MID-TERM ASSIGNMENT - SAUMYA MITTAL

Prompt 1: Poem in the voice of a historical or mythological character

(i)
Mehr-un-Nissa or Nur Jahan was the last legal wife of Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Despite being the monarch's twentieth wife and a widow at the time of her marriage to him, Nur Jahan enjoyed great influence over her husband and rose to the status of co-sovereign, becoming the only woman in the Sultanate's history to have coinage and a nishan issued in her name. Once, Jahangir was captured by Mahabat Khan and Nur Jahan entered the battlefield commanding a vast Mughal army. Even when she was forced to surrender, she managed to escape along with the emperor. Yet, among Jahangir's great loves, Noor Jahan has been forgotten and only the fictional legend of Anar Kali is remains.

Nur Jahan

"Though Nur Jahan be in form a woman, 

In the ranks of men she's a tiger-slayer"

— Unknown Poet

Jahangir's beloved tsaritsa,

Sharp-eyed huntress, Mehr-un-Nissa.

Matchless beauty, wise stateswoman,

I was Nur Mahal, Nur Jahan,

Highly learned, skilled in every zone,

Real power behind the throne.

Here it was, another crisis

The monarch trapped, all went amiss.

I cast aside the veil’s cover,

Rode forth on my regal tusker.

Commanding imperial armies,

I rained chaos on enemies.

Feigned a tactful self-surrender,

Escaped with my royal partner.

A woman at helm of affairs

Would cause old order serious scares

Faithful wife, saviour empress,

Labelled a crafty seductress

Deleted out of history

Covered up through ‘Anarkali’

(ii)
Greek writers Euripides and Herodotus, among others, have proposed that Helen of Sparta never went to Troy but was instead whisked away by the gods to Egypt and was replaced by a likeness of her, an eidolon. After the Trojan war - which was supposedly sanctioned by Zeus because he wanted to end the Age of Heroes - was over, Menelaus traveled to Egypt and brought back his wife.
On the other hand, in the Indian epic Ramayan, which supposedly took place in the Treta Yug, it has been suggested that when Ram was banished to the forest, he hid his wife Sita under the protection of Agni Dev and a shadow of Sita followed Ram throughout his banishment, the real queen emerging out of the fire of the Agni Pariksha after the battle was over.
This poem draws from both these stories to create a fictional narrative.

Helen in Egypt

Nine years I sat weaving, it’s complete now

 An art work to immortalize my tale.

Inside the shrine, my tapestry to stow,

A fine ancient painting litters the aisle.

Wipe off the dust, restore it to glory

I see reflected my own grim story:

Divine sanction to bring an age to end

Destructive war as a means was ordained.

An powerful woman used as resort

Courted by many, chose her own consort.

Divine beauty, at risk from lusty men

She’s whisked away to a far-off nation.

Replaced by a shadow, an eidolon

Even from leagues away she saw all action.

Carried off by a haughty, jilted man,

The clone fooled all, part of the divine plan

To bring on laborious battle and strife.

At the war’s end she returned to her life.

O wise woman! you divined the future,

Concluded your tale before departure.

Years of patience would earn you just distrust,

Doubted despite your long exile unjust.

The death of your royal husband

Would bring an age to its end.

The images end, an inscription follows,

“This painting by Sita of Mithila

Records the last decades of Yug Treta”.

Will this be our fate too?

Is the Age of heroes doomed?

Will this be my fate too?

Asked to prove myself again and again?

 I’d rather take their taunts

Than defend myself when I did nothing wrong.

This painting and my tapestry question,

Will there be a Sita or a Helen

Sacrificed every few millennia?

Prompt 3: Repetition

(i)

Night

Out for the first time,

Alone, after nine.

The city, so familiar,

Takes on a new shine.

Your cab’s on a flyover,

The wind whipping your hair,

The half-moon hanging in the sky so vast,

The rows of streetlights shining like stars,

The treetops flying past,

A strange exhilaration they cause.

"Have you seen my new phone?"

A voice breaks your reverie.

Alone? What I meant was

Out without a ‘man’s protection’.

"Check out my new phone"

She goes on talking.

Alone? Perhaps you'll never be alone,

Tonight or any other night,

Simply to breathe the crisp evening air,

Just enjoy a moment of calm 

Without a surveilling eye.

 Standing in the balcony

Of your third floor apartment, 

You are gazing at the night sky

Searching for you know not what.

All is black emptiness,

Which is not black really,

But has an orange-ish hue. 

Glaring lights gobble up the stars,

Buildings all around blot out the moon.

The looming spires close in on you,

Their windows like surveilling eyes.

You feel you'll never be alone,

Tonight or any other night,

Simply to breathe the crisp evening air,

Just enjoy a moment of calm.

You flee back indoors.

It’s a pleasant night, you’re home alone.

You pull back the curtain to your balcony

And find someone eavesdropping

With ear literally pressed to the door

You feel startled, 

The person on the other side is too. 

You stare at him for an explanation,

While he shuffles and stares right back.

He is caught off-guard,

Without any excuse for his presence,

But stands there unyielding, brazen. 

You continue staring at him, 

No words pass on either side.  

You don’t want a confrontation; 

It’s been hard-wired into your brain

To avoid all confrontations after dark.

So you draw the curtain

And retreat to your room again. 

Your peace of mind is gone,

Insecurity takes control.

The walls converge to devour you

Shrouded in a black emptiness,

Which is not black really,

But has a thousand surveilling eyes.

You know you'll never be alone,

Tonight or any other night,

Simply to breathe the crisp evening air,

Just enjoy a moment of calm

In a world full of shadows.

You won’t open your door now, 

Or try to endure somehow,

At least not today. 

Not anytime soon.

Never.

(ii)

The Phoenix Arcane

The phoenix burns herself, a bird arcane.

Wedlock endangers her brilliant plumage,

Look, she rises from the ashes again.

Alas! there lies a guised serpent – her bane.

Despairing, cursing the trap she couldn’t gauge,

The phoenix burns herself, a bird arcane.

To stop her protest the serpent does feign,

Guileless, she’s fooled, falls back into the cage.

Look, she rises from the ashes again.

To give her beloved issue free reign,

She’ll char all foes; beware her fiery rage.

The phoenix burns herself, a bird arcane.

Dauntless she plods on, taking on all pain.

Fearless through war that all around does wage,

Look, she rises from the ashes again.

It was a long fight, the serpent’s now slain;

The offspring prosper, her tears they assuage.

The phoenix burns herself, a bird arcane,

Look, she rises from the ashes again.

Prompt 7: Visual illustration of a poem

Nur Jahan

Instead of using drawing as a medium, I have chosen the Indian classical dance form of Kathak to attempt a visual representation of my poem. Poetry and Kathak are intricately linked to each other. A kind of Kathak composition called kavitt (from ‘kavita’, poem) is based entirely on poetry, comprising of poetic lines and Kathak bols. Also, many performances are formed out poetry set to music. Drawing from this tradition, I have tried to use dance, sans music or beats, as a medium to visually illustrate my poem.

The backdrop of Mughal-style architecture provides some context to the poem ‘Nur Jahan’ at the very beginning. Much of the dance comprises of various still poses – many of which have been inspired by Mughal paintings and portraits – in order to provide associated visual counter parts to each poetic lines. The intervening twirls or chakkars of Kathak signify changes in character, situation or mood. The attempt here has been to create an overall effect of images flowing in one after the other.

In terms of structure, each line of the poem comprises of eight syllables. In Kathak, where rhythm is composed out of clubbing together a fixed set of beats, groups of eight beats and sixteen beats are the most commonly used. This adds to the rhythmic quality of the representation.

The choice of Kathak as a medium to illustrate this poem – apart from it being an art form crucially linked to the Mughal heritage – becomes even more significant in the last line of the poem “Covered up through ‘Anarkali’”, Anarkali being a legendary courtesan in Akbar’s court who had a scandalous affair with prince Salim (later Jahangir). Written in the first person, the medium of dance adds another layer of meaning to the poem by making one wonder who was the person dancing out her tale. Was it Anarkali who has been recounting the tale of her former self? Has Nur Jahan’s personality been completely subsumed by the dancer? Or is it the empress, once silenced, deliberately resorting to dance as a means of defiant expression?