Double Meanings in Poems of Virendra Panwar

Double Entendre in Poems of Virendra Panwar

                                 Bhishm Kukreti

                   Double entendre or adianoeta is a spoken or written phrase which could be understood two ways. The first meaning of double entendre is simple and second meaning is often with ironic meaning.

  Using double meaning in poems is not exception to Garhwali but is also found in most of languages all over the world.

   Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’, Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, Percy Shelly’s ‘Ozymandais’, Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, are classic examples where poets used many  double entendres.

 The following poem by Percy Shelly is fine example of double entendre:

My name is Ozymandais, king of kings

Look on my works ye Mighty and despair.

Percy has been successful to use word ‘despair’ for simple meaning and ironic meaning too.

    In his book Nineteenth century French Poetry, Christopher Prendergast (1990) details about double entendres used by famous French poet Laforgue. The founder of ‘Dadaism’ Tristan Tzara also used double entendres in his work.

            In Copla a Spanish poetic form, there are verses with double entendre phrases. Andrew P. Debicki (Spanish Poetry of Twentieth century, 1995) informs the readers that the title of a poem ‘Meriendo algunas tardes (I snack some afternoon)’ is having double meaning. Cecile West Settle and Sylvia Shemo (Contemporary Spanish Poetry, 2005) provide examples of poetries of Rossetti for his using phrases in his (Spanish) poems.  

      A.T.Hatto (Essays on Medieval German and Other Poetry, 2011) provides examples of words  ‘’mein’ and ‘spiegel’ conveying double meaning in song of thirteenth century German folk poet Von Stamhein.

    Zong-qi Cai (How to Read Chinese Poetry, 2008) offers many examples of phrases of double meaning in Chinese poems. Providing an example of double meaning, Zong-qi Cai states that   Du fu’s exploitation of the double entendre of ‘ fenghuo’  is irrefutable.

   Yumiko Hulvey (Female Waka Poets: Love Poetry in the Kokinshu, 2006) provides a couple of examples where the Japanese women poets used phrases of double meaning in the poems as the word ‘aki’ meaning autumn, to tire or ‘to be satiated’.

    Usually, the poets use double meaning words for creating irony in modern Garhwali verses. Lalit Keshwan is very famous for his uses of double entendre in his satirical and humorous poems.   Virendra Panwar a prolific Garhwali poet has used double entendre in many poems as ‘Chunu’,’Katari-Katari’, ‘Jameen’, ‘Bas’, Gaula-Gaula’

चूनू

हमारा गौंकि

टुटण्या स्कूल पर

अच्काल

'चूनू' लगणु छ

अर्

सदानी कि तरौं

'चूनू'

परदानजि लगौणा छन्

In ‘Chunu’ poem, the meaning of ‘Chunu’ is simply ‘lime’ and another meaning of ‘Chunu’ is to use corrupt method .to make loss

'जमीन'

वैन् बोली

भैजिन

देश मा

'जमीन' ल्हियालि

मेरा गिच्चा बटी छुट्ग्या

वून

अपणी ' जमीन' किलै छोडि

In the verse ‘Jameen’ the meaning of Jameen is a land, a home land or fundamentals of life

The poems are realistic and having a sharp satire on the culprits or on the people.

 These poems by Virendra Panwar are the best example of using doubleentendre or adianoeta for creating satirical or humorous poems.

Reference: Virendra Panwar, 2004, In ma Kankwek An Vasant, pp 93-94, Dhad Prakashan , Dehradun

copyright@ Bhishm Kukreti