Translated from the Hindi by Sudeep Sen
Unemployed
Nowadays I read just ancient scripts —
Indus Valley Civilisation’s ancient script and the rest.
I read them little by little.
Every language is the language of pain —
ever since I’ve understood this,
in whichever language it might be written in —
I can sort out the alphabets.
In my infinite emptiness,
this is the only thing that I’ve done —
in the whirlpool of every pain
I’ve learnt their wobbly notations.
There is a fire in me too —
this writes something
on the wind’s frayed pieces
and then crumples it
throwing it beneath a broken cot.
Sometimes my mother opens and reads these pieces
and her spectacle-lens fog up.
This is the exact point where my fire
perspires, turning to water.
My cuffed hands are impatient.
They want to do something.
In them, there is strength;
they can unearth a mountain and let
milk flow out as a stream.
They don’t mind
that even after digging up a mountain
only a mole emerges.
Freckled and very cold
are my cuffed hands — ?
They haven’t picked berries yet,
nor swept the earth bent over
tasting the earth’s sweetness
till the very last.
Never has any tattered shawl
stretched across in front of them
smilingly begging for such berries.
The moon is no longer that pale yellow —
there is a layer of dirt on its yellowness,
much like an overused torn notebook
barely bright, tired —
a notebook that wouldn’t suffice for work
even for the miserliest Bania.
Hey butterfly, tell me —
how far is the road’s end?
how far the last sigh’s limitless desire?
‘Desire’ — which bird’s name is that?
Has this bird ever
descended onto your courtyard
or perched on your hands?
Then why do people say —
a bird in hand
is worth more than two in a bush.
Wringing my hands
I often wonder —
are my hands
two flint stones?
Absent
Warmth, love, happiness, or hope:
these absentees are all beautiful.
Once again let us talk —
of happiness, of hope
so that people question —
How was she? Will she come again?
One that is absent is — the most beautiful:
calmer than an old aunt’s cottage,
calm as the branch
that has dropped its last fruit,
more useful than a drainage blueprint,
and permanent as the smile of the dead.
This country too is a prison,
but to improve the prison
one has to run around and sweat.
Goodness knows where one’s got to go to,
goodness knows what one needs to fetch —
all this is brisk business; for
one, who is absent, is the most beautiful.
In its emptiness, a chair trembles,
as a shut window stutters
at a distant passing train — this is beautiful.
The one who needs to go somewhere is beautiful;
one, who is absent, is the most beautiful.
Under an absent star
the toy-telescope searches for
tinka in the God’s beard —
hidden within like a lightening cloud.
String toy-telephone line strung by match boxes hear —
hidden at the bottom of the pond —
the silence of a tortoise.
This I know —
as my first grey hair kisses my shoulders,
I know the dying fragrance is the most sensuous.
The ruins are the strongest —
that is why they all live there;
those who have nowhere else to live —
one who is absent
or one who barely exists
or one who is in the process of forming
is the most beautiful.
Finally Aesthetics
and its strange laws state —
one, who is barely beautiful, is the most beautiful.
Unanswerable Questions
Perhaps this house is mine.
Whose earthquake is that?
This land is mine —
and also mine
is the talisman pot of last rites
offered to the priest.
These children are mine.
Who are they who belong to no one?
This is mine, mine; this country is mine.
And those who shine
the plates of food with the national flag
that isn’t even theirs?
Tolstoy’s horses are still in confusion.
The attendant who feeds them
and massages them —
will never say that the horses are his;
but the owner who comes every evening —
why does he say the horses are his?
What is this ownership?
What is it to belong to someone?
The boat is mine, but whose are the seven seas?
The tree is mine,
the birds chirping
just a minute before the gun-burst —
whose are they and
whose are these frightened leaves?
One who loves me, who does he belong to?
Who’s raised eyebrow are these?
Whose swaying whip is it?
Salt
Salt is earth’s sorrow and its taste.
Earth’s three-fourths is brackish water,
and men’s heart a salt mountain.
Weak is salt’s heart,
very quickly it melts,
it sinks in shame
when plates are flung
due to salt’s varied strength.
There stands —
a government building —
like a salt shaker —
shakes with much sophistication, sprinkling
salt in my wound.
Women are the salt of the earth,
they have all the salt in the mould of their face.
Ask those women
how heavy it feels —
their saline faces?
All those determined to pay the salt’s price,
all those who couldn’t betray their masters
have annoyed the seven seas and
the revolutionaries.
Gandhi knew the salt’s worth
as did the girl-guava-sellers.
Whether or not something
stays in the world,
there shall always be salt.
God’s tears and man’s sweat —
this is salt
that balances the earth.
Mobile Phone
Those who walk within confines are men,
those who walk beyond are saints.
— KABIR, Sakhi
Neither within confines nor beyond
a closed fist is my own confine.
I can go wherever I wish
but only in this man’s pocket.
I can connect wires of my mindscape
but always under his thumb.
When he falls asleep
he’ll tuck me under his pillow —
tick tick tick
of his wristwatch.
Quietly I shall register
on my forehead for his sake —
smses.
They shall arrive from everywhere all night.
They will glow like secret messages
all night in my darkness —
dream’s memory — like cat-eye glow.
Mother’s sickly sickness,
all court cases,
office queries, quarrels,
hurried rush of half-kisses,
many muffled cries,
faint weeps muted, restless.
All these will flutter all night
like wounded pigeon’s wings in me,
absent-mindedly picking them one by one.
Sometimes I’ll stroke the feathers, other times I’ll scratch-kill.
However modern the world is
the expression remains old — of love, of hate.
Like the streets of old Baghdad
before the American heavy bombings —
I too am like that.
In me, adorned like old souks, meena bazaars —
like archeological ruins in this metropolis’s heart.
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