From her Birth to the Passing: The Life of Bakuli

  

From her Birth to the Passing: The Life of Bakuli

by Dhiraj Sindhi

Dedicated to those who don’t get enough time and space to grieve for their animal companions

Few words before you begin. I don't think I know and can create the art of poetry, as I do feel with other forms of writing. While grieving the loss of this little one, I had to express and let it all out. But, for better or worse, I eventually chose poetry. Feel free to comment. Would love to hear from you all readers.

The Mother-Daughter Duo

 

That was the night, her mother was meowing louder than ever

A huge sign for the little life that could not wait to see the world

As if she knew that her house was set up days before we came to know of her

That that Peti of Alphonsos and that Washing Machine were meant for her

Not us humans. She knew, being a single child, she’ll get all of it to herself

Love, care, comfort and compassion that we would die to protect her

Only if you could tell your future that you won’t be able to do so

That I need to be more vigilant and be on my toes to be able to do so

The morning rays were spreading happiness more than light

Because the Lord Ganesha had blessed the family with a child

After some twenty-two years, we were to witness the magical world around the new-born

Where your worries and thoughts would perish the moment you saw the new-born

Like mother like daughter, the same number of black stripes squeezed into her tiny stretch of skin

A glimpse was enough to lose your heart to the fresh pink glow and her smell, like a baby shampoo

For the next few days, we wouldn’t touch the baby, ravishing the view from afar

Because we need not breach the privacy of the duo, relishing intimate moments of their lives

For the coming week, the cat mother won’t budge from her tiny abode in the attic

Caressing and grooming her daughter with licks full of affection

It could be the rains that she didn’t carry her daughter anywhere else

On Anant-Chaturdashi, we were away at the gulf, getting drenched in rain

And the baby was fast-asleep against her curled up mom’s tommy

Camouflaged, you couldn’t tell where the baby rested amid the fur of her mommy

Finally, as they say, it was time to move the kitten through seven houses

In our case, she took the kitten through four different rooms and moved twice in the same room

A tiny frightful gasp would leave us stricken, whenever the mother decided to shift

The shifting would involve a lot of meowing at first and then that scary sight

The wrapping of jaws around the neck of her kitten, swinging from side to side

Walking through many doors, springing up on and down from the parapets

She once tried to carry our heart away through the shared courtyard

Enclosed from the all four sides, eventually, she had to return

Climbing up the three storey building, leaping across roofs in the dead of the night

The baby intact, clasped in her jaws, finally, got to breathe as she again put her to sleep

When in her second house, Bakuli opened her eyes that had world of its own

Whiskers and eyebrows growing faster than ever, as if to compete tigress of her mother

Her tiny little claws sharper than her mother’s, snagging out stiches already

Soon she started imitating her mother, licking her paws, as if to launch on her preys already

That’s when we started talking to her, and her foxlike ears would perk up in response

She would raise her head to look up at us, with all the attention she could muster

Her flowery black eyes staring deep into our souls, with slightly tilted head

Pure innocence flashing into your eyes, you couldn’t resist but caress with the back of your hand

Now, she dared coming out of her little abode, stumbling down every now and then

But it was not long before she began scampering up and down the rooms

We needed to be extra careful now that she could greet our legs any given time

Even while sleeping, you do not turn sides without ensuring she’s indeed inside her space

In the early morning the duo would wake us up from deep slumber

We would agree to all their demands, chasing them around the house all day

In the evening, after a much tiresome playful field day with her

We would tuck her into her mother’s furry bosom like our own daughter

There were some days difficult for them, but the duo endured them like warriors

The Gulaab cyclone struck the coast of Cambay, completely opposite in nature

It gave us and the duo some of the most life-threatening thunderclaps ever heard

Heart-stopping sound effects, as if divine energy of the Dancing Three-eyed God 

Had been released from the sky, cascading down the steps made of cloud

The mother-daughter duo sat in darkness, chin up and calm as ever

Warrior queen and the warrior princess were the reason we felt composed these days

Not realizing how incredibly blessed are those who’ve got someone to check in on every few seconds

In her fourth week, she had truly grown up, slits visible in her big blue eyes

Chewing on things and biting our toes and fingers now that canines were developing

She had now chosen for herself the favorite spots where she would spend most of her time

Jumping up and down the threshold between hall and kitchen became her most favorite activity

Second was to hide under the fridge and the washer, making the mother anxiously meow with agony

Pacing backwards and pouncing on us humans, you couldn’t tell who’s more like her mommy

Twisting her body and licking her tail, climbing was another of her ambitions

She conquered all the cartons she ever lived in, descending on the same courageous paws

Then, the fateful day arrived that had been looming over us since long

The clouds of worries that had been contained till now had broken lose

The morning greeted us with distressing sight of kitten all shriveled up 

Puking every now and then, getting thinner than before, her steps getting weaker

Seeking solitude, she would sit alone in the middle of a room, refusing to eat

Gleaming eyes, staring into void or maybe conveying how bad she felt, crying for help

Can’t even bear the memory of that sight; the following day, minutes before she was pouncing around her favorite place

And that was the noon, the daughter ceased to meow, forever; the mother in deep slumber, and us, wailing

The medicine and the dropper that she left behind had been souvenired

Did the vet know this was coming? Was it the Sunday Holiday?

Or the lack of vets? Can it be the evil eyes?

Or was it us who made this happen?

We should have been more careful, but that’s that.

The mother had been searching for her in every corner

But now, the grieving mother is back to normal, though one thing has changed since

The nameless mother has naturally acquired the name of her daughter – Bakuli.

To the eternal memory of most precious thirty days with the bravest paws to walk on earth.

17th Sept. 2021 – 18th Oct. 2021

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Kala Krishnan’s Lyrical Prose in Mahasena Harmonizes the Novel’s Striking Elements, Creating an Undying Ode in the Reverence of the God of War and Victory

 

Kala Krishnan’s Lyrical Prose in Mahasena Harmonizes the Novel’s Striking Elements, Creating an Undying Ode in the Reverence of the God of War and Victory

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi

Mahasena: Part One of the Murugan Trilogy by Kala Krishnan

Mahasena by Kala Krishnan

Author: Kala Krishnan

ISBN: 978-9390679133

Genre: Myths, Legends & Sagas

Length: 264 Pages

Publication Date: 19^th July 2021

Publisher: Context – An Imprint of Westland Publications Private Limited

Cover Design: Saurabh Garge

Cover Designer: Website: theaoi.com/ | Instagram: @garge_saurabh

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/2YaUKS8

About the author:

Kala Krishnan works in Bengaluru. She is the author of two books of poetry, He Is Honey, Salt and the Most Perfect Grammar and Offer Him All Things Charred, Burned and Cindered, in which the god Murugan appears in surprising versions.

Kala Krishnan (PC: Kinshuk Rawat)

Instagram: @poetkala

Website: poetry.sangamhouse.org/

The Hindu Article: ‘I see Murugan as language’

Disclaimer: This review is only intended for initiating discussions. The opinions and views presented in this article are my own and do not reflect anything about the book's author. 

REVIEW

Not long ago that I came to know of the associations between my hometown and the young lord Kartikeya. While there is only a single prominent temple in Gujarat that is dedicated to Balamurugan, one of the Mahapuranas tells a wholly different story. According to the local legend, as mentioned in the Skanda Purana, a golden pillar was fixed at the place along with the Shivaling (Stambheshwar Mahadev, a temple in Kavi that hosts thousands of pilgrims after its redevelopment, on the full moon and the new moon of every month) on the battlefield where Tarakasur was slain by Kumara—the young God of War, to celebrate the victory. This place was then a much-revered pilgrimage region called Kumarika Kshetra where the Mahi River met with the sea, thus Mahisagara-Sangam Tirtha, also known as Gupta Kshetra, which is now represented by Khambhat—a town on the coast of Gulf of Cambay, Kavi—a town on the other side of the gulf and the neighbouring region. That is how Khambhat has received its name, after applying phonetic laws with contraction, assimilation and elimination; the Sanskrit name ‘Stambhtirth (The Pillar Shrine)’ was transformed into modern-day Gujarati name ‘Khambhat’. I’m saving the details for some other blog, now, let’s see how the poet and author, Kala Krishnan pays ‘a homage to a cherished boy-god’—as Sharanya Manivannan says—as well as to the language of the South in a unique way and probably the perfect way for the modern world era, something that is essential to preserve and uphold the cultures cascading through centuries of generational changes.
 
Mahasena by Kala Krishnan—a mythological fiction, is a synthesis of several literary and non-literary elements that are emphasized to achieve an effect, a sense of high regard and admiration for the Lord Murugan and everything he touches in his lifespan; woven together as one lyrical phenomenon that flows rhythmically like a river, gushing down from its source at higher altitudes to the plains where it’s much needed, cutting through the grounds, rocks, valleys, mountains called Skanda, Kartikeya, Guha, Mahasena, Kandhan, Murugan, Kumara and ceaselessly thrives not knowing how many lives depend upon it in myriad aspects; it is thus the exceptionally beautiful, written in rich prose, a musical story of the God of Tamizh from his birth to battlefield, from Kumara to Mahasena, and most importantly from ‘ the Kumaras’ language’ to the fully-developed rich culture of Tamil people.
 
Let me now shed light on the five major elements that are seamlessly ingrained in the text and into one another, which bursts open the floodgates for lively imagination and even wilder creativity.
 
Nature: The free-flowing nature, something that is boundless and limitless, the flora and fauna, the earth, the sky, the fourteen worlds in the universe, the rivers, the mountains, the seasons and the likes of it, all are depicted as natural it could get. It is quite responsive and sensitive that it reacts to everything the Gods do. While it is not bound by time, space or any living being, the very presence of the divine being comforts nature and it starts moving as if dancing to the rhythm of Murugan’s heartbeats. This is because, of course, Murugan treats himself as an inseparable part of it, which is evident by the breath-taking scenes where the boy-god is shown playing with snakes and where “Kandhan was mud” and the creatures—“worms, bugs, caterpillars, bees, butterflies, dragonflies—were swimming into him, passing through skin and swimming out.”
 
Music: Music and the art of writing and reciting poems, verses, and the likes is the second thing that is given utmost importance in Mahasena, the first being the language of the South, Tamizh. The music is accommodated in the storyline as well as the writing style from the very beginning before the younger brother of Ganesha was born. The music comes to Lord Murugan as naturally as Dance comes to Shambhu and Shakti to Parvathy. Murugan always has the anklets of music wrapped around his feet and gravely condemns any flaw he recognises, which he always does. The author has cleverly ensured that the two leaders on the battlefield are equal, no more, no less. The Dashagriva Ravana also plays a small part along with the opponent of Murugan—Surapadman. As these Asuras are depicted as engineers and experimenters, they also have achieved perfection in the art of music.
 
Tamizh Language: The Tamizh language is one of the most prominent aspects of the novel. This language is portrayed as the most natural language that can occur to any being; that also goes hand in hand with everything from people to objects. The grammar, the words and the phonetics of this language are such that the words or noises a child barely a year old would make on seeing a newborn and that would be in none other than Tamizh. Murugan makes the language perpetual and never-ending by teaching it to Kuru Muni Akaththi, also known as Agastya or Akattiyam, who in turn, spreads it across the land of the South with the help of grammarians, poets, bards and scholars, where it “grew surer and more adventurous, it sank roots, and like a giant tree…and on its branches perched the mighty-winged birds of poetry, grammar and music.” And thus Kartikeya gets yet another name—Tamizh Theivan means the God of Tamizh.
 
Magical Realism: It is debatable that whether to treat the fantastical elements in mythology as pure miracles or as elements of magical realism. Well, I have chosen to call it magical realism because even in the set boundary of mythology some things go beyond comprehension and reasoning. Some of the magical realism devices are communication via dreams, epiphanies, the very birth of Kartikeya, his ability to speak to the anklets as if using a similar mellifluous sound.
 
Reconstructed Myths, Legends and Sagas with Freshly-developed Characters and Unique Working Mechanism: The author Kala Krishnan has developed her own mythology world that has its own creation story and own way of functioning. I am utterly in love with how she has presented the enigmatic images of the gods and goddesses; they are depicted as human-like as they can get and at the same time, they never lose or stop radiating the god-like aura of divine energy. It is also absolutely remarkable how the author has detailed the relationships between the siblings—Ganesha and Kartikeya, Murugan and Aambal, and one that has no equal in the universe—Shiva and Parvathy, the Mother and Father of Creation, whose relationship is just as Kala Krishnan describes it—“you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.”
 
I will be eagerly waiting for the next part in the Murugan Trilogy to uncover the secret behind ‘Mahasena’, a name given to Murugan by Indra’s daughter Devyani, also known as Devasena or as Murugan calls her, ‘Theivanai’, which is also the title of the next book.

Happy Reading!

Thank you @vivekisms for the review copy!

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Will see you in the next post. Till then buh-bye. Take Care. Peace. ☮