Caught hold of a cloud
Wandering in the sky
Mixed, kneaded
Under feet...
With a large piece
Made huge *******

With one piece
Made navels, deep
With a piece,  buttocks
From memory
Thighs
Arm pits
Feet
Fingers
******...

******
Deep,

deep,
deep......

While lying exhausted
It started raining on me
Un ceasing....

Pregnant with rain babies
In womb
It was indeed a female cloud

Raining...with out a pause!

It was
One of our
Childhood habits
To crumple
The wax  melting in front of St.Antony
And make new candles.

The tapers of
Thresya whose house got mortgaged, and
Selina whose wedding never got fixed, and
Anthappan who mourned his lack of offspring, and
Thankamma whose chickens died of infectious bronchitis
Stood and liquefied for us in those days.

Math test, pimple,
Cancer, wedding,
Death, visa, love,
Lost hundred rupee note,
Why, even missed periods,
Hair graying too early,
All these daily deliquesced for us
Day after day.

What did the new candle
We lighted in those days
Melt for?

We cannot see a thing
In its light now!

Was crossing the road

It is not like crossing anything else

A Trailer
Might partition into pieces
Or a Hummer,
In a second, make one a nonentity
Or a tin can of a vehicle
Take away your hand or leg.

Even if your last wish,
In case you have to die in an automobile crash,
Is that it should be the red lancer car you are very fond of,
Which court will listen?

On the other side of the road, there is a neem tree
Its dark green leaves are visible.
No, cannot see the bitterness,
But it is possible it is.

I have to cross the road.
Then
I have to stand a bit under the green on the other side
Those birds have to run away (no, not fly!)
And come back just the way they went.


What then? It is, after all, the road that was crossed,
Which is something!


While crossing the road, came a Trailer
Whose driver was a Tamilian


A Hummer came,
In which there was a father, his friend,
Mother and two kids

The kid was singing loudly
The friend was thinking about his girl friend

A rickety old tin can of a vehicle  too came
It was full of wine bottles
For the next century

What then?

Trailer was divided into many pieces
Hummer made one a nonentity in a second
The old vehicle took away two hands, one leg, and two ears.

Now the one who looks this way from the other side:
Is it the one who reached the other side,
Or the one who was standing here,
Or the one who crossed the road,
Or the one who has to return?

Saw women
Waiting at the bus stop

Heard the new cinema song
From the advertising vehicle

Asked the stranger sitting near me
Whether he was not going to Potta ashram

In conductor’s seat
Slumbers a traveler without a ticket (stowaway)

Under the label of defence forces,
Two school children
On the Ladies’ seat,
Padre from the local church

“The lady who brings this card is an orphan
Her family was lost in floods
She is the only one for herself and her child
A blue card fell in my lap.

How did I become blind?
Beating time on the stomach,
A Tamil song stretched its arm
Became deaf

A girl became mute
“do you remember this face?”

Sat on the seat for handicapped
With a sense of belonging and righteousness.

Crow
-------
A crow  cawed, inviting visitors
While I was translating my country in my dream

When I got up
A pigeon was sitting sleeping
On the window of the flat on the other side

Not saying anything

O visitor, go back
Don’t stay in my dreams
Without a visa

Coconut trees
------------------

Date palms asked

Why are you staring?
We are the coconut trees
After you translated us.

Since I have no other way
And am in utmost need,
Painter girl,
I filch one of the eight lambs
You have made plump with
Green jackfruit leaves and
Thin gruel with paddy bran.

I will take it to the goat market
And sell it in a jiffy.

I assure you
I will not sell it
To any butcher-
The lamb you made chubby
With sweet sweet words
And much much petting
And nice lilting croons,
Mixing and mixing
Greens with browns.


Don’t be sad, painter girl.
I hear you come running
Searching for your lamb and
Cry out “O my dearest one
Who went grazing in the green fields,”
As the sun in your canvas
Sets in the sea and
The saffron blends with the dusk.
And, see your tears mingle
With the black that you wanted
To adorn the brow of
The naughtiest of them.

Painter girl,
It’s all because I have no other go
And it’s of utmost need.
I could have broken into the
Two-storeyedhouse you sketched
And stolen the ornaments in
Secret lockers that even
You are unaware of.

Or, I could have
Palmed the golden girdle
Of the beautiful ***** princess
Whose portrait you made,
The one with a nose stud.
Or, drugged her with my kisses
And plundered the harem.

Or else, I could have
Entered the snake shrine
Guarded by the dark serpents
That you often drew
And fled the country with
The precious jewel.

Or, I could have shot down
The birds that you drew
And sold them grilled.

I could have axed down the
Mahagony trees you nurtured
And sold them as timber.
I could have blinded your Kanhaiah
And made him a beggar
To become rich from the alms he earned.
I could have enslavened his Gopis
And handed them over
To the red light streets.

Painter girl,
It’s not for anything of this sort.
I take just one of your eight lambs.
Sell it for a good price
And fulfill my need.

Now, perchance,
If a new tenant comes to rent
My brain where nothing resides
And if they pay me a fat advance,
Painter girl,
Surely will I buy back your lamb.
And tether it in your painting.
Don’t you dare say then
Don’t you say then
That you have forgotten it.
Don’t you say then
You have exhausted your stock of
Green jackfruit leaves.


(Trans from Malayalam by Ra Sh)

In the village,
There is a one-legged dog
Which runs after white cars
Like the devil confronted with  the Cross  And, defeated,
Withdraws whimpering and moaning.

Sometimes, I see him
when I return late at night,

He has, times galore, without actually saying it,
Said that he is leaving my car which is not white, alone.

Long before he became a white one-legged dog,
He was a young white doggie.
A white piece of cotton wool,
A tiny dandelion
That ran, jumped and flew with abandon,
At his favorite turning.

The decree
That vehicles may not crash into dandelions Was not enforced in our place.

On an evening
A white car
Had struck him down
And sped away without stopping.

Every time a white car
Comes through that turning,
He runs after it on his single leg
Sometimes he touches it,
Then whining and whimpering,
Retreats and lies down,  eyes closed.

Forgive me
For giving a wrong simile in the beginning.
It is not like the devil
Confronted with the Cross..

Towards that white car which didn’t stop,
Which reduced  A dog’s life
To one leg,
The white dog, the old tiny dandelion

Has some other feelings