The Carpenter’s Daughter

I bow to that magnificent spirit
That carved
A thousand temple towers
As I leave
With a box of chisels and a ruler
I will not be a prey to that floor chisel.
Since early days
My mind, mute and meek
Was geared to my father’s austere discipline.
What fun I had
Playing with the scattered wood shavings,
Joining them, making forests out of them!

A droplet in clouds blue-
On earth massive trees
Rise from seeds.
From millions upon millions of stars
To the earth come light and life.
So too it was in me that his fire fell and flared.

Sometimes, while he worked
He recited verses from the Vastuvidya.
We listened, my brother and I, to his right and left;
Words conjuring
Rajjusutra,2 lines and points—
judgement of directions—
properties of land—
measurements and calculation.

We learnt from father, the principles of architecture
Following Bhaskareeyam3 and Mayamatam4 theories about the position of Vastupurusha5,And even the technique of building koothumadam – the dance theatre.
Yes, I listened to him and learnt it all,
Together with my brother.

At times, the great man would say,
Knowledge is not enough,
Learning should be practical
The greatness of human beings lies
In breathing life into
scientific truths.

As you carved wooden lotuses
I stood witness to their arresting beauty.
In their hearts when you fashioned buzzing bees,
Who could fathom your arcane workings?
A door which at the touch of a finger on the left
Opened into an underground cavern
The sixth square, which caved in at the pressure of a foot
And sank into a sea of water;
The young coconut, on which I carveda black eye
Making a doll to play with.
In the midst of all this, my left eye saw
In that unmoving eye, the smoldering embers of an inner eye.

Carved ceilings, in many places, here and beyond,
Pillars supporting the faces of hope,
Within the pillars Narasimhas,
aglow with the light of a hundred thousand suns
wait to spring forth.
The new embankment to the lake shaped neither as a circle,
A square nor as a definite angle,
Yet embracing all this, its look disorienting
Even the Ashtadikpalakas, the Guardians of the Eight Directions.
The trick by the doll on the bridge,
The steps shaped like musical instruments
Leading to the dome of the sanctum sanctorum,
Words to Agnihotri6 that the principle
Of the single chosen deity
Should stay stable in the mind of man
Fixed as if by ashtabandha, the glue of eight ingredients:
All this I reminisce as I turn to face the past.

The past like fields shrouded in waves of moonlight.
On its border stands
the ghost of a loved one
like a paala tree in full bloom.
Its scent harrowing.
The one, who from the day of birth grew along with me,
The one who rubbed grime and soot
When I hurt my knee and cried aloud;
The one who made swings
And pushed them for me.
The one who declared, when I came of age,
‘It is time to request Devendran, the King of Gods
To tie the taali around the neck of my beloved sister!’
The one who then picked a fine piece of sandalwood
And carved a perfect idol for me.

Trees to my brother were
Half-finished idols waiting to be completed.
Gods, childless came to him in sleep and pleaded:
‘Please make idols of us!’

I flung at him
the sting of my criticism
So as to make him work better,
To which he responded ever and always
With an enigmatic half-smile.

He who knew his craft was once
Carving a stone idol of Ambika, the Mother Goddess,
And I said in jest:
‘It is a pity the idols you make
Are just like father’s.’
Looking straight into the tender eyes
Of my brother, a pensive man
Who knew no anger, I said this too:
‘You cannot grow in the shade of a huge tree
Your nourishment comes from seeking sunlight,
By yourself, unaided,’
But he, gentle and virtuous, would not agree.

For him the astrologer predicted untimely death
Seeing signs inauspicious in the horoscope.
But my elder brother, devoted to father,
Followed his sire like a shadow.
Unsuspecting disciple, he wore on his face his usual smile,
Filled with the sheen of burnished gold,
Even as he lay with his throat severed.

Even now inauspicious death
Lies under my feet as a hungry serpent.
The floor chisel, darkened by blood stains
May slip and fall on my sleeping mat too!

I cannot, like an impassioned Rajput
court death on the battlefield of revenge.
And insulting elders is indeed a great sin!
Moreover, if that spirit which carves
The wonders of the world slips again
Who is there to question it?
Who is fearless enough to face the elephant in rut and chain it?
Brother, it is beyond me
To offer my young blood as a tribute to you.

Alone in my own terrain, I took unto my heart
The weight of a stone chisel.
Striking on the black and white stones
I began to learn the lessons of life.
The twist chisel turned and did my bidding.
The small chisel, softened by ghee, submitted to my will.
Tame and petted as pampered cows were now
the foot ruler and the scale in my gentle hands.

Father’s craft in chiselling thick tree trunks
Into thin slabs of wood—
I mastered to challenge the wild seas
With boats hewn from my thoughts.

Outside my closed and bolted doors
Came day and night, summer and monsoon,
While I sat within these anthills of my mind
looking deep into myself.

Those who grieve, those that smile,
Those who fear, those that are peaceful,
The devas, kinnaras and yakshas,7
The king of asuras who plays the Rudraveena,8
Sukra, the master of Demonology,9
Who keeps a pot of wine next to him,
Accursed Yayati,10
Ahalya who looked at Indra with desire,11
Bhishma12 who had to lie on a bed of arrows
For supporting wrong:
Out of the marrow of the trees, I chiselled them all
Into expressive shapes.
Why did the sunlight falling on the half-closed door
Grow dim once in a while as I worked?
Did the shadow of a magnificent figure shut the light out?
Just a glance and then moved off:
What could be the purpose?
To kill or to nurture?
Fright and adoration flare up
As at the sight of a fierce tiger
In the heart of the forest.
No, I do not believe in people’s gossip;
Yet the image of a broad chisel stained with blood
Moves in the air,
And it is enough to disturb my concentration!
Even I struggle to carve the dragon’s protruding tooth
I have to carve many emotions—
Contempt, wonder, compassion and control
Carve I must, arrogance and competition,
The forest fire of jealousy that blazes;
Carve I must, the desire that comes in disguise
Riding Pushpaka, the celestial aircraft.

The asura chief 13
Who created the three cities,
Sudharma, the durbar of the devas,
And the palace of the Pandavas,
Comes in dreams and says:
‘Break the bondage of the silken thread,
Go away,
As the moonlight falls on the window
Pick up your toolbox and leave this house.’
Like a coward I pondered over this every night;
To flee in fear is not easy.
No point in feeling scared;
One has to confront life boldly
And leave bidding a proper goodbye.

I went to father in prayer after his morning dip
And said:
‘Today is Saptami, the seventh day,
It is good to start a journey
With your blessings.’

He, Brahmadeva to me, opened his eyes,
His deep voice fell on top of my head:
‘Go
But, wherever you go, remember,
The name that endures rests on your fingertips.’

True, what else can a father wish for a daughter!
A father who lost his name with a slip of his finger!
This toolbox weighs more with the added weight of the journey.
No disciples for me, no followers,
No friends to give me company,
No folks to praise my sculpting skills.
For me henceforth the far wild,
The world of the lone tusker,
With no light save the one from Arundhati, 14
The star in the vicinity of Saptarshi, the Great Bear!
Thus am I on my path with this chisel box and the ruler
As planets benign and malignant
move headlong in their orbits!
I will not be a prey to the broad chisel!

Long ago, as the story goes, Viswakarma Prajapati,
The master sculptor of the devas,
Gave Samjna, his daughter,
To Surya, the Sun god, in marriage.
In the heat of passion the Sun burnt her insides,
Turning into a volcano.
On learning of her grief
That father, such his dexterity that he put the Sun
to his grinding stone and tamed the flare.
Will the hands of that untiring divine sculptor,
Filled with love and tenderness, be
Ever inexact?

If so, I can forswear my meagre sculpting skills
And court death, a severed head in the pool of blood
Spilt by the sublime weapon that slips
From the unrelenting hands of the Sculptor-God.
The mighty banyan tree with roots above and shoots below
Is not the sort to nurture miniscule life forms.
They say my grandfather thought
God who gave you a mouth
Will arrange for your food as well. 15
And so, here, let me go with my chisel box and ruler.
I will not be a prey to the broad chisel.

Translated by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan

Footnotes

1 A reference to G. SankaraKurup’s poem The Master Carpenter

2 Rules of alignment in Vastu, principles of joining cardinal points and lines. 

3 Treatise on astronomy composed by the twelfth- century mathematician Bhaskara.

4Treatise on architecture attributed to the legendary architect Maya compiled around the tenth century CE.

5 The cosmic spirit that in Vastu symbolizes the forces that simultaneously govern the cosmos, the human dwelling, and the human body. 

6 According to legend, both Agnihotri and Perunthachan are the sons of Vararuchi. Agnihotri is thus the paternal uncle of the speaker in the poem.

7 Devas, kinnaras, and yakshas are celestial beings in Indian mythology.

8 A kind of veena, a stringed musical instrument.

9 According Indian mythology, sage Sukra, son of Bhrigu is the mentor to asuras.

10 A king in the Soma dynasty. Yayati was cursed with old age by Sukras when he deserted his wife Devayani, who was Sukra’ daughter. Yayati exchanged his old age with the youth of one of his sons, Puru.

11Ahalya in Indian mythology is the wife of Sage Gautama. She was cursed and turned in to a stone by Gautama when he discovered that she had an illicit relationship with Indra.

12 The patriarch of the Kuru clan figure in Mahabharata who is emotionally close to the Pandavas, but is duty-bound to lead the army of the Kauravas. He is mortally wounded by Sikandhi, but does not die immediately as he had been granted the boon of choosing the time of his death. 

13 Maya, the asura architect, who is known as the designer of the cities of Tripuras and of structures such as Sudharma, the court of the gods and Indraprastha, the palace of the Pandavas. 

14 The wife of Sage Vasistha who after her death, according to the Puranas, takes her place as a star near the constellation Saptarshi, the Indian equivalent of the Great Bear. 15 It was Vararuchi’s reason for abandoning his newborn children to the wilderness, much to the chagrin of his wife.