Poems
(Translations of original Marathi poems)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
My child sees the sky
She sees trees, vines, flowers and blossoms,
The arabesques adorned by leaves and flowers
Of various trees,
Stars shining through those designs,
She gazes steadfast
Cuddled in the cradle of my arms
And she smiles
After a while
I see that she sees all this
I too begin to see
Trees, vines, sprays of flowers
Where had the sky hidden all these years?
She teaches me to see so many things
She gets startled by the zooming vehicle
Passed.
It takes time
But I too am startled inside and out.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
Fear feels like air
Dissolves like water.
Fear in the midnight
In a half asleep hour
Drills a hole in the brain
Rotates a screw in with a spin.
Burns the cheek where a cut of tobacco was,
Settles for a while
In the throat
And roars through the chest
Like a rail engine.
The numb dark of terror
Within the skull
And gray hair without and
Wet with heat and horror.
The fear freezes stiff
Through thighs, liver and stomach
Stands erect
On tiptoes.
The callous vulture, like question mark
Sits on the future of existence
Benumbs the ornate body.
The phantom erects a tower
Of the stuff you’ve gathered
To send in the restive
Whirlwind of doubt.
Suddenly your daughter
Sleeping besides
Gropes for you in the dark
And when she grasps a sleeve
Or the collar’s edge
That she has sought,
Quietens back to her sleep
And even smiles in her unbroken dreams.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
The teddy lies on its stomach fast asleep
The lion snoozes
All the four legs up in the air
The monkey has twirled
Its five feet long tail around the both
And sleeps hanging by it.
In my daughter’s notebook
The parrot green trees,
And the unending staircases
Are spread all over a page,
The doors ajar are without walls
Faces sleep in peace
Grinning in their crescent lips.
Even the sky in her sleep
Dazzles with stars
Her fairy friend has promised her
A ride through the jungle
On cloudbacks.
Her sky of the beginning of time
Is charged with world music
No plane drones in there
No fear is felt
Of guns or bombs
No scent of antipathy
In the morning
She shall tell you with fun
All the tales of her flight of the night
Then she will
Make her animals
Sit for dinner
In a long row
Scolding them if needs be.
Then perhaps
She will paint just the blue sky
All over the paper
Rubbing a sky blue crayon in it.
Her sky is also
The sky of my fancy
For tomorrow and forever.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
The daughter, growing, overwhelms
She likes to sing, she likes water
She loves taking a dip in water
When she was a baby
We washed her in a bucket full of water
She splashed water all around.
As she has started school
She plays in water to heart’s content
First with an airblown tube
Then without any support
Beating her hands and legs
She learns to swim with gusto.
I never could.
Afraid, I used to drown in thoughts.
Now, the seven seas are merging into one.
The ships that went beyond
Are rusting away
As they stand at the port.
Each one notices the invisible presence
Of a huge lock
That has shut out
Working, sweating labour, air
Food, light, water and even words
Of our languages.
I see from a distance
My daughter splashing water as she swims
She has her fill
As if she is celebrating
The life.
Then I cease fearing
And I begin to hope
That she shall swim across
The seven seas.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
After many years again
With many friends
Much time he spent
Reminiscing much.
Some five of them
Remained long
In the night
On a roadside
Standing, talking.
Those who knew
His apparent past
And a few mysteries
Of eventide.
That cold, rainy desolate night
They drank tea and smoked cigarettes.
They tried warming things up
With a few fresh anecdotes
Till thin drops of rain
Made them hasten their partition.
He stood alone soaking in the rain
Indeed those five who stood there talking
Were not really there at all
No one was
Not even the one who soaked in the rain.
Only the years in between were real,
And his thinning gray hair
Keeping in dark the city
Forgetful of an old friend.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
A person evaporates like camphor,
Can’t be seen, escapes in air
In the polluted air of
Cities stormed by millions.
Heavens too refuse a refuge
He’s annulled. Ceases to be.
The man,
The black frame of time
That he is transfixed in,
The leaps within the frame
That he dared to make,
The menacles that he couldn’t shake
With all this
Including his hot copper complexion
He is suddenly extinct
Obliterated, so that
Nothing remains.
And obliterated are
The possibilities that could’ve
Germinated centuries.
And also destroyed are
The green tender shoots of future
That could have quivered sometime.
The corrupt contemporary air
Which wrecks him with
Violence and wickedness
Is always a bit older than him.
So all is in place
Without him,
And incomplete too
Without him.
Don’t many a fraction
Dot the contemporary air?
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
The sky darkens with overcast clouds
Endless, boring drops of rain
Patter on roads of the lampless town.
These surroundings have gathered
Amnesiac soot
They have forgotten sayings of the great
And psalms of saints.
These people, deprived not only of
The wars that overturn a generation
But also of any crisis or revolution
Are complacent within themselves
Though eaten up from inside
They are bankrupt skeletons.
Candles and oil lamps at corners
Are their lighthouses.
They are the ropes that
Would not lose the twists of ignorance.
Their heroes often turn out to be
Panderers in competitive business ventures,
And sellers marketing culture
Are at every door.
A huge pair of scales hangs in
The dark sky overhead
And the scale in which humanity is kept
Lurches in the air like
A good person staggering.
The air grows still
The moment awaits
The light stops
And I leap into that scale
With my existence and all my
Belongings
And then it tips down
The wind begins to blow again
The moments flow
And the light lightens up.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007
As the bud of memory
Thirsts for the depth
Of the far off reach
Of the earth’s core,
The lava, cold, shivers
Surging through each grain.
A pinchful of touch
Of body, of colours and sounds of yore
Is held fast between sweaty fingers
In case
It escapes, All will be over.
Shall I be the universe
To make a long slow sip
Of this space weighed
On ten pillars of directions.
A strain of a bird singing
Can be heard through the window
And trees sway their heads
Bathed in the fresh shower
There are times, when it takes years
For calls of neighbours to reach your ears.
This passage of time
Draws a line
Between a call and a hearkening
There are illusions of speeds on turns
Even a plane
Seems slow
From below.
(Translated from the Marathi by Rahul Punglia)
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©Ganesh Visputay,2007