Lyrik: Music in My Heart

MUSIC IN MY HEART (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

As the Breisgau-train dashes in the Black Forest,

Between Elztal and Freiburg,

I am with my thoughts in South Asia.

I hear the melodious cry of the vendors:

Pan, bidi, cigarette,’

Interspersed with ‘garam chai! Garam chai!’

The sound of sambosas bubbling in vegetable oil,

The rat-ta-tat of onions, garlic and salad

Being rhythmically chopped in the kitchen,

Mingled with the ritual songs of the Hindus.

The voices of uncles, aunts, cousins

Debating, discussing, gesticulating, grimacing,

Uttering palatal, guttural,

Lingual and sub-lingual words

In Nepali, English, Newari, Hindi and Sindhi.

I head for Swayambhu,

The hill of the Self-Existent One.

Om mane pame hum stirs in the air,

As a lama passes by.

I’m greeted by cries of Rhesus monkeys,

Pigeons, mynahs, crows,

And the cracks of automatic guns of the Royal Army.

There’s a brodelndes Miteinander,

Different sounds, natural sounds,

Musical sounds.

I hear Papa listening to classical ragas.

We, his sons and daughters,

Dancing the twist, rock n’ roll, jive to Cool Britania,

The afternoon programme of the BBC.

Catchy Bollywood wechsel rhythms,

Sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle,

Rafi, Mukesh and Kishor Kumar.

In the evenings after Radio Nepal’s External Service,

Radio Colombo’s light Anglo-American melodies:

Dean Martin’s drunken schmaltz,

Billy Fury, Cliff Richards, Rickey Nelson,

And Sir Swivel-hip, Elvis Presley

Wailing ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.’

Out in the streets the songs of the beggars,

Amai, paisa deo,

Babai khanu chaina,’

Overwhelmed by the cacophony

Of the obligatory marriage brass-band,

Wearing shocking green and red uniforms.

A tourist wired for sound walks by,

With a tortured smile on his face,

An acoustic agitation for an i-Pod listener,

Who prefers his own canned music.

From a side street you discern the tune

Of ‘Rajamati kumati’ rendered by a group

Of Jyapoo traditional musicians,

After a hard day’s work,

In the wet paddy fields of Kathmandu.

Near the Mahabaoudha temple you see

Young Sherpas, Thakalis, Tamangs, Newars

Listening, hip-hopping and break-dancing

To their imported ghetto-blasters:

Michel Jackson’s catchy tunes,

Eminem, 2 Pac, Madonna, 50 Cents.

Everyone hears music, everyone makes music,

With or without music instruments,

Humming the latest Bollywood tunes,

Drumming on the tables, wooden walls,

Boxes, crates, thalis, saucers and pans.

Everyone’s engaged in singing and dancing.

The older people chanting bhajans and vedic songs,

Buddhist monks reciting from the sutras in sonorous voices,

When someone dies in the neighbourhood.

Entire nights of prayers for the departed soul.

The whole world is full of music,

Making it, feasting on it,

Dancing and nodding to it.

I remember the old village dalit,

From the caste of the untouchables,

Who’d come and beat his big drum,

Before he proclaimed the decision of the five village elders,

The panchayat.

I remember the beautiful music from the streets of Bombay,

Where I spent the winters during my school-days.

Or was it musical noise?

Unruhe, panic and flight for some,

It was the music of life for me in that tumultuous, exciting city.

When the sea of humanity was too much for me,

I could escape by train to the Marine Drive,

And see and hear the music of the breakers,

The waves of the Arabian Sea splashing and thrashing

Along the coast of Mumbai.

Your muscles flex, the nerves flatter, the heart gallops,

As you feel how puny you are,

Among all those incessant and powerful waves.

Music has left its cultural confines.

You hear the strings of a sitar

Mingling with big band sounds.

Percussions from Africa

Accompanying ragas from Nepal.

A never-ending performance of musicians

From all over the world.

Bollywood dancing workshops at Lörrach,

Slam poetry at Freiburg’s Atlantic inn.

A didgeridoo accompaning Japanese drums

At the Zeltmusik festival.

Tabla and tanpura involved in a musical dialogue,

With trumpet and saxaphone,

Argentinian tango and Carribian salsa,

Fiery Flamenco dancers dancing

With classical Bharta Natyam dancers,

Mani Rimdu masked-dancers accompanied

By a Tibetan monastery orchestra,

And shrill Swiss piccolo flute tunes and drummers.

I reach my destination

With the green and white Breisgaubahn,

Get off at Zähringen-Freiburg.

The Black Forest looks ravishing,

For it’s Springtime.

As I walk past the Café Bueb, the Metzgerei,

The St. Blasius church bells begin to chime.

I see Annette’s tiny garden with red, yellow and white tulips,

Hallochen!’ she says with a broad, blonde smile.

I walk on and admire Frau Bender’s cherry-blossom tree,

Her pensioned husband nods back at me.

And in the distance, a view of the Schwarzwald.

As I approach my residence at the end of the Pochgasse,

I hear the sound of Schumann’s sonate number 3,

Played by Vladimir Horowitz.

That’s harmony for the heart.

I know

I’m home abroad.

Glossary:

Wechselrhythmus: changing rhythms

Bahn: train

Mumbai: Bombay

Bueb: small male child

Chen: Verniedlichung, like Babu-cha in Newari

Schwarzwald: The Black Forest of south-west Germany

Miteinander: togetherness

What others have said about the author:

"Brilliant, I enjoyed your poems throughly. I can hear the underlying German and Nepali thoughts within your English language. The strictness of the German form mixed with the vividness of your Nepalese mother tongue. An interesting mix. Nepal is a jewel on the Earths surface, her majesty and charm should be protected, and yet exposed with dignity through words. You do your country justice and I find your bicultural understanding so unique and a marvel to read." (Reviewed by Heide Poudel in WritersDen.com 6/4/2007)

"Since 1974 I have been living on and off in Nepal, writing articles and publishing books about Nepal-- this beautiful Himalayan country. Even before I knew Satis Shroff personally (later) I was deeply impressed by his articles, which helped me very much to deepen my knowledge about Nepal.Satis Shroff is one of the very few Nepalese writers being able to compare ecology, development and modernisation in the ‘Third’ and ‘First’ World. He is doing this with great enthusiasm, competence and intelligence, showing his great concern for the development of his own country." (Ludmilla Tüting, journalist and publisher, Berlin).

"Satis Shroff writes political poetry—about the war in Nepal, the sad fate of the Nepalese people, the emergence of neo-fascism in Germany. His bicultural perspective makes his poems rich, full of awe and at the same time heartbreakingly sad. In writing ‘home,’ he not only returns to his country of origin time and again, he also carries the fate of his people to readers in the West, and his task of writing thus is also a very important one in political terms. His true gift is to invent Nepalese metaphors and make them accessible to the West through his poetry." (Sandra Sigel, poetess, Germany).