Burns Within is a collection of 30 poems translated by Dr. Abnish Singh Chauhan from B.S. Gautam Anurag’s Hindi poetry collection Sanson Ki Samadhi. While journeying through the various stages of life, the poet persona in Anurag sees, meets, and observes the people and things, becomes shocked at the naked dance of crime, hunger, and pain everywhere, cries within at man’s loss of faith in patience, trust and truth, and feels burns within when he finds human life that has become superficial, shallow, delusive and hollow. He wonders why the fountains of love and affection are dried, why explosives and guns are grown in the fields, why gods born of religious narrowness are transplanted everywhere, and why Indian culture—divine in nature is locked in the prison of devils.
The poet Anurag prays to Jagatpita for setting free this motherly earth from smoke-fog of faithlessness and inhuman behavior. He wonders how humanity will exist on this earth and hence dreams of a world where people may not be in the bog of narrowness, where there may not be the darkness of ignorance, where the flowers of love and relationship may not fall in the stinking pond of blood, where people may not be dominated by selfishness, where the storm of sorrow may not shroud the abode of happiness, where people may not be the victim of slavery, where there may be the reign of truth and justice, where the rich may not exploit the poor for their gains, where men may not attempt to become gods themselves, where people may be conscious of the environment and danger of heating earth, and where there is no shadow of black storm over the humanity.
The poet, no doubt, has painted the landscape of his poetic world with contemporary colours but there is one more colour—the colour of devotion which offers a bright contrast. He finds himself a particle of dust in the cosmic family and feels pleasure while bathing in the light of His compassion. He finds himself poor before Him and asks Him to play on His flute and spread the aroma of His songs so that He may see the dance of his indigence. He has nothing to offer Him for anchoring the boat of his life as he has already entrusted everything to Him. What he needs now is the golden currency of His compassion. He knows that he cannot get the Infinite through his senses. He does not have any separate existence from Him as He is in him. He speaks frankly that his efforts to get Him are futile as he finds Him everywhere and himself nowhere. But, he does not wish to be detached from this celestial earth for the sake of liberation. He wishes to serve all the creatures of this earth to make his life triumphant. He sows the seeds of love in his songs, which sprout from the burns within to offer the cathartic experiences. Burns Within will make the readers muse over the burns of life while offering them a cure—which lies in unflinching faith, truth and complete surrender to Jagatpita, the Absolute.
Dr Sudhir Kumar Arora
Dept. of English
MHPG College
Moradabad, U.P., India
No comments:
Post a Comment