Editors Choice

August 2011

EDITOR’S CHOICE

A lone survivor

asks what is greater sorrow

life or death

Surendra Munshi

So many haiku poems have been written in relation to the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power disaster in Japan. All very moving. Now, people are beginning to sit back and reflect on this unrealistic reality from wider and longer perspectives, creating haiku of a different nature. I assume the editor’s choice in this issue is about the Japanese triple disaster, though of course it may be talking about some other disasters somewhere else. The point is that it can be applied to any disaster. It is partly and importantly this universality that is making this haiku profound.

It is an unnervingly familiar experience to many of us, maybe all of us. I for one have the same experience of my late wife saying just before she passed away that she would be alright but that it would be those who would be left behind that she would be worrying about, especially you (meaning this author). Though I would not like to believe it, what she said may have proved true.

The haiku is profound in many other ways as well. It is about the big question, and arguably the only important question, of life and death. We talk about life, and not so profoundly at that, but shy away from talking about death. Death may be the last taboo of us humans. We are in massive, collective and mankind-wide denial about death while death is constantly and universally occurring all around us.

At the same time, the haiku may be saying that life is sorrow and death is the salvation from it. As the deceased and the death itself cannot feel sorrow, it would be again the living people who would feel sorrow over him/her or for the death itself on behalf of him/her and of themselves.

In its final analysis, we are born alone and die alone. The haiku in question is talking about a lone survivor, i.e. he or she has survived alone. Presumably, he/she has lost everybody in the disaster and that is what the haiku is saying. However, it is also indicative of the fact that strictly speaking we live alone, too, even if we have family, friends or acquaintances. This sheds a new light on the predicament of an individual and on his/her relation with the rest of the population. It digs very deeply into human existence.

Purists, especially those among the native speakers of English, may say that it should be ‘which’ rather than ‘what’ and that the question mark (?) should be placed at the end of the third line. Haiku can, in the right circumstance, transcend grammar and be better than grammatically correct English. Though we cannot and should not deviate too much from proper English, haiku should be regarded as having its own language which can sometimes defy grammar. It is the freedom of haiku and the freedom we give to haiku. If we allow this freedom in haiku, ‘what’ is far better than ‘which’ in the Editor’s Choice haiku and in a subtle way means something different, too. The question mark is not that important but it would be distracting if it is there.