Ashok Vajpeyi (b. 1941) is a distinguished Hindi poet who has been active on the scene for nearly four decades with nearly a dozen collections of Hindi poetry to his credit. A poet, who believes that poetry in our time is perhaps "the last residence of the sacred and the sensuous", he has done much to create a space for contemporary Indian poetry—its appreciation, translation and wider dissemination. His poetry is deeply rooted in the personal and attempts to explore and cope with love, desire, mortality, the arts and language, nature, etc.
Besides writing poetry in Hindi, Ashok Vajpeyi has been an important literary critic, an editor of dynamic vision, a cultural activist par excellence and founder of many institutions including the world-famous Bharat Bhavan multi-arts complex of Bhopal.
Widely travelled, Ashok Vajpeyi ha participated and given readings of his poems in many international poetry festivals and encounters in the USA, Sweden, France; Jordon, U.K., Japan etc. His poems have been translated into most Indian and foreign languages including Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, English, French, Arabic, Norwegian, Chinese, Russian etc.
Ashok Vajpeyi won the national award of Sahitya Akademi 1993 for his book of poems Kahin Nahin Wahin anc the first Dayavati Moth Kavi Shekhai Sanunan for his contribution to Hindi poetr 1994.and many more. Ashok Vajpeyi now lives in New Delhi.



To Be

To be dew-drenched
in the moonrise
of her body

*

Water Touches Her

Water
touches her
the radiance of her skin
the splendor of her limbs---

Water
rushes down
her hills, her valleys-

Water
envelops her
kisses her-

Water
hesitates
retreats
warms to her body
runs amok-

So many memories
of her body
inside the water.


*

Nude 2

There was nothing left to cover her with
no sky
no time
no light of the sun.

But there was
the sky of her body
spread like the green of grass
and the time of her body
like the wind
outside of time.
There was the sunlight of her body
bright as her salty charm.

In her own sky
in her own time
basking
in her own sunlight
she
the nude.

*

Nude 3

She's a mirror
Not she, her nudity-
it's herself that's reflected in it.
Youth beholds

its own opulence in that mirror.
Beauty gazes
at its own exquisiteness.
She's a mirror
not only she, her nudity...

The sky, unveiled
in night-darkness
is its own mirror.


Nude 5

Contained within her own syntax-
She is a word.

  not in a prayer
  not in a poem
  not in a restless call.

She is a word-
  fair-skinned
  the shade of catechu
  dusky
  and bashful.

She is a word-
  nude
  unshadowed
  quivering
  in the syntax
  of silence.


Nude 7

In such a small space
how could she be the sky?
Contained yet without limit
So close yet beyond reach
full of so many planets?

Dew-drenched in her own moonlight
basking in her own sun?
With so little room.
how could she be the earth?
That nude-
not on the bed of the earth
not beneath the sky.

She, the nude.


Nude 8

The earth took off
her foliage, her rivers and valleys.

The sky
undid the knot of the planets.

The sun put aside
its fervency.

The moon washed its face in dew.

Once again, after centuries,
the crag
turned over on its side.

Time unveiled itself,
and she
became the nude.

Nude 9

She couldn't cover
her nudity with beads of perspiration,
with kisses everywhere
from head to toe,
with the play of love.

She covered herself,
somehow,
with her own bashfulness
with the petals of her own desire.
 

Hand

Even this joy will be unbearable-
the hand holding
the whole of creation
contained in miniature within the flower.
This flying of a single straw
Becoming the dream of a nest in the sky.

In the darkness
that hand held
in the other's
reluctant, hesitating
withdrawn

The flash
of a light-like space
and it disappearance
some day even this joy
will be unbearable.