Anand’s The Notbook of Kabir: Thinner than Water, Fiercer than Fire is an unusual book. One will be surprised to see Hindi in Devanagari script in a book which appears to be written in English, from the cover. One can read the book in Hindi without knowing English (at least bits of it). One can also read it in English without knowing Devanagari and Hindi. Or one can keep reading to and fro between the two languages to get one’s own meaning. An essence of the book can even be grasped only by listening to the songs and the book provides a QR code at the end where there is a list of songs curated as Raga n Bheem. Perhaps the author has a diverse set of audiences in mind and multiple aims with the book.
At first instance the book appears to be a compilation of diary notes of a singer. The author performs some of these songs on the tanpura within the Dhrupad genre. However, Anand is also famous in the written world as the publisher of Navayana as well as the co-author of the famous book Bhimayana (a biography of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar). Hence, the writer joins in with reflections on those poems which he has curated for the purpose of singing. Thus, the book attracts readers as a book on Kabir. But one will be surprised because it is not a typical exercise of academic writing on Kabir. Although on occasion there seem to be attempts to make academic arguments, the multiplicity of aims within the book does not allow for serious, persuasive academic argumentation. The book could be called eclectic, as far as its target audience is concerned.
The book is on the Kabiri genre of music, with the focus on lyrics (poems/verses), in contemporary times. Thus, there are poems first in Devanagari script, in Hindustani language; the same poem is then transcribed in the Roman script for those who can not read Devanagari; and then there is the author’s translation. Often more than exact translation, these are, in the author’s own words, “conversions, inversions and interpolations”. The author is convinced that these inversions are within the spirit of Kabir practices, where each author modifies the song when they sing.
It reminds me of A.K. Ramanujan’s usage of Aristotle’s jack-knife example to explain changing contours of Ram stories in his famous essay on many Ramayanas. In this example the Philosopher asks an old carpenter.
‘how long he had had his knife’
‘Thirty years’
‘Wow!’
‘I have changed the blade a few times and the handle a few times, but it’s the same knife’.
The translations done by Anand might end up as the Aristortlian jack-knife situation. But it also gives us the opportunity to trace these changes historically. What, when and why the Kabiri genre is changing and adapting to the different spatio-temporal contexts. While the author wants to be an active agent himself who wants to give a different meaning and texture to already diversified Kabir songs, this act opens up the possibility of a historical exercise which one might be interested in taking up as a new project.
Anand
The Notbook of Kabir: Thinner than Water, Fiercer than Fire
Penguin Random House India, 2024
In the end of each poem there are some explanations in anecdotal form. The singers who have sung those songs, where the author listens to those verses (most of them are taken from the Kabir project and are available on Youtube), the raag and stylistics in which singers have sung, the etymologies of the English words he has used (which sometimes appears as deviations), and finally the author’s opinions/exegesis on those poems. The exegesis in the end of the poems are not in standard format. Some are very long and some only one or two paragraphs. There are some chapters in between these poems which are in prose. These are also reflections/exegesis of the author, not always following academic protocol but ideas, scattered and no attempt whatsoever to weave them together. There are multiple prompts for future research in these ideas. There are also cross references on occasions of these ideas from one poem’s exegesis to another. The author chooses to write the exegesis in English prose with little attempt to make that portion available for non-anglophone audiences. This choice puts limit to the radical attempt Anand has initiated in the book in the case of poems.
Largely, there are three tasks this book is performing. One to collect and give a textual form to the songs already in circulation on Youtube and otherwise in a book form. In that sense it is an attempt of archive creation. A source book of ‘Kabiri songs’ – not necessarily Kabir songs. In this attempt, we see a contribution and hope that the circulatory cycle from oral to text and text to orality will create a robust Kabiri cultural pool. The singers can further pick for their performances from this textualised form and more such possibility of textualising the oral forms into text will emerge. The same kind of attempt was done almost a century ago by Kshiti Mohan Sen who wrote a multivolume text on Kabir and his songs. He too collected all the available verses in the name of Kabir from different sources, from different manuscripts available in different regions with an authoritative introduction. Pandit Hajariprasad Dwivedi relied on that manuscript to write his own exegesis on Kabir. These works from the past had a nature different from Anand’s attempt, which is more a set of experimental musings than a systematic explanation of Kabir or the Kabiri-genre. Those who have read Bhimayana were expecting this book to be a similar creative exercise on Kabir.
Secondly, the book provides a translation of those Hindustani verses into English. These translations are not in any way aiming for closeness to the ‘original’ verse. The author deliberately wants to give it a different meaning. A meaning which he thinks is appropriate for the political cause the author believes in – to redefine the Kabiri genre and thus Kabir himself. It is a curious act which warrants attention. Sometimes Kabir – or Kabir songs – fall short in their ‘radicality’ for the author. Thus, the author fashions a different, more personal Kabir – the Kabir (or Kabiri genre) in the book is Anand’s Kabir, who is disability sensitive, Ambedkarite and also Buddhist. For instance, in Anand’s translation/interpolation, ‘Guru’ which is very central to Kabir verses becomes ‘love’. The famous verse ‘Guru Gobind DoU KhaDe’ becomes ‘Love and god are what I face’. Anand has written a long explanation or justification of this choice. The crux of this choice or inversion is in his own words, “It puts the Ambedkarite Kabir in me ill at ease. Crucially, it does not sit with the ideas at the heart of Kabir’s thinking.” Author is not happy with the traditional trope where Guru is almost equivalent to God, which leads to different forms of exploitative relations. He also thinks the root of practice of making Guru equivalent to God comes from the Brahmanical tradition and hence this has to be redefined to make Kabir more ‘Ambedkarite’.
Similarly, he prefers to call ‘Das Kabir’ – which is the signature of many verses of Kabiri genre – as ‘Boss Kabir’. The traditional Kabir for the author falls short in his political correctness and hence has to be revised. However, the most radical inversion (erroneous for some) is the replacement of ‘Ram’ from the verses with ‘Bhim’ (Babasaheb’s name) in some of the poems. The author attempts to insert if not replace the old universal (Ram) with (Bhim) as well. What will be the social meaning of this inversion? Will savarnas be ready for this inversion? Can they sing Bhim instead of Ram? For Ambedkarite Dalits and Bahujans, is this deification of Ambedkar acceptable? Are they going to be satisfied with this inversion where Bhim will replace Ram? These are difficult questions which quiz the reader, and the book leaves them, in some ways, obfuscated. I am sure Anand’s invocation will create an interesting and useful debate on these questions.
Anand.
Third, the book attempts to forge connections. Anand in scattered prose in between the translations has attempted to forge a genealogy of counter tradition or different tradition. The Kabir (or verses in the name of Kabir) shows similarity in the thought-world of Buddha, and Babasaheb Ambedkar. This connection is legitimately the kernel of the book and is apparent from the cover image. On the cover image Babasaheb is holding a book. The Buddha is visible in orangish shade and a peacock feather covering and embracing Buddha softly. The peacock feather has been a popular representative motif of Kabir. The shades of feather surpass the book cover Babasaheb is holding. And finally Ambedkar with his easily identifiable blue coat and black spectacles. In this imagery it is not through the Constitution (which is the usual book Babasaheb has been shown as carrying), but through these two figures and their thoughts on the book cover, that the idea of the universal (of fraternity, perhaps) is communicated.
Kabir due to his social situated-ness (a Julaha, a Muslim, a person of ‘jata kamin’ or ‘low caste’) as a historical figure from the early modern times – amidst a collision of Sanskritic and Persianate cultures – carves out a tradition radically different from the two. This tradition in terms of language and motif engages with the two traditions (Sanskrit and Persianate) and evolves a new tradition in a language which is beyond the two. The historical Kabir provides us a possibility to think about the two difficult socio-political questions of our times – of Dalits and Muslims, and their marginalisation. In resolving the Dalit question via Kabir by forging a long genealogy from Buddha to Kabir and Ambedkar, the book might be overlooking the possibility which Kabir provides to link the Dalit question with Muslim marginalisation. An enquiry into this strand is something the reader hopes for. But maybe for the future.
The book is full of creative energy which is the stamp of the author. The songs in the book have the capacity to grieve about a civilisation which has historically conspired and perpetuated violence of diverse kinds against marginal groups. Kabir provides us this possibility to mourn that civilisation by singing and imagining a joyous future of fraternity and equality.
Chandrabhan P. Yadav teaches history at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. He is a recipient of the Navayana Dalit History Fellowship and is working on a monograph titled Following the Trail: Ambedkar, Buddhism and Caste.
