Revelation: Aurobindo

Revelation

 

Someone leaping from the rocks

Past me ran with wind-blown locks

Like a startled bright surmise

Visible to mortal eyes,–

Just a cheek of frightened rose

That with sudden beauty glows,

Just a footstep like the wind

And a hurried glance behind,

And then nothing,– as a thought

Escapes the mind ere it is caught.

Someone of the heavenly rout

From behind the veil ran out.

 

What is he saying it about? Did Aurobindo write it before his tryst with Narayan darshana or after? But perhaps it is of the latter period as because the yogi here relates and refers to the story of his mystical experiences of registering some supernatural footfall going past hurriedly? Maharshi Aurobindo is not only a yogi, a sadhaka, an ashramite, a poet, a philosopher, but a nationalist, a patriot, a freedom fighter; an educationist, a reformer, a pamphleteer; a teacher, a guru and the mind and vision behind the Pondicherry Ashrama. We cannot think of Aurobindo without the Ashrama and his ashramites. To discuss him is to discuss his correspondences with his disciples as the critics of Aurobindoean literature.

 

Revelation as a poem is one of those poems which can charm us with their mystical note and flashes, meditative strain and reflection, spiritual insight and delving, transcendental vision and realization, supernatural visualization and realization. A small poem it is a marvel of poetic expression. The poet undergoes strange feelings and emotions while lost in his thoughts and ideas, while meditating upon or taking to the recourse of sadhna. The yogi marks someone leaping from the rocks and running him past with wind-blown locks and matted hair. Who can be it? Who can be as such? Who the persona? Like a startled bright surmise, visible to mortal eyes? Who can be the one running him past, who can be as such is a matter of reckoning? Who the being, a frightened one with blushing cheeks and sudden jerk coming and going away hurriedly? Just like the wind with the footstep of it and a hurried glance cast behind, with all this the human or inhuman being passing which is but a mystical experience. Those who do experimentation with the Divine, those who do the sadhna undergo such an experience. If to prove, these cannot be proved, these can just be felt within. Once crossed by gone forever. The experience is just like the escape of thoughts as they crop up and vanish away before being caught and put down on paper. Perhaps someone of the heavenly rout from behind the veil has he run out. When we talk of the Divine Messenger it may be like that of John Milton, thousands at His work and when we think in terms of escape from reality, it may be Keatsian and Coleridgean elements as there lie in escape, fancy and imagination in them. It is not Don Juan or Kubla Khan’s dream, but the test and ordeal of sadhna.

 

Revelation as a poem is but a realization of the semi-divine, the spirit-like force. It is a matter of feeling. Those who are experimental otherwise may feel, realize it. What it goes into the levels of consciousness, who can but say it?

 

Who is it showing the face and running out? Is he a mortal figure or something as illusory, hallucinatory? This is but a matter of feeling as when one starts experimenting with, illusions and hallucinations take him over.

 

The first two lines start the revelation beautifully:

 

Someone leaping from the rocks

Past me ran with wind-blown locks

 

Generally, the sadhakas select a lonely place for the sadhna. It may in the midst of Nature or on the crematorium ground or at some nook and corner. When in the course of sadhna, one passes through several tests and ordeals felt mystically, supernaturally and psychically. But one needs to follow the course of action with utter restraint and logical faculty otherwise blind rites and rituals may sway the feet.

 

Something is true, but it is difficult to confirm so is the case here with the mystical figure, the shadowy presence fleeing, striding and escaping from after showing itself:

 

Like a startled bright surmise

Visible to mortal eyes,–

 

While going through the poem, we get reminded of the ghost scene of Hamlet and the line ‘Life is but a walking shadow’ as used in Macbeth. The image is like that of a frightened rose glowing with beauty:

 

 

Just a cheek of frightened rose

That with sudden beauty glows,

 

 

The poet makes it clear rightly at the end of the poem, whose is it the mighty presence jolting it all, who the shadowy figure going with a jerk:

 

Someone of the heavenly rout

From behind the veil ran out.

 

At that time one should not fear and if one fears, it will have a negative impact upon. The best way is to feel and realize it without sharing the tete-e-tete, vis-à-vis with.

 

After reading the poem, one may ask in different ways. Who is the persona under discussion? What his purpose? How the feeling? Is it an illusion, a hallucination? Is it magical? Is there something of hocus-pocus, black art in it? Is it delirium? How to answer all that?

 

How to relate to tantra-mantra? Who can say who is what? What to say about the mystical experience which is purely personal and which cannot be proved? Who was it the agent, the spiritual creature, the frightful fellow?

 

Was he a yaksharaj? A spirit? A semi-god? Sometimes people sight them so. Sometimes reminiscences and remembrances of gone-by people mesmerize it the memory lines. It is very difficult to say it exactly. Do the astronauts or the airmen not see the aliens or sight some mysterious things in the space? Those may be aliens with their hovercrafts alighting, holding parleys with mystical things of the mystical surface and whispering with the stars in a strange tale of their own as these are but in also spooky stories of narration.

 

The word, ‘someone’ adds suspense and mystery with regard to the persona under askance. The ‘leaping from the rocks’ and ‘running past’ adds to furthermore to the element mystical and spiritual suspicion, aggravating the suspense to a heightened state of purview and reflection. The ‘wind-blown locks’ gives a strange look to the myth already doing the rounds. And we doubt, who can be it the person? Definitely not a rebel of Shelley, not a revolutionary of Milton, not an addict recovering of Ginsberg too, maybe it a transcendental character of Emerson. There may be something of Shelley’s The Cloud and Ode to the West Wind and something of Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey the secluded domain and the hermits into the hills. It passes in such a way that one will be frightened to see or feel it going. As a thought comes and slides way so was the presence of the creature. The words, ‘a startled bright surmise, a cheek of frightened rose, that with sudden beauty glows’, are of a different guage as these tell of something of the rosy spectre divine.

 

The below-referenced two lines speak of the swift-footedness and the glide of the footsteps hurrying past:

 

Just a footstep like the wind

And a hurried glance behind,

 

The spiritual creatures wait it not as their presence so much proven as well as so much debated:

 

And then nothing,– as a thought

Escapes the mind ere it is caught.

 

To see the things in the version of Charles Lamb, how would he say in dream Children: A Reverie while visiting his great house in Norfolk where the great grandmother Mrs.Field used to live as caretaker:

 

“Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said “those innocents would do her no harm”; and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she—and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous.”

 

Whatever be the discussion, Revelation as a poem is like one from the cluster of small poems dealing with the mystical flicker and flashes experienced by him. Sometimes the people undergo such an experience which is found beyond explanation as it turns into a matter of the psyche. The sadhakas and mystics often tell about that experienced or seen by them. Such an experience gives inner delight. How to bear down, view it awe-struck and in a breathtaking manner is the thing of deliberation.

 

Revelation as a poem is all about a mystical experience, a supernatural feeling when some unexpected presence takes it over with awe and suspense. The passing of the unexpected persona ruffles it all with a flutter and review of the strangely-taking scene and that too by surprise and suspense, but be sure of he will not stop by, he will just pass by hurriedly and forcibly making his way even if give you or not, but always looking back likely in a mystical way with his activity nocturnal and suspicious. How to identify the persona, the mystical figure, the supernatural being, the nature spirit, the wanderer?

Is he a persona of the secluded place? Is he the nature spirit wandering? We are not sure of it. But whatever be that, it is a revelation, a disclosure about the strange meeting, but the guest definitely an unworldly fellow, a supernatural being, a dark force with consciousness divine in it coming across by chance and fleeing with the hurried steps overtaken, so wild, swift and proud.

Aurobindo

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

A Study In Select Poems: Trance of Waiting, Transformation, The Tiger And The Deer By Maharshi Aurobindo

Trance of Waiting

Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,

     Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,

Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for ever,

     Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.

Distant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges

    Pales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy bird.

Thought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the nerve-beat of living

     Stills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release.

Wisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot measure;

     Light that no vision can render garments the silence with splendour.

Filled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being

     Tremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of repose.

Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for vesture.

     Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate.

Time waits, vacant, the lightning that kindles, the Word that transfigures:

     Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode.

All waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal;

              Passion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.

Trance of Waiting is really a poem of reckoning because it is symmetric and structural from the linguistic point of view, but is abstract and metaphysical, mystical and transcendental in tone and tenor. What is that he waits for? How the trance? Is it a transcendental trance, the trance for seeing the supernatural agent? Or, something different is the thing? Whatever be that, Trance of Waiting is one of meditational time. But sometimes we feel within if it is the trance of waiting for the Nature Spirit passing with wind-blown locks and with surmise or it is something different from all these, a dhyana feeling? Perhaps the latter is the thing of brooding here and in this poem Aurobindo is almost like the Wordsworth of Tintern Abbey.

Trance of Soul is actually a realization of the Self with the Cosmic Consciousness and that too after rising above mundane realms, sitting in a calm composure of yogic reflection and meditational pleasure. It is not like Revelation, the spiritual creature felt passing with awe and suspense, but the state of being one with the cosmos, the creation and to feel the peace around, the peace of mind, soul, body and spirit. It is also a fact that the yogis give utmost time to dhyana, the understanding of the Cosmic Force through the states of consciousness. Away from din and bustle, a busy place of hectic day-to-day activity and business, one can in a secluded surrounding feel the composition or keeping aloof, withdrawing from all these. What is Nature? What is the world? How is the composition? What is this process of integration, disintegration? What the Soul, the Supreme soul, the Divine soul? The Mind, the Over Mind, how the functions of them? What is transmigration? What is this vacuum, void, shunyata? Is to lose in that consciousness the all?

While lifting above from the mundane level of existence, he has confided in repose and silence, peace and calm to arrive at what he means to put it herein. When withdrawing oneself from all material and mundane activity, just for meditational bliss and endowment, detaching, dissociating and  disconnecting oneself from, closing the eyes, fixing the mind on and loosening it all to be with the Consciousness Divine.

Lone on the summits of calm the poet has brooded with the voices around, the murmurs of silence coaxing mind in a sleep, hearing the whispers from beyond the things thought confiding in the white flame so secretly, unscanned heights of the deeps within always in askance. When calm and aloft and withdrawn, he lapses into the meditational summits of repose and silence always befitting to all.

Distant below is the ocean of life with its surges like a pool stirred by a shadowy bird. Thought has flown back to where it is from just as a returnee. His spirit feels it the release of the spirit, enjoying it to full.

Wisdom looks down on him; mind cannot measure knowledge. Light is as such that no vision can cover it. There is a rapturous presence filling the space of being. Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for vesture. Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate. Time waits vacantly, the lightning that kindles, the Word that transfigures, are the summits to be measured and eached. Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode. A strange vacuum takes over, nothingness and void with the Divine to fill it. Reaching the summits of the mountain of sadhna, meditational silence, one can truly feel what this existence of ours is in reality. The tones and tenors of viewing change it the moment we reach that zenith level.

The opening lines of the poem are beautiful enough to say the things in a commanding language of own:

Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,

Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,

Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for ever,

Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.

Transformation

My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream;
It fills my members with a might divine:
I have drunk the Infinite like a giant’s wine.
Time is my drama or my pageant dream.
Now are my illumined cells joy’s flaming scheme
And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine
Channels of rapture opal and hyaline
For the influx of the Unknown and the Supreme.

I am no more a vassal of flesh,
A slave to Nature and her leaden rule;
I am caught no more in the senses’ narrow mesh.
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God’s happy living tool,
My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

The poem entitled Transformation is not about Revelation or Trance of Waiting or The Golden Light, but is about transformation through yogic practices and meditation and feeling energized with fresh breath and fresh energy revitalizing life is but one perspective while it is on the other hand the transformation felt after closing the eyes and concentrating upon the Divine trying to be in utter contact with Nature and creation, leaving it all to. The sitting of dhyana is as such which connives with silence, the silence of soul, spirit and mind. A perfect mind in a perfect body is the thing uniting the body with the soul and the spirit is yoga. It is also a fact when one cuts oneself from the worldly existence lifting above the mundane plane, the things come to a naught.

In the second stanza of the poem, the poet says that he is no more a vassal of flesh. His mortal physical being ceases to remain a thing subject to natural objects and phenomena which are bound to undergo changes. Time seems to be a drama of some sort.The soul unhorizoned widens to a measureless sight with the realization that the body is now God’s happy living tool and his spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

One does not get transformed instantly, but takes time to be spiritually transformed. Yoga, yogic sadhna can lead to illumination, spiritual illumination and here it matters more, dhyan, gnan and   yoga. When he takes Infinite like a giant’s wine, the cells get illumined under the soma rasa. The thrilled and branching nerves too get a spur of their own to partake in that change going, taking place internally.

To read this poem is feel, what is yoga? How the impact of it over the writing of the poem? Is it the result of yoga-sadhna?

How does transformation take place? Let us see the change in accommodation:

And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine


Channels of rapture opal and hyaline
For the influx of the Unknown and the Supreme.

What it sensory to lure the self if it gets transformed spiritually:

I am caught no more in the senses’ narrow mesh.
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,

Finally, the poet realizes, feels it within that he is free from inhibitions that bind the spirit and is one united with the Divine Soul and Spirit:

My body is God’s happy living tool,
My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

The Tiger And The Deer

Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder?


The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
Hardly daring to breathe. But the great beast crouched and crept, and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
Till suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank
Unsuspecting at the great pool in the forest’s coolness and shadow,
And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep woodland,—


Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in Nature.
But a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more in the dangerous heart of the forest,
As the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
Still then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of great pools in the leaves’ shadow.
The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.

Is it about a tiger seen by the sadhakas of India deep into the caves lost in their rigorous sadhana and the tigers too going their own way, none disturbing it none? We are not sure of it if Aurobindo has himself seen or is just writing about just as a poet writes. Whatever be that, it is a Blakian poem no doubt, heavily under his The Tiger as the imagery strikes us.

From the green forest there appears a tiger crouching, slouching to jump and prey upon the poor creature drinking water from the great pool unaware of what it may befall it claiming its life finally. So brilliantly it creeps out of the green wild to pounce upon the meek animal drinking water quenching thirst. Though brilliant in colour and movement, swift and proud and wild, the animal is so fragile and wrathful one cannot conclude instantly the prowess it springs with just a surprise. The wind slips through the leaves as if afraid of the pitiless splendour of the brute, the cruel beast of the forest roaring, taking the things by surprise, awe and suspense as for what it happened, so terrifying and horrifying the moment it roars and springs, follows into. The mystery of the wild, the beauty of Nature so freckled, full of contraries, contradictions and contrasts, strange is it to see the animal so merciless and cruel, bloody and bestial by nature. The claws and the paws so sharp and full of thud reflect the tiger so swift and proud. A flesh eating animal, a brutal hunter, what to say about its habitats, the caves it dwells in and the locations; the bloody temperament of it. When it roars, growls, the facial activity can be felt with the open mouth shaking and the teeth opening just like the furies loosened. So ferocious, it wreaks havoc and the creatures go panicking. When it is found on the prowl, waiting to hunt and lie in wait, it moves with the noiseless movement, but fatal in sequence. When it takes hold of, it becomes difficult to separate as so bloody, brutal and bestial is it with the sinister paws and claws to scratch and nail deep into. A blood-thirsty creature, brutality is its name. But mark, it is the creation of the same God who is the maker of the deer. But what to say about nature? One gets it by birth. The tiger leaps on the deer taking water from the great pool of the forest shadowed and under cool and calm and catches, kills and tears. The deer dies calling the mate grazing far into the woodland and as thus the mild and innocent element in nature is destroyed by the element which is heinous and ferocious, savage and bloody, brutal and bestial. Here one can mark the Hopkinsian and Blakian elements as used in Pied Beauty and The Tiger poems.

Such a day will when the population will dwindle and they will be reduced to a poor lot. The yogi murmurs within. They will no more roar into the forests of Asia as they wreak havoc, terror and pity; malign it all, killing mercilessly, striking with horror and terror. Then the deer will again drink waters from the cool shades of the wild. The mighty perish in their might and the slain will definitely survive the slayer. So is the victory of the dangling bloody sword which will not last it long. The lesson he seeks to impart is this that the mighty should not trample the weak and the meek taking them to be lowly as the Lord of the lord sees it all from there and one day the time will change taking the reverse swing.

The base of the poem one of duality, why is the Creator who has made the lamb has made the tiger, as the Blakian question is. Why the Creator who is Benign and Benevolent has He the brutal and bloody tiger, is the Aurobondonian question. To view in the Miltonic term, is it God the Maker of Satan, Lucifer too?

The first two lines of the poem tell of the suspense, horror and terror element:

Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder?

The description of the wild leaping, creeping, crouching, slouching with the gleaming eyes, mighty chest and the soundless paws of grandeur and murder strikes us.

Here it grows the suspense when he says:

The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendour,
Hardly daring to breathe.

The wind too grows silent and awe-struck when the beast waits and leaps to grab and pounce upon the poor deer stealthily taking water from the shady pool of water.

In nature, there lies two forked beauties. One is harmless mild beauty and while the other strong cruel beauty of which the latter denotes the ferocity of the bloody tiger:

The same spirit Shelley finds it in the wild west wind, swift, tameless and proud.

To quote a few lines from the poem under discussion:

And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep woodland,—
Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in Nature.

What will the poor deer know that she meets her end in such a way? The Divine Scheme, Plan, Set-up of Things too is a matter of reckoning herein. The last two lines are like the prophetic words full of sigh and expression:

The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.

The words, as such, ‘the green heart of the forest, gleaming eyes, soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder, the wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid, the pitiless Splendour’, etc. add to the beauty of the poem.

Palanquin Bearers: Sarojini Naidu

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

A Poetess of The Palkiwallah And The Churiwallah Taking The Newly-wed Bride To Her Home And The Latter Selling, Making Womenfolk Wear Bangles, Kanch Ki Churiyan: A Study In Sarojini Naidu’s Two Poems

 

Palanquin Bearers

 Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
 She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;
 She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,
 She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
 Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
 We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

 Softly, O softly we bear her along,
 She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
 She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
 She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.
 Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
 We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

 

Sarojini Naidu here in this poem describes the palanquin in which the brides used to go to their  in-laws’ home. Those were the days of the people when they used to take the bullock carts and if possible horse-carriages for conveyance and the roads too had not been so. As far as possible they used to take the palanquin marking the transport facility and the way-long journey. But it was compulsory to bid her bye after making her seated on the palki, palanquin. Ancient India or the olden world too was one of girl brides and what to say it more? There was a special caste named the Kahars who used to bear the palanquin with the bamboo poles placed on the shoulders and singing the folk song used to be on the way.

While taking the bride to her home, the palanquin-bearers turbaned and in dhoti with the palanquin on their shoulders and with the bamboo poles to take support when they kept treading the way. Lightly they bear the newly-wed daughter, the girl bride so she may reach safely. There should not be as that ails her spirit or for which she feels sad and broken. As for encouragement to bear the load or hilarity for getting the bonus and other things, in order keep themselves up in spirits, they keep singing all the way long intermittently. The bride sways like a flower in the wind of their song. Sometimes she skims like a bird on the foam of a stream. Sometimes she floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. Gaily and gaily, they glide through covering the distance and keep singing the song with a view to bearing her like a pearl on a string. She is no less than their daughter whom they are going to reach. Softly, softly they bear her along, she hangs like a star in the dew of their song.

Palanquin Bearers is in reality a song, a bridal song, a song of the Kahars, palanquin bearers which the poetess is humming; the palanquin bearers will come and lift the palki to take the bride to her home, a flower like, a butterfly like bride so fearful and afraid of. She will smile and weep from time to time which is but natural and the bearers will try to keep her in good spirits, will try to take care of her as their daughter. This is what a father wishes and what the goer tries to keep up. Outwardly, it is a small poem of some lines and stanzas, but inwardly it has got some deeper meaning. None can say about the wayward journey, the hazards of it from men, beasts and incidents. The thugs and dacoits may loot. Beasts on the prowl sometimes come out to be sighted by and what more to say about the incidents none can say it. The other thing is of adjustment and the new home too where she is going to just as a stranger as it happens in arranged marriages. All these are the things which are but quite natural to be felt.

 

The two lines add music and lyrical tonality to the poem:

Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Similarly the last two of the second and last stanza goes on making music with:

 Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
 We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

 

The first two lines from the first stanza describe the sentiments of the small bride beautifully which may be the feelings going within the heart of the tender girl bride or these may be things of the palanquin bearers born out of their experiences of age-old bearing:

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;

Again the four lines from the second stanza show it how she has been compared to dew drops and the star which often keeps twinkling and to a beam on the brow of a tide:

 Softly, O softly we bear her along,
 She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
 She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
 She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.

But apart from the outward appearance, the bridal decoration and the shy structure, there is also something which but none has come to feel it which is but the touchy side of the story of her story of life. She is but the loving daughter of some father who after leaving her own home is going to another’s home for different reasons. Had she been able to live, why would she have gone to? This is also a matter of reckoning. Her tears, falling tears none has come to feel it over the passage of time, over the lapse of years and time. Leaving her acquaintances, she is moving to a different unknown location. How will she adjust with this is also a question, how will she deal with the unknown persons whom she knows not, nor is acquainted with.

 

 

The Bangle Sellers

Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair…

Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.

 

The Bangle Sellers as a poem reminds us of the palanquin bearers, sailors, shipmen, punkah pullers, water men, washer men, fisher men, boatmen and so on. Tagore too wrote a story about Kabuliwallah and Kipling about Gunga Din charming to the core. William Hazlitt’s Indian jugglers too can never be forgotten. We leave it the stories of Indian thugs and dacoits. But in the context of Sarojini Naidu it was Arthur Simons and Edmund Gosse who brought her to light and introduced her to a wider range of public and readers. Had Gosse not suggested writing about the things of India, Indian scenes and sights, landscapes and people, it would have been otherwise. But whatever be that, Sarojini is a poetess of love and lyricism, the mystical flame of love ever burning, ever lighting, amorous and spiritual both at the same time. Krishnabhakti not, Krihnaprem entices her with the adoration of Radha of Brindavana, the banks of the Yamuna, the kadamba trees and Krishna fluting on her mind-set. Sarojini, with her education in the West, marked the temperament as for presenting those things only which are but so endearing to the Western readers.

The poem deals with the bangle sellers going to the temple fair with the shining loads overhead willing to have a good sale of the bangles, coloured differently, red, pink, green, blue, gold flecked and so on, the glass bangles looking beautifully. The Indian churiwallah with the words, churi, churi saying and going is the thing of deliberation and discussion. The bangles for daughters, wives, mothers and small girls, all types of bangles he is with to sell and make them wear. The seller goes on calling, asking to buy and see the glistening bangles. There was also a craze for when so many stalls and shops were not then in those times of yore when the poem was written. The hawkers and peddlers used to go about peddling in the country and streets and lanes. Still now fairs attract the people and on special occasions the cosmetic goods are sold. Later, she discusses which bangles who should wear; about the colour combination. But today’s time is of the beautician and the beauty parlour who like to align the things without bothering about the age and conventions, demolishing superstitions. There was a time when the widows used to be forbidden from wearing bangles. The rainbow-tinted bangles tell of the rainbowish seven colours and the glass bangles being so delicate if pressed or out of measurement may give way or crack. These are the things to be handled delicately. The jingle and tingle of the bangles appear to be lucid and have a special charm of their own. As the rainbow gives a glowing impression of the colour mixture so do the churis give out to be roped in and sometimes kept under cover.

The poetess speaks in the version of the bangle sellers as well as the customers. The bangle sellers and the customers exchange views with regard to choice and the trend of buying the bangles and also as per traditions and rituals. The bangles are for happy daughters and wives. As the bindis add to so are the bangles in appearance.

With the bangles emitting the rainbowish light, the sellers go about calling for a purchase. They call, ask for to purchase bangles, meant as the lustrous tokens of radiant lives, for happy daughters and happy wives. Those who are happy and gleeful will definitely come to buy them. The bangles are delicate and bright, looking like rainbow-tinted circles of light. A young girl lives in young dreams, youthful dreams of love and life unmindful of all that comes the way. What it strikes her, she selects dreamfully; what it catches her fancy and imagination.

 

Some of the bangles are for a maiden’s wrist, as such silver and blue colour bangles looking like the mountain mist. Some of the bangles are light red, bud-like which seem to be dreaming or taking our dreams away to the tranquil brow of a woodland stream. Some of them aglow with the bloom shining from being in the mist of newly-cast leaves. Blue, silver and green are alright for the maidens, young unmarried maidens.

Some of the bangles are like the colour of the sunlit field of corn and these can be for a girl of a marriageable age. These will also suit the brides on the eve of their marriage with the smiles and tears of memories. Some like the flame colour, fiery red bangles or as they like to take to suit, as per the hue of the heart’s desire, bridal laughter and bridal tear. But red colours suit the married women the most representing the heart’s desire, the marriage fire and the promises made together for going together with and sharing the things and their test and ordeal.

Some are purple and gold flecked grey bangles which will suit those on the way of life, middle aged and blest with children and the husband looking after the household. Women of such an age must wear the bangles of this colour. Such an age group woman likes it not to wear the deep colour things, often busy with household affairs, husband and children; service gods and performance of rites and rituals. Her dream, desire and inclination now lie in with the children, house and husband.

 

The bangle sellers with the bundle into their hands or kept overhead and the sample into the hands keep calling, showing and passing through the locality:

Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?

The bangles are but the lustrous tokens of radiant lives as the people dream and live with it which is also a colour of life, a thing of beauty, love and joy:

Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.

Some bungles are mainly for a maiden, her wrist, so dreamy to catch her fancy and imagination taking us to the mountainside for overlooking them, covered in mist and smoke:

Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,

The reference to the buds tells of the light red colour which may suit the young maidens taking to the woodland stream and the natural scenario:

Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,

The below-quoted lines tell of the green, light or dark green colour matching with the wrists of the young maidens:

Some are aglow with the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves

It is also a fact that the young maidens like to keep dreaming, taking life lightly as they are not aware of its joys and sorrows. Only the dreamy side cannot add to our hardcore realities.

What do the brides choose for? Let us see it:

Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,

Some of the bangles resemble the colour of the marriage fire taking to saat pheras, seven rounds around the sacred fire and the sacred oath taken:

Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,

The bangles of such a sort tell a different story of life:

Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.

One who has journeyed across and is of sometime past or some experience gathered with worldliness may opt for otherwise:

Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,

Such a fellow rejoices in her household values and companionship:

And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.

To look after the family, to maintain and manage the things, handles the affairs is primarily her motto and apart from it, she has nowhere to go crossing the Lakshamanrekha.

 

The Bangle Sellers reminds us of the hawkers, peddlers moving around the country, into the streets and lanes of the towns as for selling bangles, the bangles of different shining colours and together with lies the different stages of life reflected through. How are our norms and values connected with? How are our sensitivities connected with? How are our spirits and feelings? Through the selection of bangles, the poetess also tells about the life of a woman since the start. How do the options, selections, impositions and tastes vary from time to time? Once she had been a girl child thereafter she turned into a young maiden and from there into a married off woman to the woman of a middle age. When the mother buys the bangles, the girl daughter also asks her mother to buy small bangles to wear and play with, such a psychological as well as feminine thing one generally comes across in patriarchal India. On feeling it, there crops up a question, is this the life of a woman, the periphery of her life, for which we get no answer at all. Whatever be that, through the bangle colours the writer has shown the colours of life and that too of a woman’s life encircling the bangles and the choice connected with showing the societal mind-set, nomenclature and protocol. A poem of colour imageries, it all about bangles, bangle-selling and purchase taking us to the country and into the streets and lanes of the past times; to temple fairs and festive occasions. Wearing bangles falls within one of the shringaras, sixteen Indian shringaras from the feminine decorative point of view. The churis are a must for an Indian bridal beauty or a country woman and from this point of view she has viewed the whole spectrum of our society and households. The lilting sound of the churis and the anklets adds to the beauty of the Indian bride if of a tender age. The fashionistas and socialites may not approve of the conventional viewpoint.

When we read the poem and keep analyzing, paraphrasing and discussing, we feel ourselves around an art gallery and seeing art exhibitions or participating in to view the beauty pageants or pictures from life. At the same time we cannot avert our gaze from peeping in beauty parlours and salons and studios. The mind also goes to the make-up, dress-up men who take time to dress and make before any rehearsals, theatrical, dramatic or choric. The credit must go to the bangle-makes and the beauticians too apart from the poets describing the scene or taking a note of that. When we read and re-read the poem, a young bridal girl in sholah shringaras stands before us, call her, whatever you like to call Chandramukhi or Suryamukhi? She herself is a jasmine standing with a pack of jasmine sticks full of heavily-scented blooms to give.