Illustration by Uday Deb

The author pays tribute to a legend

Oh my Red River/You flow like the blood /which flows in my veins!

It was at a very august gathering at Delhi University’s department of Romanian studies where I had first recited the poem, The Red River. It was a function to mark the 155th birth anniversary of Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu and I was invited to the function as a special guest because by that time, my love and admiration for this great poet was known to many of my colleagues.

In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the poetry of Eminescu has been a constant source of inspiration for me, lifting me from my dreary mood swings and giving me a new zeal for life. That was the nature of his poetry — an aphrodisiac for life; a hallucinating drug, which lifted the soul towards an unknown being. Just like the drugs Eminescu himself was addicted to throughout his life.

My first brush with Eminescu’s poetry was in a collection of English translation by Corneliu M. Popescu, a brilliant Romanian translator of poetry, who died at a very young age of 19 in the earthquake of 1977.

At that function I had dedicated the poem, The Red River, in honour of Eminescu. I had penned the poem especially for him.

But why Red River? As I had got deep into Eminescu’s mind, I had discovered that like the sages of ancient India, the Romanian, too, was very unconcerned about his own creations. But what really came as a surprise was when I discovered that Eminescu had written a poem on Kamdev, the Hindu god of love.

Legend has it that Kamdev had tried to break a meditation session by Lord Shiva, through seduction. An infuriated Shiva thereafter consigned Kamdev to flames through his all-powerful Third Eye. But later on, after much pleading by Kamdev’s wife Rati, Shiva gave him a second life. As Kamdev was reborn here, the land came to be known as Kamrup. This connection of Eminescu to Kamrup had prompted me to write the poem for him.

Mihai Eminescu was, and still is, the most influential of Romanian poets whose works span a large range of themes, from nature and love to hate and social commentary. But it was the romantic in him that makes him what he is today.

Eminescu’s most famous poem, Luceafarul, includes elements of Vedic cosmogony and his poems have been translated into over 60 languages.