NOW, WHEN DREAMS HAVEN'T ENDED YET - Translation of the fragment ಸ್ವಪ್ನಗಳು ಇನ್ನೂ ಮುಗಿದಿರದ ಗಳಿಗೆ SWAPNAGALU INNOO MUGIDIRADA GALIGE

I would like to think of this fragment as a ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... lots of familiar ‘Hyderabad’ sights and sounds and images recur ... the dargah, the neem tree, the train, its sound, lights, the dargah-keeper, the basti, the street sights ... and then, of course, he takes all these somewhere else ...  

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ಸ್ವಪ್ನಗಳು ಇನ್ನೂ ಮುಗಿದಿರದ ಗಳಿಗೆ

‘Now, when dreams haven’t ended yet’

from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

It is better to get up and go now,

now, when dreams haven’t ended yet

Memories will walk with me

 

Notice the names of the streets

This is the same path I walked on yesterday too

Only the leaves that fell during the night are different

 

This is the same dargah where I rested yesterday

What do those letters etched on the walls say,

now faded with fingers feeling them all these years

The white-bearded old man, god’s slave,

gets up to sweep the day’s dust

 

The neem-tree’s shadow changes 

direction twice a day

symbolising a human-being’s life 

He too had once played gambling games here,

had roamed around dissolute here

The sun hadn’t reached its peak yet then

 

I am so tired so soon today 

He will eventually have to wait 

for tomorrow’s shift 

Tomorrow exists solely for those

who have lost their yesterdays,

what remains is the heaven above

 

Hot rotis in winter cold water in summer

Wells sunk and closed

and opened again

Like doors to heaven 

Let everything be open

 

Look there on the other side

someone has opened his tools-box

A foot with a torn toe-strap is 

proffered before long 

I sit there nearby

 

The chisel, the thick needle, the pincers, 

the hand and fingers sliding over leather,

focussed mind,

I am as amazed now 

as I was the first time

and as I will be every time

He too is my friend

 

Then the tar-laying people 

saunter in chatting in the evening

They are who I encountered 

early in the morning

Their faces are now black, 

hands are black

Legs swathed in rags

Each leg looks elephant-sized

This one is Uttanapaada

That one is Kalmashapaada

What happened to the other?

 

There is no place they haven’t stepped on

They have brought mud caked 

on their feet from all paths

See how they have spread to the nooks,

hiding in the cracks of the basti,

 

The sound of the local train running 

on open rails can be heard already

dhad dhad dhad

 

On either side the earth shakes as during a tornado

Cactus blooms suffer miscarriages

Window lights zoom past like serial lights 

They pass over a pair of clandestine lovers

like a dark and light strip

 

Somebody says

I don’t have anything to offer

except love

I have heard this many times

 

*****

WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING, MEASURE SHADOWS - Translation of the fragment ಇನ್ನೇನೂ ಇರದಾಗ ಛಾಯೆಗಳ ಅಳೆ INNENU IRADAGA CHHAYEGALA ALE from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... I am constantly amazed by Prof. Tirumalesh’s gift at transforming fragments from philosophy into such rivetting poems ... this fragment is one such ... it takes from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave ...  

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ಇನ್ನೇನೂ ಇರದಾಗ ಛಾಯೆಗಳ ಅಳೆ

‘WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING, MEASURE SHADOWS’ 

from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

When you have nothing, measure shadows, 

said the Athenian 

They are manifestations of truth

That’s why shadow-plays are important, he said 

At an arm-reaching height

if there is a window, it’s enough

if it has bars, let them be

There is but one home for light 

 

But for the wind, it’s different

It doesn’t have roots or branches

It could waft over 

tender leaves or rivers and lakes

or possibly even along just a canal

and arrive  

like people returning from a fair

carrying the burden of a different fragrance

or just empty-handed

But the mind is never empty

At the least, it is filled with 

astonishing and amazing colours

 

Light has been bestowed 

with this profound quality

It teaches the prisoner to part the clouds 

by streaming the shadows 

After that he can imagine

night and day sun and moon

a thousand eras and beyond

But reality lies in the space 

between each bar of the window

 

Amidst Gita sermons, 

Holy Quran recitations, 

and Bible readings

Did anyone ask him what he wants

 

When you bang your head against the wall

You head cracks not the wall

Nothing is a metaphor here

Real blood real stain

 

I think what he wants is 

A photo of his wife and his children

 

All these were not there in Plato’s time

 

*****

THOSE WHO SEE THE BUDDHA BECOME THE BUDDHA - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment 'Buddhana no:didavaru Buddharaagutta:re' ಬುದ್ಧನ ನೋಡಿದವರು ಬುದ್ಧರಾಗುತ್ತಾರೆ from AKSHAYA KAVYA

This is a ‘fragment’ on the Buddha monolith in the middle of the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad ... this poem appears in the Buddha sequence of poems in  K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ...    

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ಬುದ್ಧನ ನೋಡಿದವರು ಬುದ್ಧರಾಗುತ್ತಾರೆ

'Those who see the buddha become the buddha' 

from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

Those who see the buddha become the buddha,

said the sculptor at Shilparamam once

 

From that day on

at dawn, at dusk

while going to work

while coming back from work

from the car, from the bus

from the banks of Hussain Sagar

from the steps of Birla Mandir

 

Standing sometimes, sometimes walking

and some more times just wandering

sometimes secretly, sometimes openly 

amidst people

 

We can’t fall sleep 

if we don’t see the buddha

 

Ayyo buddha, we say  

make me a buddha, we say

lying face downwards

 

You put a shirt on him and 

make him stand at the door?

You make a doll of him and 

seat him inside a glass case?

Is that what you do?

 

O’ my dear sculptor,

take out your chisel and hammer 

hammer our heads

chisel away our unnecessities 

tear open our guts

 

The compassion in your eyes

that pristine smile on your lips

that majesty in your bearing and

the folds of your garment like

a million ripples of the quiet lake

 

You have to become a stone first

says Rodin and ready to be 

a road-roller too

il faut toujours travailler

(it is still necessary to work)

 

The base material is basically the same 

 

*****

AT KACHIGUDA RAILWAY STATION - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment KACHIGUDA NILDAANADALLI ಕಾಚಿಗುಡ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... this fragment is a train journey from Kachiguda station is Hyderabad ... I discovered Astapovo for myself for the first time while translating this fragment ... and how that elevates this train journey!!   

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: ಕಾಚಿಗುಡ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣದಲ್ಲಿ

‘At Kachiguda railway station’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

 

At Kachiguda railway station all were there 

and none were there

I looked around, no familiar faces

All travellers were new

Yet the expression on their faces 

were not new I felt 

I have seen that many times 

at many places the same

And then from one station to another station

featureless shops pushcarts coolies

beggars itinerant hawkers 

debauched expressions

railway officers the engine’s whistle

The grating wheels

over the bridge it went

cleaving familiar forests

rolling on into the lap of the Arabian Sea

It was this same train that bored through 

the belly of Sahyadri mountains

 

Half-awake and the other half asleep

the train was running 

over me the whole night

 

The night continued as night

And when dawn broke on the east

I was hearing chatter from another land 

in another tongue 

gestures and expressions were a bit different

 

I have to but alight at the designated place

if not today, tomorrow

So many revolutionary thoughts 

are sitting up awake in my head

Like the passenger sitting by the window

Like there was something of note 

in every scene that was flashing past

 

Could I wave to myself

when I get down?

Out of sheer habit 

would I raise my arm in return?

What will they think 

those who are walking ahead

I waved for them they’d think

Oh, my thoughts,

Why have you abandoned me?

 

After the train leaves the station

nothing seems as barren as the rails

Astapovo, have we reached Astapovo

I continue to ask everybody 

Though the train has left Kachiguda

it hasn’t left Kachiguda  

I was in a hurry to get off 

even before we started off

I never knew if it was before 

or after Astapovo 

 

*****

 

KOTI AA GAYI, KOTI AA GAYI - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... this one reads like a city-bus journey from Tarnaka to Koti ... and, does the poet take you for a ride?  ... and what a ride this is ...  

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ ಕೋಠಿ ಆಗಯೀ

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

Oh man, you who are yelling, 

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi,’ 

Where have you come from?

 

Where are all these people going?

To one destination, but with 

different intentions, as if

I’m standing at one place hanging 

on to the handgrip

Vidyanagar, Shankarmath, Nallakunta, 

Koranti Hospital, Barkathpura 

How many times? 

A young man and a girl next to him

In this crush too they have made 

space for themselves

Leg-space, hand-space 

Space for the body to shrink, to swell

She was pregnant

Another fellow is snoozing here

Yet another fellow is looking 

worriedly outside the window 

An endless journey

Ads for abortion without surgery

in red words stuck by an unseen hand 

above our heads

 

Which woman in this crowd is headed there?

Otherwise why make this futile effort? 

 

The driver is sitting like god

His face can’t be seen, body can’t be seen

One hand on the gear-stick can be seen

The conductor is like the messenger of god

‘Ticket, ticket’ he says as he comes circling

He stretches his arm like the long arm of the law

When he thumps the roof the bus stops

When he thumps the roof the bus starts

He is the last spokesperson 

of the government, this conductor

Oh passenger, you who have been yelling 

‘Koti aa gayi, Koti aa gayi,’ since a long time,

What on earth is waiting for you in Koti?

What sort of hope or is it anxiety?

 

Two hundred years ago 

on a bullock cart too

this same man was yelling 

as he is now 

I for one behaved as if

I didn’t know any of this

Unable to speak despite knowing 

all that would happen in the future

 

People are climbing 

like ants onto the mountain

I can see that from the mountain on this side

I too was with them earlier

Then I wouldn’t have been able to see this scene

When I can see this I am not with them

What’s across the mountain? 

Could anyone living on the other side 

be looking at me? 

Should I be with them or be looking at them?

 

‘Uthro, uthro,’ said the driver and

pushed them out

People roll and roll and fall like sacks 

into deathworld

 

*****

Reality, reality ... - Translation of a Hyderabad fragment ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ 'Reality Reality' from AKSHAYA KAVYA

Here is another ‘Hyderabad’ fragment from K. V. Tirumalesh’s AKSHAYA KAVYA ... he returns to one of his favourite walking haunts, Seetaphal Mandi ... 

 

POET: K. V. Tirumalesh

KANNADA ORIGINAL: first line of the fragment: 

ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ ರಿಯಾಲಿಟಿ

‘Reality reality’ from AKSHAYA KAVYA (2010)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

 

Reality, reality ... 

Do you want reality?

 

The boots that I brought from England

What will I do with them 

As soft as fur and as pure but 

 

the street I walk on every day is Seetaphal Mandi

Rotting vegetables flies spittle dust 

This is reality

 

Water from broken sewage pipes puddling everywhere 

I leap across all these and as I was feeling triumphant,

the railway-crossing gate had dropped

There eternity makes us sit and wait

 

Two dogs in the garbage bin

scavenging among eggs, ovaries, 

and sanitary pads

 

All are waiting the beggars too

Saint Thomas Aquinas told me

Nothing happens without a reason

 

The train from a different era comes in

as if slashing through people’s vision-lines

Shaking the earth belching fire

Shaping the cause-and-effect correlation

For two minutes

 

Should I look for clean places to walk on

Should I teach my boots the trick of leaping

Should I reveal the natural smells of the earth 

and meld it with the land or

Should I send them flying forth 

from the balcony across to

 

The Arabian Sea Mount Ararat

The Sahara desert and the Atlantic Ocean

 

If only history were just an underwear

We could turn it inside out

We could wash and dry it when dirty

A saint

one who has lost the sense of dirtiness, and

one who is free of it is the ‘supreme-swan’ 

one who wears no clothes is empty 

of all questions and the

only one who stands here every day

sells leafy greens just on a whim

***** 

THIS YEAR’S YUGADI - Translation of 'EE SALADA YUGADI' ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ

ANOTHER YUGADI POEM FOR YUGADI ... ಯುಗಾದಿಗೆ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಯುಗಾದಿ ಕವನ

Continuing with the spirit of Yugadi ... here is my English translation of a Yugadi poem by K. V. Tirumalesh ... EE SALADA YUGADI ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ ... from his 1986 collection 'AVADHA' ... 

 

 

Kannada original: EE SALADA YUGADI ಈ ಸಲದ ಯುಗಾದಿ

Poet: K. V. TIRUMALESH

English translation: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

THIS YEAR’S YUGADI

 

This year’s Yugadi is not like last year’s Yugadi 

Last year’s Yugadi was like a dry thunderstorm; 

it flashed and rumbled and went away 

without soaking the earth.

 

This year’s Yugadi would truly begin 

a new year – and so, as soon as I sit down 

to pen new resolutions, I was attacked

 

by mosquitoes!  You, at the beginning of this year, 

we, at the end, they sing.  I won’t fear 

for I have bought a new mosquito net.

 

This year’s yugadi is not like last year’s Yugadi – 

how would these insects know this?  On last year’s 

Yugadi we had poppyseed payasa, seekaraNe*, new clothes,

 

a movie, company of women, lots of fun, honestly; 

this time none of these.  Only memories.  

Memories are sweeter than reality I believe and

 

I savour the breeze, and the aroma of my

beautiful neighbour’s cooking that floats in with the breeze! 

For this year’s Yugadi I have Greek plays

 

Ionesco’s stories, Ananthamurthy’s ‘Avasthe.’

Enough no, what more does a writer want?

Apart from these, there are few bits written by me.

 

So that they don’t fly away I have kept 

them under a stone procured from Haridwar.  

A round stone that had bathed in the Ganges for 

thousands of years and turned smooth.

 

It is, in reality, sitting on my conscience

soaking up all the sins of my words and their senses,

gaining weight every minute.

 

 

* A kind of sweet salad made using raw mango or plantain fruit, sugar, milk, cardamom seed powder, etc

 

*****