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लालू साहू

Lalu Sahu

2 min read 3 versesGrief

3 verses · ~2 min

शोक विह्वल लालू साहू आपनी पत्नी की चिता में कूद गया लाख मना किया लोगों ने लाख-लाख मिन्नतें कीं अनुरोध किया लाख-लाख लालू ने एक न सुनी... 63 वर्षीय लालू 60 वर्षीया पत्नी की चिता में अपने को डालकर 'सती' हो गया अतिरिक्त पुलिस अधीक्षक एफ़.एस. बाखरे ने आज यहाँ बतलाया-- लालू सलेमताबाद के निकट बंघी गाँव का रहने वाला था पत्नी अर्से से बीमार थी लालू ने महीनों उसकी परिचर्या की मगर वो बच न सकी निकटवर्ती नदी के किनारे चिता प्रज्वलित हुई दिवंगत की लाश जलने लगी लालू जबरन उस चिता में कूद गया

लालू की काया बुरी तरह झुलस गई थी लोगों ने खींच-खाँचकर उसे बाहर निकाला मगर लालू को बचाया न जा सका थोड़ी देर बाद ही उसके प्राण-पखेरू उड़ गए पीछे-- मॄत लालू का शव भी उसकी पत्नी की चिता में ही डाल दिया गया पीछे-- पुलिस वालों ने लालू के अवशेषों को अपने कब्ज़े में ले लिया... इस प्रकार एक पति उस रोज़ 'सती' हो गया और अब दिवंगत पति (लालू साहू) के नाम पुलिस वाले केस चलाएंगे... क्या इस हमदर्द कवि को तथाकथित अभियुक्त के पक्ष में भावात्मक साक्ष्य देना होगा बाहर जाकर?

(1976), (जब नागार्जुन इमरजेंसी के दौरान जेल में थे)

इति

Rasa: Karuna
Stanzas: 3
Lines: 34
Reading time: ~2 min
Form: Free verse
Metre: free verse
Rhyme: none

The emotional atmosphere of the poem is heavy with a profound, suffocating grief and a bleak, tragic irony, evoking a profound sense of karuna (compassion and sorrow). Visually, a painting of this scene would depict a desolate riverbank under a harsh, gray sky, dominated by a burning funeral pyre where a grief-stricken elderly man has cast himself into the flames beside his long-suffering wife, while onlookers recoil in horror and helplessness. The narrative and symbolism pivot on a harrowing subversion of the traditional, sacred concept of sati, turning an act of absolute marital devotion and suicidal despair into a grim bureaucratic absurdity as cold police authorities prepare to prosecute the dead man's charred remains. The overall artistic tone is bitterly satirical yet deeply mournful, laying bare the unfeeling rigidity of a totalitarian legal system during the Emergency that mechanizes human tragedy.

लालू साहू (Lalu Sahu), by Nagarjun runs to 34 lines across 3 stanzas, set as Narrative free verse with journalistic details. Its governing rasa is Karuna, shaded by Raudra. The metre is free verse. Rhyme falls as none.

A critique of the rigid, unfeeling legal system during the Emergency, which sought to prosecute a dead man for suicide ('sati') rather than understanding his profound grief.

Read it for गहरे प्रेम और शोक की चरम परिणति and कानून और पुलिस व्यवस्था की संवेदनहीनता. 3 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Sati: Nandalal Bose’s watercolour exudes a haunting, tragic dignity and a profound mood of spiritual surrender. The composition depicts the mythological figure of Sati kneeling in absolute devotion and prayer before a…

Words worth pausing on

परिचर्या: सेवा-सुश्रूषा, देखभाल
प्राण-पखेरू: प्राण रूपी पक्षी, जीवन
साक्ष्य: गवाही, सबूत

Threads

Grief

The Poet

नागार्जुन

Nagarjun

1911 · 1998

Vaidyanath Mishra, universally known as Nagarjun, was a literary force of nature who absolutely refused to bow before power. Born in 1911 in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, he earned the title of Janakavi or the poet of the people through decades of unyielding progressive writing. He wrote in both Hindi and Maithili, winning the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Maithili collection Patrahin Nagna Gachh. Nagarjun was a restless traveler and a committed activist who actively participated in peasant movements and went to prison several times. His poetry is stripped of all artificial elegance. It speaks directly with the raw, biting anger of the hungry, the marginalized, and the exploited. Whether he was exposing political corruption or writing tenderly about the first rains on parched village earth, his words carried the undeniable scent of the soil. He died in 1998, but he remains the ultimate benchmark for resistance poetry in India. He proved that true poetry does not reside in the palaces of kings, but in the sweat and struggle of the common folk.