Why are you silent, Kedarnath Singh?
Are you weak in mathematics?
Translated from the Hindi by Pradeep Gopal Deshpande
Nita Ramaiya (b. 1941)
The Year 1979
This is the year
Of my mother’s glance up through the water
At all of us
Submitting the joys and sorrows of sixty-eight years to the Machhu
River.
This is the year
Of of my brother’s last scream
Hoarding his twenty-three years in the flood waters
Overflowing in his sparkling eyes and shining shoes.
This is the year
That made
Study Literature Politics Ideologies
Understanding Intelligence Wisdom stammer.
How can I explain to my son
Lighting the courtyard of my parents’ house
That I am being pounded, pounded
At every step I take within this house?
This is the year
Of the invisible scene hanging
Between
The mood of my ten-year-old son
And
My devastation.
This is the year
Of the thirst of the shameless
Deranged river.
Translated from the Gujarati by the author
Gagan Gill (b. 1959)
I Won’t Come and Tell You
I won’t come and tell you
that these days I’m a star
lonely as stars
I won’t come and tell you
that these days
there is broken glass
in my breath
that gods pass
one by one
inside me
to revive an ancient ache
that these days
my soul is sitting hidden
inside the flesh
like a dislocated bone
that the sparrows
that used to fly
within me
have begun to tire
that there was nothing there for them to sit on
no tree, no cage, no rooftop.
that the nail
that used to poke through
has grown larger
than the heel.
Translated from the Hindi by Arlene Zide and the poet
Eunice de Souza (b. 1940)
Songs of Innocence
I
Who made you?
God made me.
Why did he make you?
To know him, to love him
to be happy with him forever
in this world and the next.
II
orange berries in the backyard
goldfish in the pond
the sun high in the sky
uncles who make you feel tall
no myth in such memories
no chill in the dawn
marigold mood
before the fall
III
I crave your dream of innocence:
a profusion of flowers blooming
for themselves
birds big enough to swallow avocado stones
But green can be humid as the womb . . .
Avoid, friend, the man who has never known
a dry season.
IV
Searching for roots
I find the caretaker dead
the white ants burrowing
grand-aunt clothed in cobwebs.
Her clock
crumbles in my hands.
Pink cement houses
surge up among the fronds.
I hear the pigs forage
and know this is not home
This never was home:
grandfather left as a young man . . .
He had a well of sand.
To him more sand was given
English
Anon, Punjabi Song
Life in the Desert
We came: the dust-storm brought us. Who knows where the dust
was born?
Behind the curtains of Heaven and the skirts of the silver morn.
We go where the dust-storm whirls us; loose leaves blown one by
one,
Through the light towards the shadows of evening down the tracks
of the sloping sun.
We are blown of the dust that is many and we rest in the dust
that is one.
We have pitched our tents; we feast and we play on the shifting
sands of life.
We are drunk all day with the things of the world, with laughter
and love and strife.
But the sentry of death stands waiting, and the long last march
must be done;
For the camel bells tinkle, the load must be strapped, and we fare
forth friendless alone
Into the Western darkness that shrouds the last ray of the sun.
Translated from the Punjabi by C.F. Usborne
Meena Alexander (b. 1951)
Looking through Well Water
I hear grandmother singing,
she is singing in well water
I see her face as the waves stir
over cloudy white pebbles.
At the well’s mouth
fern fronds dark as hair
on an infant skull
nibble into stone.
She didn’t give birth to me
but when I look into the well
it’s her face I see, slight
freckled bones bent into water.
I’ll tell you what divides us:
a ridge of cloud, two oceans,
a winter in my fireless room
high above Van Cortlandt Park
also death, the darkest water
crashing through pebbles, fern
fronds, bits of speckled shell.
I hear the koel crying in well water
its beak is glazed with blood
it’s tilted on a nest of clouds
afloat and burning.
English
The Dhammapada (c. 4 CE/5 CE)
From Old Age
Chapter XI
146. How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always
burning? Why do you not seek a light, you who are surrounded
by darkness.
147. Look at this dressed-up lump, covered with wounds, joined
together, sickly, full of many thoughts, which has no strength,
no hold!
148. This body is wasted, full of sickness, and frail; this heap of
corruption breaks to pieces, life indeed ends in death.
149. Those white bones, like gourds thrown away in the autumn,
what pleasure is there in looking at them?
150. After a stronghold has been made of the bones, it is covered
with flesh and blood, and there dwell in it old age and death, pride
and deceit.
151. The brilliant chariots of kings are destroyed, the body also
approaches destruction, but the virtue of good people never
approaches destruction—thus do the good say to the good.
152. A man who has learnt little, grows old like an ox; his flesh
grows, but his knowledge does not grow.
Translated from the Pali by F. Max Muller
Henry Derozio (1809-32)
The Poet’s Grave
Be it beside the ocean’s foamy surge,
On an untrodden, solitary shore,
Where the wind sings an everlasting dirge,
And the wild wave in its tremendous roar,
Sweeps o’er the sod!—There let his ashes lie,
Cold and unmourned; save, when the seamew’s cry,
Is wafted on the gale, as if ‘twere given
For him whose hand is cold, whose lyre is riven!
There, all in silence, let him sleep his sleep!
No dream shall flit into that slumber deep—
No wandering mortal thither once shall wend,
There, nothing o’er him but the heaven shall weep,
There, never pilgrim at his shrine shall bend,
But holy stars alone their nightly vigils keep.
English
Dom Moraes (1938-2004)
Wrong Address
Objects of the wrong shape
share these rooms with me.
My body collides with them,
for I mismanage my body.
I feed plants on my balcony
to remind myself I am alive.
But this is the wrong climate
for the least gesture of love.
She, wannest, most delicate,
most tender half of me once,
becomes cold and separate,
mostly for the wrong reasons.
Growing old here is a waste.
A wrong key turns the lock.
The wards fall on my words
and truly I would like to go.
For here the months abrade
the gradual sounds of grief
to gutturals I don’t know.
It’s the wrong end of my life.
English
Balmukund Dave (1916-93)
Moving House
Rummaging through the house again we found
scraps of Lux soap, a toothbrush, an old broom,
a leaking bucket, tin box, and lidless bottles,
thread and needle, specs (broken), clips and pins!
Taking down the nameplate on the door,
we placed it face down in the departing lorry.
We looked around again one last time at where
those first ten years of married life went by:
our son, a boon so long desired, was born;
from where we took him to the fire’s last embrace.
Suddenly from some corner camp, a voice:
‘Ba-Bapu, you’ve left nothing here but me.’
Our eyes were full of pricking grains of grass;
our leaden feet tied down with iron weights.
Translated from the Gujarati by Suguna Ramanathan and Rita Kothari
B.C. Ramchandra Sharma (1925-2005)
On the Death of a Friend
We haven’t learnt a thing from the king
who ordered the sea to stop.
We beat our chests and retreat but hope
for miracles forgetting
that earth is three-fourths water.
Only the very young
dare the heaving waves as they build
with sand. Lazily the sea flicks its tongue
and licks before it levels the pyramid
and the castle in a final surge.
Ripples of laughter
chase the sand to the water edge
and the children build again.
We are the Magi
wise before time and too old
for sand and castles in the air.
No star beckons us and we are weary
with running between sea and sea.
Propelled by fear
we rise on wings of prayer
to the top of a tree.
Blinded by sun and blinded by rain
we grope flap and fall to rise and hope again.
Loaded with gifts we come every year
to placate the element, pills
for sleep pills for high blood pressure
and pills to ensure
the smooth working of the glands.
Stretches of white sand
for the children. For you and me church bells
and the band on the stand
to smother the roar and the rising fear.
Words die with every breath
and meaning dies to lie like flotsam
littering the beach. Yes, I use them
to talk of him and his death,
the passage of a little wave
into a little cave
deep within the sea.
Saved from predatory birds at birth
he was a gift like the land
from a capricious sea.
He stayed and played for a while
while the sea smiled
and taught us how to play a losing hand
without breaking the rules.
Counting the granules
of sand still in the hollow of my palm
I know that he took away from me
the terror of the inevitable sea.
Translated from the Kannada by the poet
Anon, Marsiya (c. 14 CE)
Come, O Sisters, Let Us Wail for Our Brothers
Come, O sisters, let us wail for our brothers,
And go bare-foot in the last hour of the night to Karbala.
Let us implore them to wake and return home:
‘Your only sister is dying for you on the roadside.
Who gave you the last bath and wrapped you in the shroud?
And who was there to close your eyes?’
Translated from the Urdu by Naji Munawar
Toru Dutt (1856-77)
Our Casuarina Tree
Like a huge Python, winding round and round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,
Up to its very summit near the stars,
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound
No other tree could live, but gallantly
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,
Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;
And oft at night the garden overflows
With one sweet song that seems to have no close
Sung darkling from our tree while men repose.
When first my casement is wide open thrown
At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;
Sometimes, and most in winter, on its crest
A grey baboon sits statue-like alone
Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs
His puny offspring leap about, and play;
And far and near kokilas hail the day;
And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;
And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast
By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,
The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.
But not because of its magnificence
Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.
Blent with your images, it shall arise
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!
What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech
That haply to the unknown land may reach.
Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!
Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away
In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,
When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith
And the waves gently kissed the classic shore
Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,
When earth lay tranced in a dreamless swoon:
And every time the music rose before
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.
Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay
Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those
Who now in blessed sleep for aye repose,
Dearer than life to me, alas! were they!
Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done
With deathless trees, like those in Borrowdale,
Under whose awful branches lingered pale
‘Fear, trembling Hope, and Death the skeleton,
And Time the shadow;’ and though weak the verso
That would thy beauty fain, oh fain rehearse,
May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse.
English
Nida Fazli (b. 1938)
Prayers for the Dead
If different graves
did not have
separate epitaphs
the same grief
would lie reposed
in all of them
a mother’s son
a sister’s brother
a lover’s fiancé.
You may say your prayers
at any of the graves
and quietly
depart.
Translated from the Urdu by Balraj Komal
Waris Shah (c. 18 CE)
From Kissa Heer
Ranjha Writes to the Bhabis
Life moments gone do not return
Fortunes do not stage a comeback
The word once out will not be put back
into the mouth
The arrow released will never be
back in the bow
The soul once it’s left will not re-enter
the dead body
Life has deserted me and I am a
living corpse.
Only if nature alters its course
will Ranjha return to you
Says Waris Shah: Who really wants me back? None.
Brothers and Bhabhis, you are
only playing tricks and pranks
I will not be fooled
Translated from the Punjabi by Gurcharan Singh
Kapilar (c. 3 BCE-2 CE)
A Time Was When the Wine Cask
A time was when the wine cask
Remained open; plentiful rice
Cooked with sumptuous meat
By cutting down sheep was offered.
Such was your rich friendship.
Today Pari is dead. I weep
And am taking leave of you
With glances, O famous mountain!
I go in search of grooms
To stroke the dark tresses
Of the girls who wear bangles
Made by expert craftsmen.
Translated from the Tamil by Prema Nandkumar
Manmohan Ghose (1869-1924)
Can It Be?
I mind me how her smile was sweet
And how her look was gay.
O, she was laughter, joy complete!
And can she now be clay?
I see the roses on her grave
They make my sad heart bleed.
I see the daisies shine like stars.
And is she earth indeed?
These My Words Page 24
