Afraid Of The Truth?

Pop-psychologists are really having a ball, reading meanings into the primeminister's latest poetic offering to media-persons at Nainital on Saturday. After histalked about poems, haar nahiiN manuuNgaa (I shan't accept defeat) and giitnayaa gaataa huuN (I sing a new song), it is now giit nahiiN gaataa huuN, soI thought why don't I have a go at it, too. And even to a faux Bong like me, theHindi was pretty easy to understand. Even more easier was to, like, really"get" what the prime minister was trying to say. My heart bleeds forhim.

Here it is, then, the original Hindiof the Prime Minister, a rough, working-translation and then some interpretive notes.

giit nahi gaataa hoon

giit nahiiN gaataa huuN,
benaqaab chehre haiN,
daag baRe gahre haiN,
TuuTataa tilism aaj,
sach se bhaya khaata huun,
giit nahii gataa huuN,

lagii kuchh aisii nazar,
bikhraa shishe kaa shahar,
apno ke mele maiN,
miit nahii paataa huun,

piith maiN chhurii saa chaaNd,
raahu gayaa rekhaa phaNd,
muktii ke shanoN maiN,
bandh jaataa huun,
giit nahiiN gaataa huun

Rough translation: (Please feel free to point out glaring errors etc.,but then perhaps I need not point that out)

I do not sing songs

I do not sing songs
The faces are unmasked
The marks are very deep
The spell is getting over
I am afraid of the truth

I do not sing songs

Such an evil eye was cast
the glass house was shattered
in the crowd of my own
I do not find a friend

Back-stabbed by a knife-like moon
Raahu* has crossed all limits
In the moments of deliverance (release?)
I get tied up

* (raahu is a planet with evil influence in Hindu astrology)

On being asked about any new composition in Nainital, he said, "aakaashmeiN baadal ghumaR rahe haiN, shaayad barsaat ho jaaye" (the clouds havecovered the skies, maybe it would rain").

Notes

benaqaab chehre haiN,
Now this is obvious. "benaqaab" of course is another way ofsaying "mukhoTaa utar gayaa" (remember Govindacharya'scharacterisation of Vajpayee as a "mukhoTaa" or "mask" forBJP?) So the PM is saying: the mask is now off.

"daag baRe gahreN haiN"
Basically, the pock-marked uglyface of BJP is now unmasked. [needless to say, the reference is to complicity in Gujarat].

TuuTataa tilismaaj
the spell [of RSS ideology?] is today broken.

sach se bhaya khaata huun
Literally, "I am afraid of the truth" [that this ugly face of BJPreveals?]

lagii kuchh aisii nazar
Ah, this really shows the true character ofthe prime-minister. It seems he would rather be deluded, as he blames thisunmasking and shattering of the glass-house to an "evil-eye".

bikhraa shishe kaashahar
The glass house is shattered (strange he should say, 'bikhraa' as that showsscattered, dissembled. Perhaps he is talking of BJP (or Ahmedabad?)

apno ke mele maiN, miit nahii paataahuun
Hmmm, yeah, which of theother BJP/RSS types would even want to admit that something amiss has happenedin Gujarat? Maybe we can suggest Tom Petty's "hard to find a friend"?

piith maiN chhurii saachaand
Here as the poet explained himself, hewas taking poetic liberties. "I am imagining the moon to be shaped like aknife." See, he's suggesting that he's been stabbed in the dark, the poor wellmeaning sod.

raahu gayaa rekhaa phaNd
Ah, the Murli Manohar influence isdiscernible in this, isn't it? More astrological superstition that one wouldexpect from a medieval mindset.

muktii ke shanoN main, bandh jaata huun
Ah, the old age, time forretirement perhaps, but the party commitments tie him down from making a cleanbreast of it all...(and isn't the meter, like, a little off? Shouldn't it be"bandh ke rah jaataa huun"?) Pooh-lamb-caught-in-the-snares-of-misguided-ideology

giit nahii gaataahuuN
dear Prime Minister, pleasedo, please do sing some songs. May one, with due respect, suggest a marsiyaon marhuum-e-Gujarat, an elegy for the dead Gujarat? A shok-geet? A pradhan mantrikaa pashchaataap?

Please forRam's sake, visit the forsaken place. It's been more than a month now.

Couldn'tyou have taken your Holi holiday after visiting the blood-soaked state?Suffering is good for the soul and poetry, they say, and perhaps if you witnessed some of thatfirst-hand, your poems might improve too.