Sensing the ebb and flow of the familiar unknown - Abhyas Trust, New Delhi (INDIA)

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Sensing the ebb and flow of the familiar unknown

By Ruchira Talukdar

The Punjabi poetry sessions ran late on Monday nights for my time zone in Melbourne, Australia. I had been scribbling notes based on my sleep-addled reflections. But when I sat down to convert them into a coherent piece of writing, I found myself writing and erasing every sentence, unconvinced and unsure about my own observations. I don’t understand the Punjabi language, even though the words and sentences sound familiar from repetitive hearing, giving an illusion of knowing; it is afamiliar unknown.

After initial anxieties around understanding every word, and unsuccessfully attempting to Google translate while listening to the live sessions, I gave up on my insistence to understand it all. And finally rid myself of that oppressive imposter syndrome that was feeding off my insecurity at not knowing (it all) and blocking my ability to reflect on the songs and poems. I could now focus on the flow and cadence of the language, and with it a new way of comprehending spoken words opened up; through feelings evoked from the particular kind of sing-song of the poems in Punjabi.Following the flow of an unknown language felt a lot like dancing to a foreign song; like moving to words unknown by letting their music guide the movements.

Some ideas from the twelve sessions made a stronger impression on my imagination than others. One of my strongest reflections is how across several hundred years, Punjabi poetry has continued to evoke the theme of the doomed love of Heer and Ranjha. Thesere-evocationsspoke of a sustained expression in Punjabi poetry that entwined the dichotomies of grief and joy and of loss and love. They spoke of the timeless quality of the emotion of longing in separation or Birha, in poems and songs from Punjab; as well as the various expressions this emotion assumed across the individual, political and spiritual realms. Pathane Khan’s ardent rendition of Khwaja Ghulam Farid’sMedaIshqVi TuMedaYaar ViTu made the strongest impression on me out of all songs and poems discussed during the twelve weeks. The yearning in Pathane Khan’s voice haunted me; the quality of sweet intensity in it gave the impression of the earth wailing for the sky. The feeling of the song wrapped both a personal and a spiritual longing.

I noticed the innumerable long drawn out ‘tuuuuu’s in the song that were sung with an upward drawing of the breath, and how they heightenedthe effect of the earth crying out for the sky. The musical details of the song caught my attention when I danced to it. I noticed that although thetabla addedmasterful touches to the composition every now and then; it was the steady rhythm of the dholakthat accompanied the yearning voice throughout the song. The ethereal effect created by the occasional and delicate strains of thetablacontrasted with the persistent and earthy percussion of the dholak. This musical contrast enhanced the feeling of separation between sky and ground and enriched the longing in the song.

I cannot traverse such a purely impressionistic plane of sensing with songsand poetry in Bangla, my native and most familiartongue.And curiously enough, that is because of two contradictory reasons. With Bangla songs, meaning is lodged in every word. There, sensing sometimes proves to be a punctuated experience, travelling from word to word, risking missing out on their larger impression for the sake of literal specificities.But with Bangla songs, particularly my repertoire, a purely impressionistic sensing also eludes because of my intimacy with them. I take refuge in them and I emote with them. But no so with Punjabi which for me is a language at once unknownand familiaronly through repetitive hearing. There, the strongest impression from the songs and poems served as the clearest guide through their unknownness for me. And this will remain as my indelible impression of songs and poems from Punjab: of soaring feelings and a searing intensity that are beyond and more than the words that convey them.

I kept listening through a veil of sleep over those twelve weeks of the Punjabi Poetry sessions. As I slipped in and out of dreaming, my dreams wove with words that I half-understood but fully sensed through their sounds, they entwined with the distinctivesingsongof the language, and the rhyme in its poetry. In this fluid and half-dreaming state, words, tunes, rhythm and rhyme strung together a sensory impression of a civilizational journey across the fertile yet harsh landscape of six rivers, good Punjab.Interwoven threads of language and song, and song and singer, stitched together a tapestry of a people and their soul in my mind’s eye. Poetry and song over time captured the ebb and flow of the soul of the people.

I remembered a sentence from an interview with a protesting farmer at the Singhu border outside Delhi, ‘We come from the land of chardi kala’, he had said. My curiosity for the Punjabi poetry course came from a desire to taste the cultural space of resistance created by the thousands of farmers lodged in makeshift camps through the intense winter. What I was left with from the 12 weeks was an impression of a civilizational journey of resistance and continuity, and of songs and souls moulded by this journey. Drawing a very long and broad line of comparison, would this story not be comparable to Indigenous people’s survival and resistance? I was left wondering what does this story of continuity bode for the farmers struggle, and the future of Punjabi poetry? How will the people and their song ebb and flow?

Ruchira Talukdar is a researcher and writer on social movements. She lives on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne, Australia.

She was one of the participants in the Punjabi poetry course offered by Navtej Johar at Studio Abhyas

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