There is a forest
Not even sun is permitted there
I had my eyes on the place
Even before I was born

I knew
You would come

That’s why
I saved that garland
Made in childhood
With the leaves of tapioca
Till now.

In that temple
Inside the forest
I want to
Put it on your neck

(I always forget
To ask
If I can take your neck home
For a day
I will ask this time)

I needn’t remind you
About the weight
Of a thali
Plated with gold
Do I ?

Heavy hearted I am.



translator  - Shyma P

Once, upon a place
There was a fisherman
He had a river
Of his own
He had
Ten or twelve fishhooks
Of his own

And he had….
Are you listening?

So, he had…
A river
Fishhooks
But then....
Listen listen

He didn’t have
Fishes
Of his own

Every morning
He would go to the riverside
Clean the fishhooks
And call the fishes
Beckoning to them.

Soon, it’ll be noon
Evening
And then night.

Poor fellow

None of them
Were his
None of them
Heeded  him.

I have heard him
Address them
“Vave”
In desperation

Have seen his
Tear flooded
Fondness
Permeate  
The river

I feel sorry
For him.


Translator : Shyma P

Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….

Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter gourds
On the pandal  
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.

We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.

The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.

I am like the faces
In a death house
Sobbing
At times  
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.

Sometimes
I am all the faces
Of a death house
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.

Sometimes
A marriage house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.

Just like you.

My dear bitter gourd,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk.

Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
of wholehearted love.



Translator - Shyma P

Yesterday
After
You
Went back
The house
Has not given me peace of mind
It keeps asking
For you.

While getting in
After hastily feeding
The puppy
And the rabbits
The door stopped me
And asked
Where were you?

When I reclined
On the sofa
To have a wink of rest
It pinched me
And rolled its eyes at me
Don’t lie here without her.

When I opened the room
To read
The books
Began to sing a song about you,
A green parrot
Came flying from one of the books
And kissed me on my forehead

To console
The house
That was weeping relentlessly
And asking for you
I searched
Each and every corner  
For a strand of your hair

You could have left
At least a drop of
You.



Translator - Shyma P

Did I tell you
About the poothaankiris
Who never abandoned me
Even when all others did?

They were the ones
Who woke me up today

Don’t know why
They woke me up
Calling me
The names
Of all my
Previous lives

Even I had
Forgotten
All of them

In my ninth
Life
My name
Was Shanmughan
Your name then
Was Lara

You were the daughter
Of the captain
A foreigner
From Portuguese
Who had come
To Fort Kochi
Paravoor
And Paliyath

My job then was
Counting the number
Of ships
In  
The harbor

You had come
With your father
Then
To see Cochin.

Even before
The ship with you
Anchored at the harbor
Sea crows began their pageantry of joy
Whole hearted wings fluttered
Across the skies
A pandal was built
Above the waters

One
Of them
Astonished
The kids
By flying upside down

The paral  fishes
Splashed around in ecstasy

Then
A ponmaan
Aroused by
The dance of the paral fishes
Dived in and out
Again
And again
In the sky of joy

As I turned back
After picking  
A stalk of paddy
That had fallen from a ship
I saw the ship with you
Floating from faraway
Your face
Gazing the world
From the fifth window
Of the second deck

Lara.
The glitter of the thoda
You wore on your ear
That day
Still
Blinds my eyes

Lara,
Feel like seeing
That you and me
Of the
Ninth life

I am
Desperate.




Translator - Shyma P

The day before seeing you
Sky
Is unreasonably
Overcast.  

Plaintain stalks
Quarrel with each other

Birds go silent

Friends talk
In some other language

When the tea vendor
Asks for change
I give him a pen
When the girl in the office
Asks for the headset
I hand over my mobile
Car’s key
To the beggar

A crow
Scolds me
Asks me
Where have I gone
I ask myself the same

The day before
I came to see you

No
Nothing
Hope
It’ll rain
Tomorrow

The sky
Grins knowingly.


Translator - Shyma P

One day
Will coat the
Brightest corner of the courtyard
With cow dung.

Will draw you
On it
With rice powder

Sometimes, due to haste
Might forget to sketch
Certain details

Surely
A toe to bite on
Hair that sways like a boat

And
*******
With grains measured in a brimming para *

I want to snuggle
Like a baby
In  
Its shades

Dreaming of a river
Through which flows love.



Translator - Shyma P

From the moment you mentioned about
That belly without marks
My eyes’ hands
Have been curious

Like a lone tree
That peeks surreptitiously
From the bank of the
Vast field
At the
Muthangha saplings
And karuka sprouts
That lay hugging the mud
My eyes’ hands
Probe for
The myriad depths
Of your body

A beautiful triangle
In the middle of the river
Revealed this moment
In its pupil
In it full of paral fishes
Violet colored maanathukanni  
The ecstatic celebration of
Tiny fishes
Your belly
Like an aquarium
Made transparent by
Undistilled water

Exhausted hands
Of my
Curious eyes

Have you seen or heard
The eyes of my hands
Sigh?


Translator - Shyma P

You said
Nobody drinks
Or smokes
In your family

I knew for long
You would be born
Before fourteen births
I had learnt by rot
The lullaby songs
For you

What sort of madness
Is this?
A childless aunt
Of mine
Had asked then
Which still resonates in my ears

That lullaby is still there
On my lips

True
Having carried that
Lullaby for so long
My lips
Are calloused

No
No one from your family
Drinks
Or smokes

Hoping you’d come
I became the one
Who drank
And smoke
On behalf of all of them.


Translator - Shyma P

If you had wanted
You could have been born as my daughter
What is not possible for goddesses on this earth!

Had that happened
Moons would have had to dodge you
Lest you asked for them.

Even otherwise
Who would have liked to
Be caught and made a toy

That green parrot toy
You asked for
Is in here still
Chirping.

My heart aches.


Translator - Shyma P

2

I remember
You telling
That you saw my poem
Somewhere
Wandering
Asking spring its name

Everything happened in a trice
Yesterday,
An Ilenjhi  sprout in front of me,
All of a sudden.

Didn’t get time
To sigh
Much less
To think.

My poem
Named spring
Ilenjhi

Ilenjhi Ilenjhi..
Weeping, laughing
Confounded with joy
I saw the poem
Give it
Hundreds and hundreds of kisses.

With all that
Watering
It must certainly
Have choked

A drop
Must surely
Have got to its head

Have to give it
One more glass of water
And some gentle taps on the head

Let me go.



Translator - Shyma P

Yesterday
I fell asleep
Thinking of you.

Mind had cautioned  
That re-remembering
Your bespectacled face
Wouldn’t be easy.

Had felt
Pity too
For its exertions
And exhaustion.

Today when I got up
Couldn’t see you

Where are you now?
What are you doing?

Will we ever
Wake up together
On a grass mat
One morning
Some life?

How many mynas
Would be there
In the courtyard then?


One of them
Is looking for something
In the courtyard now
See?

Let me help it
Find the way to
The next life.


Translator - Shyma P

In the life
Before
The last
You
Were my murapennu

And me
A shepherd
From a village in Tamil Nadu.

Let’s forget
You don’t remember all that
But then, where is that nose stud
You had?



Translator - Shyma P