Chautal 1
Even with spring’s blossoms
unfolding, separation stings.
Frangipani, roses, sunflowers,
hibiscus, and jasmine unfurl
as night folds. Juhi and honeysuckle
erupt as flames—
thousands of match-like marigolds—.
The red pomegranate buds,
the silk flower in fine bloom.
In the garden without my beloved
flowers slay me. O friends,
O Sakhi, were he beside me,
he’d banish my fears. In the garden
the koyal’s each cry breaks me.
Lalbihari explains, “Fair one,
your beloved soon comes.”
Chautal 2
In the forest the papiha bird’s epics
stave off sleep. It’s at midnight;
separation from my love
torments me. Without him
I have no peace. My youth wastes.
Phagun is supposed to be a blissful month,
but without Krishna how can
I enjoy it? Should the day-breeze blow,
it’s blistering. I even regret night.
All my friends gather to compose
chautal songs, knocking drums.
Abir in the hands and colored water;
my pain wakes. What fate
that I take such a ruinous life
and squander it.
Lalbihari says, “Fair one,
with peace comes happiness.”
Chautal 3
Sakhi, As soon as I wake I dress
as Spring, with armlets,
bangles, and rings. The necklace
around my throat gleams
like my forehead’s bindi.
I sit on the bed and call,
Piya. Piya. Don’t tell me any news
of him, don’t tell me
I’ve wasted my life. My blouse
bursts; my whole body aches
for him. This distance between us
I cannot bear. I am lost.
The papiha bird cries, Piya.
Piya. Hearing this unstitches me.
Lalbihari: “Peace. Peace.”
Chautal 4
From abroad Piya sends no word.
I’m listless in the month of Phagun
without my love. The papiha bird cries,
Piya.
I’m overcome by this distance between.
He stole away to another country
without telling me. The rain falls
like arrows or serpents stirring worry
in my heart. All of the men
of my house go to search for him.
How can I be patient when my youth
itself is a poisoned arrow? Night and day
I sit watching for any sign.
My love has not yet returned.
Lalbihari
is just a resonance chamber, the beloved
will come and banish your pain.
Chautal 5
Sakhi, spring has come yet
my beloved has not. In Phaag
my heart yearns. All who sing
Phaagun, all drums that beat
light rhythms twist the dagger
in my heart. In longing I sob
into my bed, drunk
with this sickness.
Pichkaris filled with color,
every house raises celebration.
Raining down on all,
colorful streams.
Abuse goes all around, today
no one’s shy.
Lalbihari says,
“The one who suffers separation
sits alone, heart wilting.”
from Holi Songs of Demerara
Lalbihari Sharma
translated from the Awadhi-Bhojpuri by Rajiv Mohabir
Recording credits: Amar Ramessar (vocals), Tarun Deodat (tabla), and Avinash Roopchan (keyboard and sound engineering).
Read the original in Awadhi-Bhojpuri
Listen to "Chautal 3" sung in the original Awadhi-Bhojpuri by Amar Ramessar:
Lalbihari Sharma’s Holi Songs of Demerara (first published in 1916) echoes the classical Braj poetry of Mirabai and Kabir. It has been very important in thinking of Indian diasporic cultural identity as not being a product of fragmentation, but rather one of continuance and constant evolution. Because of this, Sharma’s contribution to Caribbean literatures must receive consideration.
I first heard of this work from Gaiutra Bahadur, author of Coolie Woman: the Odyssey of Indenture. She contacted me and asked me if I would be able to translate this collection of Phagwa/Holi chautal from the plantation Awadhi/Bhojpuri as a poet and not as an academic. Bahadur gave me license to write these songs into English.
Translating this work is one of transposing musics. The translator must take one kind of musical thinking and squeeze it into an ill-fitting form—perpetrating violence, moving from the language of the periphery to that of the colonial center. As someone who was raised to be monolingual in English, who relearned both Caribbean Hindi and Standard Hindi, I was haunted by a poetic of longing whose origin I could not place.
East Indians were promised return after fulfilling their contracts, yet this never came for some. It’s this broken promise that caused us to transform into our amalgamative Caribbean cultures. This poetry is one piece of a new origin myth. Listen at your own risk; you will certainly be transformed.
I first heard of this work from Gaiutra Bahadur, author of Coolie Woman: the Odyssey of Indenture. She contacted me and asked me if I would be able to translate this collection of Phagwa/Holi chautal from the plantation Awadhi/Bhojpuri as a poet and not as an academic. Bahadur gave me license to write these songs into English.
Translating this work is one of transposing musics. The translator must take one kind of musical thinking and squeeze it into an ill-fitting form—perpetrating violence, moving from the language of the periphery to that of the colonial center. As someone who was raised to be monolingual in English, who relearned both Caribbean Hindi and Standard Hindi, I was haunted by a poetic of longing whose origin I could not place.
East Indians were promised return after fulfilling their contracts, yet this never came for some. It’s this broken promise that caused us to transform into our amalgamative Caribbean cultures. This poetry is one piece of a new origin myth. Listen at your own risk; you will certainly be transformed.
Lalbihari Sharma was born in Chhapra village in the United Provinces of India (now Bihar, India). As his name suggests, he belonged to the Brahmin caste. He was indentured by the British East India Company to work the sugarcane fields as a manual laborer and published his collection of chautal folksongs in 1916, the only work that he would publish in his lifetime. A musician and singer, he is the first Indo-Caribbean writer to write and publish a book from Guyana and the Caribbean, one of the only books written in the dialect of his village. Not much is known about his life other than the autobiographical information that is included in this work and what Gaiutra Bahadur writes in her book Coolie Woman: the Odyssey of Indenture. He speaks of his changing caste identity and the plight of the laborers in British Guyana in 1916.
Rajiv Mohabir won the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books for his first full-length collection The Taxidermist’s Cut (Spring 2016), the 2015 AWP Intro Journal Award, the Kundiman Prize for The Cowherd’s Son, and a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. He has received fellowships from the Voices of Our Nation’s Artist foundation, Kundiman, and the American Institute of Indian Studies language program. His poetry and translations are internationally published or forthcoming from journals such as Best American Poetry 2015, Quarterly West, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, Anti-, Great River Review, PANK, and Aufgabe. He received his M.F.A. in poetry and translation from Queens College, CUNY, where he was editor-in-chief of the Ozone Park Literary Journal. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Hawai`i, where he teaches poetry and composition.
