Hey Ram:
I see his fanatic eyes piercing my frail body,
Like the three bullets in my chest
'Hey Ram'...
My body slumps into the hands of Ava and Manu
I feel hatred dribble, flow, and flood
Into the lawns and across my nation
Where? Where have I gone wrong?
I know, it must be the line on the map,
Will you forgive me my children?
It is too late to think,
Too late to undo now,
My eyes are closing, my heart stopping,
Stay calm, please stay calm my country,
Pardon him too if possible, for my sake
And let Ahimsa live, live forever.
'Hey Ram'...
My body slumps into the hands of Ava and Manu
I feel hatred dribble, flow, and flood
Into the lawns and across my nation
Where? Where have I gone wrong?
I know, it must be the line on the map,
Will you forgive me my children?
It is too late to think,
Too late to undo now,
My eyes are closing, my heart stopping,
Stay calm, please stay calm my country,
Pardon him too if possible, for my sake
And let Ahimsa live, live forever.
[A persona poem on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi.]
Gandhi -- Feliks Topolski 
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 78 was assassinated on 30 January 1948 in the compound of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), a large mansion in central New Delhi. He had moved to the city in early September 1947 to help stem violent rioting there in the wake of the partition of the British Indian empire into two independent countries, India and Pakistan. At first he stayed at the Dalits’ Balmiki Temple, but when it was requisitioned for sheltering refugees of the partition he moved to Birla House. He conducted prayer meetings on a raised lawn behind the mansion. In the morning he listened to a recitation of the “Bhagavad Gita,” worked on a draft of the Congress Party constitution, had a bath and massage at 8 AM, at lunch discussed the Muslim riots in Noakhali, Bengal, a year earlier, took a nap, and held further meetings, putting him behind schedule. He left word for two Kathiawar leaders from western India, "Tell them that, if I remain alive, they can talk to me after the prayer on my walk." En route his assassin, a Hindu nationalist from Pune, Maharashtra, who had been plotting the deed since 13 January when the mahatma (“great soul”) went on a fast-unto-death to pressure the Indian government to release its usual payment to Pakistan after the two countries had gone to war over Kashmir, approached him and shot him three times point blank. As he fell, mortally wounded, he prayed, “Hei Rama! Hei Rama!” invoking Vishnu’s 7th avatar. He either died on the spot or a half hour later. His female relatives who had accompanied him read the “Gita” again over his dead or dying body. His assassin tried to surrender to the police but was attacked and beaten by a mob before he could be taken into custody; he was hanged to death on 15 November 1949, despite appeals by Gandhi’s sons to spare his life.
ReplyDeleteIn early Hindu texts Manu was the archetypal man or the first man. In later Sanskrit works he was a series of mystical sage-rulers or the head of mythical dynasties that begin with each cyclic kalpa when the universe was born anew. The current universe is ruled by the 7th Manu, Vaivasvata, who was warned of a great flood by the Matsya (fish) avatar of Vishnu and built a boat that carried the Vedas, Manu's family, and the seven sages to safety. In Sanskrit, Ava meant “ultimate/no alternative/certainly” and formed part of the name of Shiva; it also means “off, away, down, down from;” in both Hindi and Persian it also means “waterfall” and, in Persian, “voice, sound, call.” Ava was a Parsee angel who presided over the sea.
Ahimsa means “not to injure” and “compassion,” and is one of the cardinal tenets of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as the practice of non-violence espoused by Gandhi.
Gandhi Jayanthi is a national festival that marks Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, which in 2007 was proclaimed by the United Nations general Assembly as the International day of Non-Violence. One of only four national holidays in India, public buildings, banks, and post offices are closed, statues of the mahatma are decorated with flowers, and his favorite bhajan (Hindu devotional hymn, “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram” (“Ram Dhun”), written by Shri Lakshmanacharya, and indicates that the supreme being can be called by many names, is sung:
Chief of the house of Raghu, Lord Rama,
Uplifters of those who have fallen, Sita and Rama,
Sita and Rama, Sita and Rama,
O beloved, praise Sita and Rama,
Iswar or Allah is your name,
May God bless all with true wisdom.
The painting by Topolski was actually done in 1946, long before Gandhi's assassination.
When Gandhi was assassinated he was accompanied by Manu Gandhi (called "Manuben"), his first cousin twice removed, and Abha (Abhaben) Chatterjee (Abhaben Chatteree), a girl adopted by the Gandhis who later married the mahatma's great nephew and photographer Kanu Gandhi.
ReplyDelete"Persona" comes from the Latin word for an actor's mask. In a literary sense it refers to an author taking on the guise of another person though the writing is in the first person. A "persona poem" is one written from the point of view of someone other than the poet. Aristotle insisted that a poet should say very little "in propria persona" because he would not be a poet (or imitator, from Aristotle's perspective) if he spoke as himself. (It can get confusing, however; for instance John Berryman's "Dream Songs" are narrated by a persona named Henry, who refers to himself in the third person.)
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