Hi all … two years ago I started
translating Hyderabad-based poems of eminent Kannada poet Prof. K. V.
Tirumalesh, taken from his early collections, Mukhamukhi (1978) and Avadha
(1986). Prof. Tirumalesh came to Hyderabad in the 1970s and stayed put; I came
to Hyderabad in 1992 and stayed put. Though the Hyderabad poems are not
entirely descriptive of places or people, one can get a feel of the place, and
a little bit of the atmosphere and space of Hyderabad of these poems still
remained in the early 1990s. Though I had read these poems in those nineties,
they started resonating in a different way now; call it nostalgia. I found
around 30 or so Hyderabad-based poems from Mukhamukhi and Avadha and have
translated 28 so far. Some of these translated poems are due to appear in the
online journal on culture studies and translation, Caesurae. Till then, I
thought I’d post some of the other poems here … and get some reactions,
responses, feedback, brickbats, anything …
Today’s poem is named Prathime taken from Avadha … the English translation is named Image...
Image
He came to the spot where
four roads met
and wept – and
kept on weeping.
Cars, buses,
heavy tarpaulin-covered trucks,
drove on nonstop.
The slow bullock carts too
kept on moving.
The sleeping city would wake up and
again go back to sleep in its
unperturbed lethargy,
amidst large garbage bins,
pigs in heat, and
trains that arrive from somewhere and
depart.
Those sitting in the toddy shop,
women who had come to buy vegetables,
labourers waiting for work,
– none of them noticed.
Till mushrooms sprouted all around,
Till lilies grew;
The rain that came in unnoticed,
The breeze that sailed in over
someone’s sigh,
The cold winter nights
– none of these touched him.
Nobody noticed when
he stood up all of a sudden;
he gathered himself,
he looked around,
started to say something,
stopped, as if wondering why should
he,
and a smile that broke out hesitantly
like the secret sin in each one of
us.
§
The Kannada original ...
