Introduction

I am a so called "English Reader", as I read works of literature written in english only. However on being insisted by one of my friends I read Madhushala, a work of Hindi literature by the famous Indian poet Shri Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Madhushala is a book of 135 quatrains with a touch of sufism.Shri Harivansh Rai Bachchan tried to fathom life through the usage of 4 primary but simple words: Madhushala (The Tavern), Saaki (The wine bearer), Haala (The Wine) and Pyala (The wine cup).
After having read Madhushala; I realized what I had missed all these years in terms of literature. I chose to translate the quantrains to english and blog them as a mechanism to share my feelings and thoughts on Madhushala with others.
I hope you enjoy your stay at my blog and any feedback from you will be highly appreciated. Also I tried my best to translate the qutrains from Hindi to English; however I am sure theres a huge scope of improvement. If you feel you could do a better job in translation please feel free to comment on such occassions, I would be more than happy to improve the transaltions for the benenift of all the readers.
Madhushala is a book which will give a different flavor to each of its diverse readers. Also when read multiple times by a given reader, it gives the reader a different taste each of those times.This was suitably predicted by the poet himself and hence we wrote:

भावुकता अंगूर लता से खींच कल्पना की हाला,

कवि साकी बनकर आया है भरकर कविता का प्याला,

कभी न कण-भर खाली होगा लाख पिएँ, दो लाख पिएँ!

पाठकगण हैं पीनेवाले, पुस्तक मेरी मधुशाला।।४।

English Translation
Make your imaginative wine, from the grapevines of emotions,

The poet arrives as a wine bearer with a brimming cup of poems,

Let a million or more drink from the cup, it will never empty,

For me the Tavern is my book and the drinkers its disciples. (4)


No matter how many readers read it, the poem will not be deciphered by a given set of thoughts. With each reader a new thought process will be born keeping the book immortal as it will have more and maybe something different to offer to its prospective readers.

The explosion of various thought flavors after having read Madhushala leaves the reader intoxicated. Madhushala succeeds in quenching the thirst of the reader only to increase his appetite for more.