Across the Ravi

Across the Ravi by Arvinder Kaur and Hifsa Ashraf. Privately published rengay ebook, 2022. The book used to be on Amazon (as a Kindle book), but seems to no longer be available.

I suppose we all have varying pathways into books, and this is my path into Across the Ravi, published as an ebook in 2022. The cover image of a small fishing boat silhouetted by a sunset immediately suggests Southeast Asia to me, and on looking up “Ravi,” I learn that it’s a river that separates and runs through India and Pakistan. The Ravi is also one of the five rivers of the Punjab region. The names of Arvinder Kaur and Hifsa Ashraf, listed as authors, promise me an engaging reader experience, based on other work I’ve seen by each poet. The introduction tells me of their disappointment and even pain at seeing the waning of Punjabi culture. They live on opposite sides of the Ravi, in different cultures and countries, and yet they are brought together in this book, across the Ravi, through their common bond of haiku and related forms, and their common desire to remember their waning culture.

More specifically, rengay bonds them. This six-verse collaborative poetry focused on a primary theme in each of its six verses gives the two poets a way to remember their cultures, to celebrate memories, to cross whatever divides them, both physically and culturally—or more rightly, to recognize what binds them rather than divides. What follows is a remarkable collection of 44 rengay collaborations written by the two poets. To my knowledge, Across the Ravi is the largest collection of rengay by two authors yet published in English (Tsugigami: Gathering the Pieces, by Valorie Broadhurst Woerdefhoff and Connie R Meester has 38 rengay, and Undercurrent by Marleen Hulst and Bouwe Brouwer has 27 rengay in both Dutch and English).

The first rengay here is “A New Beginning,” focusing on pregnancy and a new baby. It’s a suitable way to start, and the first word is “primigravida,” a medical term for someone who is pregnant for the first time. We go from there to the baby’s first kick to knitting mittens to swaying in a hammock. After the two middle verses that suggest patience, the last two verses dwell on mother’s milk and the baby’s babbles, implying the unmentioned birth. The next rengay is “Mother’s Lullaby,” showing how the authors link between the rengay, not just within each rengay. Subsequent rengay are about family, school, and various natural and urban settings in an unfolding life—or unfolding lives.

Throughout the book, the authors frequently use Punjabi terms, as in the following two verses (italic text by Hifsa Ashraf, roman text by Arvinder Kaur).

bridal dupatta

shades of marigold

motichoor laddu

everyone in the party

with chubby cheeks

A glossary at the end provides explanations of many terms that may be unfamiliar, but inexplicably, in these verses (among a few others), the terms dupatta and motchoor laddu are not explained. Because this is an ebook, perhaps a later version has fixed (or will fix) such oversights. In the meantime, we can still search online to learn about unknown terms.

Across the Ravi ends with “Across the Border,” as follows, the title emphasizing connection, the verses emphasizing a strong family context:

farm stream

parents’ journey

across the fence

from the wooden balcony

grandma takes a deep sigh

home and hearth

the same fragrance

on both sides

peace train

her memories attuned

to the whistle

grandpa’s smile

echoes of childhood

Wagah border

the point where their hearts

reunited

Books devoted solely to rengay are uncommon (I know of about ten), so Across the Ravi is a welcome addition to this small number. In this case, the rengay form presents cultural awareness well beyond what those writing in North America are most likely to experience, and I encourage more such rengay that celebrate one’s own culture or region, the way Ancient Bloodlines by Simon Hanson and Ron C. Moss focused on Australia. Ultimately, Across the Ravi celebrates a connection between two poets who have never met in person but share a bond through rengay, through haiku, and through their Punjabi culture.