Secret (W) rites of Marghazhi, 2021
(Picture Credit - Neeeraja Sundar)
SECRET (W) RITES OF MARGHAZHI, 2021-2022 :
Kamar Sultana Sheik
Inspired by Thiruppavai
(Disclaimer : This is my own writing, inspired by the Thiruppavai. It is not a translation nor transliteration. Any errors whatsoever are inadvertent and unintentional.)
©Kamar Sultana Sheik
INTRODUCING “Secret (W) rites of Marghazhi”, 2021 (2022) a garland of Bhakti poems by Kamar Sultana Sheik
The poet has proclaimed that she has been inspired by ‘THIRUPPAVAI’, the famous work of Bhakti Poetry by Andal, an eighth century Bhakti poet, who rose in the eyes of public to the level of a goddess, a consort to her Lord. I haven’t read the great treatise on Bhakti-cum-love by this ancient poet, but from Kamar’s poems I hazard an approximation, Andal positioned herself as a Gopi to her Blue Lord. There are references to Thozhi, the female companion or a Sakhi, she should be a Gopika of Braja Bhumi. Krishna would celebrate Ras Lila with Radha and her Sakhis or Gopikas.
The poet Kamar has a natural talent for poetry. She writes with unerring poetic diction. In thirty days flat, she has penned as many poems, a poem a day. A garland of thirty offerings to lord Krishna, in the sacred month of Marghazhi or the month of Margashira that ordinarily spans from the middle of December to the middle of January. The poems are in a way interwoven on a common theme, love as worshipful yearning and surrender at the Beloved’s feet. The poems have their strength in their simplicity of expression, and their direct one-dimensional Bhakti. They are poems celebrating her love for the Blue Lord, as did Mirabai of Mewar, the queen-mystic poet-composer of Bhakti verses in the sixteenth century.
Some of her phrases and lines shine luminously with a loveliness and they read like sacred rites (I don’t think ‘Secret’ is the right defining ‘word’ for ‘rites’ in her title, unless the poet is feeling coy about her love for the Lord!). The quotable lines, say a few of them, from those constellations are - ‘Let’s bathe in waters of Bhakti’, ‘Milk of abstinence’, ‘Couch of timelessness’, ‘I swoon like the bee’, ‘…we stand three: Timelessness, you and me’ etc.
In a few poems, she defines her Bhakti with complexity. In THE AWAKENING, she sings, “Andal seems to have come at last! / She wants me to partake of that Ambrosia, / … / Ah, could the Beloved have sent her, / …. / If I were the beloved, I would surely have done it / For my Lover…. /”. She is as if in complicity with Andal and other lovers of the lord working on a cartel of the sacred love as Shiv-devotees partake ganja, the intoxicating prasada from the same Chillum (smoking pot) or in the Anand Bazar inside Puri Jagannath Temple premises, Bhaktas eat prasada from the same banana leaf-platter.
Her Bhakti here appears like a complex game played by the ladies in love with the Lord. The essence brings to my mind the complex game of love-cum-Bhakti among the three protagonists – Mirabai, her Giridhar Gopal (Krishna), and Bhoj Raj (Mirabai’s husband, the prince of Mewar) – in the famous novel CUCKOLD by the eminent novelist Kiran Nagarkar. In its plot Bhoj Raj has played the role of a cuckold in facilitating the union between his wife and her lover Krishna.
In MANGALSASANAM she sings, “Or those tresses of beauty, / Fragrant from the devotion of their Beloved…” She finds that the hairs of devotees like her are wafting the fragrance of love of their Beloved, the Lord. In the true Bhakti tradition, the devotee has always felt, she or he is nothing but a chip of Lord’s great block, a vaporous reflection of her or his love. It has been a moving stream of feeling flowing through the landscape of Bhakti movement from the ancient days to the modern.
And in THE CLOTHING her lines resonate, “The clamor of the senses / Cacophonies into the very soul”. Her sense organs are clamoring in competition for getting the privilege of sensing her Lord’s various attributes like intoxicating smell, electric touch, ambrosia-taste, melodious voice and Adonis-look, but the surprise of surprises is that the clamor or cacophonous competition has reached her soul. Isn’t that a unique feeling?
I have been reading Kamar for almost the last two years and I must give her an attribute, overdue. She is a bold secular poet in this land of Circe (ref. Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s The Continent of Circe, a book of essays by him. He was famous as a gritty writer who never hesitated to call a spade a spade.), the Indian peninsula or subcontinent. Her poetry is phenomenal, rare and feels like a fresh breath of oxygen where asphyxiating communal hatred rules the roost. Sultana is a Muslim, but her God is secular. Krishna (God) speaks in Gita the most secular philosophy ever propounded, He famously says – I manifest to her or him in the same image as she or he has conceived me in her or his heart (sic) – these are not Krishna’s exact words in Sanskrit Sloka-version but my simplified language, so parenthesized by ‘sic’.
I have found the same secular Bhakti, as of Sultana, in another ancient Odia Bhakta-poet, Salabega (Whom I have translated for Arundhathi Subramaniam edited ‘EATING GOD’, a collected work of Bhakti Poets, published by Penguin Anand Publishers and also for an issue of Dr. Sarangi edited Literary Vibes). Salabega was a Muslim and lived in seventeenth century at and around Puri. He spent his life in the adoration of Lord Jagannath. His Bhakti lyrics still resonate in rural Odisha and are sung in Kirtans as Bhajans, or Bhakti-songs. In his poetry Salabega weeps, accuses, sulks, gets angry with his Lord, expressing his love like the latter day Chaitanya Prabu, where the Bhakta plays the role of Radha to her or his Lord, in Bhakti the surrender is gender-neutral and complete.
Kamar Sultana Sheik is a soulful poet and I wish her many laurels and peaks of poetry. I introduce her work with the hope she would go places and would be read widely. I would also like to read her poetic work outside the domain of Bhakti. Wish, she would one day write on other nuances of love-Bhakti than worshipful-surrender only, I mean, on other emotions like Sulk, Anger, Punishment, Jealousy, Mock Rejection, Possessiveness etc., the other attributes of deep love-Bhakti. I wish her to grow from Mira to Radha, who would go berserk for her Krishna when he was dubiously inclined to her Sakhis (Gopikas) or when he went to rule in Mathura.
I would define a little more clearly my aspirations that I dream of bearing fruit in Sultana’s Bhakti Poems by quoting a few lines from a recent article of a co- poet/critic/writer Arundhathi Subramaniam. I quote from her article “THINGS I NEVER TOLD YOU”, published in the ‘EYE’ the Sunday Express Magazine of 30th January, 2022 – “I have been fascinated by the ‘goddess’ poems of Annamacharya, the 15th century Telugu Bhakti poet. The bhakta here is not a groveling supplicant but a spunky goddess, ‘He is my slave,’ she proclaims of her god, reminding us that the finest sacred poetry is often stoutly egalitarian. Spirituality here is not deference, but joyous self-reclamation.”
Prabhanjan K. Mishra,
(Poet/Critic/Writer)
Table of Contents
Day 1 : Verse 1 : 16th December 2021
1.THE BATH
Oh, Thozhi, do you not want
To feel the coolness of the dawn?
Bearing the beauty of Marghazi full Moon !
Of He who is Himself, Margasirsa..?
Oh, you, bedecked with the ornaments of prosperous Aayarpadi,
Come, let's bathe in those waters of Bakhti,
And experience Bhagavat Guna*,
Receive blessingsfor a month-long penance,
And it's sweet fruit.
Day 2 : Verse 2 : 17th December 2021
2.THE FAST
I drink of the milk of Abstinence,
Like ?ndal and her Thozhis,
They, who are blessed to serve
The Divine Being; Him as the means to Him.
Who reclines on the Couch of Timelessness
On the Ksheerabdi*
No ghee superior than the song of the Lila,
My belly is full.
My flowers are for the Feet,
And I wear only the kohl of yearning in my eyes.
Thus I decorate my soul.
Here, I give away, myself in verse,
Thus fulfilling the vow of 'Aiyam'.
Day 3 : Verse 3: 18th December
3.THREE
Three rains for the land to flourish,
Three strides to make a King bow his head.
Here I crush the Inner Bali,
With my own Inner Vamana who in compassion do
What the blue-hued One,
Did for those in divine Love;
Ah, for that gaze of Grace
That fills cows' udders to overflow in abundance,
Filling vessel after vessel of their own accord..
Is that You that stands
Amongst the ripe paddy ?
I ask the Beloved : red lotuses in their midst,
Are they your blessed Feet?
I swoon like the bee that drank
Of an intoxicating flower.
And yet again, we stand three :
Timelessness, You and Me
Day 4 : Verse 4: 19th December
4.THE WEAPONS
Parched Soul, how shall I your thirst quench?
Shall I like ?ndal call upon the rain showers
To pour forth like arrows
From that magnificent Bow
And call upon Lightning and thunder
To recreate the Light and Sound
Of the sacred Conch and Discus?
Ah, or shall I call upon the Beloved Himself,
That you may drench yourself
In the very Rain that He Himself is?
And so may you be illumined with the Lightning
Caused by his Countenance,
And His laughter? Let it reverberate
Through your being like the Panchajanyam
Drowning you in it's hum
For aeons to come, that
You may never ever thirst again!
Day 5 : Verse 5: 20th December
5.THE PURITY
How do I reach this state
Of complete purity?
I asked the Beloved..and He showed me the way:
Like Yamuna yearning to touch His feet,
Which when immersed,
Fulfilled the river's purpose of existence..
So each pore of mine Being
Prostrating before the Beloved,
Shall fulfill mine existence too!
Like ?ndal, here my tongue sings in escatsy!
My mind lost in the remembrance
Of the Beloved...
And like the blessed womb of Yasoda,
The Shrine of my being
Shall be illuminated..
Like those flowers I place in offering..
Here, I stand, in full bloom, in pristine purity!
Day 6 : Verse 6 : 21st December
6.THE AWAKENING
Who is it that knocks?
The loud thudding awakens me...
My sleep seems to be slipping
From my half-open eyelids,
Hazy gaze lights upon a figure,
Beautifully adorned..wearing the ornaments of devotion divine!
?ndal seems to have come at last!
She wants me to partake of that Ambrosia,
That she knows so well..
Ah, could the Beloved have sent her,
To cure me of my torpor?
If I were the Beloved, I would surely have done it
For my Lover. Or maybe I would have come myself ..
The birds are chirping loudly..
It sounds like a chiding..
Or maybe a hastening..
The birds say it was the Beloved Himself who had come,
Only the form was Andal's.
Day 7 : Verse 7 : 22nd December
7.MANGALASASANAM
So what shall I sing about..
The thick butter being churned, like the cosmic Manthan?
Or of those tresses of beauty,
Fragrant, from the devotion of their Beloved..
About forgotten Divinity
Needing a hand like ?ndal's
To shine forth in full awareness,
And hasten towards the purpose of Existence.
Ah, but I shall sing of all of these,
Just like those King-Cows of ?yarpadi..
May it awaken the essence of true devotion
In all existence.
Day 8 : Verse 8 : 23rd December
8.WHITE SKY, DARK BUFFALOES
I travel the Path
Of kainkaryam*,
That White Sky of celestial light,
Towards a dawn, the color of milk
Of the ?yarpadi cows..
Here I overcome the Ego-demon,
Overpowering me with it's weight;
Slaying the black buffaloes
Of anger and desire,
Wrestling me down..
I'm on the path of Archiradhi gadhi..
Of the Beloved..
Here comes ?ndal,
Beloved of my Beloved...
Away, slumber! Do you not hear the beat of the Sacred Drum?
Ah, what is it but the divine declaration of my Beloved?
Let me rush to avail of it !
Day 9 : Verse 9 : 24th December
9.THE GEMS
I, the Jeevatma,
Lying in a swoon,
On the soft bed of Samsara,
The glittering lamps,
Creating a dark cocoon of veiledness
From the Light of full Awareness ..
Am I like the gopi asleep, cousin of ?ndal ?
Knowing all, Nithya Jivatma,
Yet, asleep, refusing to come to the door
Unheeding of ?ndal's entreaties?
What is the kind of gem that I shall become?
The 'Thoomani' pure
Paramatma Swaroopam
Or will I be a Nithya Jeevatma
Content in the fragrance, waiting..?
Now I leave it to the Beloved's will,
Does he want this gem for his temple or his Beloved's?
Day 10 : Verse 10 : 25th December
10.THE ADORNMENT
As I surrendered
At the Beloved's Feet,
He bade me look up :
Ah, I behold his Adornment,
Who knew he would wear me
Upon His head?
All my deeds righteous,
To earn a place in Heaven
Of what use be they now?
Here I cast aside those golden fetters of good deeds
That bind me in the chains of Samsara..
And like the Gopi inhaling the tulsi fragrance
I reside in the swarga of the Beloved's Presence.
Day 11 : Verse 11 : 26th December
11.GOLDEN GIRL
A damsel, divine, this Gopi,
Dazzling like a golden creeper of the Clan,
Whose cowherds adhere
To their varna Ashrama dharma
So meticulously..
Rightly so, because the gaze of Krishna
Causes youthful calves to yield
As much as milch cows...
Ah, but for that one gaze
That bestows eternal youth to the Nithyasuris!
Come, Beloved, into my courtyard
?ndal's song has stirred my sleeping soul..
Now I need to gaze upon your Countenance,
So when yours falls upon me,
I too shall become the ?yarpadi peacock
Whose grace is matched only by the slumbering Thozhi..
My gait too, shall be like the serpent hood
In all it's serpentine beauty unfolded..
Day 12 : Verse 12 : 27th December
12.THE MILK
Ah, so you thought of me, Beloved?
Is that why this Milk* (of devotion)
Is Overflowing within me!
Like those buffaloes of ?yarpadi,
Who thought of their calves
And their udders let out their milk
To make soggy the God's courtyard..
Where my beloved ?ndal
Sang to awaken her Thozhi..
Whose brother was so immersed in Krishna
That he did not milk the cows of his house!
I drink that ambrosia,
That celestial Milk of knowledge divine
Your Love.
Day 13 : Verse 13 : 28th December
13.THE EYES
This drink of Amruta,
That I have sipped
With these dark eyes, mine..
It is your darshan divine,
Beloved...
Have my eyes too become deer-like,
Or like those Gopi's
Black bees atop a fair flower?
Ah, but how can these eyes be mine?
They are Yours..
For in them I hold, your Image
And in it resides
The Cosmic Whole.
Day 14 : Verse 14 : 29th December
14.RED AND BLUE
What is it that sleeps
Within?
And what comes awake I wonder?
My lips close in a seal of Breath,
The Breath which in l it's fulness
Reverberates with your Name, Beloved!
The petals of my red lotus lips, let them unbloomed remain,
While, those fowers blue,
Of mine eyes, may they always shine,
With your Conciousness..
Like that blessed gopi whom ?ndal awakened
On this fourteenth day of M?rghazi,
May it be my day
Of awakening
Day 15 : Verse 15 : 30th December
15.THE PARROT
This silent parrot
Inside of me, seems to be singing today..
Has it heard the voice
Of beloved ?ndal, waking her Thozhis?
For there seems to be
A Sathsang I never aspired to find myself in..
Ah, for all those voice of awakened gopis,
Singing in unison..
Like a thousand temple bells all at once..
Are those bells too in a Sathsang of their own?
I'm lost, for yes, I'm in a sathsang too..
My Beloved and me
Day 16 : Verse 16 : 31st December
16.MANGALASASANAM
I, the Ananyaprayojana*,
I weave a reason and a pretext,
Just to be in the Beloved's presence.
My purpose is to sing the praises of the One;
To awaken Him with my Mangalasasanam..
I need no holy dip,
For I have dipped myself
In the river of my own devotion..
So, thou, Dv?rap?laka,
Of the Divine Door, tarry not
And let me in, as it was done
For ?ndal and her Thozhis!.
Day 17 : Verse 17 : 1st January 2022
17.THE CLOTHING
If you give me food for the senses, Beloved,
I shall hunger not for a while..
Were I to be clad with a gift of cloth
To cover this transient body,
I shall but revel in its beauty but until
The clamor of the senses
Cacaphonies into the very Soul
I now seek to feed and satiate...
Like ?ndal who called out..
To Yasodha, that undying Lamp of her clan,
And Nandagopa, the bestower of generous gifts.
Here I clamor for you to give me..
That drink which shall leave me ever-quenched;
That aroma of you that shall feed and satiate
My hunger forever..
Give me, the gifts of the clothes of Yourself..
So that I shall find myself, sky-clad,
True Digambara.
Day 18 : Verse 18 : 2nd January 2022
18.THE SOUNDS
Ah, do you see
The Soul-cuckoo resting
On the Madhavi flowers
Of Thy Feet?
Do you hear the joyful cooing.?
I, the Mukhtama, what do I care
About the birds and dawn of Sams?ra?
I rejoice in the jingling ecstasy,
Like ?ndal and her Thozhis did
In the bangles of Beloved Nappinnai
Of the Red Lotus hands,
The opener of their door.
In the game of Lovers,
It is but an honor to lose..
There stands the One :
Lost ! In ecstatic loss as his Beloved
Twirls the Universe like a toy..
Ah, how I long to lose in this game of Love,
And know it's gladness!
Day 19 : Verse 19 : 3rd January 2022
19.THE FIVE THREADS
Wearing the kohl of your Image, Beloved,
I lie rested on my Couch..
As ?ndal saw Nappinnai
Resting on the Couch
Of the PanchaS?yanam..
As the flowers in her fragrant tresses bloomed
Because of her thoughts,
So do they in my Being,
Smell you their wafting fragrance?
Ah, the waiting Lamp burns bright
Casting soothing light
Upon my searching gaze...
As I search within
For the Artha Panchaka..
Day 20 : Verse 20 : 4th January 2022
20.DIVYA DESA
In mountain and ocean
I am told, resides the One;
But I, cannot travel
This sthula sharira tires..
My sukshama awaits to join you...
As was Krishna mesmerized
With Nappinnai's swaroopa,
Here I stand, mesmerized by you, Beloved..
Now come to reside in Me;
Although I no longer know any atom that is not You..
Yet here I ask you to hasten
To grant of Yourself;
That I may no longer be me
Day 21 : Verse 21 : 5th January 2022
21.THE MILKY OCEAN
Beloved, Being so vast,
Like the Ocean of Milk
That is the Cosmos,
Fill me like those milk vessels
Which were filled by the ?yarpadi cows,
Having been touched
By their Beloved Krishna..
Tether me then, to You,
With the silken thread of devotion,
I stand wearing only the threadbare cloak
Of ego-less surrender.
Day 22 : Verse 22 : 6th January 2022
22.LOTUS-GAZE
Here I stand, trembling,
At your threshold..
What will those half-open open lotuses of thine eyes shower me with
A scorching fire?
If so let me burn and become ashes,
For then, I shall rise,
Like the Sun and Moon
Newly born from the fire and ash
Of the Cosmos..
Or will moon like coolness soothe my Being,
That I shall rest in you...?
Or will the Sun and Moon rise together
That I shall become
The Sky itself?
Hasten now, I wait with impatience
At your Throne..
Day 23 : Verse 23 : 7th January 2022
23.THE RAIN
It is raining inside of me,
And I have sought refuge
By your Throne;
Like a lion who seeks his den
To spend in hibernation..
But my eyes and ears yearn to see and hear,
That great roar within you
And your majesty as you Appear on your Throne..
Teach my Being, that sleep of Yoga Nidra.
That I may come to reside
In that very place that you too reside,
The Pranava
Day 24 : Verse 24: 8th January 2022
24.THE FEET
If I were to decorate
Your Feet,Beloved
I would string my Soul
Into many flowers
And wrap them over and over,
That they shall appear bejeweled..!
Or shall I weave my Being
Into ornaments that surround
Those nectar-filled Lotuses
That attract me like Bees
To nectarine flowers?
How can I not sing your Praises
Like ?ndal and her Thozhis
Who find solace only
In singing your Pall?ndu?
Here I bess your Feet,
For in that I attain,
You
Day 25 : Verse 25: 9th January 2022
25.THE BESTOWAL
As my tongue
Sings the song of your Grace,
Ah, how It showers..!
I pretend to ask of you,
Many favours..many gifts
But you know what it is that I really ask!
You give what you choose
To whomever you desire.
Choose me too, for the Bestowal
Of your Grace, in this moment
I can wait no longer!
Day 26 : Verse 26: 10th January 2022
26.THE EMBODIMENT
Beloved, in Love so Immersed
That your Being engulfs the All..
Me, a minuscule droplet I immerse myself in the vast Blue of your Ocean!
And yet I have held you,
In the folds of my Being,
Like a gem with the Ten*..
Like ?ndal and her Thozhis
Who asked for the great white Conch,
By giving which, their Beloved would come along,
Here, I too ask you
For the resounding affirmation of your Love,
So I can begin the festivities
Of the cool rains ending,
This scorching separation between us..
Ah, but if I could dissolve myself right now,
In that festive rain,
And rejoice in my own dissolution..
And you, like Vatapatra Sai,
Absorb me, instantly.
Day 27 : Verse 27: 11th January 2022
27.THE ORNAMENTS
As I drink of the Ambrosia
Of divine union, Beloved,
I find myself covered with your Bestowal..
For you have bestowed the touch of Yourself
In Garment and Ornament, breath and being
As I sing in escatsy, like the Gopis did,
And as ?ndal and her Thozhis did
After attaining the flawless Form
Of their Beloved as their reward.
Day 28 : Verse 28 : 12th January 2022
28.THE TIE
Tied to you by the Nine*,
Beloved, how can I myself unravel?
I am forever, in the lowliest of low
Of my actions, still tied!
Meritless I stand before you,
Yet address you with familiarity
By that very Name to which
You always grant yourself
Grant yourself now, by your Grace,
For in that alone shall I attain,
My Purusartha.
Day 29 : Verse 29 : 13th January 2022
29.THE GOLDEN LOTUS
They Feet, those golden lotuses,
Honey-filled blossoms,
attracting bees,
By their bloom I flourish, Beloved!
Like ?ndal and her Thozhis
In the chilly Marghazi morn,
Yearning for the service of their Beloved
Birth after birth and ever more,
Me, the Mukhtama,
My goal is the same,
For that is my Brahma Muhurta,
That is my soothing Rain.
Day 30 : Verse 30 : 14th January 2022
30.A GARLAND OF VERSE
As I churn Myself,
Here come the flowers
Of cosmic love, strewn
Through this milky ocean of Love;
Here, I weave them together
With the silver string of my Soul;
Jivatma, Manifest , I the most precious,
Offer these in humble devotion,
As Andal, daughter of Vishnucitta, did, to her Beloved...
May these flowers blossom
Within all who read them.
Ms. Kamar Sultana Sheik is a poet, writing mostly on themes of spirituality, mysticism and nature with a focus in Sufi Poetry. A post-graduate in Botany, she was educated at St. Aloysious Anglo-Indian School ( Presentation Convent, Vepery) and completed her degree from SIET womens' college, Chennai. Her professional career spanning 18 years has been in various organizations and Institutions including the IT sector. She is a self-styled life coach and has currently taken a break to focus on her writing full-time. Sultana has contributed to various anthologies and won several prizes in poetry contests. A green enthusiast, blogger and content-writer, Sultana calls herself a wordsmith. Sultana can be reached at : sultana_sheik@yahoo.co.in
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