A Soliloquy of A Dancer, Addressed to A Poet

Original Gujarati Poem by Mahesh Shah
--Transcreated in English by Taral Bhatt

SECTION I

The mask of this playfulness
I haven't put on
of my own sweet will.
It has been thrust upon me
And to tell you about my compulsions
I can't even come to you
In person.
Hence how does it matter to you?
if the lense of your specs
Or even of yours eyes
Crashes.

H dear viewer
Am I not supposed to express?
Your own dreams
And your own wishes.
That's what you expect of me
And that's the deal,between you and me
isn't it?
I can't even ask of the word
What do you expect of me
Pain I'll possibly express
Not just for the sake alone
But also for the sake of
All these other viewers
Who have paid for my show.

Still,always remember
It would simply be
An empty expression
Cleverly and tactfully expressed
Mechanically memorised
Artificially moulded
In the die of inertia
An array of frozen blocks
Of Inanimate expression
Deviod of slightest trace
Of life and sensitivity.

And It won't have anything to do
With your broken specs
Or with your impaired vision.
Nor will it have anything to do
With my Intense personal pain
Always pinning to manifest
Yet ever remaining unexpressed.

To enable my unexpressed pain
Manifest itself
Not only your eyes
But your entire being
With its entirestrength and might
Shall have to continuously labour
With your fullest force
For your entire life
In each and every moment of your living
With the help of
Your own individual personal pain
Running through your total being
Spread in your entire existence
In your every nerve and vein
At the conclusion
Of our deal

All through the long wait
For the conclusion of our deal.
Invisibly at times,
Manifestly some times
Drips form my being
My pain.
The harsh imprints of which
Are clearly etched on your fatigued face.
The deep hard lines, reflect the same.
Don't they?

Hold on to your grief
With unflinching faith
I too have total confidence
in my ability to retain
My pain.
The word that will emerge
From their fusion
Will need no definations
It will not have to answer questions
About its purpose and its meaning
For by itself alone
It will be the purest form
Faithfully expressing
Our true aspiration
That alone will be
The height of expression
Devoid of any mask
Devoid of pomp and vanity
The true word
Waiting in obedience
So very near to us.

Totally different
From the superficial trade-offs,
Sought by the mercantile viewers
Your inspired perception
From the corners of your eyes
Yearns to discover
The expression of
My restless pain
Therefore,I emphasise
That this festival of grief
Being celebrated today
Is *exclusively ours
Unique by itself.
For,who else celebrated it?
With whom?In which age?
And in which land?
Who knows?
To find even faintest clues
To these mystifying questions
All the spectators of our earth
Will possibly have to wait
For only God knows,how long?

And even after that long wait
It might happen
That the face that appears before them
May not be able to appear
In its true innocent form
And frankly tell them
That this mask of happiness
Has not been worn, but thrust upon
Thus unable to admit
That this mask of happiness
Has not been worn by it
Of its own sweet will
And..................

Hence,when the lense breaks
Of your specs or of your eyes
It will not make any difference.
For,don't even the unbroken lense
Be it of specs or of eyes
Plunge into the deep valley
Of grief and pain?
And this, isn't my curse
What I say
Is just the predetermined
Scheme of Nature
Even the impartial observer
Though silent and uninvolved.

Is subject to
This unfailing fate

You cannot escape
Simply because
It makes no difference.
For,even if it did
You'll have to see my pain
Without blinking
Eyeball to eyeball
Piercing my eyes, my entire being
With your powerful gaze
Leaving no space, for the slightest trace
Of tears to moisten my eyes.

From then on,
Will begin our journey
There would be no crowd
The traders of this world
On that path will begin
Our joint exploration
There, the onlookers,
Inspite of their open eyes,
Will see nothing
And though all their senses being In tact
Would be rendered senseless
Unable to feel any life or sensitivity.

You aren't a mere spectator
In fact you are
The true director
Giving direction all the while
To the expression.
You can't stop, unlike me
At the threshold of form.

So very often
You have remained aloof
From all forms
And from desires too
Going beyond the feeling of existence

You have been able
To see the illusion

And even see through the silence
Of unexpressive people.
hence, you can also see
The seed of expression
Taking shape In my heart
Being so near to me.

having found that
Now don't go in search
Of its substitute
For roaming thus
Would simply mean
Turning your back
On what you have found
Isn't it?

SECTION II

Engulged in the darkness
Sitting in the auditorium
You too are a shore
Of the river of my expression
Though it may be
Just an empty expression
Of complulsively performed
Glamourised lifeless movements
Moulded in the die of Inertia
Flowing thus, continuously and listlessly
Increasingly I feel being emptied
Drop by drop,movement by movement
From moment to moment
And I feel
This gushing flow of my pain
Is swiftly fusing
Into your grief
In all its directions.

You do know
Don't you?
That the musical notes
Do not have soft'Ma'

At the ultimate height
Of the expression of my form,
Manifests your speechless,boundless
Silence
In the sweet notes
Of high pitched'Ma'

The intense aspiration
Of these high pitched notes
Enlightens all my expression!
You do know that
Don't you?

I wish to be
The ever vigilant witness
Of your mystic journey
Of every moment of your existence
Even before I plead
If you wish,
Take me into the grief
That pervades your entire consciousness
Where In your speechless presence
I'll shed all my notions
Of forms and expressions
Ceasing all my emotions
And all my emotions
I'll merge unto you
Not seeing anything else
In the sea,except the sea
In the sky,except sky
In you,except..........

And the pangs of my Intense pain
With the soundest support of my faith
Would lightly touch your brittle grief
And transform it into a golden glow
On your calm and tranquil eyelids
And, your calm and tranquil eyelids
Would be transformed
Into a bright strip of light

Then our eyes
Shall flow Incessantly
Transcending all barriers
Into the direction
Of that boundless sea
In the high pitched notes of 'Ma'
Again and again
And again

SECTION III

In the garb of playful Nature
Flows continuously my intense pain
And yours ears, ever eager
To listen to its lamentation
That alone, is my only consolation

That alone takes you
Right upto your words
Those words that express
My form, its every fragment
Every moment of my pain
Every wall of our seperation
Every nerve and vein of our pain
Is held in its vice like grip
With Immense passion
Is experienced
Total satiation
An absolute gratification
Of all my yearnings
Of all the longings
Of all my senses

That's the sound
I made with the lips
Of my eyelids

And this,my personal pain
My Inexpressible squirming pain

The soundless name
That you have given it
My right ear,
Yearns to hear it
Do you have a word
Of consolation for it?

I know, for that
I have to reach
The vast expanse
Of your grief stricken consciousness
From where begins
your soundless word.
Deginning from there
It spreads into the
Automatically formed
Dome of grief
And before it spreads
Freely into this auditorium
It mingles into the ring
Of the expression
Of my personal pain
Set out to reach upto you
In the darkness of this auditorium.
Seeing that soundless word
Your still, unblinking eyes convey
What's their message for me?
Tell me please..................

Listening to that sound of your eyes
I'll stop all my movements
And become still and silent
Devoid of all motions and movements
Still, silent and in peace with myself.
Becoming thus silent & peaceful
I'll come very near to you
To come near you.
To reach near you.

SECTION IV

These, your ears
Intensely eager to hear
That sound of pain
Of my form
And your existence
Yearning fervently to see
The form of my pain
My each and every movement
Ever striving to find
The soundless name
That you gave
To my pain
The rare occasion
Of the merger
Of your grief
And my pain
Into a concentric sphere
Is so near
You do see it
Don't you?

And
THe sublest layers of my heart
Joyously bouncing and beating upon
The buoyant volatile effervescent waves
Filling the potent moments
That precede the rare occasion
Of the merger
Of my intense pain
With your immense grief
What is this joy?
So inviting, and so irresistible
You do feel it
And know it
Don't you?

That too
Is just like you
Invisible

And Inviolable
Ever contented
In its self sufficient extent
Ever so delightful
Ever so overflowing
In its entire being
When,how soon,
Will it embrace?
me, my heart?
And my mind?
My entire being?
my total existence
in its every part
And its minutes element
Eagerly awaits
That opportune moment
Since the beginning of Time...

Even now
My existance can feel
From so near
The breath of that swaying sea
And, perhaps because of that only
Radiating above the breath waves
Of thousands of spectators in this auditorium
Smoothly flowing towards me
I can feel the bright glow
Of you fragrant breath
Spreading its brilliance
In the total extent
Of my consciousness
Like the gradual opening
Of a dawn

Now, I do feel
An incomprehensible repose
Borne out of
The touch of that sea
And I can confidently tell
How does it feel to experience
The profound stillness of swaying waves

I can also describe
The sequence of movement
Of serene stillness
Now,I know I
At this moment
Except for the sea
I see nothing else, in the sea
Except for the sky
I see nothing else, in the sky
Except for ME
I see nothing else, in YOU

SECTION V

And
You do know quite well
THat the vast expanses
Of the sky, the sea or to the heart
Are Immeasurable
So too
My personal pain
Expressed through my inability to express
And your soundless, yet well formed grief
Filling your total consciousness
Both are, Immeasurable
And
This moment that is
Is itself a Manvantar
Am entire aeon

Just as
There can be a moment of time
But there cannot be a time of a moment
Similarly too
There is an element of your grief
And a particle of my pain
Both have merged
Into each other
And have occasioned
This festival
The festival that is being celebrated
Here and now
The festival of grief

Now
Even If I stop
And cease all my movements
And remain motionless
Or, else if I don't remain
And even if you speak
Or remain speechless
The confluent river
Of your word

And my form
Shall Incessantly flow
Forever and forever
Between its two banks
Till eternity
And the duration
Of this opportune occasion
Of this merger, this fusion
Will last
Forever and forever
Till eternity
Your rich variegated grief
And my Incompresible pain
Will also remain
Ever present, over here
Forever and forever
May this festival be celebrated
Over here
Till eternity
This festival of grief

Like an aspiration
To find the core
Of one's being
Fully engrossed
In one's ownself
This moment too
Gets stilled
Its movement having eternally stilled.
So too
I,having stilled
All my movements
Devoid of all movements
Come near you
So very near you
To be near you
Once again
And you....

Oh dear
You,the one and only source
Of the expression
Of my form
By your natural
And effortless expression
Of the feeling of Intense gratitude
Towards this boundless infinite sky
The sky, that is the only support
Of my expression
The sky that imparts sound
TO the form of your word
By thus expressing your gratitude
You progessively reduce
The distance between
Your grief
And my pain
Occassioning this celebration
And this festival

Yes I
This is that festival
The Festival Of Grief