triveni spotlight
A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY!
hosts: Teji Sethi and Kala Ramesh
host editor: Teji Sethi
Theme: Raga in Nature
Journal: haikuKATHA
when the wind blows
through holes in a bamboo
does it know
my heart too was pierced
with notes of our song
— Suraja Menon Roychowdhury (EC)
There is no end to seeing and hearing. The structure of the universe is infinite. Endless vibrating expansion.
~ Nanak
There are myriad sounds which pre-exist in nature and can be perceived by human ear. It is completely natural, both animals and humans to have profound reactions to certain sounds. Some songbirds sing from repertoires which use the same rhythms and note combinations as modern composers. For example, the canyon wren uses a 12-tone scale. The hermit thrush, on the other hand, sings in a five tone penta-scale which is common in Asian music. The tanka I have chosen to showcase, exquisitely capture the ‘music in nature’ be it the sound of ripples, a bird song, a cicada’s mating call, the rustle of leaves or the lament of paddy fields!
Teji Sethi
Beautiful !!
To the best of my understanding, L3 in a tanka acts as a bridge connecting L1,L2 to L4,L5. The connectivity could take the form of memory, a feeling and a host of other things. In this particular tanka, I read L1 and L2 as a bamboo flute so commonly used in Indian music. The flutist too blows through the man made holes in the bamboo and produces the entire spectrum of notes in Indian classical music. Of course, one need not bring in the flute and and think instead merely of the breeze blowing through bamboo groves or the holes in the bamboo plant. One can't be sure which of these the poet has in mind, but Suraja being a…
Congratulations Suraja, love exploring all the layers in this tanka.
thanks for sharing this one Teji
Connected :)
Beautiful tanka by Suraja and an insightful writeup by Teji ❤️