Swaswati Borkataki
(Researcher and freelance writer, New Delhi)
Abstract
The Meghaduta through its translation by Abhay K. is re-imagined here as a portrayal of love, longing, sensuality and spirituality, all combined into one play. The Yaksha’s longing for his beloved and his cajoling of the cloud to be his messenger to his beloved is speckled by vivid descriptions of nature in all its brilliance, imagined as a maiden, a lover, as against the common perception of it as ‘mother’, which propels the translator, and through him the reader to question if this can contribute towards promotion of sustainability in the current times.
Keywords: Messenger, love, longing, sensuality, spirituality
It was on a chilly November evening in a gathering at the Conference Hall in Jawaharlal Nehru University that I came across Abhay K.’s translation of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta: a work that has been translated, and adapted into numerous versions over time.
I had been pondering upon the use of sensuality, love, nature and spirituality in old texts and Meghaduta is a perfect example of the mingling of them all. Kalidasa in the portrayal of a Yaksha, banished to a faraway land, who pleads before a cloud to carry his message to his beloved who resided in the land of Alaka, portrays the essences of longing, desire, love, and sensuality, all coupled in beautiful poetic verses, spirited by vivid descriptions of nature, all throughout.
In the translator’s note, Abhay K. writes about something to be pondered upon: If Kalidasa’s portrayal of nature in a sensuous and ornate manner transform our understanding of nature: from that of the mother to the ‘beloved’ and thus bring about an idea of protecting and preserving it, thus forwarding the idea of sustainability, in this age of crisis.
Again, this idea of imagining nature as the ‘beloved’ can be linked with that of ‘Prema Bhakti’, where love and devotion are synonymous. Meghaduta in a way is the imagination of spirituality, devotion, love and sensuality, all clubbed into one play, and if we couple it all with the idea of sustainability, it also highlights the contemporaneity of the text. Interesting is the importance attached to nature in love, while also imagining nature and its elements as erotic beings.
Also, in the description of natural wonders, the poet never fails to amaze with references to characters from the epics, as in the opening verse,
“A Yaksha, negligent of his duties, deprived of his divinity by Kubera’s curse, banished for a year away from his beloved, made home at hermitages in Ramagiri full of thick and shady groves where Sita bathed once”.
Another interesting facet is the fact that the cloud, which is an inanimate element is pleaded before, by the Yaksha, to carry his message to his beloved: the poet to that end writes “for the lovesick what’s animate and what’s inanimate?” In one instance, the poet talks about the slender arms of the lady river, as also the Yaksha tells the cloud that he might as well take some time to drift away from the river banks, “for who has the strength to leave a woman after relishing her bare thighs?” – This mars the distinction between the animate and the inanimate.
Again, there are vivid descriptions about the majesty of nature, as – “A cool breeze perfumed with Earth’s fragrance, refreshed by your showers, inhaled elegantly by elephants, their trunks making a pleasant hum” –that bring to the reader’s imagination, the interplay of cosmic dalliances with nature.
Throughout the text, ‘longing’ and unbent devotion to the lover is persistent. The sense of longing is exuded in every verse, with the Yaksha craving every bit of his beloved’s presence, while at the same time, breathing in her essence, as he constantly desires her.
While the Yaksha longs for his beloved, he also states with certainty that she would be emaciated by separation from him, her virile, youthful self would be surely affected by his absence, her eyes would be swollen, her lips pale and glow mellowed, all while she longed for him, as he longed to be by her side. This longing caused by separation or Viraha is comparable to that experienced by the Gopis for Krishna, in the Rasa Krida episode of the 10th Skandha of the Bhagavata Purana.
The sense of longing, here, is supplanted by a seething desire to be with the beloved, along with vivid imagery of her bodily features, giving it an erotic, sensual blend, through poetic mastery. The lover, here is both the object of desire and devotion. And while the sensuality attached to the lover is prominent, nature is also imagined as a manifestation of beauty and sensuality, projected as nothing short of a beautiful maiden, awaiting to be loved. This brings back the question put forth by Abhay K. of whether this can be a cue to imagining nature as a beloved, which can potentially contribute towards sustainability.