Jejuri: of stones, gods and stone-gods...

Arun Kolatkar's book of poems Jejuri has been a major publication of Indian poetry recently in the West. Never having read Kolatkar before and having only had brief brushes with Indian poetry in English, I acquired the book to "check it out."

I must confess I have been mighty impressed by many of the poems: they are simple, with clean, terse lines yet containing startlingly vivid descriptions and rich imagery. Kolatkar was certainly a minimalist. He was also a rationalist who reacted with a certain aloofness and incredulity at the business of religion conducted at the temple-town of Jejuri in Maharashtra, India. To him, the obsession with seeing god in mere stones, ascribing divinity to inanimate objects and imposing divine associations on the landscape was almost too simple-minded to digest easily. Hence, many of his poems deal with such simplistic beliefs and the faith and rituals that keep such beliefs going. While there is the unmistakeable harmless cynicism in his tone, as in "Makarand,":

Take my shirt off
and go in there to do pooja?
No thanks.

Not me.
but you go right ahead
if that's what you want to do.

Give me the matchbox
before you go
will you?

I will be out in the courtyard
where no one will mind
if I smoke.

his observations are generally reflective and shaded with a touch of humor, almost like the good natured shaking of the head of the better-educated city-dweller at the primitive beliefs of the faithful in the countryside. His theme of benign amazement at the worship of stones as gods inspires several poems: certainly two of the three "Chaitanya" poems, especially the second one:

sweet as grapes
are the stone of jejuri
said chaitanya

he popped a stone
in his mouth
and spat ot gods

and of course the defining, emblematic "Scratch" :

what is god
what is stone
the dividing line
if it exists
is very thin
at jejuri
and every other stone
is god or his cousin
...

and, even when he seems entranced by the moment, or in one case by a fleeting butterfly, creature of a fleeting moment, he has to view it in (and compare it to) its larger surroundings, a landscape which is certainly "pinned down" to a past and has several stories behind it, unlike the butterfly:

The Butterfly
There is no story behind it.
It is split like a second.
It hinges around itself.

It has no future
It is pinned down to no past
...
It has taken these wretched hills
under its wings.
...

The collection opens with the poem "The Bus" which is about the actual bus one assumes Kolatkar uses to get to Jejuri. There is this image of the state transport bus, which most of us from India will be familiar with:

The tarpaulin flaps are buttoned down
on the windows of the state transport bus
all the way up to Jejuri.
...

There is no indication in this first poem about any of the poet's feelings regarding his expedition and destination. Yet, he obviously comes face to face with the workings of the temple-town upon reaching. He paints this picture of the racket of faith in the next poem, The Priest, in which he attempts to divine a temple priest's thoughts:

...
Is the bus a little late?
The prest wonders.
Will there be puran poli in his plate?
...

Quite obviously, the arrival of the bus is an important event in the daily life of the temple town as it ensures a continuous livelihood for the priests. Towards the end of the poem, as the bus arrives at the bus depot, this is how the priest, waiting for the bus to deliver unto him gullible faithfuls, views the bus:

A catgrin on its (bus's) face
and a live, ready to eat pilgrim
held between its teeth.

The collection is rounded off by six poems under the title of "The Railway station" which chronicle the agonizing period of wait on a small, wayside Indian railway station (Kolatkar's return journey from Jejuri), a place where the booking clerk and the station superintendents are almighty deities themselves, cryptic and imperious. During such a forced wait, for lack of anything better to do one would guess, Kolatkar the acute and avid observer makes do with whatever exists: he studies the railway indicator, the "station dog", the tea stall, the station master and the setting sun (and either pens poems then or mentally squirrels away subject matter for poems on these otherwise commonplace railway-station fixtures )...