When the MUSE came calling...

Does the smell of poetry indeed drive people away? In the large noisy world that we all live in now, louder and louder music, with fewer and fewer words, fills our ears
Ratna Raman Delhi

March is a wonderful month in New Delhi. The weather is fabulous and, although the cold is inching its way out, there are occasionally delightful mornings when one is sorely tempted to extend the luxurious languor provided by the jaipuri quilt. The crispness of fresh new mornings, the roundabouts full of flowers, and for those of us fortunate to have access to the university campuses, both North and South, this is the time when a thousand flowers bloom - in fact, when tens of thousands of flowers bloom. 

March was also for the department of English, the month devoted to the muse of poetry. We had one of India's older living poets, Jayanta Mahapatra, as poet-in-residence for a brief period that month. At the first public meeting at Delhi University, responding to questions put to him and introducing himself, Mahapatra remarked with the modesty that can only come with eminence that he was one of the hundred thousand poets writing poetry. He went on to read from his poems and was then surrounded by students and colleagues for whom this was an important literary event. It is not very often that any of us encounter in the flesh authors and poets with whom one has shared an intense bond, primarily through the printed text.

This leads one to ask an overwhelming question, namely, what is the relevance of poetry in our lives? How does it, if at all, play a role in our lives? Mahapatra's observation that there are countless poets draws attention to a very important aspect of the influence of poetry in human lives. Poetry is the ability to arrange words in a non-prosaic order and this is an important cultural accomplishment, specific perhaps to the human race. Chanting and singing too are ancient cultural practices, which draw from a similar nonprosodic arrangement.

The earliest chants and hymns have been set to music in several religious traditions. Whether it is the hymns in the Samaveda, the psalms, the Gregorian chants, Sankara's Bhaja Govindam, Kabir's dohas, Lallan Fakir's Baul songs, Andrew Marvell's Bermudas set to choral music, or the soul-stirring renditions of sufi music, wonderful poetry very often lends itself to overtures from music and travels long distances through an aural tradition. The religious and mystical tradition, however, is not the only tradition that poetry has inspired. There is the poetry of love and longing, of heroism and chivalry, of deeds of valour performed for god, king, woman or country, morning aubades sung for several gods, and the song of the wandering minstrel who comments on the world. The poet has also often turned to speak of pain and suffering, of invasion and conquest, of struggle and defeat, and, sometimes, about statesmen, politicians and painters. 

There have been many intersections between the world of poetry and that of music and these are set to grow in innumerable ways. One of the most beautiful renditions of Van Gogh's paintings is the song Starry, Starry Night, composed and sung by Don McLean. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner has provided a new phase of introspection ever since it was sung by Dream Theatre, who seek to highlight perhaps the water crisis that is looming over the world at large. There is a huge appeal that the written word holds out for an aural tradition. The psalm By the Rivers of Babylon has captivated a global audience, widening its reach way beyond the dimensions of the printed material.