Sukrita Paul Kumar

Pagoda poems

Language: english

Translations: hindi (पगोडा कविताएँ), german (Pagoda-Gedichte)

Pagoda poems
(Inspired by poems hanging over and around the master pagoda near Hanoi, Vietnam)

nine times over
the word nothingness

emerges again
and yet again
in the twenty-word poem
by the master monk

the dragon, they say,
descends into the sea
searching for meaning
and spewing jewels
jewels that become rocks
with stalactites piercing into
bellies of rocks

columns of light rise
dressed in stunning colours

devils dancing
in step with gods

all in all,
adding to nothingness
and making meaning

*

what is real?

image of the bird
fluttering in the sky
or the one still
in the gushing river

the wavy moon
in the water
or the one above
that is steady

parallel

forever

Translations:

Language: hindi

पगोडा कविताएँ

नौ बार, और फिर से
एक ही शब्द, शून्य
उभरता बार-बार
उस भिक्षु-गुरु की
बीस-शब्दीय
कविता में

ड्रैगन –वे कहते हैं—
गहरे उतरता है सागर में
अर्थ की खोज में
और मणियाँ उगलता है
नुकीली चट्टान बनती हैं मणियाँ
बेध जाती हैं चट्टानी मर्म को

उठते हैं ऊपर
रोशनी के स्तम्भ
अद्भुत रंगों से सजे

नाच उठते हैं दैत्य
देवों से ताल मिला

कुल मिलाकर
शून्य में जुड़ता चलता
कुछ, बहुत कुछ
और रचता है अर्थ !

*

क्या है वास्तविक ?

आसमान में फड़फड़ाते
पक्षी की छवि
या फिर
तेज़ बहती नदी में
रुका हुआ अक्स

पानी में हिलता चाँद
या फिर ऊपर
ठहरा चाँद

समानान्तर

निरंतर !

Language: german

Pagoda-Gedichte
(Inspiriert von Gedichten, die an der Meisterpagode nahe Hanoi, Vietnam, hängen)

insgesamt neun Mal
das Wort Nichts

immer und
immer wieder
im zwanzig-Wort-Gedicht
des Meistermönchs

der Drachen, sagen sie,
taucht ins Meer
auf der Suche nach Sinn
und spuckt Juwelen aus
Juwelen, die zu Felsen werden
ihre Stalaktiten
stechen ins Gestein

Lichtsäulen, gehüllt
in atemberaubende Farben

Teufel tanzen
im Gleichschritt mit Göttern

all das
ist auch wieder Nichts
und schafft Sinn

*

was ist echt?

der Vogel
wie er am Himmel flattert
oder der regungslose Vogel
im strömenden Fluss

der gekräuselte Mond
im Wasser
oder der beständige Mond
da oben

immer

beides

Sukrita Paul Kumar

photo © private

* 10.11.1949, Kenya
lives in: New Delhi, India

Sukrita Paul Kumar, was born and brought up in Kenya and is at present living in Delhi. She held the Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at the University of Delhi, till recently. An Honorary Fellow of International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA) and a former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she was also an invited poet in residence at Hong Kong Baptist University. She has published several collections of poems in English including, Folds of Silence, Without Margins, Rowing Together and Apurna. Her poems selected and translated by the eminent lyricist Gulzar has been published by HarperCollins as a bilingual book, Poems Come Home. Sukrita’s major critical works include Narrating Partition, Conversations on Modernism, The New Story and Man, Woman and Androgyny. Some of her co-edited books are Speaking for Herself: An Anthology of Asian Women’s Writings, Ismat, Her Life, Her Times,Interpreting Homes in South Asian Literatureand Women’s Studies in India: Contours of Change. As Director of a UNESCO project on “The Culture of Peace”, she edited Mapping Memories, a volume of Urdu short stories from India and Pakistan. She has two books of translations, Stories of Joginder Paul and the novel Sleepwalkers. She is the chief editor of the book on Cultural Diversity in India published by Macmillan India and prescribed by the University of Delhi. A recipient of many prestigious fellowships and residencies, Sukrita has lectured at many universities in India and abroad. A solo exhibition of her paintings was held at AIFACS, Delhi. A number of Sukrita’s poems have emerged from her experience of working with homeless people.

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Translations:

पगोडा कविताएँ

Pagoda-Gedichte(Inspiriert von Gedichten, die an der Meisterpagode nahe Hanoi, Vietnam, hängen)

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Random poem

Pagoda-Gedichte
(Inspiriert von Gedichten, die an der Meisterpagode nahe Hanoi, Vietnam, hängen)