Chautal 
In the forest, the papiha bird’s epics
stave off sleep. It’s at midnight
separation from my love
torments me, Without him
I have no peace. My youth wastes.
Phagun is supposed to be a blissful month,
but without Krishna, how can
I enjoy it? Should the day-breeze blow
it’s blistering. I even regret night.
All my friends gather to compose
chautal songs, knocking drums.
Abir in the hands and coloured water;
my pain wakes. What fate
that I take such a ruinous life
and squander it
Lalbihari says “Fair one,
with peace comes happiness”.
Lalbihari Sharma (1915/1916)
Translated by Rajiv Mohabir (2016)
Holi: Spring Festival of Colours
May there always be spring in our eyes
and fingers, feet: pink ixoras, red hibiscus
mauve madar—green buds everywhere
Even live oaks’ allergenic dust coating everything
yellow, golden gainda, daddy said, not marigolds
pani re pani tera rang kaisa—is it rain—or
Water what is your colour? Or plucked stings
Mukesh mixing easily with jhaals chiming
from UP: Holi Khele Raghuvira Awadh Mein
May we sing for a thousand years—more—
chowtals, olaras—Mamas crafting coconut gojias
dholaks in arteries, hearts, ancestry’s souls season
Sasenarine Persaud
The Po-Co Kid
maatahet logan bol na sake hai
darsana nahin maral, murjhaake
Let’s get one thing queer—I’m no Sabu-like sidekick,
I’m the main drag. Ram Ram in a sari; salaam on the street.
don’t speak Hindu, Paki, or Indian,
can’t control minds, have no psychic powers.
I clip my yellow nails at dusk; on Saturday nights
I shave my head. Forgive me Shiva,
forgive me Saturn. I’m Coolie on Liberty Ave, desi
in Jackson Heights—where lights spell Seasons Greetings
to cover Christmas, Diwali, and Eid—
where white folks in ethnic aisles ask, Will your parents
arrange your bride? while Ma and I scope out fags,
gyaff, and laugh while aunties thread our eyebrows.
“Thee subaltern cannot speak.
Representation has not withered away.”
Rajiv Mohabir
Indo-Queer IV
for Sundari
dudh rahe dudh aur pani rahe pani
urdat pakshi ke rang kaun dekh sakela
Hear your Aji talk, Beta, you na get sense?
Hear your Nani say, Chach, you head na gi’ you wuk?
When the elders gather they will all clap their hands,
they will beg your rainbowed silks to wave
and wave. I’ve seen it in Queens, at the Rajkumari
Center in curls, in kajal, in a lehenga.
You dance-walk to buskers’ beats down Liberty
the A train and E, to rum an’ Coke and your wine,
with five countries in your migration story.
You still na get shame, your father rum-stunned snores,
though your mother cries for two years straight
after she finds another man’s underwear in your laundry.
Milk remains milk, water, water,
who can make out the flying bird’s colours?
Rajiv Mohabir
Chutney Mashup
aaj sawaliya ham na jaibe bhitar
balma, ulat pavan chal gaya, chadar bichao
You tie your veil to meet me in the courtyard,
though there no neem tree grows. You wrap your limbs
tightly about mine as jamun fruits betray
their pedicels and stain the concrete with ruby wine.
The shehnai weeps for us only; inside
my strength has ebbed. Spread a sheet on the earth, balma,
that when weary we may lie on silk in peace.
Despite your wise restraint your morals will scatter
in a fire dance—what god can save us?
I will never escape the body’s betrayal.
The neighbour women jeer at the stains on my veil,
my ruined fabric I pleat and tuck at my waist.
Today, love, I will not go outside.
Love, against the backwards wind, spread a sheet.
Rajiv Mohabir
This week is the celebration of the sacred Hindu Festival of Holi or Phagwah, a joyous Spring Festival as well as a solemn period of devotion, marking the triumph of good over evil.
Celebrants will throng the streets and gather in other places to revel in the Festival of Colours as it is also called on Tuesday. However, this day is really the culmination of rituals and observations. It began with the planting of a special tree, which, 40 days later, on the eve of Holi, is burnt in a great pyre, and its ashes used in sacred rituals.
In the public exhibitions there is a grand spectacle of colours with the throwing of abeer, the coloured dyes and powders symbolic of the victory of the devoted and true over forces of evil; the former represented in legend by young Prince Prahalad and the latter by his aunt Princess Holika and her brother the tyrant, King Hiranyakashypu (his father).
Today, Phagwah is also marked by a celebration of Guyanese literature in honour of the festival. The samples of Guyanese poetry above are old and new, going far back to historical representations and giving a sample of the new and contemporary. The corpus of Guyanese East Indian literature has not only grown, but diversified, and this was especially displayed in the Guyana Prize for Literature, 2022. Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir was awarded the second prize in poetry for his collection of poems Cutlish (Four Way Books, 2021).
“Holi: Spring Festival of Colours” by Guyanese poet and novelist Sasenarine Persaud is among the few Phagwah poems known in Guyanese East Indian literature. Persaud was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize more than once, and has published several collections of poetry as well as novels. He lived in Canada for several years, where he was part of the literary landscape, and now lives in Florida in the USA. The poem reflects the spiritual significance as well as some of the practices, including the singing of chowtals throughout the 40 days.
That musical performance is what is referred to in the selection “Chautal” by Sharma, which is a very special poem. It is taken from a collection titled I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara, 1916 (Kaya Press, 2019), which was translated into English by Mohabir.
Aliyah Khan, a reviewer in Journal of West Indian Literature, (November, 2019), provides a priceless history of this work. “In 1915 or 1916, Lalbihari Sharma, formerly of Chapra Village, United Provinces of India (Bihar), previously an indentured labourer of Plantation Golden Fleece, British Guiana, then a prosperous Indo-Guianese Essequibo rice farmer, pandit, money lender, politician, poet and musician, published his Damra Phag Bahar: Holi Songs of Demerara”. But the original manuscript was discovered in the British Library by the author of Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (2014), Guyanese Gaiutra Bahadur. The Sharma family had lost their copy during Phagwah revelries in British Guiana, so Bahadur managed to obtain a copy out of the library and eventually passed it to Mohabir, to do a translation. The original was written in a combination of Bhoj Puri and Awadhi.
They were musical poems, based on the forms of chowtal and bhajan. This selection, “Chautal” expresses a disconnect from the celebratory activities of Phagwah because of, perhaps, a combination of the hardships of indentured labour on the Golden Fleece Plantation and his loneliness. The collection is the first publication of poetry by an indentured servant in the Caribbean.
The other selections were taken from Mohabir’s book; the title, Cutlish, is Creolese for cutlass.
The citation for its second place by Chairman of the Guyana Prize Jury Evelyn O’Callaghan states: “Exceptional and ground-breaking, this collection pushes at the edges of language in the interplay of Guyanese Creole and American vernaculars, ancestral Indic languages and English, to explore meaning and belonging, home and diaspora, sexual subjectivities and spiritual worlds. He has a deep sense of the kinship of translation, transformation and transculturation in the manner of the best Caribbean writing.”
Clearly, Mohabir represents a new voice in Guyanese poetry, breaking out of previously held boundaries and taboos. It is grounded in Guyana, while also reflecting contact with his current North American environment. There is even reference to the Queens, New York Guyanese community, and the Rajkumari Centre – a cultural institution established in New York by the family of legendary Guyanese poet and cultural icon Rajkumari Singh.
The poetry is a fitting tribute to 21st century and contemporary Guyanese East Indian literature at the time of the celebration of Phagwah.
