Born with the power
of revival in him of what he was in his previous birth, he made
his elders wonder-struck at the age of four only by reciting
from the great Indian scripture, Bhagavad Gita. Steeped in
Indian tradition, he became a Vedic scholar at a very early age
and came out with a degree in modern science at 17. In line with
the Upanishadic teaching that Sarvang Khalu Idang Brahma,
everything whatever is here is Brahma or the Sanskrit teaching,
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the whole world is related, his mission
became Uniting the World into a Global Family. Imbibing the
ancient Indian system of medication and way of living, pranayama
and yoga asanas, he rediscovered and new-made them to suit his
modern purpose. Thus armed with Sudarshan Kriya or breathing
exercise to relieve one of stress and trauma, towards
establishing a physical and mental well being, relieving oneself
of anger, anxiety and worry, he wishes to establish a world
family consisting of all the peoples of the world irrespective
of race and religion, community and nationality.
Such a social leader
armed with his unique way of the Art of Living based on Indian
spiritualism, could not confine himself to his cave of tapasya
in digging deeper and higher his being only. He has to go out to
the world teaching and harmonizing the conflicting lives of the
peoples, for he, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar too has realized like Sri
Aurobindo that all problems are essentially the problems of
harmony.
We heard but really
understood it when we reached the heart of his ashram, the Head
Quarter of the globe trotting leader, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It
is no wonder that he was not there. He was away to USA. But his
arrangements are in tact, modern technology mixed with wholesome
Indian hospitality. We had all the comforts of living in the
guest rooms without the modern hotel facility. Food and drink
and discipline were simple but praiseworthy. We had no
difficulty in living there for three days, in going in and
coming out of it.
Vishalakshi Mantap,
the gigantic structure in the shape of a temple facilitates most
of the conferneces and meetings. Illuminated in the evenings,
all marbled and surrounded by rockery, appropriate plants and
grass lands around, serviced all the time by workers engaged for
the purpose, it is a pleasure to move around it. The big halls
are equipped with all the facilities to display DVD, play music
or make other arrangements for dissemination of ideas. There are
some elephants reared by the ashram. The ashram has cars and
vans for essential movements but inside the sprawling area of
120 acres with lakes and undulating hill paths, one has
essentially to walk between places which may be a little
troublesome at the beginning but gradually one realizes it to be
a healthy practice. Living in such a physical surrounding was an
additional charm to all of us gathered, from India and abroad,
some for the first time for such a festival.
The three days and
evenings were jam-packed with programmes from 8 in the mornings
to 8 in the evenings. Besides talks and paper presentations, it
consisted of Ginko Walk, recitations of Mirza Ghalib’s poems by
some experts, dance and bird calls. As the subject Haiku is
already very debatable, there is no one rule to compose such
poems, either in contents or forms. Most of the poets gathered
being practising poets the talks did not help much, more so as
the speakers were mostly ones among them, with almost the same
resources to help with. Certain things like writing haiku
instantly in chits of papers and circulating them among the
gathering to get their views were in a sense unique and warming,
as instantly innovated by Dr. Susumu Takiguchi, the President of
the World Haiku Club. His drawing of Calligraphy, sitting at the
centre of a gathering was interesting though; no talk was made
to introduce it, to describe its significance.
Among the papers
submitted some were of general nature describing the nature and
quality of haiku but some stressed the development of haiku as a
literary genre in some regions of India. Though only four
languages could be covered among the large number of linguistic
regions of India they obviously drew our attention.
The speaker for the
haiku in Hindi though presented a paper in English (written in
third person), as it was done throughout the programmes in all
subjects, his speech was entirely in Hindi. I hope that many of
the Indians understood what he said, though not others. One
thing emerged from the papers was that poet Rabindranath Tagore
introduced it to Indians after his visit to Japan in 1916.
Though he did not write any haiku as such, he wrote many haiku
like poems and translated some Japanese haiku like the famous
one by Basho about the jumping of a frog in the well and its
consequence.
In Hindi the haiku
and tanka began their journeys in 1977 through translation by
Satya Bhusan Verma. In Tamil the journey began with the writing
of an essay on Japanese haiku by poet Subrania Bharati in 1916.
In both the languages there are some 100 poets now and they have
published a number of anthologies and books in haiku. The Tamil
paper was a scholarly presentation beginning with the history of
Tamil language and presenting a large number of poems. The paper
was bigger than the time frame allotted. In Kannada language the
haiku proper began its journey, it seems, by the end of the
twentieth century. Though she named quite some Kannada poets
later, at the beginning the speaker dealt with her own works and
her daughter and granddaughter’s achievements, edifying as if a
family line, though we enjoyed the tales of her seven year old
grand daughter writing her from England. The presentation on
Marathi haiku too contained the history and present the position
of it, the origin not being very old as is the case with other
language groups in India. The adaptation of haiku and its
Indianisation has been an ongoing process. In spite of all
liberty, we feel that to be called a haiku, it must retain its
basic characteristics. It is otiose to go into the details here.
Though not properly
introduced, we enjoyed the felicitation of honouring some eight
poets, veterans and others. At the end the President chose some
poets on the basis of instant production of haiku on the themes
suggested by him, as awardees of the World Haiku Club. Most of
the poets chosen were new to the field and very young. It is a
way of cheering them to their path. One of them began writing
haiku after joining the festival.
Besides the bird
call by the experienced Kiran Purandare with his explanation,
aptly aided by knowledge and interest in Nature, what we enjoyed
most was the Kathak and Odissi dance programmes by Ms. Yogini
Gandhi and her troupe. Yogini was superb in her movement and
grace, rhythm and music in it. Next to her in all such qualities
was the Odissi dancer. We enjoyed the side works of such
accomplished artist as the poet Dr. Angelee Deodhar. She pleased
everyone present with drawings of one of their poems in the
Indian Haiku edited by her in the colourful natural set up and
presenting one to each.
At the end we must
felicitate Mrs. Kala Ramesh, the present Director of the
Festival, who almost single handedly arranged the whole
programme assisted by some as she found suitable on her way. It
must be stated that the participants enjoyed the programmes
including the outing for three days in such a unique place.
