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By Garima Garg

Monsoon: A Poem of Love and Longing by Abhay K.

Sahitya Akademi, Pages 70, Price – Rs 110, ISBN: 9789355482808

In the day and age of instant messaging and video calls, would you choose the clouds to take your message to a loved one? No, not cloud computing but actual clouds that travel and store up the joy i.e. monsoon within them. After all, the legendary Sanskrit poet Kalidasa did it centuries ago when he wrote his poem Meghaduta.

That is precisely what inspired Abhay K., poet and diplomat, after which he did not only translate the poem but also began to imagine what a modern-day version of it may look like. In the mean-time, he also translated Kalidasa’s poem of seasons, Ritusamhara. It follows, then, in his poem Monsoon: A Poem of Love and Longing, where monsoon takes his message from the island nation of Madagascar to the beautiful valley of Kashmir in India, we witness an extraordinary readaptation of Kalidasa’s genius for the present times.

In the introduction, Abhay K., who is currently India’s Ambassador to Madagascar, writes that the countries of the Indian Ocean, Africa and Asia have a host of unlikely shared histories that show how they are connected in a variety of ways. The journey, as it unfolds through the one hundred and fifty stanzas (each stanza consisting of four lines) of the poem, is a veritable opera of seasons, biodiversity, geography, history, culture, and of course, the infinite manifestations of humanity itself.

It starts with the poet beseeching the clouds in Antananarivo, the capital city of the country where he is currently stationed—

lovesick and far away from my beloved,      
I beseech you to take my message along
with amorous squeals of Vasa parrots
reverberating songs of Indri Indri (9)                                                       

the sound of sea waves crashing on coral beaches
mating calls of the Golden Mantellas
mellifluous chirps of the Red fody
sonorous songs of the Malagasy Coucal (10)                                              

These verses set the stage ever so magically because they not only hint at the poet’s love and longing for the beloved but also the glory of nature. But unlike Kalidasa, who wrote in the fifth century and likely did not travel out of India, Abhay K. has travelled the world. He shows us the many cascading layers that form a country in the 21^st century. For instance, when he writes about Mauritius, he takes us through it from the peninsula of Le Morne Brabant to the pond of Ganga Talao. In doing so, he packs more than what one might expect—

help the parasailers soar high at Ile aux Cerfs
listen to the sound of the giant waves crashing
against the volcanic cliffs at La Roche Qui Pleure,
pray at Ganga Talao brimming with the holy water (24)

bow in reverence to Shiva, seek his blessings 
—may your journey ahead be smooth,
let the serpent around his neck not scare you
beware! his third eye may burn you to cinders (25)                                          

if opened in a fit of rage
your journey would end here in Mauritius
leaving millions expecting your auspicious arrival
devoid of rains, devoid of life, devoid of joy (26)

The verses depict the biodiversity of Mauritius and its French heritage and also deftly introduce Hindu mythology. By referring to the statue of the fierce Lord Shiva that stands on the path to the Talao, Abhay K. tells us about the country’s Indian and Hindu diaspora too. He further makes sure to remind us why we need the rains and how they actively foster much of what we understand as life. In this way, he packs a global and wholesome perspective in his poem, which is companioned by copious footnotes.

Throughout this awesome journey, the poet warps and wefts the various threads that started their weave from Madagascar’s Antananarivo. So, while in the thirteenth verse, he mentions the country’s native Baobab trees for the first time, in the forty-fifth verse we learn of its descendant in Sri Lanka’s Palk Bay. It is precisely at this point that the clouds of monsoon separate in two directions— some move towards the Bay of Bengal while the rest travel along the Western Ghats towards India’s capital city of New Delhi, where the two eventually merge and travel towards Kashmir.

That rain revitalizes our lives after summers is something we know all too well. But nowhere does it manifest with as much as in, well, the City of Joy itself. Abhay K. takes us through the Sundarbans and the coastal city of Kolkata, where the monsoon is nothing short of a festival after the harshest of summers—

you would like to stay here longer
but the City of Joy has savoury surprises
awaiting you, relishJhalMuri, Moong Dal Khichdi
BainganBhaja, Ghoti Gorom, and Hilsa fry (51)

the whole city will come out in the Maidan
to celebrate your arrival with great pomp,
children will spend the day playing football
join them and help them score a goal or two (52)                               

Once again, rains here see more than just people and land. They see different varieties of sea-food and street-food and last but not the least, football! As one of the only regions in India where the sport is popular in an otherwise cricket crazy nation, Abhay K. gently adds a fun detail like a rainbow to his clouds. In another verse, as someone who grew up in Bihar, he strikes a deeper and more personalchord—

visit my mother in Chhabilapur and give her my love
recount all you’ve seen, tell her that I’ll be back soon,
recharge the waters of the lotus pond at Pawapuri
where Lord Mahavira rests in deep samadhi(56)

Biharis will rejoice upon your arrival listening
to sweet old Bhojpuri songs of their kinsfolk
brought by you from Mauritius and Seychelles,
farmers will start sowing paddy singing rain songs (57)

and offer you various delicacies—shinghara,
dal puri, littichokha, kadhibari, pitha, ghugni,
pholourie,peda, laai, chhena, tilkut, anarsa, thekua
batasha, shakkarpara, and khaja, relish these (58)

Many of these will be recognized by Indians across the world and for those who don’t, it’s a culinary expedition waiting to be undertaken. But we also learn about the monsoon as the harbinger of yet another important activity, i.e., agriculture, without which our lives are practically like a desert. No wonder, then, the farmers, like fishermen and young school boys, too greet the clouds with joyful songs. The clouds traverse with similar pomp and splendor the Himalayas, Nepal, and Bhutan.

When they arrive in South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the poet writes evocatively of the region’s breathtaking natural beauty—

windswept cliffs will be covered with your mist
hill slopes will erupt into a riot of colours,
lion tailed macaques, Nilgiritahr and hornbills
will try to charm you at the Anaimalai hills (75)                                               

you’ll break in rupture at Agumbe watching
the sunset in the Arabian sea, and the sea will
turn red as if the sea goddess is menstruating,
old water mixing with the new, fish breeding (76)                                             

After this, we follow the monsoon through Western India where in Gujarat’s Bharuch,Abhay K. reminds the clouds that it used to be an old love for them. After all, since ancient times, peoples such as Greeks, Persians, Romans and Arabs arrived here over and over again with monsoon guiding their journeys. The poet takes us to Madhya Pradesh’s Gadkalika temple too, where his inspiration, Kalidasa, often spent his time. Throughout the poem, the poet brings forth the multiculturalism of the region by invoking holy sites visited by people ofBuddhist, Jain, Sikh, Islamic and Christian faiths.

But right before the clouds reach his beloved, Abhay K. reminds of another poetic genius, i.e., Mirza Ghalib. He lived in north India and often wrote of god and love, writing of the latter as a fire that is lit in and of itself and not intentionally. With such inexhaustible longing, the monsoon finally arrives in Srinagar. It is received with joy by the city’s chinar, almond, walnut, and pine trees. The pheasants, sparrows and stately Hangul feel energized at its sight and the flowers of narcissus bloom at its touch. However, the poet’s beloved, morose and alone, parallels the beauty of thatrowing Kashmiri boat, the shikara.

Abhay K. implores the monsoon to deliver his message, along with everything they have seen, heard, and smelled, to give hope and joy to her. With a journey as epic as this, one can be sure that the pangs of separation may be softened even if only for a while.

Monsoon: A Poem of Love and Longing is of course a poem of love and longing but it is also about much else. When our planet faces the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution, it shows us how incomplete and dull our lives would be without the annual phenomenon of Monsoon and the rich biodiversity, which are under threat due to the climate emergency our planet faces today. The poet, much like Kalidasa’s Meghaduta and Ritusamhara, draws our attention to the world around us by bringing alive a host of layers that make a human society today—from birdsongs to that lip-smacking savory street food, from multiple religions coexisting to highlighting the connections between the Indian ocean islands and the Indian subcontinent, from the ancient sea trade routes to the modern-day humdrum of cities. The poet’s sensitivity to this infinitude of life gently transforms the apparent cacophony of our differences into the eternal song that is monsoon. 

(The reviewer is a journalist and an author. She has written for various publications and her upcoming book, Heavens and Earth: The Story of Astrology Through Ages and Cultures will be published by Westland Publications in April 2022.