Tagore and Haiku
Partha Desikan
Susumu Takiguchi is Chairman, The World Haiku Club. Presented below is an interesting excerpt from his Keynote Address delivered at World Haiku Festival 2008 on 23 February 2008, in Bangalore, India. Proceedings of the festival, including major excerpts from Mr. Takiguchi&#
39;s address have appeared in the most recent issue (May-June 2008) of the literary e-Journal, Muse India.
This should interest us even if we are not into haiku sessions yet!
'I wish to start with a special poet who is a national hero and pride in India but who is also a father of, inter alia, all modern poets in the world, Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861-7 August 1941).
Tagore wrote a brief account in his travelogue of his first visit of Japan in 1916. Brief, but in it every word is a jewel and the whole prose reads more like free-flowing poetry even in Japanese translation. It is one of the most exhilarating readings, at least to me.
Exhilarating, not because it is full of praise of Japan but because every observation is told not in isolation but as a representation of deeper realities or broader universality; this seems to me to be a characteristic of this first Nobel laureate of Asia. It is also exhilarating because it teaches that one can say so much in so brief a writing. Who needs a volume like War And Peace to say what it is that is to be said? All we need is the best words, in the best place and in the best order. And the more one knows what one wants to say the fewer the words needed. The fewest words of all are silence. It seems as if we may be talking about haiku here, doesn't it?
However, the greatest exhilaration comes to me because Tagore sought to promote a new world culture which was based on multi-culturalism, diversity and tolerance', according to a study. I might hasten to add that the phrase multi culturalism' Tagore used had no pejorative or debased meaning which it has sadly acquired in modern Britain. This remark of Tagore is almost identical with the aim of the World Haiku Club. With such a fortunate coincidence, I am emboldened to appeal to my friends in India to take part in the world haiku movement which was started by us in 1998 but which needs to be passed continuously to new haiku poets in all corners of the world and to continue to be pursued and developed in earnest by them. Tagore showed us the way how that could be done. World Haiku Festival 2008 in which we rejoice at taking part here in India marks a high point of following in the footsteps of Tagore, in our case in the field of haiku literature.
In his travelogue, Tagore introduced two haiku by Basho, one about the old pond and a frog and the other about the withered branch and a crow. About the former, Tagore comments after citing it, "That is all. And that is sufficient". This is because, according to him, there are many eyes in the Japanese reader's mind, which can see that which is not mentioned in the haiku but only implied in the most succinct and beautiful way. Nothing more is necessary. Tagore, it seems, got straightaway to the essence of haiku, and without reading any of today's haiku textbooks or frivolous explanation about haiku at that.
About the second poem of the withered branch and the crow by Basho, Tagore made a similar comment but this time emphasised the importance of the power of intuitive understanding of the Japanese reader. Because of this, the author of haiku not only has no need to put himself or herself forward into the poem but also must indeed withdraw and step aside. This, by the way, has nothing to do with the popular assertion that ego must not come into haiku, which is all too often admonished wrongly by so many.
The reason why Tagore could get to the heart of the matter in appreciating the essence of haiku so easily is not just that he was an exceptional Renaissance man. It is because he approached haiku with unadulterated and open heart. Quoting another Japanese poem (heaven and earth are flowers/kami-god and Buddha are flowers/man's heart is the essence of flowers), Tagore introduces an almost identical Indian verse (heaven and earth/god and Buddha/these two flowers blossom from the same stalk) and points out that the beauty of things beautiful stems from human heart.
This is an important point for haiku-writing in the present circumstances where what could be termed as the author's right' is ignored in preference for the reader's right' with the former made to worry far too much about what the latter might or might not think about his or her haiku of originality and newness. It is also important because we should really leave most things to our human heart when writing haiku and not to irksome rules and regulations.
Then Tagore goes on to explore the sensibility unique to the Japanese, which he calls restraint of the soul'. By this he means that it is possible to increase the feeling and expression of beauty by restraining the feeling and expression of the emotion. Less is better than more. This strikes me as one of the best explanation about the essence of haiku.
If the same blood runs through all Indian poets and the same sensibility is found in them as that of Tagore, they will have already made a good start with haiku.'
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written by Soumi Basu, 2008-05-03 04:45:34
Thanks for a lovely read. Haiku poems are taught in some of the comparative literature classes, at least it is in Jadavpur University. The students there are not only encouraged to appreciate Haiku but also compose their own Haiku poems. I had had some exposure to it in college through friends looking for encouragement of their efforts but then had forgotten all about them. After your article read up Tagore's Lekhan (Fireflies)from the Internet and enjoyed them a lot. I feel like quoting so many of them now!
Thanks again!
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written by narensomu, 2008-05-02 23:01:41
That was a lovely post. Yes, it is harder to be brief and still say what you need to say.
Coincidentally I was thinking of Tamil Haikus [ ?] dont know if they fit the description.
The theme is dark but the lines are powerful.
NaLLiravil peTRom
innum
Vidiavillai
We got it
in the Midnight
Dawn is yet to come.
Dont know who the author is.
Regards
ns
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-05-02 13:23:06
The facsimle seems to be possibly the first page and the bengali write up most probably the bhoomikaa with the poet's signature. It is thrilling to have time and distance melt away and have this document by the great Indian poet written from Europe in 1926 reach us now in the US and elsewhere in 2008!
Would appreciate a link to the full text of Lekhan, especially as a part of it is in a language I know and the rest in a language I hope to learn yet.
Regards. Partha
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written by Mita, 2008-05-02 12:35:44
Checkout http://www.terebess.hu/english/tagore5.html
Tagore's "Lekhan" is a bilingual poem in the Haiku style.
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-05-02 11:57:33
The enchanted world of haikus can be an endless delight. Like uninitiated Alice, I have enjoyed wandering in the few regions I have been exposed to.
Unlike in the typical prakritic and dravidian languages of India, the syllables snap one ofter the other in Japanese and no syllable normally carries its end phoneme overlapping into the next. This meets the little marching beat requirements of haiku very well. In Tamil, we have the one and three fourth line couplets called kural, which are a short verse form quite different from the snappy haikus in Japanese phonetically, though resembling them poetically in saying much with fewer words.
I would assume that Bengali and its sister languages may come somewhere near the languages of the Far East in phonetic syllable breaks.
I cannot, however vouch for this statement. And as I said earlier, I cannot make haikus myself.
Regards. Partha
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written by Dr. Pradip Gangopadh, 2008-05-02 10:49:51
Regards
Pradip
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written by P. Desikan, 2008-05-02 09:16:54
I am giving below the link to a more colourful report of whf2008.
http://worldhaikureview.googlepages.com/keynotespeech3
In it you will see all three parts of Mr Takiguchi's address and learn of his views about the prospects of haiku in the world and in India. You will also get contact links which you may use for further information.
Dr.A.Sethuramiah, my friend of over 40 years, who retired a while ago from IIT Delhi but has been active as consultant in his chosen field of the theory of wear in moving metal objects all these years, worked for his Doctorate degree in Japan and is well versed in Japanese ways. He too writes haiku once in a while. The May-June 2008 issue of Muse India was sponsored by him.
I have no such skills and my introduction to this magic world is through Sethu.
Regards.Partha.
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written by Sreeparna, 2008-05-01 22:49:10
Thanks for the informative article. And Mita to give examples of haiku in Indian languages.
Can any of you quote a Tagore's poetry that shows this Japanese poetic style? And may be a quote from a Japanese poetry as well.
Hatimtai
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written by Mita, 2008-05-01 20:00:02
It is indeed true that Rabindranath Tagore introduced Haiku to Indian poetry. The beauty of Japanese lies in it's brevity of expression that evokes a world of meanings and emotions. Many other Indian poets have tried Haiku in their local languages though Indian Haikus have not been able to match the Satori intended and achieved by Japanese poets like Basho and Buson, Issa and Shiki. Here are some examples of Indian Haiku.
Earth returns/ Kisses from sky/ In blossoms
(Bengali, Rabindranath Tagore)
Peak after peak/ I climb only to find/ A new peak
(Gujarati, Snehrashmi)
A naughty pipal/ Laughing mischievously/ Inside the well
(Marathi, Suresh Mathur)
New crop waves/ Walks like a peacock/ Village damsel
(Punjabi, Satyanand Jaya)
Rainy season has set in/ Muddy weak hutments / Lie buried in worries
(Urdu, Mumtaz Arif)
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As you have been a blogger for a few years in Sulekha, you would be familiar with the prolific blogger Mr. Thiagarajan, who has taught English in colleges, before shifting to a career in finance in Mumbai.
I did not refer to him in this blog, because the subject was Tagore and Haiku..But there was a brilliant paper in the same conference from Mr. Thiagarajan on the current Tamil Haiku scene, which he reproduced in Sulekha
http://thiaga-rajan.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/04/the-tamil-haiku-scene-to-day.htm.
It appears that in the past five years, nearly 80 of his blogs refer to Haiku either explicitly in the title or in the contents. These include one in which he teaches one how to write Haiku (Soumi, are you interested?)
http://thiaga-rajan.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/04/how-to-write-haiku.htm
Three cheers to a fellow Tamil who is several times more qualified to talk about haiku than I am!
Regards. Partha.