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America

February 26th, 2011 by naren bedide

Dr.Yendluri Sudhakar, poet, professor and researcher (and also a translator:: some of his translations, of Urdu poetry into Telugu, can be read here), travelled to the United States of America in 2002, on the invitation of a Telugu association (ATA). The collection of poems 'ATA janikAnche', a journal of sorts in verse, carries his impressions from the trip. The short but eloquent poems have no titles, only numbers signifying their place in the collection.  Here are my efforts to translate a few of them:

 

108

 

Who

cleaned cotton in

this sky?

Who

wove

this sky-sari?

Who

placed

those cloud-pots there?

Who

washed

this moonlight-scarf so white?

Who

made those two ear-rings,

one for each ear,

for the sky-maiden?

 

109

 

Listen,

if you think I'm not being sarcastic:

There are among us too

those who nurse prejudices about colour

They gather like ants

around white gur

But as soon as they see blacks

they run away

like bugs in the sun..

What is the difference

between the wadas here

and the ghettoes there..

 

106

 

When I walk in Chicago

Martin Luther King's

word flames' roar

rings constantly in my ears

like a slogan

Moses!

If he split the Red Sea

Martin Luther King

created a black ocean

out of scaterred waves

He still reverberates

in race supremacists' hearts

as a blacker slogan

 

74

 

In Pittsburgh

Venkanna* appeared

Without a visa

Babas

Babis

Have their own lobbies

In every home

Spiritual hobbies

However hard I searched

Wherever I looked

I couldn't see my Yellamma+

I didn't meet my Maisamma

 

* Venkanna: refers to the deity Venkateshwara, or Balaji, of Tirupati.

+Yellamma, Maisamma: popular Dalitbahujan deities, village goddesses.

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