India is a country that has inspired kings, commoners, travellers and poets from far off lands since time immemorial. Australian poet Les Murray is yet another addition to that long list, who has found his muse in this country.
Disturbed with scenes of poverty and violence, Murray, reading from his poem 'The Tin Wash Dish', in Chennai Thursday night gave the audience a measure of his poetic sensibilites.
"Lank poverty, dank poverty, its pants wear through at fork and knee/It warms its hands over burning shames," the poet read in an emotion-filled voice.
Asserting that he dislikes poverty, Murray said that he has seen India changing from "socialist India to a glitz and glamour India". What but the dust and sand of New Delhi or the poverty of the streets would strike a chord in him first? India comforts the poet because, "In India animals are not going to be killed. Going through the villages, towns, I see pigs, cows, so many animals," suggesting his opposition to violence against animals.
Sharing his experiences the poet said that he grew up on a dairy farm, where cows were killed on a regular basis. This echoes in the shocking depiction in his poem 'The Cows on Killing Day'.
"A shining leaf, like off the bitter gum tree/is with the human.
It works in the neck of me/And the terrible floods out, swamped and frothy./All me make the Roar.''
Described as a poet whose work finds resonance with Indian audiences, Les Murray is part of syllabi for courses in Australian Literature. He is a winner of the Grace Leven Prize, the Petrarch Prize, the T S Eliot Award and the Queen's Gold Medal.
The programme in Chennai was organised by the Australian High Commission, which describes India "as looming larger than ever in the Australian imagination" and the Madras Book Club.
Asked what Australia could offer to India, he says "very little", adding, "politics is dangerous stuff" and that "people who try to get rid of classes become the new aristocracy".
Explaining his utopian dream of an ideal world, Murray said perhaps, if poets ruled countries, there would be no poverty, no class differences, no cruelty to animals, and most important, a common language for all will be here to stay.
