The French invented a word to denote the easing of international tension and confrontation: Détente. This poem is in praise of Détente. This is the first, and perhaps the one and only, poem in Malayalam with such elaborate and broad an international background and relevance. Some words used in this poem which were familiar throughout the world in the 1970s may not be familiar to generations born since the 1990s. Therefore they need explanation.
1. Reichstag: Setting fire to the German Parliament Building in 1933 resulting in the Leipzig Trial and consolidation of Nazi power.
2. Misha was the official mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
3. Massacre of eleven Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics in West Germany by Palestinian terrorists with German Neo-Nazi assistance. The poet erred here: The Munich Massacre in 1972 was earlier than Moscow Olympics of 1980, not later.
4. General David Dwight Eisenhower was five star general in the American army in the Second World War and President of America during 1953-61.
5. Manhattan Project: It was the code name for the Atomic Bomb Military Project by the Anti-Nazi Nations headed by America, Britain and Canada.
6. Frankenstein: Famous scientific horror novel by Mary Shelley; since then a synonym for creation which cannot be controlled even by the creator.
7. Nanda Devi: America and India sent a special team to plant a plutonium-powered spying device in Nanda Devi Peaks in the Himalayas for watching nuclear testing activities of China. Adverse weather made them temporarily shelf this device and retreat, and when they returned in warmer season, it had disappeared into deep fissures in a glacier and could not be recovered. Eventually plutonium radiation reached the Ganges River and contaminated water.
8. Herodotus was the father of history and Hippocrates was the father of medicine, both Greek.
9. Reference is to the continuing Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 88 which Iraq started supported by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, killed or maimed One Million people and soldiers, cost 230 billion dollars and 440 billion dollars worth of damages, used ballistic missiles and chemical weapons lavishly and burned precious petroleum fields indiscriminately- all for emphasizing Iraq’s sovereignty over the Shatt-el-Arab waterway into which Euphrates and Tigris pours waters, only to be returned to Iran by Iraq later to ensure Iran’s support in future wars with other countries!
10. Enterprise: Atomic-powered American war ship, de-commissioned since.
11. Détente: The French word denoting easing of tension between nations.
Written in 1984, first published on 10 February 1999.
You Tube Link For Download: http://youtu.be/1jsI5x7QPwg For lyrics, visit http://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.com/ Author’s Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/ You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Google + Page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PSRemeshChandran/posts
Comments