Printer’s Devil
Can’t guess what exactly is going on, bro
but what’s undeniable is that
I’m getting the print as a mirror image
for the last forty years
the machine has been running fine
now and then a belt or bolt broke
at the most when a part or two went crazy
it was readily pulled out in good faith
wasn’t really in the habit of checking
the oil or the grease from time to time
even so the thing ran smoothly and did the job
for a few years in between
it was rather noisy
but the ear had become used to it
the plate didn’t catch enough ink
and also became scummy
having escaped the eye
even then it printed without a hitch
so what’s wrong now, bro
that everything has begun showing
as a mirror image
I tried flipping the plate
but nothing changed
placing it the usual way
gives the same result
servicing oiling and whatever
I’ve tried it all but still
can’t guess what’s amiss
the machine runs fast
even the speed stays constant
the paper too remains intact
no matter the speed
but the letters are turned around
shutting down the press
was the last way out
but even this solution
has proven futile, bro
the thud-thud-thud of the machine
keeps ringing in the ear night and day
and the letters too emerge all wrong
behind the spectacle lenses
I changed houses changed cities changed people
because of these flipped letters
but where’s the peace, bro
and today was the height of it
I opened the morning paper
and voilà
its print was also twisted
Suicide
Anyone can write the word suicide
anyone being one who can scribble the first syllable
or can put a thumbprint in case he’s illiterate
which is to say if a poet is a painter actor or acrobat
it’s a given that he’ll write in a calligraphic hand
he can be male female or even third gender
which is to say anyone just anyone can write
anyone born on this earth
whether a biped or a quadruped with eyes
which is to say suicide is the only word
that in order to be read doesn’t even
impose the condition of being literate
and these days all illiterate toilers who irrigate
the soil with their sweat have started
writing the word suicide in a stylish hand
which is to say these unlettered ones
have discovered a synonym for suicide
that never needs to be read or written
now the word suicide
can very much be written as farmer
A Writing Exercise
You can’t write hare instead of tortoise
at the most you can make it run fast
and beat the hare in the race
you can’t write tortoise instead of hare
at the most you can make it sleep in the grass
and let the tortoise go forward
you can very much write monkey instead of man
which is to say after writing monkey
you inevitably need to write the additional tail
as it happens he builds bridges crosses the seven seas
burns Lanka down sacrifices his life
and wipes out the kingdom of the Ten-Headed Demon
each poet may have written
the word man in diverse ways
much like Valmiki did
which is to say by writing monkey instead of man
he made it convenient for other men
and gave the first man a synonym
the synonym demon that a poet gave man
is used in the same sense in this century too
even after the monkey evolved into man
man is a monkey missing a tail
this hasn’t been written as yet
although the tail vanished aeons ago
even now
you may write the word man
the way you want
Water
Water is a word that can be drawn
out of a well a sea a river a stream a lake
or even from an earthen pot at home
how easy it was to write water
which is to say when a vessel was hung on the tap
it would fill up with the word water in half a second
dropping an arm’s length of rope in a well
or stopping by a river while returning from the field
a pot could be filled without any effort
the word water used to gurgle
anywhere anytime with no trouble
nothing difficult lay hidden behind water
there was no tramping miles and miles
no empty pail clanking the bottom of a dry well
the tap’s umbilical cord spread far hadn’t yet dried up
the word water has evaporated from the village
from the river from the well and even from the earthen pot
its initial letter itself has vanished
and just nobody can write it
in this century
Four Poems
Mangesh Narayanrao Kale
translated from the Marathi by Sarabjeet Garcha
Listen to the original read by the poet:
Mangesh Narayanrao Kale is a trendsetter in Marathi poetry. His long years of struggle on both the personal and professional front have shaped his writing. After completing his education, towards the late 1980s, he became a lecturer in journalism and then landed a job with a local newspaper as a subeditor. Three years later, he set out on his own, working at first as a shopkeeper, then as a the owner and operator of a photocopier, and finally as a vendor of sugarcane juice. Thereafter, he rented a treadle printing machine, beginning as a printer and graduating to the role of founder and publisher of a Marathi political weekly named Chakravyuh (meaning “troops in a ring formation”). Meanwhile, he also set up a publishing house and published twenty-six books in Marathi, thereby launching the writing careers of several poets. When the business closed, a long spell of unemployment followed. He would start from home in the mornings on the pretext of going to office, but would sit in a park, writing till sundown. This practice continued for more than two years.
When a new crop of post-globalization poets emerging after 1990 were keen on writing a poetry amenable to search engine optimization, Kale came up with a book of poems that stood out for its linguistic exuberance and vast canvas. On the release of the book, titled Shaktipatache Sutra (Aphorisms on Shaktipat), the renowned Hindi poet Chandrakant Devtale had said, “The poems remind me of the great struggle with the self, a struggle I had found only in Muktibodh’s poetry.” Muktibodh (1917–1964), it should be recalled, was one of the foremost Hindi poets whose influence is palpable to this day. Kale kept raising the bar for himself, book after book.
“Printer’s Devil” harks back to his nights of backbreaking labour at the offset printing machine. Besides “the thud-thud-thud of the machine,” his cerebrum also faced the constant cacophonic assault that rarely leaves the heads of those living on the edge. The line “I changed houses changed cities changed people” is autobiographical, like much else in the poem. “Water” is the result of his residence in several places in Maharashtra, India, where shortage of water is acute. Thus, “the word water has evaporated from the village.”
When a new crop of post-globalization poets emerging after 1990 were keen on writing a poetry amenable to search engine optimization, Kale came up with a book of poems that stood out for its linguistic exuberance and vast canvas. On the release of the book, titled Shaktipatache Sutra (Aphorisms on Shaktipat), the renowned Hindi poet Chandrakant Devtale had said, “The poems remind me of the great struggle with the self, a struggle I had found only in Muktibodh’s poetry.” Muktibodh (1917–1964), it should be recalled, was one of the foremost Hindi poets whose influence is palpable to this day. Kale kept raising the bar for himself, book after book.
“Printer’s Devil” harks back to his nights of backbreaking labour at the offset printing machine. Besides “the thud-thud-thud of the machine,” his cerebrum also faced the constant cacophonic assault that rarely leaves the heads of those living on the edge. The line “I changed houses changed cities changed people” is autobiographical, like much else in the poem. “Water” is the result of his residence in several places in Maharashtra, India, where shortage of water is acute. Thus, “the word water has evaporated from the village.”
Mangesh Narayanrao Kale is a poet, painter, editor and art critic. He is the author of five major books of poems in Marathi, including Mayaviye Tahrir (Writing is Bewitching), and two books of art criticism. He has won multiple awards for his outstanding contribution to Marathi literature, including the Maharashtra Foundation Award (USA), Bhavabhuti Award, and Yashwantrao Chavan Award. He has also received three fellowships, including one from the India Foundation for the Arts. Kale is the founding editor of Khel (Play), an acclaimed little magazine that has published several special issues celebrating the works of the finest poets writing in Marathi, including Vasant Abaji Dahake, Dilip Chitre, Vasant Dattatreya Gurjar, Tulsi Parab, Raja Dhale and Vilas Sarang, among others. His artworks have been exhibited all over India and abroad in both solo and group shows, and his essays on art and literature are regularly published in the most widely circulated periodicals of Maharashtra. He lives and works in Pune.
Sarabjeet Garcha is a bilingual poet and an editor, translator, and publisher. He is the author of four books of poems—including A Clock in the Far Past—besides a volume each of translated poetry and translated prose. He has translated several American poets into Hindi, including W.S. Merwin and John Haines, and several Indian poets into English, among them Mangalesh Dabral and Leeladhar Jagoori. His work has appeared in Versopolis, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Indian Quarterly, Domus India, The Wire, Right Hand Pointing, Indian Literature, and several other online and print journals. He is currently translating a book-length selection of Mangesh Narayanrao Kale’s poems. The recipient of a fellowship from the Ministry of Culture of India, Garcha is the founder and editorial director of Copper Coin, a multilingual publishing company.
