Abhay K is a diplomat and a poet. Self-confessedly, he says this often has meant that diplomats have seen him more as a poet and poets have perceived him more as a diplomat. With his newest literary offering Monsoon: A Poem of Love and Longing (Sahitya Akademi), a poem of 150 quatrains, he brings both the sides together with profound messages on diversity and ecology that spans continents. He does it gently, with vivid sketches of bounteous nature that exists all around us. In referring to ecology both in mythology and in the present, the poet reminds us of the treasures in the wild that run the risk of becoming mere myths with the passage of time. Monsoon is a love poem, but it is also a climate poem, and a tribute to shared histories and cultures.
The poem traces the journey of the south-west monsoon from Madagascar, an island country off the coast of East Africa, to the Himalayas in the Indian subcontinent and back. The poet, who has earlier translated Kalidasa’s ancient Sanskrit epics Meghadūta and Ritusamhara into English, draws on the lyric poem Meghadūta for Monsoon. Meghadūta sees a spirit sending a message of love to his lover with the help of a passing cloud. In Monsoon, Abhay continues the tradition of the messenger poem, he writes in the preface: "Monsoon seemed to me as a perfect messenger to carry my message from Madagascar to my beloved in Srinagar with its origin near Madagascar in April and its journey across the Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent to reach the high Himalayas in June every year before retreating to Madagascar after September."
But the similarity ends here. Abhay’s Monsoon, as he himself explains, is broader than Meghadūta not only in scope but also in the poetic technique. "While Meghadūta covers the journey of clouds from Ramagiri hills in central India to the mythical city of Alkapuri near Mount Kailash, Monsoon covers a much wider canvas stretching from Madagascar to the Himalayas. Meghadūta has 111 stanzas of four lines each written in Mandākrāntā meter, whereas Monsoon is a quatrain or ruba’I of 150 stanzas written in free verse," he writes in preface to Monsoon.
Monsoon is rich with mythical references, but is at once contemporary, lyrically detailing the ecological, cultural and culinary diversity of places that the monsoon touches upon during the course of its journey that covers the Indian ocean islands of Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zanzibar, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Andaman & Nicobar, among others. In the poet’s eyes, several places we have come to associate with colonial history or historical conflicts, such as Jaffna or Koggala in Sri Lanka for instance, are also seen with a fresh eye that invokes beauty and hope. Read the following stanzas, for instance:
in May you’ll arrive in Sri Lanka
exuberant crowds will applaud you
in the bustling streets of Colombo,
love-doves will revel in your rains in Galle
Further,
stilt fishermen of Koggala perched
on strong wooden poles fixed in coral reefs
would look at the sky again and again,
bestow them with fish-rain
draw in vapour from the Keerimalai Springs
in Jaffna that cures the sick, surprise
the giant Baobab at Neduntheevu in the Palk Bay
with the tidings from her ancestors in Madagascar
then you’ll become two—
one arm moving across the Bay of Bengal
another over the western Ghats along the Arabian sea
to converge near the palimpsest city of Delhi
Throughout the poem, the poet refers to shared knowledge and traditions among the island or diasporic communities of the Indian ocean, as reflected in rituals, traditions, and languages. In doing so, it also blends history with myth and reminds us of migration, trade, and colonisation. Monsoon’s poetic commitment to love, hope and diversity is best reflected in the ecological richness that runs throughout the poem.
Kanheri caves will echo with the clacking of birds
Versova fort will resonate with your rumbling thunder,
Gujarat, home to Asiatic lions and exquisite Bandhani
will be joyous hearing old Gujarati from Madagascar
The banks of Tapi will overflow upon your arrival,
people will climb to the top of the Surat Castle
and gather in the awe-inspiring galleries
at the historic Dutch Gardens to greet you
….
purple sunbird, peafowl, yellow fronted
pied woodpecker, blue kingfisher will flock
to the wetlands of the Gavier Lake to fete you
before you advance further in your journey
In this interview, Abhay speaks about what drives the poet and the diplomat in him, and what is lost or gained in transiting between the two. Edited excerpts:
What inspired you to write this book-length poem Monsoon?
Translating Kalidasa’s two poems Meghadūta (The Cloud Messenger) and Ritusamhara (Six Seasons) from Sanskrit and the quest to connect the Indian Ocean islands with the Indian subcontinent through a common thread inspired me to write Monsoon, which is a quatrain of 150 stanzas.
You have outlined the differences between Kalidasa's work and yours in the preface to the collection. In their subject matter, both are richly detailed love letters. Were you constantly aware and working to enunciate the differences between both works, or did they come naturally from your lived experience?
I analysed the differences after writing the poem. I tried to imagine if Kalidasa was alive today and if he happened to travel to Madagascar, how he would respond to the natural phenomenon of monsoon that has its origin there. While writing the poem, I was immersed in the sights, sounds, flavors, aroma, and unique flora and fauna of the places that the monsoon travels through. I studied geography at Delhi University for my bachelor’s degree and, thus, I could weave my knowledge of the origin and path of the monsoon in the poem.
Even as you delineate the differences between Meghadūta and Monsoon, could we say it's a modern take on a very ancient concept?
Sandesh kavya (message poem) or doot kavya (messenger poem) dates back to the 5th century AD. Poem of the Broken-jug by Ghatakarpara is considered to be the first poem in this tradition, followed by Kalidasa’s Meghadūta, Bhavabhuti’s Malatimadhava, Dhoyin’s Pavanduta, among others. In Monsoon, I call on monsoon to be my messenger. It is a quatrain or rubāʿī but does not follow any particular meter or rhyme scheme.
It's a long poem of passionate intensity. Tell us about the sustained interest that a project of this scope demands of the writer. How did the poem came about? Did the stanzas come in bursts, or you had a writing schedule to follow?
I wanted to write it as soon as I learnt in August 2018 that I was appointed as India's 21st Ambassador to Madagascar and Comoros. But for that I needed to first read Kalidasa’s Meghadūta. During the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, I finally managed to do that and even found time to translate Meghadūta and Ritusamhara. The following first stanza of Monsoon came to me at dawn while I was still dreaming —
I wake up with your thoughts
your fragrance reaching me
all the way from the Himalayas
to the island of Madagascar
I wrote it down immediately in my notebook as soon as I got up and started thinking of the second stanza. I had no idea what it was going to be. It started taking shape and then I started building on the idea of connecting all the islands in the Indian Ocean with the Indian subcontinent through the common thread of monsoon. I started reading and researching about the unique flora and fauna, culture, cuisines, monuments, history of each of the islands and the places in the path of the monsoon. I learnt a lot in the course of writing this poem, including interesting details about the path of monsoon itself and how inseparable monsoon is from various facets of the culture of the subcontinent and Indian Ocean world.
I wrote it over a period of a few months and then it underwent several revisions. So, I would say, it took roughly about a year to give it the final shape.
Monsoon is a very romantic concept in India, numerous songs are dedicated to it. Your poem overwhelms with a sense of seeking, it takes us through cultures, biodiversity, myths and geographies. To what extent does the poem borrow from you as a diplomat?
As a diplomat, I get to travel a lot and have this innate tendency to bring people and cultures together, to create a bridge. Through Monsoon I wanted to create a similar literary and poetic bridge between the Indian subcontinent and the islands of the Indian Ocean.
Why, how and at what personal or professional costs do you traverse the two worlds — poetry and diplomacy and what is lost or gained in transiting between the two?
I’m sure there exist stereotypes because diplomats see me as a poet, and poets see me as a diplomat. Perhaps, many in the diplomatic circles may think that I’m not a serious diplomat because I write poetry and publish books and I’m sure many in the literary circles do not take me seriously as a poet or writer because I happen to be a diplomat. However, these hardly matter to me. I do what I think is necessary to do as a poet and as a diplomat. For me being a poet makes me a better diplomat and being a diplomat helps me to be a better poet. I would not have written any of my poems if I was not a diplomat and without poetry, I would not be able to bear the strenuous demands of a diplomatic life which WH Auden calls 'this nightmare of public solitude'. There are a number of similarities between poetry and diplomacy such as ambiguity ('Tell it but tell it slant.' — Emily Dickinson) and brevity in expression, etc.
Placing all this richness within the context of love also compels a fresh understanding of the places and cultures. For example, references to places such as Jaffna or Koggala that often tend to be viewed as places of conflict or colonialism in history. Are you, as a poet, constantly striving to find beauty and hope?
That’s true. How well have you put it. As Chinua Achebe says, 'I don’t think the world needs to be told stories of despair; there is enough despair as it is without anyone adding to it. If we (writers) have any role at all, I think it’s the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the kind which is meaningful, one that is rather close to that notion of the world which is not perfect, but which can be improved. In other words, we don’t just sit and hope that things will work out; we have a role to play to make that come about. That seems to be the reason for the existence of the writer,' or Rilke says — 'Ein zum Rühmen Bestellter' — 'the one whose task it is to praise.' I follow the dictum of Achebe and Rilke and believe in seeking beauty and hope wherever I go.
As you move between poetry and your work as a diplomat, it would be interesting to know whether the adaptations you make in your work as a poet are mainly the ones of language and discourse, or whether you reflect something fundamental about yourself through your work?
Poetry and diplomacy complement each other and are intertwined for me. I believe that poetry and diplomacy can help us to better understand the interdependence of life on our planet and can aid us in coming together as one Earth family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam).
In moving from city to city, country to country, do you also find yourself adapting your message as you cross borders and different aspects of yourself that you choose to express with each audience?
Seeing beauty and hope, praising, connecting, building bridges remains common wherever I go. Poemandu in Kathmandu, Cha com Letras in Brasilia, Lalitana in Antananarivo were monthly literary events that I organised to bring together poets, writers and the creative community not only to connect them with each other but also with the creative community in India. My poetry collections — The Eight-eyed Lord of Kathmandu (2017), The Alphabets of Latin America (2020) or The Magic of Madagascar (2021) create a poetic portrait of these places.
Was this intended as a climate poem as well, or it evolved to be so during the course of writing?
After I translated Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara, which I consider as a fine piece of ecopoetry, I wanted to highlight the flora and fauna of each place the monsoon passes through and its impact on them. I tried to bring out the social, cultural and ecological aspects of the monsoon through this poem. So, it was intended to be an eco-poem from the beginning.
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