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

 

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