HYDERABAD:Mysticism is another synonym associated with poet-editor Arundhathi Subramaniam. It radiates and covers the listener as she talks about the images that sway around seeping in her poetry: compact, terse, evocative blended with rain-washed clarity that stay with you long after you have finished reading her poetry collection When God is a Traveller. Her works leave you on a trail of an eternal search bringing you closer to yourself. As a translator of Bhakti poetry she makes the reader arrive to a better understanding of himself, an indescribable enrichment. The Bombay-based poet was in city recently. Excerpts from the interview:

The Book of Buddha and Sadhguru: More Than A Life, these two books are on spiritualism. What drew you closer to spirituality? (Smiles). One one level, poetry in itself is a way to understand yourself. It is a way of making sense in the world you live in. To me, the spiritual journey is also not so different; it is also a way of trying to understand universe that you suddenly find yourself hurled into and trying to find your own personal way of making sense of that. In some fundamental way, both are deeply connected. They start with the same questions. They start with the same sense of wonder about the world into which we are born and which makes no sense to us at all. The excitement about poetry started very early. When I look back at my teens and the time I was in college, the excitement about philosophy was just as intense. I think, it was a preoccupation with philosophy because there seemed to be a place you can ask questions about: why, what is it all about? That question why perhaps drew me fundamentally to spirituality.

How do you as a translator bridge the gap of centuries when translating the works of Medieval saint-poets? One of the poets that I have translated into this book called Eating God is Abirami Pattar, an eighteenth century Tamil poet, and ardent devotee of the Devi. So, I chose to translate him. There are many other poets in this country, who have also chosen to translate other mystic poets. In my book Eating God which is a celebration of Bhakti poetry, I actually invited many poets to undertake translation of those mystics, who I thought deserved a wider hearing Some of these already were already existent and others were commissioned.

Why did you name the book as Eating God? Interesting question. (Smiles) Actually, it is a line from a poem of Nammalvar, the mystic, who actually tells it to God in an address. He says: Vishnu, if I see you anywhere, I will catch you and eat you up. And this idea of eating, to me, was a fascinating image because of two reasons. One is because there is God, sublime, exalted, unfathomable and profound and yet there is this very sensual act of eating bringing the two together, the suddenness of eating God works fabulously as an image for me. It is an image which stays with you because of its unexpectedness. But it is also a reminder of the fact that the finest Bhakti poetry is as sensual as it is sacred. The two are not separate. So, you are not being invited to deny the physical to move towards the metaphysical. You are being invited to this great celebration of the mystery of the simultaneous existence of the metaphysical and the physical. The two exist simultaneously. You are being invited to be a part of that mystery in a way.

Is this something like a mortal consumed in too-powerful Godly splendour? What was interesting about Bhakti Movement in this country is that it actually sought to say that God is wonderful, beyond our comprehension, but we also retain the license to invoke Him as deeply familiar as someone who can be treated as the habitual disobedient member of the family. And He is loved for no less reason. Theres a tone of deep intimacy in the works of such poets you have the license to get angry with this God, make love to Him, eat this God; there is a totality of deep intimacy in this God.

The popular couplet: Har saans yeh kahti hai, jo hum hain toh khuda bhi hai focuses on the eternal search. Do you think God and mortals are constantly in search of each other? Yes, of course. Theres this beautiful strain in this couplet. Theres almost always the suggestion that the Divine wants to be found as much as you want to find the Divine. That idea of mutuality lies in the heart of mystical traditions across all faiths. I mean, this happens to be Bhakti poetry, but there are ideas across faiths that the Divine is waiting to be discovered. And thats special. How important is it for a poet to belong to a certain genre, place and language? Across history we find that poets have not just belonged, but the finest poets recreated the sense of belonging. They changed the way we belong. They changed the way we looked at it before. Theres one kind of poetry which is merely propagandist echoing the inherited notions of what it means to belong to. But the finest poets have always extended our ideas of culture and belonging. You suddenly realise that you have a deeper sense of citizenship. In that sense, poets are reminders of the citizenship of the world.

In one of the interviews you said that poetry is a dark art. How? Good question. Its dark art because it involves a level of compression like a pressure cooker utterance. Its like compressing language and under great heat the properties of language change. Thats the magic of poetry. So, because of that intense distillation and compression something happens. That something is dark as there is a kind of sorcery in it that even the poets are not fully aware of. They only know that it is an extremely distilled utterance and from that arises a particular kind of sorcery that you do not find in prose.

Fictionalising memory how much do poets use the same as a literary device? Good question again. I use it all the time. I may use the first person singular in my poems, but that doesnt mean I dont fictionalise. I fictionalise a great deal. Your attempt is to arrive at an inner truth of your life, not the external details. This inner truth is an ongoing process of discovery. I am not talking about some state of nirvana, but about a deepening sense of understanding which I hope is reflected in my work.

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Poet: Thy name is spirituality - The New Indian Express