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ORIYA POETRY
BASUDEV SUNANI
PLAY-ACTING
Just because,
along with my friends,
I jumped into the river
near my village
don't take it
for granted that
I know swimming.Just because I have
at times catapulted a crow
perched on a mango tree
one afternoon,
don't consider me
an ace archer.If I see a pitiful sight
I can't help crying;
if I see a sword
or a knife
I wet my trousers.And you prod me
to go to the pandal?
Wear the crown
and be a king?Keep the crown to yourself.
I don't want to be a king.Even if it's in a play
I will not fight;
even if it is a story
that someone's family
is being ruined,
I cannot smile.Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
BHARAT MAJHI
THAT OLD MAN
ON THE VERANDA OF JUNAGARH BLOCK OFFICE
Does he say something
gesturing his hands, beating his chest?A few yards away
is a gathering in the college field;
a mike, a pandal and the shoutings:
you grabbed the Parliament, the Assembly;
now you leave us the local bodies.That old man still sits
on the veranda of Junagarh Block office.
Look, how eloquently does he speak !
Does he say, the Prime Minister of Fiji
with the Indian origin
is in the clutches of the rebels,
both the Koreas will merge within a year,
hasn't the exchange rate of dollar
gone down in this whole decade ?Does he say, in our country
the number of political parties,
big and small, is around four hundred;
thirty of them form the government
but the ministry comprises twenty four?Does he say, in the women's page of the daily
is the news of the Queen Victoria's lover,
the socialist leader
is away in the U.S. for medical treatment,
his expenses totally borne by the government;
there is pain in his chest.That old man still sits
on the veranda of Junagarh Block office.
I think, I have seen him somewhere,
or is it his photo that I have seen?
Did the environmentalists take his snap
on the Narmada Valley?
Did a photo of his, with an axe
in his hand, appear in the newspaper
when he protested against
the proposed test-firing centre at Chandipur?
Did he join the opposition party's rally
against the price-rise of the seeds?Did he sit on the left side of the bier
of his young son who lost his life
in protest against prawn culture
in the lake Chilika?
Did he sit, his hand pressed against his chin,
in the national dailies
in one report of proselytization?A few yards away
the pandal is agog with speech
whereas the old man on the veranda
goes on shouting nonchalantly.
On his face flashes the face
of an old man who has gone back
dejected for the thirteenth time
without getting his old-age pension,
the face of that poor farmer
who is busy in arranging money
to bribe the officials to get his quota of
fertilizer and seeds,
the face of a young AIDs patient
who had gone to Surat
in search of a job,
the face of the one
rendered homeless in the supercyclone
who now waits for a yard of polythene,
and the face of that labourer
who died of an accident in the Oswal factory
but whose name is not there in the attendance register.That old man still sits
on the veranda of Junagarh Block office
in Kalahandi.Bharat,
will your hands ever reach out to him?
Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
A Varnamala Visualization