Crowstep
poetry journal
WHAT ONE FRAMES THROUGH ONE'S VIEWFINDER
I Trysts with the Thar
To the unaccustomed, Thar, the great Indian desert, is a region of death
All the unacquainted folk agree that Maroostali is a perfect name for it
For all they see is a barren, depleted, lifeless, famine-prone desertscape
Fit only to feed its sterile lineages, past, present and future, to the vultures
Their eyes, to whom they listen, show them a dusty, dehydrated terrain
Where the wild and everyday spaces come together under a tyrannical sun
A territory where angry, gravelly sand hills chase one another
Where long, parallel lines of sand shape-shift into assailing fabrics of turbulence
Where craggy ridges reflect the region’s extremities, its uncertainties
Where compacted salt lake bottoms show up waterlessness as a way of life
Mythology, ancestors and local legends, all say the Thar was a well-watered land
And its residents insist its biotic resources and locational advantage are unmatched
That magic happens as plants yield on arid sands, rocks and salt water depressions
Through its bountiful, nutritive grasses, sand-binding trees and water-holding scrubs
Through the wizardly of their plants that wither into dust-like seeds
But burst into carpets of flowers in first shower, ephemeral yet luminescent
Sewan, khair, khejri, thor, guggal...is it any wonder they their chant flora names?
Thar, our Thar, they chorus, storehouse of our vegetation, nursery of folk medicine!
The people of the Thar move from a life on the edge to self-sufficiency
Through their orans, sacred groves, that forbid grazing and loping to teach frugality
Through their banis, deity domains, that stem the over-use of their greens
Yet teach them abundantly of belongingness, sharing and compassion
They have found a balance between their worlds: the ones inside and outside
They are able to put their eye, head, heart and soul on the same axis
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II In a Flux of Floods and Fallacies
The complicated futility of ignorance
That’s what taming the Bagmati River is, say the people of Sitamarhi district of Bihar
Don’t be fooled by its mild flow during summer, one infused with yogic calm
Or its restfulness in winter, say dwellers of the birthplace of Sita
Sita knew, as we know, that our Mithila waterscape goes rouge during monsoons
Cutting paths, changing course, conniving with its tributaries to overflow
That the Bagmati’s speeding torrents gather people, livestock and crops
Tossing, buffeting and drowning everyone’s only known world
That death, destitution and dislocation is what it leaves behind
As it does fields bloated with silt and the certainty of uncertainty
That sand-and-earth embankments on both of its sides and canals
The way of engineers and that of the contractors is no way to contain the Bagmati
It is only a requiem for the river, a requiem for the people
That the only way is the people’s way, one of ancient wisdom, almost mythic
In their saying ‘let the flood come’, in their belief ‘we will build better as we bond’
In their allowing of the flood waters to disperse and drain over time
In their marking of floods as a distinct season called barh
In their acceptance of its destruction as much as its enrichment through silt deposits
In keeping of their faith in the river as they do in their temples
As in their sacred land and their goddess Sita, who sprang to life from an earthen pot
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III Where Contrarieties Fuse
A lenient, liquid sun
A pale yellow fan of light
A translucent cover of impish clouds
For the aloft, snow-capped Himalayan ranges
Bleached sunbeams, marshmallow clouds
A floating sky and the village Satoli
Tucked in the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand
It keeps much of its story in the shadows
Yet its lichen-covered forests is the doorway to an unseen world
Its glistening pine, chestnut, rhododendron and oak trees oblique roadmaps
As one walks deeper into the Satoli forest
Into its green gradient, it leads one into its liminal corners
Into its inner-most forestscape
Removed from everyday realities
Where the vegetation takes on a measured hue
And the air a stillness
The birdsong gets fainter
The quiet and darkness deeper
The silence and gloom are not easy
They are sullen, predator-poised
Audible above
Are the clicks of cicadas, the chittering of woodworks, the scrapings of aphids
A pause in time
A peculiar force is now at work, an energy that is yielding as it is congenial
An unbearable expectancy
Then a vividness where I am present to myself, wholly, both my good and evil parts
In this balance of contrarieties
A falling away of duality
Between me and the forest
Between the parts of myself
Chitra Gopalakrishnan is a New Delhi-based journalist and a social development communications consultant. She uses her ardour for writing, wing to wing, to break firewalls between nonfiction and fiction, narratology and psychoanalysis, marginalia and manuscript and tree-ism and capitalism. www.chitragopalakrishnan.com
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