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ORIYA POETRY
ASUTOSH PARIDA
I WILL BE HERE
I will be here
like the words made of bones
like a hill of metal
like an inscription;
I will be here
in every wound, every injury
in bleedings not dried up still.So long as I am here
fire will not be extinguished,
eyelids will not droop,
words will not be silent;
so long as I am here
there will be no secrets.I will be here
at the end of all the evolutions.
After all the crimes
have been committed
I will be here
as witness and proof.
Who can cover me up
with ash or mud?
Who can ever hide me
in a box or in the grave?I will dump, in the debris behind the eyes,
all those illusions
daring to dazzle.
Amid the eddies of all streams
I will stand erect like a pole,
hardened though,
with tales not to be lost
interlining my heart.Faces would be appearing with guises,
hands stretching like hooks,
the hawk will be demanding flesh,
the god will be demanding obedience.
Presuming me deaf
some will be indulging in obscene talks,
presuming me to be blind,
some will be dancing naked before me,
again, presuming me to be dead
some will be taking me in a funeral march.
I will be here.
If someone curses me dead
I will be getting born,
again and again.
I will not be burnt
in fire, will not
drown in water.
I will inscribe on my chest
all that has happened,
is happening
or will ever happen.So long as I am here
there will be crops in the fields,
there will be flowers in the gardens;
so long as I am here
there will be blood-flow
in the veins of humans.I will be here,
living, as long as
the world is there.Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
THE UNTOUCHABLE
Could one confer it
or ever can:
the right
to walk on earth,
to touch the wind,
to look at the sun
to love the moon.
Could one confer it, or ever can?But the time of my birth
was such that all the rights
had been looted.
What remained was
only a reddish body,
only left-outs, faeces,
vomits, sputum;
only defeats
accumulated over births and rebirths.The day I started walking
an earthen pot was hung
on my chest where
I would collect my spit
and a broom on my waist
that would clear
all the way my feet travelled.Who were you there
watching me?
Man or monster?
The walls without gates
looked like hills.
All the valuables of the world
were kept hidden from my eyes.
No human being was there,
except me.There was no right
on land or water.
It was not there in the scriptures,
among the people or in the society.
What was there
was only defeat
of the flowers of the dreams
and heaps of corpses.The right
was of touching those corpses,
of carrying them;
was of diving into the drain water
till one touched the hell
and the curse was there
to litter, to crawl like worms.Where am I now:
close by or in exile?
in drain or with fire?
Do you search me
in the deepest wound
of the earth?
In the brute pages of history?Do you search me
in some metamorphosis of humans?
Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
A Varnamala Visualization