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T Wignesan Poem
Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan
(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the Nobel Prize, studied Physics (Brown University), Cosmology (Oxford University) and taught maths and physics for some 40 years, but styles himself as the Poet who writes "Anti-Poems" - a fresh
chastising wind to debunk self-styled poets hardly born to the métier but drunk with their own effete and ephemeral voices. T. Wignesan, Paris, 2016. For the original stanzaic format of the poem, check the original, if you please.)
The Individual’s Soliloquy
I am the Individual
At first I lived in a rock
(there I carved some figures).
Later I looked for a more appropriate place.
I am the Individual.
In the beginning I had to procure food for myself,
find fish, birds, look for firewood
(and other matters also took up my time).
To start a bonfire,
firewood, forewood, where to find a little firewood,
some firewood to start a bonfire,
I am the Individual.
At the same time I asked myself,
I escaped from an abyss full of air;
a voice answered me:
I am the Individual.
Then I tried to live in another rock,
there too I carved some figures,
engraved a river, buffaloes,
carved out a serpent,
I am the Individual.
But no, I became bored with the things I was doing,
fire bothered me,
I wanted to see more,
I am the Individual.
I went down a valley irrigated by a river,
there I found what I needed,
encountered a savage people,
a tribe,
I am the Individual.
Saw that there they undertook some things,
they carved figures on rocks,
they kindled fires, Yes, they kindled fires also!
I am the Individual.
They wanted to know from where I hailed.
I answered in the affirmative, that I entertained no fixed goals,
I answered in the negative, that I would keep going.
Good.
I took hold of a piece of stone I found in a river
and began to work on it,
began to polish it
made of it a part of my own life.
But this is far too long.
I felled some trees in order to set sail,
looked for fish,
looked for different things
(I am the Individual).
Until I began to get bored all over again.
One gets bored with tempests,
the thunder, the lightning,
I am the Individual.
Good. I forced myself into thinking a little while,
stupid questions filled my head,
false problems.
So I began to wander through some woods.
I arrived at a tree and yet another,
I arrived at a fountain,
I arrived at a pit where one could see rats:
here it is I who comes, I then said,
have you seen a tribe hereabouts,
a savage people who know how to light a fire?
In this manner I kept going towards a westerly direction
in the company of other beings,
or rather all alone.
In order to see, one must believe, they said to me,
I am the Individual.
In the dark one could discern forms,
perhaps clouds,
perhaps one saw clouds, one saw lightning;
all these things had already taken place some days past,
I felt like I was dying;
I invented some machines,
manufactured watches
arms, vehicles,
I am the Individual.
I had hardly enough time to bury my dead,
hardly had I time to sow,
I am the Individual.
Some years hence, I conceived some things,
some forms,
crossed frontiers
and remained stationary in a sort of niche,
in a boat in which I rowed for forty days,
forty nights,
I am the Individual.
Later on droughts set in,
some wars ensued,
varieties of colours appeared in the valley,
but I must keep going,
must keep producing.
Invented the sciences, immutable truths,
fashioned he tanagras*,
published books running into thousands of pages,
let my face swell,
invented the phonograph,
the sewing machine,
then the first automobiles began to appear,
I am the Individual.
Somebody set apart the planets,
trees segregated themselves!
But I separated the set of tools,
furniture, stationery for the writing desk,
I am the Individual.
They also built cities,
roads,
religious institutions went out of fashion,
they looked for what was said, for happiness,
I am the Individual.
Later I spent the better part of my time travelling,
in practising, in practising languages,
languages,
I am the Indiviidual.
I peeped through a keyhole,
Yes, I did, what am I to say, I did
in order to opt out of doubt, I did look through,
behind some curtains,
I am the Individual.
Good.
Perhaps it would be best to return to that valley,
to that rock where I lodged,
and begin to carve sketches again,
from back to front I engraved
the world upside down.
But no: life is devoid of meaning.
*statues of human forms made in Tanagra of Boetia.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016
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Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2016
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T Wignesan Poem
I
They came on bullock-carts
loaded with gods
Indra
Agni
Varuna
Rudra
traversed sinuous mountain ranges
rivers
gurgling outlandish tongues
their children caged as poultry
their priests chanting weird mantras
spells
charms
curses
hymns
drank the soma juice
choking with the sacrificial bleating
of rams
II
Agreed, all societies structure themselves
Out of scant need to function sans bother
Just as individuals must come together
In order better to protect themselves
All men are born equal, so say the Wise
But the Elders do not know how to stem
Rishis who would seek to mock them
By claiming they were twice-born to rise
Above all mankind for wasn’t it the decreed omen
For the Primaeval Being that the self-chosen few
Should forever speak for the Brahman in lieu
Of Purusha’s helpless eyes, brain, heart and abdomen
The only difference between the Brahmin
And the rest of the menial human race
Is that they were born with Brahma’s grace
So that they could spurn the rest as vermin
Yet India’s underside boasts of invisible millions
Who have no place in sacred Hymns of Man
They weren’t created by Rig-Veda: only as Harijan
May they hang out in limbo as Gandhi’s minions.
Resources
Roughly, the Hindu caste system is broadly divided into four sacrosanct strata ; yet there are literally tens of sub-castes in each category :
1. Brahmin (the priesthood caste, supposedly on top of the social hierarchy), followed by :
2. Kshatriya (the princely hereditary and/or ruling warrior caste) ;
3. Vashya (the commercial trading, professional and land-owning agricultural castes) ;
4. Sudra (the menial serving and peasant castes),
followed by the Out-caste :
5. The Untouchable or scavenging caste ( which has not found authority in the following Vedic hymn. )
« brahmano ‘sya mukham asid,
bahu rajaniah krtah ;
uru tad asya yad vaisya ;
padbhyam sudro ajayata. »
Rigveda, X, 90, 12 (sans signes diacritiques)
"His mouth was the Brahman,
His two arms were made the warrior,
His two thighs the Vaisya ;
From his two feet the Sudra was born."
Transl. & translit. by Arthur A. MacDonnell (1854 – 1930), 1917
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 1998 - (from the sequence/collection: "Words for a Lost Sub-Continent", 1999, published in Rama and Ravana at the Altar of Hanuman. Chennai: Institute of Asian Studies, 2006 & Allahabad: Cyberwit, 2008.)
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2012
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