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Haiku In India
World Haiku Festival 2008, Bangalore India
TAKE A PEEP AT HAIKU IN INDIA
By Susumu Takiguchi
I was curious in India about what their haiku poems were like. I liked what I saw.
being bored at heaven
a shooting star
jumps into death
by raju samal, Mumbai
This haiku stunned me. Whatever right or wrong the haiku policeman has to say about this poem, who else can write something like this? Can haiku rules write it? Never.
The most-easily-expected noises of condemnation, 'It's anthropomorphism!' or 'A star would not get bored like humans!', or 'It's a sentence!', 'Being is not necessary!', ring hollow, even stupid.
The overwhelming impression I got from Indian people during my stay there is their way (thought, religion, behavioural pattern, reaction, value or belief system etc.) being holistic, comprehensive, multiple, inclusive, organic and wonderfully complex. Even when we were talking about such mundane things as cleaning teeth or buying a bottle of water I could detect that behind their remarks lied cosmology, history, poetry or various deities. It is therefore little wonder that an Indian poet should see different things in a shooting star.
I have never seen anything like this poem in other countries. No irksome comments are needed, which in itself is a high praise. However, I will point out that there is an incredible kind of sense of humour in this haiku, which seems to have been devoid of haiku in the West. The author is free from conventional wisdom about shooting stars, hence his originality. Such a grave topic, NO, taboo, as death is treated in this haiku with a detached view and lightness (karumi) which is also an essential characteristic of haiku in Japan.
The author put up on a display wall of the Dining Hall this poem side by side with his colour photo of a shooting star (therefore it is not a haiga). Somehow, the combination of a shocking haiku and an impressive picture depicting the bright arc line of the shooting star made the presentation most apt.
I might venture to offer a humble and friendly alternative possibility:
bored in heaven
a shooting star jumps
into death
the first rain –
someone else also
holding out her hand
Rohini Gupta, Mumbai
Again someone from Mumbai. Is this vast city full of good haijin? This is a haiku which won Honourable Mention in the first World Haiku Club Award which was conducted during the World Haiku Festival 2008 in India. The meaning of the haiku is clear to everyone. It is expressing Indian people's anxious feeling of wait and expectation for the arrival of the Monsoon after several months of dry season. It must be as joyful for Indians as the first snow is for the Japanese. In India I had my fair share of dust and heat, just enough to appreciate the feelings contained in this haiku.
What makes it an excellent haiku is the way a direct reference to heat or dryness is avoided in favour of a more subtle and indirect way of saying the same thing. Though heat is a common kigo in Japan, to say something like 'my ice cream melting rapidly' would be superior as it gives a concrete object and what is happening to it specifically as one of our daily occurrences, rather than an abstract notion of heat.
The haiku looks modest but there are a lot of feelings in it. First class.
sunrise
a heron meditates
monks pass by
Vidur Jyoti
Another haiku which won Honourable Mention in the same Award as above. There are a lot of good things about it, including irony, vivid depiction of the scene in so few words, a sense of humour, deep subject etc.
The most significant factor of the excellence of this haiku, however, may lie in its irony. Monks are of course supposed to meditate but a heron is doing it for them. The bird is presented as the main character of this little haiku drama and by contrast the monks are a sideshow, given a role of just passing by.
Whatever would be the decisive factor that makes this haiku a winner, the whole picture it depicts is so nice and pleasing. Those who have the time to worry about anthropomorphism could suggest:
sunrise
a heron looks meditating
as monks pass by
Apart from the anthropomorphism question, 'as' may improve the haiku:
sunrise…
a heron meditates as
monks pass by
As a traditional Japanese haiku poet I would not be able to resist using a kigo which to traditionalists makes a world of difference:
spring sunrise…
a heron meditates as
monks pass by
Now this haiku is perfect.
full moon
a glowing taj mahal
on river yamuna
by Kala Ramesh, Pune
What could be more Indian than this haiku? However, the merit of it does not lie in such an obvious place. It lies first and foremost in the beauty created in this moonlit landscape like a watercolour by John Atkinson Grimshaw. It also lies in the very history Taj Mahal emits so richly. Taj Mahal is a cliché. However, the river Yamuna is not, at least for non-Indians.
If one imagines heart-broken Shah Jahan looking out wistfully of the window of his captivity in the Red Fort a little distance north-west of Taj Mahal at the whiteness of this mausoleum of his beloved wife, Mumtaj Mahal, under the moonlight, the haiku takes on a deeper meaning. This great Mughal emperor had lost his wife, throne, two of his four princes with one, Aurangzeb, turning against him, health and above all freedom. Basho would have written a haiku. However, the difference is that Taj Mahal has not become ruins or Red Fort, unlike the castles and fields Basho remembered in his summer grass haiku.
I believe this haiku of Kala Ramesh's has won the third prize in the recent Mainichi haiku contest. I would have given it the first prize any day.
hot afternoon
a carter wipes his hand
on the donkey’s back
A. Thiagarajan
the heron's nest - dec. 07
Having seen donkey-drawn carts many times in hot streets of Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities and countryside in India, I can have a vivid image of what this haiku depicts. Nowadays, being the slowest in the street except for pedestrians, carts are having a tough time constantly harassed by auto-rickshaws, taxis, passenger cars, lorries etc. hooting, shoving and shouting. So, the carter needs to be watchful all the time and can never have the time to wipe his sweat with a handkerchief or something.
Well, of course, the author may have been seeing a totally different scene, say, in a lonely country lane. Either way, it is depicting what he wanted to say in the best possible way. The last two lines are a 'sentence', something some haiku rule forbids. However, I see no problem at all. An excellent haiku.
twitter…
I lower
the newspaper
K. Ramesh
This is one of the haiku poems which were written extempore at my workshop of Kukai in Japanese Style at World Haiku Festival 2008 in India. The participants were asked to choose their best three anonymously from about 60 works. This haiku secured the largest vote. I played the role of shusai (Master) presiding over the kukai. As part of shusai's privilege, I gave this haiku tokusen (Special Commendation). Not even a single word of explanation or comment is needed. It would spoil the haiku. Why it is so good is also most obvious to anybody. This is one of rare examples of a haiku which needs no words to be said about it and therefore the very best kind.
Another haiku I gave tokusen in the same kukai has one word which makes it excellent.
pristine dawn –
expecting the sun
any moment
S. Abburi
The word is of course 'pristine'. If it is a car, beach, or antique furniture, the word is often used to mean very good condition as if new and clean. For me, to use 'pristine' about dawn is strikingly original. Without it, or lesser qualifier, the haiku would be a dull one, or so-called 'So what?' haiku. Native speakers of English may disagree.
The word 'moment' is used here but it is nothing to do with the haiku moment. We all know that waiting for sunrise is quite a long affair, much longer than one would expect. It feels longest after we think that it can happen any moment. The sun rises very quickly when we are not conscious about it, one of life's ironies. It is our psychology which is playing tricks on us.
pacing my steps
to the bird's morning call
Another good haiku from the same kukai. Perish the thought that haiku should be written in three lines. Let a particular haiku decide that kinds of things. If it suits two lines so be it. Four lines, fine too. Five lines should perhaps be avoided if it can be helped because it would start looking like tanka and also it runs the risk of losing a sense of brevity which is essential to haiku. 'Bird's' should probably be 'birds''.
temple steps
lined with seekers
of alms
S. Abburi
Once again, from the same kukai which begot many good haiku. Beggars and poor people still abound in the newly prosperous India. They are there wherever people come in great numbers, railway stations, markets, busy streets and shopping centres. Temples are particularly poignant because they will appeal to people's conscience and the spirit of faith, forcing their guilt consciousness into giving them money. The opulence of the temple, made possible by the donations of believers contrasts with these underprivileged people which it should be supporting. Well, in a sense it is doing just that.
fair over –
a dog inspects
the site
A. Thiagarajan
Still from the same kukai. The more I think about the anti-anthropomorphism rule, the more I worry that it may have either killed many good haiku poems having it or aborted them in their embryonic state, or even stopped the conception all together. Of course dogs do not 'inspect'. However, dogs do things which can be regarded as inspection, especially the sniff dogs. However, that is not even the point. The point is the importance of respecting and celebrating what occurs in poets' mind or heart or soul, wherever their sensibility functions. If the author feels poetically that this dog looks as if it is discharging the duty of inspection (probably more like trying to sniff leftover foods) then it is perfectly valid and commendable that he or she should put it down in a haiku. And if one does not get any sense of humour from this haiku, then one might as well pack up and leave haiku altogether.
strong wind
fisherman struggles
to light his cigarette
Quamrul Hassan,
Bangladesh
Last one from the same kukai. This is not what is called 'So what?' haiku, as it has so much story in it. The wording is good, sentence or no. For a traditionalist, if a season is mentioned it would be so much better. For example:
north wind –
fisherman struggles
to light his cigarette
The kigo makes this haiku perfect and integral, from a traditionalist point of view. This feeling cannot be understood unless one tries to learn kigo and to enter into the spirit of it. Try it, as you have nothing to lose. In fact, if as a consequence you become much more aware of, and sensitive to, what happens in nature and changing seasons your spiritual, intellectual and cultural life will be so much more enriched. Think about naming, for instance, all your rooms in the house in kigo, e.g. cuckoo, warbler or crow; camellia, wisteria or magnolia!
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