LAST MEETING
( LAST MEETING OF THEO WITH WOUNDED AND HOSPTALIZED VAN GOG, AFTER SHOOTING HIMSELF )
As if an unknown power
All of sudden
Took hold of my hands.
Momentarily
Due to that
It has been possible to see you
Theo!
If Van Gog is known in future
For his paintings
I will feel pain
How long, people will
Get fascinated by
Falsehood of gold fraises?
x x x x x
When, I had pointed revolver
On me
I knew
It was not only me dying
But after all
How long could I move
Unexhausted
Carrying this burden?
Your eyes were imposing questions
What could be reply to these
By anyone?
x x x x x
I had read
Somewhere in a book
Reference of fraternal affection
May be
It is a myth
Or a fantasy.
And above that--they were divine figures too.
But you are ordinary person
You grew on breast- feed
That was consumed by me
Prior to you.
But, now I am witness, Theo!
To narratives that were skipped by
Pages of 'Satyug'.
x x x x x
On the infinite canvas of time
As soon as a line is drawn
It starts getting erased.
If life is measured by longevity
Then, where is the end?
Where is the satiety?
When, viewing past life
Everything seems like a dream
Small boy is going to school
Holding my finger
At times, carrying him
On my shoulders
I am panting
And on being pinched
One who is crying
Beyond time, is my father now.
x x x x x
Passing through maze of canals
Treading on green pathways
Trees laden with flowers, on both sides
And creepers
Zenith of winds
Energized by their fragrance.
Still persist in my breaths.
x x x x x
Coziness of bed of mother
Built against wall of room
An atmosphere of serenity
Prevailed at night
Body absorbed in slumber
Dreams confined in eyes
Untraced soft sounds in dreams
Now, so loving, so soothing!
x x x x x
During rains
In muddy pits
The shiver of waves on feet
Till late
In rows of trees/ after rain stops
Not letting miss
Sensation of drops
Dripping from leaves
Now, restless cries of cloudless sky!
x x x x x
Farmer ploughing fields
Girls gleaning grains
Across wooden planks for sheltering cranes
From nests in trees
Chirping of chicks for birdseed
And care-taking of birds
Instill in me, motivating chant of life
x x x x x
Nothing comes back again....
Rains in childhood
Clay houses
Under wide spread sky
To keep awake with stars
Stories narrated by grandmother
Neither those eyes
Nor those dreams
Now, on cot of body, fagged days of life
x x x x x
On that fateful day
For the first time
Love had bent a little
Kissing whom,
Wind had started swaying
And I longed to touch
That was beyond touch.
That burning sensation in fingers still persists.
x x x x x
So what
Seeing it in own hands
Smashed?
Love is root of life
Could not get deep rooted in earth
Why to mourn on it life?
All this a deep secret
And love
A secret within a secret.
x x x x x
Yeah, I had written to you
I will love her so persistently
That she will have to come back to me.
Waiting beyond time
Detached from time
I am exhausting, not my waiting
Hence this notion is also dying
That she will not meet any day
Oh! That day is so long, so distant--------
x x x x x
Love becomes so soothing
When love is responded
But how could she realize
This mental agony?
During suffocation
Breath is soothing
But, if you are not able to heave sigh
The, it is so strangulating.
x x x x x
In initial phase of life
I enjoyed
Twittering of birds in courtyard
In front of school
Gave ice-cream to unfamiliar children
Then
Caressed puppies till long
At the turn of alley
Helped a ripe aged woman
In crossing the watercourse
Before she could think of requesting
Placed my full purse
On the hands of beggar
That day
God knows why.
x x x x x
Myself all alone
Could not face
That ebullience
And nobody was there
To listen about my first love
Wandering near Thames
Initially
I learnt to converse with
Trees, blossoms, butterflies
Colour and water.
x x x x x
Waves again
Merged into waves
Then water....
On washed shores
Were left behind only
Some sea-shells
Conches
Pebbles smeared in sand
Some glittering pieces of stones
Erasing traces of foot -prints.
(BOERNEJ -- A SLUM OF COAL-MINERS)
For hundreds, thousand yards
In the womb of earth
Beneath
Suffocation
Perspiration
Darkness
Death
Human-beings that have transformed
Into skeletons
Palms of human-beings
Will God ever decipher
That episode of life?
x x x x x
Starvation
Poverty
Death on every step
Suffocated breath
Every piece of mine
I distribute myself in labourers
Forgetting preaching of Christianity
I hold canvas and paint brush
x x x x x
It is not an issue of personal liking
Colour is reality of scene
That
Converses with truth
Colours overcloud me assuming form of letters
x x x x x
Every expression has
Own colour
Every colour gives birth to an expression
Meaning generates
From colours
Only if apt as words
Colours are not merely for ornamentation
x x x x x
Every object
Has an identity
Whatever throbs inside it
I feel
In my breaths
Nothing seems to me inanimate
After gaining identity.
x x x x x
I view
Scene
Person
Object
In context of its colours.
Innermost cores of any object
I intend to portray in colours
Like an expression
Without symbolism, colours are vain.
x x x x x
In lines
Drawn on paper
A form started emerging
Along with piece of paper
That form started landing in me
Art, merely lines
But how much competent!
For the first time in life
I could enjoy sleep, without any stress.
x x x x x
Perhaps
Due to that rejection only
My identity has
Accepted me.
Whatever had been left
Colourless, plain
I have filled colours in it.
x x x x x
Daily
A new canvas
Same colours
Same paint-brush
But all so distinct
Same truth
Only that much is changed
Which does not rhyme with others.
So many colours in same colour.
x x x x x
A restless call
Internally
Shatters darkness
Distant echo of bells
Unheard
Starts landing in soul
Canvas gets colourful
x x x x x
The deeper
I land in myself
On canvas
A part of mine
Escapes restlessly
Eager to seek identity
Scatters
x x x x x
No bread
No eggs, potatoes or coffee
Empty vessels
Peeping from corners
In spite of being
Starved utterly
Sunken eyes
As if, I had to save
Some colours
For sake of life
My existence depended on it.
x x x x x
Empty stomach
Probed utensils
Even knowing that
These are empty
In rattling of utensils
I hear a taunt
And I remain speechless
Again, I start painting
Unexhausted, whole night.
Again, a new dawn, a new hope.
x x x x x
Your letter-
A new start of life, every time
Encashing cheque
Firstly, I eat to my fill
Then, taking long puffs of tobacco
Move ahead
Sprightly
Oh! The life is so comfortable, but so little.
x x x x x
Inside the room
Outside
Mist all -around
Canvas
Paint-brush
On lamp
Standing still
Like a gloomy vision
Hardly moves out a step
To get out of
Deserted room
When an abstract figure
Restricts movement
Time is again unifying with me on canvas.
x x x x x
At night
During dripping rain
I listen to
Stagnant night
So many reveries
Unify
In rain
Internal and external.
x x x x x
Theo!
Love of Margot
Can not be deemed as love.
That was mutual helplessness of
Two persons defeated in love.
Whose kiss
Enhanced a bit more
Mist of disappointment.
x x x x x
How much defeated will be he
Who got
This defeated being only
For maiden love
Who had been
Forlorn in love.
x x x x x
Though her love
Might be insignificant
Still, it was through her only
That, I realized
Bliss of being loved.
Though pretentious love
Still so plausible.
x x x x x
When she met
She had intensity of
Rainy river
That sways everything with it
But Theo!
It is so strange that
In spite of willingness
Nothing could be wished for.
If that passion does not arise
At any cost, it does not arise.
x x x x x
Crossing rough pathways
I stealthily enter the slum
Carrying canvas on shoulders
Colour stained
Torn clothes
I glance at for a moment
Move ahead
With bowed head
Voices coming from backside
Mad---------mad.
x x x x x
Like wide open horizon
Sad canvas
The Sun is on verge of setting
Birds returning to their nests
River about to sleep
Who is there, to accompany me?
x x x x x
Evening
Utterly exhausted
Amidst thicket
I wash my face in flowing river
Fingers baffle
On the ear that I had cut
God knows, what starts mingling in water of river ..
x x x x x
I longed to hear those words
Once only
In lieu of that
Pointed nails were
Inserted in my ears
After that
What was left that
You demanded
Rachel?
x x x x x
In the mirror
Reflects a face
An ugly face
In midst of ear that had been cut
Hard, prominent bones of jaw
Oh!
I ,too, had been handsome!
Though , people might call me mad,
x x x x x
People deem me as
Impulsive
Mad
Then, why
They expect anything
From me
What is hidden in my heart
Will be surely revealed
But, only after, I am no more.
x x x x x
Hammering in the head
Throughout the night
I wish to hide crouching
Within myself
Coming out in the morning
Ran nonplussed
I wanted to leave behind
My head
In hospital
I placed myself worn out
In hands of Doctor
Like an aborted one
x x x x x
This is not a disaster
This is another form love.
When I have finished my task
Then, why for sake of myself only
Should I, like a leech, keep sucking blood of others ?
x x x x x
Nay, Theo!
What you are seeing now
Did not happen abruptly
I was dying daily
By and by
I was diminishing within myself
Still
Death is so distant from me...
x x x x x
This sheet has been woven
With threads of misery
Depression is the only colour
Left in it.
How to cover myself with it
I die, if I wrap myself in it
And, I die, even if I avoid it.
x x x x x
Like my motherland only
Countless oceans are
Proceeding towards me
To drown me
Wave after wave
Riding on tempest
I have saved very effortfully, till now
My land
Now, what follows next....
x x x x x
I was moving on a track
On one side was
Well of life
On the other side
Trench of death.
One can still survive
After falling in trench
But, Theo!
Who can survive
After falling in well?
x x x x x
Death is inevitable after life.
Then, what is alternative of life?
This is our destiny only.
What else is there
That can be opted for
Parallel to life?
Human-being is so helpless!
That, in spite of wish to live
There is no option except death
So, what could I do?
x x x x x
It is not that
Somebody intended to kill me
But, it happened like this
I had to die.
Only issue is
That everybody is so self-indulged
Nobody comes to know
Who is alive
And
Who has died.
x x x x x
Death will do me a favour
That I will never die again
Endowed with life
But killed in a such a way
At least
The way, I had been killed
Won't be repeated .
x x x x x
Theo! This is not
Suicide
This is revolt of a suppressed soul
So that in its pretext, self identity becomes possible.
O that! You could know
Where I am
There is no earth, beneath me
And, there is no sin bigger
Than my being alive.
x x x x x
I am being pressed
Under pressure of so many sins
That I have not committed
But, I am not detached
So, I myself offer pardon
To me.
I am well aware
How sin hisses
Heart turns compassionate
Agony upturns slowly in me.
x x x x x
The vision is still alive
That can visualize leaf of life
Colour-deprived
Whatever I wished
Wished whole-heartedly
Putting myself on stake
But, when it could not be attained
In any way
I intended to live on air
Embracing the sky
Theo! Earth was not an issue
But, when sky starts slipping
Under your feet
Then, what to do ?
x x x x x
Like loving someone
Whom you don't love
This journey become tougher
Body is obstacle
Breath is bondage
Presently, I am on the point where
Life and death become same
x x x x x
As many times as
I fell in love
I died
And like this
Every time
I had re-birth after death.
But, presently
Only my body is dying
Not me
Not my dream
Not my love.
x x x x x
Can death make us non-extinct
Even after extinction?
Where is body
In dreams?
I could not be dream of any eye.
So, what is difference between
Living or dying ?
Only this much
That, I am my own dream now.
After shattering
Won't be able to see again.
x x x x x
When was I existent
That, I am turning into non- existent?
That Divine love
Once falling in its grip
Can anybody survive?
Though, I did not get life
Yet, I have been gifted with something, Theo!
That even after death
I won't die now.
x x x x x
Death never gets breath
Just as the Sun
Never gets darkness
Only in the darkness within
Death tunes with that only.
x x x x x
Though it is unfamiliar
But still very familiar
Whenever, I lost it
It landed very deep in my canvas
Its tone deepened
In embedded colours
x x x x x
This is not the end
Whatever is worth living
How can it die
Even after death
And whatever is perishable
How will it be beyond the body?
x x x x x
Departing from body
All mingle in One
After immersing in colours
I have come to know
Now
Moving in rhythm
From perishable to imperishable.
x x x x x
Meeting death
After dying in life
This is not as horrifying as
The death that I have been meting
In process of life daily.
Was really
Not a single painting of mine
Worth buying, Theo?
x x x x x
If not a single painting of mine
Worth buying
How can I believe, Theo
That I have created something?
All art-critics on one side
And myself alone
Am I the only critic
Of my art?
x x x x x
I have assumed your shoulders
As my back-bone
With a faith that
One fateful day
I will be able to repay
I am ashamed of my composition
But, God knows why
This faith is not leaving me
Even after leaving
But, I will not survive till that day.
x x x x x
I was probing for something in colours
I can not treat it as my hobby only
Nor was it a pass-time for me.
Now, I realize that
It is not me
Who created
Colours have created me.
x x x x x
Outer glow of every object
Sprouts from inner cores
In outer circumference
The soul wants to manifest
In paintings.
The Sun
That is emitting brilliance
Originally, it is boiling-hot
Apple
As if from seed
Spring of juice will evolve.
x x x x x
On the limitless
Canvas of the Universe
I am a perishable colour of a moment.
Whatever will escape from time
Beyond time
That will be mine,
x x x x x
Missing that moment is
The reason of my being
I am due to this
And incomplete without this?
Then, why I existed
To become incomplete?
x x x x x
Theo!
Did I exist
Only to bother you?
I apologize to you
For my existence
Had it been in my hands
I would have never existed.
x x x x x
When did I ever say
That I want an existence
Still, I existed, without wishing
Still, I remained mum
Accepting death as destiny
I was ready to die once
But was my life so merciless
That it scribbled so many deaths for me?
x x x x x
No, my brother
Don't make efforts to save me
To die once again
Even if, I am saved
This time
How will I escape from
That
Which is twitching in my veins
Recollecting obiletrated.
TRANSLATED BY RAJNI CHHABRA
Comments
Post a Comment