Comments for A Kaleidoscope World

Comment on Is Life Worth Living? It Depends Upon the Liver by Devadatta Joardar

Devadatta Joardar — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:46:51 +0000

Just finished reading this one. A moving tribute to a teacher. The news of his death, laconically stated, can hardly leave the reader unmoved. The teacher’s “stupidity” in taking a Cashmere shawl for a table cloth was also very touching. By the way, did you expect him to wrap it over himself as a shawl?

Isn’t there any paper/journal here or abroad that might be interested in using this memoir?

Devadatta

Comment on Waiting – A Haiku by dipankardasgupta

dipankardasgupta — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:13:49 +0000

It is not easy to define a haiku. However, classical haiku (plural of haiku is haiku) had certain rules which were adopted for the English language. Three lines, the first line should have 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables and the third 5 syllables again. If the composition dealt with pure nature, it would be a haiku. Otherwise, it would be called a senryu. A very important rule for a haiku is that it cannot use similies. You are supposed to draw a picture and express something about eternity, without using words such as “like a …”. It should also contain a contrast, which the present haiku doesn’t. To that extent, it is not a good haiku. Normally, a haiku deals with beauty, but it also attempts to tell a story. Here are two examples of translated haiku (which don’t follow the syllable rule):

A kite
In the same place
In yesterday’s sky!
(By Buson)

The swallow
Turns a somersault;
What has it forgotten?
(By Otsuyu)

Tagore quoted a famous haiku (can’t remember where).

The old pond
A frog jumps in –
The sound of water.
(By Basho)

(In Japanese, this reads:
furuike ya
kawazu tabikomu
mizu no oto)

I know this is not much of an introduction. If you feel interested, search google. You will find fascinating examples as well as explanations concerning the haiku art.

Comment on Waiting – A Haiku by Devadatta Joardar

Devadatta Joardar — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:46:27 +0000

Read your Haiku. It’s very intriguing! I know next to nothing about Haikus, but are they marked by the sparse beauty described by RT in one of his Chhinnapatra letters – a small floor-mat, a flower vase, probably a picture hanging in a corner, and a lot of space – the Japanese ideal of cleanliness and beauty?

Devadatta

Comment on One Evening by dipankardasgupta

dipankardasgupta — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:18:21 +0000

It is the same poem. However, the original version does not contain a line such as “Perfectly fine during the day”!! Thanks for the comment. I wonder though why you preferred to put up this comment under a different poem by the same poet.

Comment on One Evening by utpal chattopadhyay

utpal chattopadhyay — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:11:37 +0000

Is mayatoru the same poem as “Ack je chhilo gaach?” Absolutely worth translating. “Then there was the big tree. Perfectly fine during the day. But as the evening descened, it would raise its arms and start a wild dance”

Comment on Who’s Me? by dipankardasgupta

dipankardasgupta — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 10:39:38 +0000

Dear Kumud-babu:

So nice to see you here. I think we have certainly established a wave length. Or else, why would you be reminded of this fascinating poem. It speaks the truth about many like us. I am so grateful to receive this wonderful gift of a comment from you.

Dipankar

Comment on Who’s Me? by Kumud Biswas

Kumud Biswas — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 10:12:12 +0000

Happy to see you have created a cozy corner for yourself. It is not so easy as it appears to be. Reminds me of a Tagore poem. Here it is in my translation.

MY LITTLE DREAMS

I do many important things
They don’t seem very difficult –
To do good to all mankind
I travel throughout the world
The crowds become bigger by the day
I have to do a lot of writing
And deliver lectures in various tongues
I also re-do many things I have already done.
I get caught in knots after knots
It’s like laying bricks on bricks
To add new wings to my house.
Some praise my works
There are others who criticize
Trusting me some come closer
While some are suspicious.
Some of the materials I use are genuine
Some of it of course is spurious
With all these
Somehow I ultimately make something.

But those little dreams
Which are very dear to my heart
They may sound very simple
But they are not really so simple –
Like the pleasure I get in music,
In the flowers’ fragrance,
Or in lazy dreams
Dreamt under the shades of a tree
At some leisure time –
It seems I can get them easily
But when I really want them
They are nowhere to be found!
In the beginning
This world was boundless and formless
With this nebulous nothing
When God in good earnest began His act of creation
His labours produced high mountains
But He got the first bunch of flowers
Only after millions of years’ dreaming.

Long have I dreamt
In a corner of this world
Left to myself I shall remain alone –
I didn’t hanker for fame or fortune
I only dreamt of a small nest of my own.
The cool shade of the tree
The gentle stream
At twilight the evening star
Beckoning me home
Near the window the flowers’ fragrance
The first light of day beyond the pond -
I longed for a little home
That surrounded by all these
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.

So long I desired neither fame nor fortune
But that my innermost thoughts
I may express in my own words.
As the setting sun
With the fanciful last strokes of its brush
Paints on the clouds
The picture of the dying day
I would build my world of dream
With light and shadow
And the colour and sweetness of my mind.
I longed for a little home
That surrounded by all these
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.

For a long time I harboured this hope in my mind
The deepest hunger of my heart
Would be satisfied at last
Not by fame or fortune
But by someone’s love –
Just lovingly calling my beloved’s name
Or holding her hand in my hand,
Sitting by her side without any reason,
When she would be away
Thinking about her sitting alone
And when she would come near
Our gleaming eyes would be anxious to say
Endless words of love –
Not fame or fortune
I only longed
That these dreams woven around my love
Would fill up the days of my life
With joys and sorrows.
———
Asha from Purabi by Rabindranath Tagore. It is a unique poem – the first two stanzas are more or less prosaic but the remaining part, in a different rhyme scheme, is unsurpassed in lyrical beauty and sweetness which is very difficult to recapture in translation.

Comment on The Illusion Tree (Mayatoru) by dipankardasgupta

dipankardasgupta — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:42:30 +0000

I think this was a relatively easy task. I need to choose this type alone for a while before I come back to revise Surrender (Samarpan). Let’s see.

Comment on The Illusion Tree (Mayatoru) by knot2share

knot2share — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:03:25 +0000

Now this makes a bit of sense to me ! I know I am very slow on the intake of poetry. Diamond fishes – interesting reference. I seem to behave like this tree too, during mood swings ..shoulders slump and sulking face. But my face lights up when the bright star shines over my head and becomes gloomy as the last ray of light dissolves into the horizon.

Thank you for the version – FOR ENGLISH READERS

Comment on One Evening by dipankardasgupta

dipankardasgupta — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:10:59 +0000

@ abhijit

I am not sure if I have understood your comment. Are you suggesting that
one should translate “mayatoru” into English?