Friday, September 2nd, 2011
For having skinned the five spirits
by driving a nail into the sky
another into the patala
and soaking the hide in the seven seas you
deserve those sun and moon gods
as sandals for your feet!
In hunger
or in humiliation
head bowed
you stitch
your skin into shoes
Grandfather!
I dream
that this world
should turn into a strap
and kiss
your big toe.
My translation of Dr. Yendluri Sudhakar's kotta kala from 'kaitunakala danDem', a collection of Madiga poetry.
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
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.