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A growing number of bloggers are taking to Hindi Poetry. I have personally reviewed many on Indiblogger and reached the conclusion that this subject is of utmost importance to the community and it is time to provide a short discourse on appreciating Hindi poetry.

Hindi Poetry can be divided into three periods: Devotional (भक्ति काल), Shadow-ism (छायावाद) and Current Commercial (चित्रपट युग). Devotional period was when first time double meaning sentences were introduced in literature. These were expressed meaning (शब्दार्थ) and read between line meaning (भावार्थ.) The poet's objective was to point out ironies of life through short verses without causing controversy or protests from the members of conservative party. There is abundant mention of pottery in the poetry which is an indication of fragility of life, lack of public healthcare and practice of faith healing during this period. The poetry also suggests lack of trade of ceramic, dairy and clothing products with neighboring states and total dependency on local industry to meet the demands. This information could have been of interest to the less argumentative western economists if it was supported with labor rates and unemployment data for the period.

The next period shadow-ism (छायावाद) is the most complex period of Hindi Poetry. If you are taking Class X Board Examinations and preparing for Hindi, having to choose between “Jaishankar Prasad” and “Mahadevi Verma”, without offending your loved ones could keep you in the state of indefinite indecisiveness. Mahadevi Verma wrote the verse “तुझको पीड़ा में ढूंढूंगी, तुझमें ढूंढूंगी पीड़ा” (loose translation: search you in pain, search pain in you) to express this multiple choices syndrome from her own experiences of learning shadow-ism. The problem with shadow-ism its deceitful simplicity. Take the case of Kamayani (कामायनी) by Jaishankar Prasad; there are no long-twisted words, the flow and rhythm are tuned to perfection in the following lines -

नीचे जल था ऊपर हिम था,

एक तरल था एक सघन,

एक तत्त्व की ही प्रधानता- कहो उसे जड़ या चेतन।
(Water below, ice on top
One fluid and the other solid
What can one say about the property of this element - dead or alive)

Don’t fall for it; three generations of Hindi Professors having chosen Kamayani their PhD thesis topic have failed to analyze it. The difficulty of expressing love in Shadow-ism was a void filled effectively by Urdu Shayari instead. In my view, one life is not sufficient to fully comprehend Mr Prasad’s work. It will be grave injustice to other poets and not seek for seven reincarnations in Banaras before moving on to other forms of life. In spite of heavy publicity by CBSE and other State Boards to revive Shadow-ism this style is now well preserved in the archives of university libraries, with no prospect of making a comeback.

The devotional poets in reflected on the simple lives of peasants by daily nitpicking to find new followers or un-follow competing poets (this can be tricky without the help of Twitter!) The poetry abide by certain rules of rhythm and rhyme (‘meter’ as the music masterji would call it) so that it could be sung in public, if an occasion presented itself. An example of such a poetry will be “ओ पालनहारे, निर्गुण और न्यारे” from the movie Lagaan composed by AR Rahman and lyrics by Javed Akhtar.

In contrast the shadow-ism style of is written as prose to exasperate musicians to fit it into any structured musical composition. I know you will not be satisfied without an example. The closest, I could think of is again a song by Javed Akhtar “एक लड़की को देखा तो ऐसा लगा” written for the movie 1942 A Love Story. They had to call RD Burman from self-imposed oblivion to compose the music for this song. In the end it would not have mattered if it was done without any musical accompaniment. All RD Burman did was that he pressed one random note on the harmonium and stayed within the vicinity of the note, till Mr Kumar Sanu was done reading the prose.

So far one must admit that our brushes with Hindi poetry have been accident free. Year later when I reflect on our school education, our teachers’ attitude towards professional lyricists is not very encouraging. They say poetry is an art, it should come from your heart and how can bollywood lyricist be even compared with poets when we know that they sell their art. If you recollect most of the lyricist in the seventies were writing songs on Life (ज़िन्दगी), often with contrasting extreme views developed under the philosophical influence of Osho or Krishnamurti. I was unable to appreciate that ‘search for meaning of life without bank balance’ and ‘looking for a paid job as assistant to Anand Bakshi or Majrooh Sultanpuri’ were two different things. Gopaldas Neeraj was perhaps the only crossover poet and as for the rest of the poets in Neeraj’s own words, “कारवां गुज़र गया, गुबार देखते रहे!”

Since many of the poets opted out of Commercial Poetry (चित्रपट गीत), there were only a handful of dependable lyricists in the industry. Take the example of Mr Tyrewala who contributed to the monumental disaster of a song “Chiggy Wiggy” for the movie Blue. Even the million dollar contract with Kylie Minogue and the Oscars of AR Rahman could not bring out the poetic fusion. A fair copyright ownership act could have saved the blues. With no disrespect to Mr Tyrewala, Chiggy-Wiggy is a song of hope for several aspiring poets who want to make it big in the music industry. It is quite apparant that opportunities in this space are poised for growth. In fact one can consider opening a call center in Goregaon for the composers to call anytime of the day and get their poetries answered.

My personal favorite lyricist is Mr Prasoon Joshi who routinely pours undiluted H₂SO₄ in his songs, to strengthen his long standing bond with his science teachers at Almora. The idea is not to open a debate between science and literature or show personal favoritism in an objective blog, let us look at some of the other seasoned lyricists. If we had to choose between Javed Akhtar and Gulzar we will be faced with the “Mahadevi Verma Syndrome” discussed moments ago. I take your permission to review the works of Gulzar since we have already seen the versatility of Javed sahib.

Gulzar is master of metaphors and figuratively speaking his poetry, like old wine, is getting better with the age. Gulzar’s main challenge is to find the right composers. Usually composers sit next to the lyricist when completing a song. However in case of Gulzar, they fit the words in a given composition without any consideration or poetic justice. His hallmark style of song writing connects with the story and composition at a level of abstraction which requires detailed study in Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Sufi and Rumi literature. Most composers do not have time or patience for all that. Take the example of the opening song “छैय्या-छैय्या” of the movie Dil Se. First you need to look beyond the Khan trio (Farah, Malaika, and SRK) swinging on the top of a moving Train in their own version of Sufi ecstasy. Then you need to analyze why Mr AR Rahman is riding on a speed boat in a Mystic River. Talented Santosh Sivan produces the necessary scenic distractions and the high pitched debutant voice of Sukhvinder Singh does his part in completing the total destruction of an excellent poem. The rest of the movie and its characters try their best to align with the harmonic interpretations of the song in an effort to make-up for the errors! Ironically, people rejected the movie but immortalized the song. The age old debate on the need of good poetry in film songs was wide open. In fact Anand Bakshi was of the opinion that it was a blessing that Mr Rahman did not understand Hindi/Urdu Poetry. (Quiz Question: Translate the line “गुलपोश कभी इतराए कहीं” written by Gulzar.)

Gulzar teamed with Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy to create history with the song “कजरारे” for the movie, Bunty Aur Babli. The subtle use of English word in the line “आँखें भी कमाल करती हैं, personal से सवाल करती हैं” doesn't need formal translation. However the one I liked best is the song “धड़क-धड़क” from the same movie. Remember the verses – “चाँद का टीका मत्थे लगा के, रात-दिन तारों में जीना-वीना easy नहीं” or “ओ जरा रास्ता तो दो, थोडा सा बदल चखना हैं। बड़ा-बड़ा कोयल से, नाम फलक पे लिखना हैं।” It not only does justice to the story but uses the correct Train Template to depict the flow of song. Gulzar sahib has penned many magic moments for the silver screen teaming with composers like Burmans’, Vishal Bhardwaj, AR Rahman, etc. each time surpassing his previous work.

My lesson on poetry will present the youth with several new and exciting career choices. Cross translation of Hindi and Regional language songs in English and other languages is a serious business as our film industry is going global and becoming collaborative. Translation is still a nascent art form and it requires deep understanding of language, poetry, culture and the movie context. There are several examples of incorrect translations making round on the Youtube, that mocks of our poetry, culture and regional language sensitivity. It is a shame that we are leaving this market opportunity unattended.

It will be unfair if I did not mention some of the bloggers who have been tirelessly pouring their hearts out. Sushri Seema Gupta and Sushri Ranju Bhatia contribute regularly on their blogs. All the poems on the Kaavyaalaya website are worth reading. I would have concluded with a couplet but I am afraid that critics review may hurt the feelings of my fans.