Poetry in common speech

 

Poetry in common speech

 Prasanna Dash

One winter evening in 1994, we reached a village, not far from Maihar, a famous place of pilgrimage for the devotees of Sharada Mata, for TLC (Total Literacy Campaign). The adult literacy classes had commenced, but response was lukewarm, and attendance, particularly of women, was thin. Our mission was to persuade elderly women to join in so that others are also inspired to begin their study.

We went to the poorest mohalla of the village. The women were busy cooking the evening meals for the family. However, with the younger women handling the kitchen, the elderly women were relatively free, and available to chat with us.

We sat down on a chabutara around a peepul tree, and about thirty persons gathered soon. I asked an elderly woman, in her early fifties, ‘Mataji, aapke gaon mein shaam ko bujurgon ke liye kakshayen lag rahi hain, kya aap ko pata hai?

‘Haan.’

‘Kya aap padhne jaati hain.’

‘Nahin. Ab ka padhi, Beta, ab to lakdi robat hai!’

She had spoken in Bagheli, the local dialect. I wondered why her daughter would weep when she went to the literacy class when it struck me that she wasn’t speaking about ladki, but about lakdi. I had very modest acquaintance with Bagheli, yet I got the meaning.

She had said, ‘No point in beginning study at this late age. The funeral pyre is already yearning for me. (Literally, the wood on the funeral pyre is weeping for me.)

That was a kahabat in common use, but an amazingly poetic expression about death.

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