Garhwali-Poet-10

Chakradhar Kukreti : the poet of teaching and pathos
Bhishma Kukreti

Many of my Garhwali writing friends asked my the reason behind not writing about famous poets of Garhwali language literature but write about unknown entity. Very reason of writing about Garhwali poet in English language and posting those for the blog is that the author feels that time has come that the International viewers also know about Garhwali language and its published literature. Fifty percent of Garhwali youth born in other places than Garhwal is comfortable in Hindi speaking but are definitely uncomfortable in reading Devnagri script (Hindi or Garhwali). Therefore, writing in English about Garhwali literature for communicating to the Garhwali youth across the world is the best choice. The purpose of this column is also that the world knows about those Garhwali prose or verse creators who could not get their dues in Garhwali creative field due to many reasons.

The biggest problem in Garhwali language literature is that from 1860 (when publication of Garhwali verses started ) to till date, there is limitation of publishing medium for Garhwali literature. There is a proverb among Garhwali language creative that a Garhwali poet creates thousands of poems, could publish a couple of poems and his wife uses bundles of other poems as fuel for baking the bread (roat). Once, this author sketched a cartoon on this subject about late Vinod Uniyal (Amaldu, Dabralsyun, Pauri Garhwal) the editor of Mandan a Garhwali monthly magazine that his wife trying to burn his poems as fuel for roasting the bread but the Garhwali poetry paper bundles were not catching fire. So, Vinod’s wife said, “ chhI bhai tumari kavita na t logun samaj man andan naee yi kagaj aag jalanau kam aandan” . When this author went to meet him in Delhi (Goal market) ,his father told me in jolly mood, “ kya bhai Bhisham! hamari bhitarai chhween bhair lijani che-You are displaying our secrete before whole world.” Chakradhar Kukreti is not exception in terms of creating more than hundred of Garhwali poems

Born in 1934, Chakradhar published his eighteen Garhwali verses along with his other Hindi poems in a poetry collection, “ Kavita Prasoon” in the year 2003. Chakradhar left his village Gweel after passing high school and became gram-sevak and posted in various parts of Chamoli Garhwal but he could never forget his village Gweel and Jaspur the native village of all Kukretis . In his first poem of his above cited compilation, he sets a prayer for all deities of Gweel and Jaspur area including great grand mother of Kukretis who became sati on her own wish after the death of her husband. Kukretis of Jaspur and Gweel built a sati temple called ‘sati ku math’ in the area called Danguld of Jaspur village . If you are a Kukreti belonging to Jaspur or Gweel then you will have to remember the deities as Gwill, Nagraja, Narsingh, Bhumya, Bhairava, two Shivalayas built by the ancestors of padhan (thokdar or jameendar), Khsetrapal and Budhrol (where , centuries back a Buddhist monk took Samadhi. He prays these all deities of Jaspur -Gweel in his poem, ‘jagaran‘:

Biji jawa he! Gaon ka devta, shivala ka Shambhoo, Narshingh Dev ji, Nagraja, sati Mata ji, Samadhi Budhraul, Bhumi ka Bhumiyan, gaon ka Bhumiyan, gaon ka Bhairaun dev, Khsetrapal.

Garhwalis and even the Kukretis of Jaspur and Gweel will be shocked after reading the poem ,’jagaran’ that Chakradhar Kukreti did mention of all prominent deities of a normal Garhwali village but did not mention the name of ’Devi’ a very important goddess of a normal Garhwali village. The basic reason for not mentioning the name of goddess ‘Devi’ is that the migrated Kukretis of Barsuri (Langoor patti) from Jaspur theft the idol of ‘kul devi’ of Kukreti from the temple of Devi at Jaspur in a night. From that day, Kukretis of Gweel-Jaspur do not worship Devi in traditional way of ghadela or roat katan rituals. The ‘Kuldivta’ of Kukreti is ‘Gwill’. However, Chakradhar forgot to mention the name of ‘Gwill’ in his ‘Jagran’ poem, though in his introduction of the collection, he mentioned that this poem is about all deities of Gweel and Jaspur villages. After asking by this author, Chakradhar explained that he ignorantly forget to mention Gwill . another reason he told to author that Gwill temple is situated at Tankan area far away from Gweel village .

In his ‘man’ (brother) verse, he praised the characteristics of a mother and her sacrifices for her children and other family members.

man cha devi-swaroop saxat, man tain binganu bhaut mushkkil I
Brahma si goodh shubhkari, asheeshon ku hi bhandar cha man II

Uttho poetry is all about the wakening subject for Garhwali youth and the poet preaches for adapting, acquiring, adopting, :

Uttho gadhdesh ka rahan walo ! uttho veer vikram bahduro I
Kheti karnai ku dhang naya kai sikhik hamutain chhodi ali bhaut pichhnai .

The effect of literature related to Indian freedom movement on Garhwali creative for many decades of getting freedom, wherein the creative used to preach, teach, advice was common. Born in the era of freedom movement , Chakradhar kukreti followed the idealistic life and advices others for following ideal or idyllic life. chaunka, chalo re chalo, utth kisan , jindagi ki daud are again of teaching, advising, instructing poetries for the society to follow symmetry life .

Many marketing critics criticized the marketing capabilities of ’family planning’ campaign of Indian government. However, the author can vouch that the campaign was successful. When a Garhwali poet of remote village born in 1934, starts advocating for small family in his ’ pariwar kalyan ’ poetry; we should understand that the family campaign was successful. The following verse is nothing but the reflection of Indian family planning slogan- of ’ hum do mare do’

Are bhai too sun, tai mukh ni kuka kuan I
Too garib chhe par tera chhan , adha darjan nauni-nauna I

One subject is almost, common with all Garhwali language poets that each one shows worries about the worsening condition of Garhwali villages due to heavy human migration from the villages. Chakradhar Kukreti the son of Khima Nand and Sateswari Kukreti lives in Kotdwara and regularly visits his village Gweel. He does cropping of medicinal and commercial plants in his village. Therefore, he experiences the loss, a Garhwali village witnessing due to heavy human migration. In his “lauti ala ek din”poem, Chakradhar hopes that the migrated ones will return back their native places and will live there. The readers may understand easily what will be there in the poem by reading these initial lines of the said poetry:

Ek din ju undu daudin , ubb ala ek di oo,
Gaon-gaulau, kudi-pungadi tabb khujyala ek din oo I

In this poem, the poet compares the distressful city life and the peaceful village life.

The poem is sumptuous or rich in detailing the comparison of metro and village life. However, the author has full objection on the word ‘lauti’ of the poetry heading. Chakradhar mentioned that he uses ‘salani’ dialects in his verses in his introductory note of the collection. However, ‘lauti’ is neither a ‘salani’ nor Garhwali word. The correct word is baudi for ‘lauti’ and even after heavily Hindizition of Garhwali, the people of Malla Dhangu (the native region of Chakradhar Kukreti) use baudi word for lauti (returning back). This author as commentary maker can not question for the poet using Hindi word in creating verses but the author feels pain by seeing that a Garhwali poet living in Garhwal for his whole life using a Hindi word in the poetry caption. The author takes this opportunity for asking the Garhwali language creative the reason behind the uses of Hindi words in place of available Garhwali words. Fine ! A poet or prose maker of Garhwali language can use Hindi, Urdu or English word in their creative in case, there is no available Garhwali word. However, uses of Hindi words do not have any relevancy , significance, importance, meaning, worth or connection, when there are available Garhwali words in Garhwali vocabulary.

‘sandan ka dola’ , ‘jindagi ki daud’ , ‘ghughti na bas’, khud(Yad), ‘lauti ao’ ‘kakh yaad tab ali’ are the poems of pathos. The verse maker uses Garhwali symbols for creating pathos in his lyrics. He could create a feeling of pain in separation , in memorizing beloved ones far away from us, the future would be pain in separation. These poems are classic examples of pathos rapture in Garhwali poetry.

ai ni bas ghughti rumjhum, myar maita ka desh rum hum,
Meri manji sunali rujhum, manji ansdari dholali rum hum I

Chakrdhar kukreti is also best in creating satire and humor in many of his poetries. His satire and humor is in tender form and provide the itching as we get itching from the ear-corn of barleys. You may feel the satire and humor in his poems but the wound or pain is not the wound created by sword:

Ye hi janan man karile ju karnai, you hi cha mauka ju, dunya thagnai,
Ye hi janam man t udan-bichhan, aagla janam t kya pata kujan I

The basic reason behind tenderly humor or satire in his such poetries is that Chakradhar never leaves teaching morality in creating humorous poems as agilo janam, sarg dida pani pani, kusawor, ku-shiksha. The poem ku-saor reminds us the sharp satire of the first modern Garhwali story ‘Garhwali That’ written by Sada Nand Kukreti .

Jatranama poet is all about spirituality , philosophy and preaching of morality .

Chakradhar kukreti creates poems in geet, kundali and doha forms. He does not do any new experiments in creating Garhwali verses. He based his poems on old Garhwali symbols easily .

Chakradhar Kukreti is truly Gandhian poet and mixes philosophy, pathos and preaching easily in his creation

@Copyright-Bhishma Kukreti, Mumbai, India, March,2009