FOURPOEMS
VIMAL KUMAR
TRANSLATED BY SHALINI.
1.
WHO ALL WILL U KILL.
Will you kill the moon?
Or the stars?
Or is it the jumping,
laughing, playing,
dancing, shouting,
rejoicing children
that you will kill?
Will you kill that stone?
Or that tree?
Or will you kill those women
chopping vegetables,
selling peanuts,
cleaning rice,
airing clothes?
Will you kill the lake?
Or the sea?
Or will you kill the men
tending fields,
manning machines
returning home, after a hard day’s work?
Will you kill the flowers?
Or the bees?
You will destroy the houses
which after years of
hard toil and labour
are built.
Those lanes you will desecrate
playing and frolicking where
boys become men.
Those cities you will raze
the memories of which
chase one
till the day one ends.
Will you kill the patients
convalescing in hospitals?
Or the mothers
writhing in labour-pain?
Will you kill all those
with heads bowed who are
praying to god?
Or will you kill the birds trying to build their nests?
The running and prancing deer?
Or the thirsty cub
drinking water without fear?
What will
you gain?
Looting the broken window
of a falling tower?
Snatching bits of the tattered
blanket of a widow?
Grabbing, from the bundle
of the old woman,
twigs of dried flowers?
You do not turn back
and look that the lions in your own jungle
have started roaring at you.
Snakes from your own hole
have started hissing at you.
Will you kill the dreams?
The expectations?
To triumph over darkness
will you kill the light?
After all, to conquer
over which death
will you end this
beautiful life?
Renaissance
Oh what a change in me in all these years!
Moonlight peppers my hair,
Harsh sun has created patches on the cheeks.
And what to say of my moustaches.
Have fought so many times and could not save them in the end.
Even my voice has changed.
The way a city changes in front of your very own eyes.
When I call out to my wife and children,
Retrospection.
2.
I have to tell them each time
that it is me who is calling.
There is a slackness in my walk now.
People steadily walk past me in the morning.
I cannot run the race of my childhood any more.
Indeed how changed am I in all these years.
Of no use are old shirts to me, nor old trousers.
With clothes, has also changed my language,
a new grammar I have learnt.
I have adopted a new style, and make do with it now.
Even my own old photographs surprise me.
Was that me sitting and laughing on that bridge?
Was that me indeed who used to be star struck and
loved a girl of my colony?
I have changed because the portrait of the nation has also changed.
That is why my nephews and nieces have started saying—
chachaji, mamaji, what a miser you are!
And I, a little shy, a little smiling
hug them and have started searching for some meaning in life.
I did not want to change
when people started changing.
When started changing the sky and the ground beneath my feet.
I had drawn some lines in my life,
on which I wanted to walk all my life.
Till wherever possible, I even did that. Fell too here and there on the way.
But I changed because time changes too.
And on that I have no control.
I changed because if I had not, I would have drowned straightaway in
the river
::
because there is a lot of water and no boat.
I changed, because in all this while, my society changed too.
A society which I had been dreaming of changing all these days.
I changed, also because it is essential to.
But I hope you would not have any complaints
with this changed man.
Who has at least taken care to ensure
that when people meet him, they recognize him instantly.
And feel compelled to say—man you are still the same.
just the way you were ages ago,
you haven’t changed all these years
3.
That man died.
Having walked for a thousand years in darkness,
he lay there in the middle of the street.
Probably crushed by a bus.
The sun had not risen,
nor the birds chirped yet.
A man came running
and said—this was my friend,
was going somewhere,
how did he die?
The crowd on the street
prompted a woman
to alight from a rickshaw.
She looked at the dead man
and started c
Said—I used to love this man.
Had got his letter only yesterday,
He wanted to say so many things to me.
That man, was as if listening to everything.
As if it was only sleep that he had
fallen into, on that street.
He wanted to narrate the cause of his death.
He did not want people
to have misconceptions
about him after his death.
Just then, came an old man
from some far-off land
and said—this is my son.
I knew he would not be
able to survive in this world.
That dead man on the street
came back to life for a while.
Shook hands with his friend,
kissed the woman
and greeted his father
with folded hands.
Said he—please go home
and live in peace.
Look, I am not dead yet.
And the man became immortal
as soon as he said that.
4
preparing for a second journey.
Finally, I returned from your world to my own.
Walked for many lightyears,
traversed distances over a million, billion, trillion and a zillion miles,
over countless mountains and rivers, peered closely at stars,
gazed at trees, fish, sea-horses, insects and worms,
at imposing roads, magnificent buildings, huge hotels,
giant bridges, long embankments and deep valleys
and deep gorges underneath them all,
at darkness, just next to blinding light.
I have come back now.
To a small house in a jungle,
near the quiet breath of a sleeping man in a garden,
around the dreams of children frolicking
in the playground.
I have come back.
After a long journey.
Preparing for the next.
Vimal Kumar, born 1960, is a poet who also occasionally writes prose.
He has won him the prestigious Bharat Bhushan Agrawal Puraskar.
His published works are Chor Puran, Yeh Mukhota Kiska Hai and Sapne
Mein Ek Aurat Se Batcheet. He works as a correspondent in U.N.I.
and lives in Delhi.
shalini.s.sharma.. has been a senior journalist with M.A. in English Literature from
Delhi University.She has worked in leading newspapers and journals
like Financial Express and India Today. presently in a corporate house.shaleenee18@gmail.com.
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