ഭാവന

That moment when you rouse with a start from your dream. That moment when you abruptly wake up to your surroundings. That moment when you soar the sky of imagination and then suddenly crash to ground reality. The poem, Bhavana (Imagination), is like a waking up of this kind. However, that is but the superficial layer of the poem. Once you scratch the surface of the poem, you realise there is much more running deep within the lines.

The poet’s imagination is like a bird, rising from its nest and soaring into the heavens, crooning its birdsong. He sees kinnaras in pairs, singing and celebrating their joy, in the exquisite gardens of Indra. He watches the beauteous apsaras enjoying in the manas sarovar. He roams the sandy shores of Yamuna where Madhava is engaged in light-hearted exchanges with his gopikas.

As the poet is sailing the skies of his imagination, recreating magical mythological moments, he bumps into a fire-spitting, blood-sucking vampire. And he wakes up suddenly from his reverie. Only to see the Viking surging spaceward, in quest of the Mars. Clearly, the poet is instantly transported from the scriptures that he follows to the science that he believes in.

Surreptitiously covered amid the layers of the poem are the different facets of the poet. You see the romantic, the engineer, the technocrat and the philosopher in the poet vying with one another as you move from one line of the poem to the next. From literature to engineering, from poetry to spirituality, from scriptures to science, the poet had always indulged in a variety of subjects with great passion.

As a reader of the poet, and also as his daughter, on a personal note, I feel the poet’s versatility would have been his greatest advantage and his hardest challenge too. He must have been pulled in all directions by his deep interest in and constant inquiry into diverse topics.

Obviously, Sandhya, who herself has won laurels as a poet, academician and statistician, identifies with the poet as she gives herself up to the central theme and emotion of the poem.

SW · Bhavana | K. T. K. Variar | Sandhya E. | PC: JL G/Pixabay

ഭാവന 

പഞ്ജരമണിവാതിൽ 

     തുറന്നു-മൽഭാവന 

പഞ്ചമം പാടിപ്പാടി 

     വിണ്ണിലേയ്ക്കുയർന്നേറി.

കിന്നരമിഥുനങ്ങ-

     ളുത്സവമാഘോഷിക്കും 

സുന്ദരലതാഗൃഹ-

    മിയന്നൊരിന്ദ്രാരാമം;

അപ്സരസ്സുദതിമാ-

     രരയന്നങ്ങൾക്കൊത്തു 

ഹർഷകേളികളാടും 

     മാനസസരോവരം;

വല്ലവിമാരോടൊത്തു 

     മാധവൻ കളിയാടി-

സ്സല്ലപിക്കുമാ സ്വച്ഛ-

     യാമുനമണൽത്തീരം-

അങ്ങനെ നാകങ്ങളിൽ,

     പുരാണങ്ങൾതൻ തണ്ണീർ-

പ്പന്തലുകളിലെൻ്റെ  ഭാവന വിഹരിയ്‌ക്കേ,

അത്യുഗ്രമലറിക്കൊ-

     ണ്ടാവിതുപ്പിക്കൊണ്ടെത്തും

രക്തയക്ഷിതൻമെയ്യിൽ 

     മുട്ടിപ്പോയ്; ഉണർന്നു ഞാൻ.

കൺതുറന്നപ്പോൾ കണ്ടേൻ 

     കുജനെത്തേടിത്തേടി 

പ്പൊങ്ങുന്ന 'വൈക്കിംഗ്' - എൻ്റെ 

     ഭാവന നുറുങ്ങിപ്പോയ്.   

© 1959 KTK