Madhushala, the house of wine, is a sequence of a little over one hundred and thirty rubai-style quatrains, each ending on the same refrain word. Published in 1935, it was inspired in part by Bachchan's reading of Omar Khayyam through FitzGerald, but it is no imitation. The tavern, the wine, the cup and the server become symbols for life's journey, for divine intoxication and for the search for meaning.
Across the poem the drinker is a seeker, the tavern a place where caste, creed and status fall away, and the wine an image for passion, poetry and spiritual ecstasy. Some readers in the 1930s were scandalised, taking it as a celebration of drinking, but Bachchan, himself a teetotaller, insisted on its symbolic reading. Death and transience shadow the revelry throughout.
The poem made Bachchan a star of Hindi literature; he recited it to packed audiences for decades, and his son Amitabh Bachchan has kept those recitations alive. Its rhythm makes it easy to memorise, and it remains among the most widely read Hindi poems. An English verse rendering, The House of Wine, was made by Marjorie Boulton and Ram Swaroop Vyas.
Book details
| Author | Harivansh Rai Bachchan |
|---|---|
| First published | 1935 |
| Original language | Hindi |
| Translated by | Marjorie Boulton and Ram Swaroop Vyas |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Type | Non-fiction |
Themes
- Life as intoxication
- Transience
- Equality beyond religion
- Longing
- Mysticism
Who should read it
Lovers of Hindi poetry and anyone curious about the most recited verse sequence in modern Hindi.
If you liked this, try
- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
- Gitanjali
- Madhubala