'Thus Spake Akrura' by Guruprasad Mohanty

Translated by Sailen Routray

A 17th century manuscript depicting Krishna and Akrura
Photo Credit - Wikimedia Commons

                                                        

The evening comes.

 

The evening comes, 

pulling the curtain of dejection,

down over the tired eyes of the traveler.

Pulling down his tired lids,

the sad shadow of the evening 

becoming heavily pregnant –

Dust, potholes, the fatigue of the day, 

the sun-dried rotundity 

of the hooves of the horses,

the foam at their mouths,

everything conspires 

to bore his tired joints, bones,

his fatigued flesh and blood.

 

"Would you free me today from the gray weariness

of the continuous journey of this body?

Would you free me from time,

and the continuous, bloody struggles 

that lie therein?

Would you free me today,

from the repetitive binaries of the body?

"Perhaps this is the height of my

career as a charioteer;

apparently to carry you to your death.

Would it free me from my death I wonder.

Or do we get to have more thirsts,

because of some random ill-advised boon?

 

"Therefore, oh Lord!

May this journey be benign,

For me and for you!

Even if the body of the earth 

has covered your compassion and your cruelty,

the depth of your forgiveness and

the range of your devastation;

even then, may you have success,

even at the risk of losing face, 

even then, 

may this journey of mine be propitious.

May it be filled with your grace;

may it overflow the edges of my body;

and, go beyond your compassion

and your cruelty.”

 

In that evening,

with the reins falling off his hands

out of fatigue,

when the wind stopped 

with the intensity of a sky cursed, 

and, therefore, startled,

when his chariot just turning the corner -- 

 

There was the Yamuna shimmering

like a flimsy nightmare,

with staid shrubs 

holding up the sky above the park,

with the crowds milling around shops with wobbly lights.

 

“I wonder whether my journey ends here.

My feet have been aching since ages.

So, the dust off the hooves of the horses,

the broken wheels of my chariot,

the jaded horizon of my eyes,

the pathetic delusions of my being,

do all these end here?

Do the desires of my flesh, thirst, sins and merit,

the hankering of my atman, bhakti and ahamkara,

dharma and mokshya, and all stupid spiritual toil,

does it all end or not, my lord?

Or does it all begin here?

 

"Oh great Lord!

I seek deliverance.

May this journey be auspicious,

courtesy your smaller mercies.

May this journey be the last.

May this journey help me go mercifully

beyond this fatigue and rest.

May this journey help you 

to go beyond the known shores 

of your mercy and compassion.

Note:  The Odia title of this poem is 'Akrura UbAcha'. Guruprasad Mohanty (1924-2004) was one of the key architects of high modernist Odia poetry in the 1950s. Although he had an effective poetic career spanning at least four decades, he published less than a hundred poems: each one is as polished and clear, as a gem. He received the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for the volume of poetry 'Samudra Snana' in 1973 and the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award in 1990 for the travelogue 'Patalapuri ra Halchal'. Although he did write fiction, travelogues and a popular science book, he is now remembered chiefly as a poet's poet. He also happens to be a nephew of the iconic Odia writer Gopinath Mohanty.