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ORIYA POETRY
JAYANTA MAHAPATRA
THE VICTIM
Not time.
Many times I have proudly thought
of loving you;
each of these moments of mine
are themselves victims
like that dog Laika
moving for years in the emptiness of space.
The victim is this age we are born.
The victim is not just that man
crucified two thousand years back
or that old man
who fell with his face down
in the prayer meeting at Delhi
forty five years ago
or Sakya
or the youthfulness of Marylin Monroe.
Perhaps
at last sacrfice lies
in the justification of life.
Sometimes you are very close to me
or sometimes you are not there
sometimes I am not there
and at other times
neither both of us nor others are there
and rain and summer and winter
come and go;only a little of happiness,
a little of sadness,
a little of emptiness
goes on being sacrificed.
THE PRICE OF POSTCARD HAS NOT GONE UP, HAS IT?
No, the price has not gone up
for long years.
Even in this new budget
the price remains the same
as before:fifteen paise.
But
take this Malli,for example.
She would be nearly seventy
but till today
she has not written a post card.
She has never had the need of it.
Only two or three months back
she got a card from her grandson
after her daughter and son-in-law
settled in Kharagpur
getting a job in the Railways.
Says the oldwoman,
this Puja vacation
her daughter and son-in-law
will come home.
Her neighbours will compliment her
on her house being festive on the occasion.
Would Mallibudhi care anybody,then?
Malli will go on being a silent onlooker
to her children's cries,
jokes and laughter,to the rites
and festivals,to time's maya
and to the increased expenditure in the family.
The old days of her poverty would then brew
in the dry bones of her conscience--
it is the slow dying,not her death,
that would then cascade like water
down her wrinkled hands.
Because
how would she know the world is so big?
Is she a cloud in the sky
or a barge drifting on some sea?
Has she ever seen the hands of history
in the book of her grandchild?
Hers is only a small life
standing day after day
like that fifteen-paise post card
whose price has not gone up for a long time.Translation:
Rabindra K Swain
LAXMI NARAYAN MAHAPATRA
CHILDREN ARE NOT HOME
The children are not home,they are gone.
The home is empty and rooms so blank.
Void spreads,layer by layer like slough
The time has no throb of life
for it is still
and dead like the vast eternity.
Moments born of Time,
the fond mother of all
search for their playmates
for it is the time for play.The children are not home,they are gone
The walls are mute
and the floor of my room
seems like an old lady
that has suddenly stopped telling tales
to children fond of her tales.
The rooms are blank and stillness hangs
from the ceiling
that seeks to be thrilled to life.
The floor seeks
the words of a coaxing mother
and the look of fear and helplessness
that once kept it alive andgay.
The eyes rub my limbs
and set balloons high
letting them soar with laughter
that cannot be easily grasped.The children are not home,they are gone.
From afar I can see
the soft palms like tender leaves
glistening in the light
of the eyes beyond the gate.
Are they speaking to me or telling a tale
of fairies in gardens
or knights in the woods?Suddenly I leap
to the street bathed in the sun
leaving this lonely room,vast and blank
and there I can feel
the uproar of my children giggling
or the language of eyes
in their wistful liberty.
But the street becomes a stretch of void
and the trees stare on
with mute eyes that cannot see the fun.I return to the room
and switch on the fan.
As I close my eyes I feel,
my body dissolving by degrees
slowly and slowly
the uproar of children come
floating to my ear
like the fainting waves of a distant sea.
And in me the waves dance eagerly.
And that faint uproar
of my children cacklingis transformed
into a bright flood of light in me.
In me the smiles of flowers of charming
colours take to wings.
The blankness of the room
dissolves in me.
I am lost in reverie
and silence is drowned
in that enthralling noise.
that plaintive note fades
from my mind.
I ask myself:
Are not the children home? Are they gone?
Translation:
The poet
A Varnamala Visualization