It is a full moon and I am walking in
Lodi Garden in the footsteps of Octavio Paz. The night
has mixed fragrances of Raat Ke Raani (the queen of the
night) and the two stars shining from above in the clear
sky of Delhi, one is Octavio Paz and the other is Pablo
Neruda.
It was a year ago when my wife took
me to the rooftop of our house in Delhi and poured me
the wine of poetry. She was reciting Ocavio Paz and
Pablo Neruda. I was intoxicated, the power of wine was
taking me higher and higher until I reached the two
shining stars of Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda.
I had come to India, the dreamland of
poets and writers, after much anticipation. India had
always been to me my image of motherland. I was at home
from the moment the plane touched the ground. Now,
walking in the Lodi garden I was inviting the stars and
the moon to join me in the celebration of life, with the
melody of birds, the perfume of raat ke raani and the
stillness of quiet moments.
The black, pensive, dense
domes of the mausoleums
suddenly shot birds
into the unanimous blue (P179)
Octavio let me just address you the
way a poet addresses a poet. We are people of the same
skin, drinking the same wine and living in the same
house. Many nights when I felt far away from friends and
family you have been there watching me from the top of
the book shelve, waiting to be asked to join me.
Octavio you have been to my country,
Afghanistan, and you have written poems about a country
of mystery and mystiques. You read Hafiz, the Lisanul
Ghaib and Maulana Jaluldin Bakhi and now I am here in
the very place walking the routes of the great poets in
Lodi Garden. A garden built by an Afghan king, as a
monument of thanksgiving to India. A gift from a
cultured king who must also have thought of India as his
motherland.
Lodi road is a home to artists and
writers alike. Some evenings I encounter Mrs Rajan, an
elderly lady and gifted poet who lives not far from Lodi
Garden and sometimes my friend, the ambassador of
Mexico, invites me for a night of cultural experience.
His house was once home to you. The Mexican Ambassador
to India’s residence is always frequented by writers,
poets and musicians. He is also himself an elegant
poet with excellent taste. His evenings of poetry are
dedicated to you Octavio with introductory memoirs such
as “friends, this huge tree under which we are sitting
is named after Octavio Paz and I recite his poetry and
mine under this very poetic tree”. The tree is huge and
its magnificent leaves and branches provide shelter to
many poets and writers. The Ambassador recites poetry
and I watch the moon through the leaves and towards
those shining stars.
Stillness
in the middle of the night
not adrift from centuries
not a spreading out
nailed
like a fixed idea
to the centre of incandescence
Delhi
Two tall syllables
Lying on the green grass of the Lodi
garden I listen attentively to the soft and gentle sound
of the sitar played by my friend Khalil Gudaz. He is a
student of Ustad Amjad Ali khan. My eyes wonder the
silky patches of clouds and I imagine one patch of cloud
resembling the map of the great India, the motherland,
the India of Ashoka. I desire the cloud to produce
gentle raindrops over Afghanistan and India. I want
only one sky over the two countries. My friend Khalil
says: “you know sarood was developed from the rubab
musical instrument of Afghanistan”. I feel that
Afghanistan and India play the same music. We have
always played the same music until a man called Mahmood
of Ghazna divided us. I dislike his savageness of
destroying Somnat and yet I am proud of Lodi who has
created this wonderful garden to become a sanctuary for
poets, writers and musicians.
Talking about poets and music I
remember when you met Amir Khusru in his white marbles.
His soul was piercing the cold stone and reaching your
soul. Next to him lies the soul of souls, Abdullah
Kabuli, today known as Nezamuldin Aulia. It was
Nezamuldin the great Sufi who prevented khusru from
serving the king and advised him to serve the people. A
simple Sufi was challenging the most glorious kingdom of
the world the Mughal emperor, showing that there was
another court at the heart of muddy houses.
Trees heavy with birds hold
the afternoon up with their hands.
Arches and patios. A tank of water,
poison green between red walls.
A corridor leads to the sanctuary:
beggars, flowers, leprosy, marble.
Tombs, two names, their stories:
Nizam Uddin, the wondering
theologian,
Amir Khusru, the parrot’s tongue.
The saint and the poet. A grim
star sprouts from a cupola.
Slim sparkles in the pool.
Amir Khusru, parrot or mocking bird
the two haves of each moment,
muddy sorrow, voice light.
Syllables, wondering fires,
Vagabond architectures:
every poem is time, and burns. (P174)
It was the monuments of Delhi built
by the Afghans, including the Qutab Minar which
influenced you to go to Afghanistan and see this land of
mystic and mysterious by himself. However, you must
have been
disappointed to see the diminishment,
for even in those days very little was remaining of the
glorious civilisations of the different eras and
religions that had existed. Afghanistan of the
Zorastrians, Afghanistan of the Buddhists, Afghanistan
of the Hindus and Afghanistan of the Muslims. Some of
our cities destroyed by the barbarians of the times such
as, Chengiz Khan and Timor the Limb. They were never
rebuilt even after the passage of a thousand years.
There is no sign of Shahre Ghulghuleh (the city of sound
and light), in Bamyan. It was in this city that under
the eyes of its great Buddha, in Bamyan, Chengiz decided
to destroy the entire city of Ghulghuleh and not only
that but to kill all its habitants. And to make it even
worse killing all the animals, including the dogs, cats
and mice. History recalls that after the complete
destruction of the city, Chengiz went to inspect the
damage, his happiness of the loss of life and
destruction of the buildings was momentarily spoiled
when he spotted a mouse running amongst the ruins. He
told his soldiers “I want life to be completely
eradicated from this country”. And the truth is that
life and respect for civilisation within the Afghans
stopped after being invaded by the Arabs in the name of
Islam, the Mongols in the name of barbarism and the
British in the name of acquiring their share of the
Eastern Wealth. It was the British, the civilised
invader, that finally destroyed whatever remained of
Kabul. But the culture of destruction also has been
adopted by the Afghans themselves. Alaudin Jahan Soz ,
set Ghazni on fire and extinguished its civilisation
completely and he was not the only one because the trend
continued. Only recently the communists, the Mujahideen
and the Taliban all have had their fair share in the
destruction of their own country. When nothing
remained they put their own symbol of history and pride
to death. They turned their guns toward peaceful faces
of Buddha. Bang. Let there be darkness.
Octavio you must have been deeply
disappointed after reading the poetry of Amir Khusraw,
the sweet parrot of Persian poetry, about the country of
old civilisation and a country of enormous wealth of
history, Afghanistan. You could not find many
historical evidences of that when you were there. You
did not have time to dig the ground but you smelled the
soil even when you could not find Abu Sina the
Alchemist. You saw the desert of Bagwa carpeted with
red tulips to welcome the great poet. You expressed
“as long as this soil produce such flowers, it will also
produce poets, writers, philosophers and alchemists”.
Maybe you were right but it has been years since great
poets and writers of Afghanistan made an impression.
Poets and writers need to be supported by governments
and their people. For the past 400 years there hasn’t
been a cultured Afghan king who loved books. Whatever
Poets and writers wrote became dust. The kings were
simple warlords and the people were taking shelter
running to the mountains for safety of their lives from
the warlords and invaders. Enemies within and enemies
from without.
The present is motionless
The mountains are of the bone and of
snow
They have been here since the
beginning
The wind has just been borne
Ageless
As the light and the dust
A windmill of sounds
The bazaar spins its colours
Bells, motors, radios
The stony trot of dark donkeys
Songs and complaints intangled
The tall light chiselled with
hammer-strokes
In the clearance of silence
Boy’s circles
Explode
Princess in tattered clothes
On the bank of the tortured river
Pray pee
mediate
The present is motionless
The floodgates of the years open
Days flash out
Agate
*********
The present is motionless
June 21st
Today is the beginning of summer
Two or
three birds
Invents a garden
**********
The present is motionless
The mountains
quartered
suns
petrified storms earth-yellow
The wind whips
it hurts to see
The sky is another deeper abyss
Gorge of the Salang Pass
black cloud over black rock
Fists of blood strikes
gate of stone
Only the water is human
in these precipitous solitudes
Only your eyes of human water
Afghanistan is a traveller like you
and me. It has travelled through the course of history.
Through happy period when it was touched by Buddha, when
it was lit by the light of Ahura Mazda (the ultimate
truth), when its temples mushroomed in the hills,
mountains and deserts, when it woke up with the
recitation of Khayam, with the beat of Sufi soul on
drams, with people in the farms growing food of love.
Afghanistan invented a face for itself, travelling deep
into history:
He invented a face for himself.
Behind
it,
he lived died and resurrected
many times.
His face now
has the wrinkles from the face.
His wrinkle have no face (P187)
On the road to Kabul and then Balhk
there was nothing but the natural and stunning beauty of
the country in front of you and you were too late by
many years to see the magnificence of the caravansaras
of the silk rout. I too wish I had lived in that era.
Perhaps Octovio, myself and Ibne Batuta would have
become friends travelling together. We would have gone
to Kabul on the silk route, where we would have passed
the Kabulis in the market speaking at least four
different main languages in order to facilitate their
business. We would have seen the Charbaghs, the copies
of the Mughuls gardens built in India. We would have
listened to the sound of music coming from the streets
of Kabul. Kabul was full of professional musicians,
dancers and storytellers, but today there is nothing
left but just a footprint on the few surviving history
books.
Now here in the Lodi garden I am
thinking about you and my country and I come to
conclusion that at least India has kept its charms and
beauty. It is a country of many religions and many
sects and it is a country of tolerance. It is here
that I can discover my own motherland, by walking the
Qutab Minar, walking in the Charbaghs or simply the Lodi
Gardens. Here I discovered you and poetry.
Reference
All poems are taken from the
collected poems 1957-1987, Edited by Eliot Weinberger,
HarperCollins Publishers, India
