Daloobhau, last when you visited us

The country-summer was at its fiercest,

But you braved the feral heat

And brought for us a basketful of mangoes,

The proud fruit of your Tanda,

As if warm urging hearts

Ripened in life to superior wisdom

And gave to it a sturdier wholesomeness.

Grandma served you a few home-made sweets

And enquired about Bheemi,

And Zimmadi and Dhanpal, sweet children;

You both talked for a long hour

And exchanged household notes,

Yet looking upon the world

Untormented, with loving concern

As would spread sunshine

Over the golden fields of jondhalā.

You told her how they were puzzled

That Rama should grieve,

Should have anguish, sorrow,

Should live for fourteen years in a wild forest,

And weep like Singdeo

Of our own unassuming Ringanwādi

When, full of hope,

Purnākkā died in the prime of her youth.

Grandma would not agree less

Even as you explained to them in fair conviction,

That there is nothing incongruous about it;

We have queer notions of things,

And we build funny logic,

That God when he takes mortal birth

Cannot have affliction;

Nor is all that a pretension, a fiction, a posture,

His humanity but a sham,

A mask for street-performance;

Though his a special coming,

It is an occasion for a greater work

And, undeniably,

He finds his way through all the odds.

Because he accepts our joys

And a thousand miseries of the soil,

There is hope for we village folk.

He bears all our burden, and even more,

As does the sandalwood-load the purifying flames.

Unless he would move through sleep

How would he experience

The frightening sequence of dreams

And make the haunted creature’s lot happier?

Grandma added:

Yes, his forgetfulness is a godly necessity,

And is splendidly functional.

But then the river must leave the source behind,

High up over there, on the mountain-top,

And yet derive the floods from it,

Its aim to irrigate the fields in its flow.

Indeed, though constrained, even distressed,

He is always above it,

Without ever a break in his Ramahood;

Just as the juiciness of the mango

Gives to its skin the look of its authenticity,

So is he everywhere;

He wears your shirt, and your turban,

And calls himself Daloorama,

And guards your Tanda from evil encroachment.

But in that same act he brings to us

Gifts of other realms, other strengths.

 

And witness the marvel!

Soon as grandma spoke those words,

There was a thunder-clap in the summer sky

And a sudden rain poured in gladness,

And our hearts were full of Rama.

 

 

RY Deshpande

1 June 1996