Living in shunya

Translation is not a fullandfinal process according to scholar Dr Linda Hess ldquoReaders will disagree with various aspects of my translation and I urge everyone to do their own translationsrdquo says the author of Singing Emptiness Kumar Gandharva Performs The Poetry of Kabir the bestseller bilingual text Seagull Books 2009 now being reprinted in a paperback avatarIt is a significant milestone in Hessrsquo Kabir journey which started over 60 years ago when the Fulbright scholar visited India She taught English in Patna and travelled countrywide Itrsquos during this time that she got drawn towards the 15th century mystic poet Kabirdas who became the principal subject of her doctoral thesis as well as the first book The Bijak of Kabir in 1983 Today at the ripe age of 80 she reiterates the artistic and spiritual value of translating Kabirrsquos poemssongsldquoIt is a profound experience and brings one into intimate contact with poetry and musicrdquo she vouches For the last several years she has been working with Dr Jaroslav Strnad a scholar living in Prague together they are close to finishing the first of the two translation volumes of an early manuscript of Kabir written between 1615 and 1621 in Rajasthan The book comprises padas song form to be published in the Murty Classical Library of India series by the Harvard University Press ldquoThe second volume should be the saakhis aphorisms and ramainis a section of mixedgenre poems Irsquom not very sure that Irsquoll be able to finish that one but hope sordquo informs the religious studies scholar who taught for two decades at Stanford University before her retirement in 2017 She currently lives in BerkeleyThis columnist is one of the many Linda Hess fans eternally grateful as an Indian for her unique ability to connect the dots In Singing Emptiness Hess celebrates the connection between two Indian artistes separated in time and spacemdashKabir 13981518 born in Uttar Pradesh and a child prodigy singer Kumar Gandharva 19241992 born in Karnataka who chose Madhya Pradesh Dewas as his residence for health reasonsOctogenarian scholar Dr Linda Hess at the Malwa Kabir Yatra in 2020In the classic Dheere Dheere Re Mana Kabir style Hess devotes almost two decades to explore the oral and musical saintpoet and likewise locate the nirgun formless space he inhabits For a scholar who learnt Hindi language from scratch and who born in California raised in a Jewish family was not privy to innately Indian cultural constructs Triveni Snan Tap Tirath Shrungi ki Mingi Pind Brahmand while growing up the translations are indeed a model in cultural adaptation Singing Emptiness forever raises the bar for translators who wish to take on tough ambitious projects in languages that they inherited with effortHess aware of her limitations in terms of language and classical music says she was fortunate to be surrounded by friends litterateur UR Ananthamurthy singer Pralhad Tipaniya critic Ashok Vajpayee the Komakali family which shared Kumarjirsquos private mehfil recordings who encouraged her to render the English versions The Kabir bhajans themselves were guiding lights Hess unmistakably catches the pulse of the shunya emptiness in which both Kabir and Kumarji flourished This is no ordinary emptiness but a rare union of the finite and the boundless Kabir is alive to the splendor within the body which houses seven oceans and countless stars but he views it ultimately as maati ka sakal pasara the world is all but dust Similarly Kumarji was deeply invested in small wonders of grihasthashrammdashbuying fresh bhindi teaching children the finer points of gardening But he also loved to visit the Shilnath Dhunimdashfire first built by the Yogi sadhu who settled on the periphery of Dewas in 1901mdashwhere he discovered a Kabir pada embossed on the mirror shrine ldquoUd Jayega Hans Akela Jag Darshan Ka Melardquo Kumarji set it to an exquisite melody His choice of the texts shows a patternmdashhe doesnrsquot sing the popular predictable Kabir couplets Man ke jeete jeet hain Jako rakhe saaiyan but he sings of subtler themesmdashthe transiency of the Jhini Chadariya the treacherous Maya Mahathagani the cautionary Teeje Ban Pag Nahi Dharna and the mysterious Shunya Gadh Shahar Shahar Ghar BastiAt one point Hess felt too inadequate to translate Shunya Gadh Shahar because the alignment of words defies logic The text raised questions about what is shunya Is it a void with negative connotations But Kumarjirsquos songmdashhis suggestive pauses his phenkmdashclarifies the shunya space where anhad the unstruck sound resounds A place to listen and singIt is pure coincidence that I chanced upon Linda Hessrsquo book Singing Emptiness at a time when ldquocreative emptinessrdquo was being discussed threadbare amongst a varied set of individuals gathered at the hilly Ranari village of Uttarakhand for a retreat hosted by the Krishnamurti Foundation India There couldnrsquot have been a quieter settingmdasha hill overlooking the Bhagirathi river on one side and swaying wheat farms on the othermdashfor a dialogue on the meaning of silence renewal and momenttomoment mindfulness It hinged on thinkerphilosopher J Krishnamurtirsquos 18951986 idea of a retreatmdasha reflective space that allows a step back leaving all beeping devices from the routine Scrapping the urban chaos and inherent tensions of city life six individuals from diverse worlds grappled with silence in their own way While some walked miles some fasted a few meditated in isolationMy reading of Singing Emptiness ran parallel It connected Kabirrsquos poetry with J Krishnamurtirsquos definition of silence ldquoSilence isnrsquot the space between two noises isnrsquot the cessation of noise isnrsquot something that thought has created It comes naturally inevitably as you open as you observe as you examine as you investigaterdquo The concept comes close to the Anhad Mein Rum Jaai state of mind described in the bhajanmdashHum Pardesi Panchhi Baba Most of Kabirrsquos nirgun without an object of devotion bhajans refer to the silent sound or a seeker of the soundmdashnaam shabda anhad naad suno bhai sadho avadhuta As Hessrsquo book narrates Kumarji composed Sunta Hain Guru Gyani after closely observing a ghumakkad yogi who sang doortodoor for his bhiksha The yogi was not a great singer but Kumarji admired the nirguni voice which had an amazing quality of creating emptinessmdasha carefree nonattached state ldquoa sense of alonenessrdquo It is the same aloneness inscribed on the gate of the retreat space in Ranari ldquoItrsquos beautiful to be alone Alone does not mean to be lonely It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by societyrdquoSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext You can reach her at sumedharaikarmiddaycom