Adarsh Ajit
Name of the book : A walk through the Mist
Poet : Sunita Raina Pandit
Translator : R N Kaul
Price : 300/-
Publisher : Vaibhav Prakashan
Separation from the land of birth makes Sunita Raina’s poetic notes hover over desolates of the smashed destiny. Vegetation, flora, aroma or murmuring waters no more lure her. Mansions, palaces and bastions are meaningless for her as she has lost her identity, legacy and connectivity to her roots. Venomous cobra stinging her community to the level of virtual finish makes her a psychotic but she has become a stone now and is untouched by any typhoon in the valley because she has faced the biggest tragedy of modern history in the shape of her ‘displacement’:
I have no roof over my head now/it matters not that my home is destroyed
Impacted by the present rotten persons Sunita feels that present-day man has become unpredictable and is chameleon like. Though, a few offer balm, most of the people push others to the lowest ebb of degradation. The poet slurs those who rule her homeland where nobody resides. She questions how anyone can create a new world under such shadow of devastation. She mocks at the heads that are supposed to guard the public but are themselves under the sentry of uniformed men:
It is so paradox that/uniformed men keep guard over him/who is supposed to rule over the world
Sunita’s hero is drunk with ego and conceit. His tolerance has burst its seams. The patience has crossed its limit because he is also a prey of human-holocaust. Despite this he never recognises the sacrifices of the poet who has turned his house of bricks and stones into a home of love. He is enveloped by the fog of materialism. She begs him not to weigh her love in terms of currency. Dishonesty and materialistic hangover have brought colossal wreck to the concept of relations. She alleges that he is jealous of her success:
Distance has come between relations/one man’s eye cannot recognize another’s eye
Leaving aside the depressed outlook due to her hero’s demeanour she exerts to explore the romantic elements connected with him. She gives him the status of a soul and hence her connect with him is eternal. Her creativity coupled with optimism divulges that her lover is still like a rainbow giving her reason to sustain:
His silver skin shall be complexioned golden/ He shall grow to bring joy to my existence/all this is when he comes……………..He has the ocean’s depth in his eyes/ in the silence of his sight there is a cry
Claiming that people are the makers of their own destiny she accuses them of being loners and shoddy. She advises them to listen to others, express themselves and shed tears for their burden on the heart would be relieved and would relax them to the great deal:
His fate is writ on his brow/for he is himself the master of his fate
Sunita creates an image of her mother to the level of ‘Beloved’ describing her lovely gestures and nods. She feels gloomy as her distances with the beloved are lengthening. Having no physical apparatus she finds her out of reach. All she can do is to count every momentous treasure spent with her:
I recall receiving milk at my mother’s breast/ I wish she were here to give me a draught of water/even water today would be an elixir.
Sunita feels that the sky has lost its glory. Noise has polluted the cities. People are afraid to face the sun. Struggle is not seen in the sweat. Love sans warmth and glory! Before the youthful age bids adieu it is the time to convert the snatched opportunities into beauteous moments. She wants some saint to walk through her courtyard with a view to make his ash panacea for her. Time cannot be halted. There is no option but to wear mask and move ahead:
One should laugh just for show/even when the heart can’t laugh/ one should laugh for make-believe
Haunted by the sweetness of her parental home the poet compares and contrasts the married life with that of maidhood. Peeping through the doors and windows of her present set-up representing the mirror of toil and hard struggle she remembers how her father showered accolades on her sacrifices. Feeling proud to retain the water on her shoulders even after her pitcher of water broke she questions: are such women still born in this age? She is reminded of the marriage of dolls in her childhood which was a life full of dreams and when the whole spirituality was concentrated in serenity. Her parental house reflects her inner:
The windows and doors spoke to me
Sunita has proper idiom, ideas, artistic potency, regularity, harmony and composition, and is capable of binding them to evolve a cohesive network of poetic diction. Withered flowers give the intensity of unpredicted autumn and flowery branches depict the beautiful spring. She compares the barren mind with that of lifeless autumn and adores the gift of setting sun:
The sun is sinking behind the hill/…..there will be legions of shining/nymphs on the Harmukh mountain/such is the gift of the setting sun
The poet agrees that old times are irreversible. She compromises with the new ways coming with the message of time. Old robes succumb to the new sheaths. Change is the sign of life and can never be blocked with a sandbag. Allowing ourselves to adapt the life according to the times makes us wise. New world belongs to the new generations. The old must not become hurdles in their visionary flights:
Let the new generation carve out places of comfort/by inculcating hope/like a bird taking care of his nest
The mix-up of boldness, hate, love, anger, protest, despair, determination, desperation and frustration makes her poetry multidimensional. Her foes repeatedly try to allow her wounds to bleed afresh and defer the coagulation. Climax is that they have complaint of her sighs. She informs them that she is yet alive and is swallowing the pain like nectar. She dares them to come and fulfil their dream of killing her after the failure of their pre-attempts:
The butcher did not stop a second causing death/ so I sent him a message of my survival/He could target me too to satisfy his thirst
Hats off to R N Kaul for his endeavour of translating 133 poems of Sunita Raina in the last months of life. Kaul in his note admits that his translation is literal, prosaic and distorted and fears that he might have failed to convey what Sunita really meant. Yes, the translation surely looks word for word and lacks compactness. There is no deconstruction. The English rendering is devoid of creative construction. There is no deviation from the original. But the original poetry of Sunita outshines the translation in a very big way.
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