Vajpayee in Verse
V.N. Chhibber
Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee
has said of his poesy: “My poetry is a declaration of war, not an
exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldier's drumbeat of despair,
but the fighting warrior's will to win. It is not the dispirited voice
of dejection but the stirring shout of victory.” In the anthology
under review we have 39 of his poems in Hindi that have been rendered
into English by Prof Bhagwat S. Goyal, a former Visiting Fulbright
Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. The learned
translator happens to have remarkable credentials having earlier translated
the poems of Odysseus Elytis and Ceslaw Milosz into Hindi.
Shri Vajpayee has had a
long innings as a parliamentarian. He has been conferred the Best
Parliamentarian of the Year award. Today, he stands out as the most
popular national leader of the country at the turn of the century.
He has a robust sense of humour. Along with his matchless oratory
in Hindi and English, he has the uncanny wont of making anybody feel
at home. He is also known for his conciliatory and amiable nature.
He has a soft corner for the have-nots and the downtrodden. These
poems are in free verse penned on different occasions.
The translation comes very close to
the original and catches the moment and the spirit of the theme. Here
are a few specimens that often capture even the subtle nuances of
the original. In No War Again, he despises the war phobia in unequivocal
terms:
We want peace as creation is our mission. We have declared war on
hunger and disease.
Let the whole world come and join us in our efforts.
The earth with all its greenery will not be allowed to bleed again.
No war again!
How his optimism and positive thinking come to the fore again and
again:
We mistook the brief halt for our destination.
The target vanished from our sight.
Caught in the lure of Today let's not forget the promise of Tomorrow.
Let's light the lamp again.
On his deep faith in Hindutva as a way of life:
My voice rings deep in the blue sky as it creates ripples in the waters
of the ocean.
From one corner of the globe to the other.
I can make the whole world fragrant and new.
Every pore of my being is Hindu In his poem
The Pain of Hiroshima, he expresses his anguish at the annihilation
of the two Japanese cities:
On some nights my sleep is suddenly disturbed.
I wake up and begin to wonder:
How could the scientists who invented the atomic weapons have slept
at night after hearing the news of the terrible holocaust in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki? In Between Song and Silence, in the vale of Kashmir
we find him a close observer of Nature spontaneously going philosophic:
The chilling breath of Time has scorched the chinar trees.
But there's a garland of trees that's not afraid of the snowfall.
The nests lie scattered though the pines look cheerful.
There are neither tears nor smiles.
I hum softly alone on the bank of the snow-covered lake.
In A New Milestone, on his 61st birthday on 25 December 1985:
Perennial is the sun, the earth imperishable only the human body goes
through the cycle of birth and death.
Therefore a new milestone in one's life is also a festival, a cause
for celebration.
Stanzas from The Sun will Shine Again penned on Independence Day during
the Emergency:
Independence Day observed amidst new slavery.
Earth parched, sky desolate minds slushed with mire muddied minds
made lotus in bloom wither and snuff out lamps one after another setting
up the reign of darkness and provoking the poet in prison to exhort:
Do not lose hope tearing the breast of night the sun will shine again.
In The Call of Independence Day, he becomes nostalgic and gives a
clarion call:
The 15th of August proclaims—
freedom is only half-won.
The dreams are yet to be realized the Ravi pledge is still unredeemed.
In We Shall Never Bend written behind bars during the Emergency of
1975, he is in a rebellious frame of mind:
We shall retaliate with our full might and risk to life and reject
the call for surrender.
We cannot stop, for everything is at stake.
We shall never bend, though we may break.
His reaction is made clear to the US-Pak Treaty in his verse, To the
Neighbouring Country:
Till the Ganga flows and the sea tides rise.
Till the fire burns and the sun retains its heat lives of countless
youth in bloom will be sacrificed at the altar of freedom.
For the publication, with its nice production credit goes to Prof
Goyal.
His painstaking and pioneering work is indeed admirable.
He has succinctly brought out the man of letters in Shri Vajpayee.
India's Prime Minister is much sought after to preside over poetic
symposia.
Not surprisingly, in informal gatherings he is often asked to recite
his own compositions which Shri Vajpayee does with a true poet's aplomb.
Kudos to Prof Goyal for introducing
the poet of a PM to people not conversant with Hindi. Values, Vision
& Verses of Vajpayee: India's man of destiny By Prof Bhagwat S. Goyal
Srijan Prakashan, R-6/233 Rajnagar, Ghaziabad - 201002 Pp xiii+203,
Rs 495 Dr Vishnu Kant Shastri The poems surging out of the depths
of the blossom-soft heart of Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, the statesman
possessing a rock-like determination harder than the thunderbolt,
not only carry away the reader like the torrid currents of rivulets
storming out of the mountain-rocks, but also inject a life-giving
inspiration into the hearts of travellers traversing the difficult
path of life, by relieving them of their thirst and weariness with
their refereshing purity, coolness and vitality.
They
normally carry the flavour of patriotic valour; but occasionally they
also sound a note of compassion dipped in the pangs of new creation.
