NAGATIHALLI RAMESH

The Sea
and
the Rain
Translated from Kannada
by
Ankur Betageri

Don’t say it is bland

Say ‘put a grain of salt!’
from Avva’s Words
final

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2
NAGATIHALLI RAMESH, born in 1967 in Nagatihalli village of Nagamangala taluk, Mandya,
Karnataka has a Bachelor of Science degree from Bangalore University, a Diploma in
Journalism from Mysore University and a Bachelor of Law degree from Bangalore University.
In the 80s he participated in one hundred and fifty intercollegiate debate competitions and
won prizes in all of them.

He has been serving as editor, printer and publisher of the magazine Spardha Prapancha for
the past twelve years. His field of interest includes environment, travel, reading, music,
drama and short-film making. Considering his contribution to the field of environment, the
arts, literature and social work, the Government of Karnataka honoured him with the Youth
Award for the year 1988-89. For his contribution to the field of environment, the Department
of Forest, Environment and Zoology has bestowed upon him the Environment Award for the
year 2001-02. For activities concerning environment, tourism development, culture and
lifestyle he has traveled to Srilanka, Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong,
Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Dubai and Indonesia.

He is a member of YMCA Karnataka State Peace and Brotherhood Association, Founder of

Socially Concerned Friend’s Circle, President of Spandana Yuvajana Kendra and Vice-
president of Paraspara Saamajika Samsthe.

Through Srusti Prakashana he is involved in publishing books, launching audio cassettes and
making short films. He is currently based in Bangalore.

Books edited: Buddha Pragne, Maanavatavaadi Malliah. The Sea and the Rain (Samudra
Mattu Male) is his first collection of poems. You can reach him at:
nagatihalliramesh@gmail.com.

ANKUR BETAGERI, born on the 18th of November 1983, is a bilingual poet based in Bangalore. He
has published a collection of poetry in English entitled The Sea of Silence (2000) and two
collections in Kannada entitled Hidida Usiru (2004) and Idara Hesaru (2006).

3
To the motherly touch of the fingers
of my grandmother
Nanjamma
who used to starve
to keep me from crying.

To the cloudy eyes

of father Rangappa
which used to
cool me
even in his city dress.

Mother who sits

in the darkness
of the house
and when I ask,
‘where is father?’
says
‘Yeah, I have eaten.’

When I hand the blanket saying,

‘What cold! Take the blanket avva,’
She gathers the mud and spreading it,
Says, ‘shall I cover you, son?’

I say,
‘It’s dark; shall I light the lamp mother?’
she replies,
‘Why, have you grown old?’

Seeing me crying my heart out

she, who laughingly says,
‘Your life’s like being cooked in cold water
my son,’ and suddenly starts crying;
to her who wanders from village to village

4
 and singing songs held in her palms
turns darkness into light;
to the earth-heart
of my mother Kempakka.

Nagatihalli Ramesh

‘My mother lived countless poems, but she never wrote one.’ I for one, with
my poems, wrote hers as well.

‘The song that sleeps silently in the mother’s heart sings on the lips of the
child.’

-Khalil
Gibran

I wrote
To live with my mother for a few days
To make the lives of people around.
-Nagatihalli Ramesh

5
You talk
of relationship and non-relationship.

If you know, please tell

what is and is not
a relationship?

Body relationship
life relationship
praana relationship –

He who understands
these relationships three
is a relative, O Lord
of caves.
-Allama Prabhu

Where was the mango tree,

where the koel bird

when were they kin?

Mountain gooseberry
and sea salt:
when

6
were they kin?

and when was I

kin to the Lord
of caves?
-Allama Prabhu (Tr. by A K Ramanujan)

Relationship is a big thing man.

-Devanooru Mahadeva

Contents
PREFACE

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

QUESTIONS OF LONELINESS AND DARKNESS

My Mother

My Mother – 2

Father

Mother, Father and Me

My Grandmother

The Sea and the Rain

Waves: Rangolis Drawn by my Mother

It is Raining on the Sea

Woman

Like a Drop of Rain

This is Just a Line

7
Wandering Paths which History Doesn’t Recognize

Avva’s Words

Roots

Condition

Flower and Fiber

From the Diaries of the Dead

When Ocean Stands, Head Bowed

A Journey through the Desert

Like Blood Splashed

Mother’s Children

The Spark

Source which Never Empties

They who thought it was…

Lots to do

Amoeba

Tightened Chain of Ice

It is Becoming Blue Again

On this Earth

Happiness

Natural Life

What the Jogi Said

Baba Budan Giri

‘When the ground is wet’

Patent Notice

Denizens of Road

8
Ocean in the Drop

We are Tribal

Fruit Fallen to the Ground

The Drop of Sweat

Fate and Grains

World of Dew

Give the Street Kids Some Space to Sleep

Like Ashes Growing on Smolders

(Inspired by a haiku by Buson Yosa)

Before Unfurling Wings

Our Children

To Mother Earth

My People

You

Strategy

Song of Life

Power of Faith

Time

Root-word of Fulfillment

First Step of Creation

Question of the Bowl

Mud Lamp

Drizzle Beneath the Palms Holding Water

Jogi’s Question

Wisdom

9
Breaching the Order of Face, the Tail had Shook

Water and Fire

Generation

Kallu Baana

The Saga of Drunkenness

Reflection of Darkness

Prison Song

The Song of Mother

AFTERWORD

SUCCESS STORY OF A VILLAGER

Preface
THE COMMUNICATIVE skills of Nagatihalli Ramesh were proverbial during his
student days when he astounded everyone by winning more than a hundred
prizes in open debates in colleges in and outside Bangalore during just one
year. That he also pens poetry is, however, a happy revelation to me, having
only now gone through his anthology of poems, The Sea and the Rain. With
humble beginnings in life as can be made out from his simple and yet
touching poems, he has scaled great heights in more fields than one. The
confidence that he exudes is quite contagious as evidenced by the
organizational successes he has achieved in quite a few fields.

A majority of the poems included in this anthology are of a personal nature in

the same sense that the focal point in most of the poems is his mother, who
in the process becomes the mother, thanks to the archetypal images
associated with her. It was during the 18th century that William Cowper wrote
his memorable sentimental poem about his mother and the chair she sat on.
Nothing in that poem affects the reader more than the intimacy, comfort and
honour in the context of the mother. It is that same warmth and comfort that
characterize Ramesh’s poems centred round his mother, father,

10
grandmother and so on. It is an ever present mother that has etched herself
permanently on the sensitive mind of Ramesh who basks in the sunshine of
his native milieu. It is only occasionally that emptiness haunts him and
always the distress is followed by cosy thoughts about the mother.

Another noteworthy string of thought that runs through his poems is the
edifying nature of labour. This is a classical sentiment enshrined in folklore. It
is also central to every community for whom agriculture is mainstay. Coming
from this background Ramesh can jolly well declare that

he who has ploughed the earth

is a billionaire
in the poetry of love

but at the same time he deplores exhibitionism as unwholesome

Status, looks, wealth

should be like the work of an earthworm
underneath the ground.
As the earthworm climbs up
closer comes death.

Paradoxically enough, what is deplored is creativity, too, for the “earthworm

underneath the ground” is creative, which status cannot be. The simile
seems to be inapt, but the purport of the poet is quite unambiguous.

There are pantheistic outbursts like in

The forest springs forth

many tunes and melodies
that is the spoken word
of our little child.

Hope in the midst of agony, a longing for a better and brighter future, are in
the ultimate analysis what the poet projects. He hopes to “make tomorrows
our pillows.” But the pillows might be elusive, considering that the predatory
nature of man might become manifest anytime. That is why the “underwater
creatures” have a precarious existence:

Who has seen

the tears
of underwater creatures?

11
The tears are there nevertheless.

Having witnessed the horrors perpetrated by inhuman criminals in

Cambodia, the poet is justly indignant about the rapacious malignant
monster who plunders innocent poor people with no feelings. This plunderer
– the United States, for example – is like the mythical Cain given to
motiveless murder. However painful the ravages of war, one has to put up
with it during and after the deadly event. The brutal marauder unleashing
terror on innocent unarmed people walks away with his trophy leaving the
victims to their fate. That has been the long story of a whole century of
dastardly crimes by a mighty power which has regard neither for culture nor
for life.

The shields of the

bombs and shells
that America dropped
on Laos
have become homes
for many people
today.

One only hopes that there shall be no more such homes either in Laos or
elsewhere. That is the humanistic feeling that thematically pervades the
poems of Ramesh. Equally vehement is the poet in Ramesh to chastise those
whose indiscriminate destruction of civilization in the name of a higher
civilization. (See “Like Blood Splashed” for instance). The net impact is that

the birds are learning

to fly even before hatching from eggs

It is not the tending of life but tormenting it. And that is what disturbs
Ramesh. Surely a healthy disturbance when one realizes that

the spark of light

is being doused
as easily as pinching the wick
of a candle

Ramesh deserves our congratulations on exploring the conscience of man

today and the translator deserves it too for his creative endeavour.

G Ramakrishna

12
 22nd October 2007

Translator’s Note
TRANSLATING a work of desi Kannada into contemporary English I have faced
many challenges, and these challenges I have overcome in my own ways. I
could not do without Indianisms, and I hope at least these usages will make
the discerning reader reach out to the social and cultural contexts of rural

13
India which are the well springs of many of the poems here.

The author Nagatihalli Ramesh has been very forthcoming in clarifying the
meaning of the idiomatic usages for which I have tried my best to find the
closest English equivalent.

As a translator my greater agenda has always been to incorporate the

experience of rural India which plays a crucial role in shaping the character
of the average Indian. If this experience continues to occupy the backyard of
our consciousness, even in this era of globalization, it might hamper our very
integrity as individuals, leading to shallowness and falsity as we open
ourselves up to the influences of the outer world.

I do not know to what extent I have been successful in acquainting the non-
Indian reader with the nuances and complexities of colloquial Kannada
whose meanings spring out of the deep relation that the people here share
with the soil. But I would like to believe that the concerns and conflicts
expressed here are universal, and, as such, it would be no surprise if the rich
significance of these poems flow unhampered through the deeper
connectedness of humankind.

I invite you to be a part of this poetic journey of growth and deeper

understanding.

Ankur Betageri
Bengaluru

14
 Author’s Note
Questions of Loneliness and Darkness

These are just questions that I have asked myself. Writing this down gives
me peace. Why does darkness and loneliness descend upon man? When
does it dawn?

What are the effects of gaining and loosing relationships? What is the play of
light and darkness hiding in this? What kind of influence can this play of light
and darkness have on the success and failure of man?

What do relationships fill in a man? And why does he feel the emptiness
when there are no relationships? Is this state experienced only by a child?
Does an old man escape from this state?

This body which gets attached to things and burns, why does it feel futile?
Why do human beings love with a vengeance and remain attached to
people? Which fear are they haunted by? Whose crushing foot has made
them immobile?

So, the foundation on which we have built our civilization, is it wrong? If we

get an answer to this question would the decadent path followed by
civilization be revealed?

Thinking about all this and not finding an answer, and stuffing all these
thoughts to a corner of the mind, and taking them out standing on some
footpath, and analyzing them with new thoughts... and still no answer.

The koel sings beautifully. Pulling some remote strings, a man sings. An old
woman, collecting torn clothes, stitches a quilt. What is the feeling behind
the crying of a little child? What is it that the child seeks? What is the
mindset of a soldier who has lost his hands in the war? Did his sword cheat
him?

The flapping sound of the birds which are flying in their hearts, what does it
say?

Why do men write poems?

Can everyone see truth?

Whoever has seen:
it is the essence of his experience.

15
 Its realization
is not possible with the words formed around it.

Only sometimes, one feels

the poetry of mystics
have a clear vision in them.

In the midst of our work

when we remember its experience
we remember the poem
and with it, the poet.
He wanders like a friend, an enemy
and a companion.

Like someone about to tell

a secret, he laughs,
it is the sign of love.
In the words of the poet
it’s like handing over
the key to life’s mystery.

How Failure and Success Shape a Person

My life is a road broken into many paths. Since the time I was born my
eagerness, failures, inferiority, despair, loneliness, orphan-ness and suicidal
attempts had made me so desperate that I had become like an ant sinking in
the mud.

To what extent can the love and concern of people can flow? Is it true that
only those who have struggled and suffered get shelter among people? I am
still haunted by the memories of people who helped me. Does the pain that
we experience leave marks on our face? Did people see these marks and
helped me, or was it the life jumping in me which devised this elaborate
game and pushed me into it? I completed my Bachelors in Science and a
correspondence course in journalism from Mysore University and got a
degree in Law from evening college. With this my college life ended. I used
feel that I was happy while at college.

When I had to leave college I was haunted by the big question of ‘what
next?’ I had a pair of trousers, a shirt and a bag full of prizes that I had won
during my college days in open debate competitions. With these I wandered
the streets of Bangalore. And while hunting for a job I sold these prize
trophies one by one and managed to drink tea three times a day.

16
Such being my condition one day I met my dear friend from college,
Venkataranga. As they say, ‘by the time the grains and lentils finish, it rains.’
This friend took me to a hotel, brought me lunch and as though he was
waiting to hear me all this while, sat silently listening to me. Then he took
me straight to his house and explained my talent, helplessness and dreams
to his parents Sri B Krishna and Sharada B Krishna. His father had already
helped me by providing scholarship during my college days. He gave me an
office and the required money to start the magazine Spardha Prapancha. And
there were people like P Lankesh who didn’t want their name mentioned for
help like these; I got a lot of encouragement from all these people. Lankesh,
the honest and irreverent man, who wrote with an innate knowledge of those
who had struggled and suffered, learning about me starting a magazine,
encouraged me with a fund of three thousand rupees in 1993. When I
returned the money in 1994, ‘Not bad… you proved that even shudras return
the money lent,’ he said with a smile. Lankesh, gave the solace of a mother,
made the lives of many like me, without recording them anywhere.

Even in this time when everybody is sinking into a state of two-facedness I

see people who still have faith and love in man. I have realised that there are
thousands of hands in this society which have real concern and love. Isn’t
this enough to boost our confidence to realize all our big dreams, and to
ignite the determination of becoming one among those thousand hands!

Dear friend and poet Ankur Betageri who translated this book into English,
renowned thinker and the editor of Hosatu magazine Dr G Ramakrishna who
wrote the preface, my friend-poet Phoenix Ravi who wrote the Afterword and
friend and painter Vishnu who designed the cover and did the illustrations,
all those who helped in bringing out this book, all the people who saved my
life with their love, I cannot repay them with anything but my life.

Nagatihalli Ramesh

17
My Mother

Pulling off the thatch

she has played the song in the open
the earth has become a cradle
and life with her is singing word for word.

Holding the edge of her mother’s saree

scattering mud in meeting paths
she has pinched and plucked
the thorn in my foot:
like turning into tears
the pain settled in heart.

When I went in search of you

which village? which keri1?
Every road has haunted like a tree
birds have flown in and out

1 Keri: Keri is a Dalit settlement found outside or in the outskirts of the village. When untouchability was still in
practice people from the keri were not allowed to enter the village.

18
darkness has entered the eyes.

The seven villages around

have opened
like a branching river
wherever you have walked
the smell of rain;
the only clue that you’d been there.

You have pelted stones at the stone god

to the hungry and bare skinned
you have given aplenty,
you have smiled like a star
at the husband who
without becoming a tomb
remained a well.

Mother of crying children

you pulled me into your whirlpools
seeing me clutched tight and being fed
you became
the haystack of the harvest.

I’m the fish lifted out of water,

the tears of the depths
are flowing like water
towards the spark burning underneath.

You are the queen of blue mountains

streams are flowing from your head
towards your feet,
I’m the ant playing in the depths –
I’m looking up at you
and a thousand elephants are running
in my eyes.

She is the forest-rain in the forest

the thorn bush, and the stream
of black boulders encircling the fields;
the ocean which hides
all that floods within.

O everyone’s mother
who is she?

19
O everyone’s village
which is it?

My Mother – 2

I build a tiled-roof house

for mother
for her to be good.
This is in accordance with her wishes
I assume, and building a wall in between
I was one who thought,
let her sleep in the shade.

Why darkness?
Let there be light whenever required.

Putting the light

I called mother
to my lively home.

20
She who walked like an elephant
with an single-minded gaze
smiled like an ant.

I wake up as usual
and rubbing eyes, I look at the house:
what a game fate has played.

Electric wires
have been pulled off and
me hanging like dead web;
beautifully carved walls
as if
battered in some war,
have fallen.

Is she a goddess
beside her a stone ball,
the mud of fields all over her bed:
she is simply sleeping
pulling off everything.

As it turns into evening

she, who walks into that home
walking into darkness
mixes her poetry
to the dense wandering silence,
to the darkness,
like a flower blooming
in a wind which does not blow;
words come to her flying
and gather around like bees.

Getting up in the morning

a singular hurry,
she has a bag in hand.

To some village
she has to go,
she has to see someone –
she has no slippers on her feet
she doesn’t even know
the name of the village
but she reaches it.

Between the rubbed off lines of

21
her foot
which Pushpaka Vimana2 she’s hiding
god alone knows.

When she’s not there

only her thoughts for me
leaving the river where can
the mother fish swim?
As I think thus
she appears again.

She tells something

she sitting child-like
awakens us sitting around, she must be a queen
in her own kingdom.

Thinking that I am a prince

I do everything she says
and bow.
Without knowing whether
it’s wrong or right
thinking that it must be
right for her
I am a-thrill within.

The game that I devised

has pulled me inside
like a pawn.

I jump every step

into the frame of the game
and call
‘mother,’
that’s my first mistake.

My extreme belief
that she believed
everything that I said –
tying my own hands
I’m standing witness to the mistake
a judgment, on this, has to come from her.

He who wanted to make

a bamboo vase
wandered all over the forest

2 Pushpaka Vimana: The mythical aero plane mentioned in the Ramayana.

22
not to find bamboo
but to find out what kind of flowers
would bloom in his bamboo vase.
If the flower believes
that it is the best
it is a burden for that vase,
what is the judgment
inside this turmoil?

This does not come under

any section or code
to call you as witness
you lack experience,
because even the slightest of mistakes
would kill me and my mother.

Father

My mother is a
lullaby-singing bird
of an ancient home on the plains;
when the song had filled the spaces
following the route of that song
my father flew from the blue mountains
like a migrating bird in search of life
and shining in his suit
I have heard, he married my mother.

23
After sometime
this wanderer who wandered
like the song in a desert
sat waiting for my mother
like a fountain of water.

She stood in front of him and smiled

when he went to catch she sparkled
and shrivelled;
he ran like a wild horse
searched on the blue sea
where only her smells and reflections were wandering.

Drinking and reaching his depths

he began to dig a well in himself
how many times it collapsed in his eyes
that well
digging and collapsing
collapsing and digging
O mountains and peaks,
O streams carrying the mud,
spread your saree here –
he prayed.

As he entered the depths

his fortune dwindled
his bungalows vanished
farms were pawned;
when the villagers called him names
he grinned and left the place.

When mother’s song passed

the womb of his eye
he became a coolie
among the village coolies

withholding all its layers

the well opened
when the water spurted into a fountain
and the whole village gathered;
in a broken cycle
and torn coat, father, was still standing.

Resounding noise of the village

my mother’s deep song

24
the whisper of birds –
listening to all this
he remained a well
without becoming a tomb.

Mother is still there:

like a fruit holding a million
trees in her womb.

Mother, Father and Me

Floating on the raft of tears

wide-eyed and sucking thumb
when I first saw my father
I was five years old.

25
Again,
in shabby clothes, tousled haired
a scared-eyed 10-year-old
when I encountered him
he picked me up unawares
and feeding sticks
to the bathroom furnace
he was profusely weeping.

In that darkness
stammering
dirt… dirt… dirt…
he was rubbing
even as the skin on my back
peeled off;
then, father’s memory
haunted me like fear.

I have been astonished

at my father who
unfurled his wings and danced
like a peacock
to the lullabies and songs
of my mother
who flowed like a stream
throughout the forest of the village.

The truth of
father passing away
without remarrying
flashes like a bolt of lightening
Now the mark on the back
like seed-planted earth
longs for the rain.

Even now I have seen

clouds forming
in father’s eyes
as he remembers
mother mumbling in the dark.

Now like a tree

I descend the depths of the ground
I swell in happiness
looking at birds

26
building nests over me –
I stare and laugh at the woodpecker
which pecks and pecks
until it forms a burrow –
I draw into my heart
the living voices
which whirl and dart about me.

Sloughing off loneliness

I become the fruit
to the beak
of dreamy-eyed migrating birds.
Budding again,
and bearing fruits and flowers.

My Grandmother

With a burning belly

27
she was born to work;
spilling children she tilled the fields
and filled the palms with seeds;
she taught how to seed.
By teaching how to hold the plough
she instilled in me a firmness.
Harvesting ragi, jowar, avare, horse gram
and sesame crops
she used to end the harvest time
celebrating her native land.

She took care of me

a toddler on four legs.
With her eyes
she would curse the crows and eagles
flying over the hut.
Before leaving for the field
she made me sit on my haunches
and giving a stick to my hand
taught me how to look after chicks
and went half-heartedly.

Carrying water on a bamboo bar

feeding water to every coconut plantation
she became the breath.
As the planted ones went on unfolding the fronds
considering it’s height and fruit
in the mind
‘This tree is a mighty one
it will come to life like a sandal’
-she said.
To the sound of the coconut
falling at night
she would wake up
like one always meditating on it.

In reply to the cows of the villages

she domesticated a buffalo.
Even when they stood barren
she squeezed the breast of goats
and fed me milk.
We, who were crying in hunger
when promised rice for the night
would stop crying.

Every Saturday

28
was like a fair.
Fair, was puffed rice, sev and battasu3
and dreams of tasty meals.

The memory of
putting a handful of puffed rice
to black coffee
and getting the lips to bite them
makes the body bloom even now.

Everything changes
rain and summer spread into winter.

Looking at people
who made use of the goodness in people
and later torched their foundations
‘where’s the time for goodness,’
she would wail.

God knows what quarrel,

to what whispers she turned morose –
in the village
only we two
remained lonely.

How many parrots

in the stories she used to tell,
all knew how to speak
and had flown in from a different land.
The elephant was defeated in front of the ant,
in front of Sita, Rama had shrunk.
She gave so many weapons to Rama
that Arjuna himself ran away from the battlefield.
Even Kunti stood head-bowed
even his guru stood ashamed
as sun disappeared at mid day.

Coins with holes

one, two, three… paisas
only sometimes she lived
in a quarter and half-a-rupee time.
Before seeing the rupee my grandpa
had died,
my mother was wandering from village

3 Battasu: A kind of coloured sugar candy usually eaten with puffed rice and sev.

29
to village
and was singing the songs
of the soil.

In the time of new coins

my grandmother disappeared
like old lost coins.

O my mother, the owner of land

what is the colour of your hands
which tied the kacche4
and tilled the land?
When you stand with your wings unfurled
a fair of blooming flowers
the celebration of parrots, peacocks
crows and sparrows –
why do they gather around you?
every leaf of grass sprouts
at the time of dew.

Even heaven bows

in front of your dreams:
in the fair of your memories
even the palace collapses.

4 Kacche: A traditional way of wearing the saree or dhoti

30
The Sea and the Rain

Dusk
the clouds have gathered
and it’s raining hard.
Like a dark dot of charm
lightening and thunder.

In the field
mother like a lamp
is wandering among the grown-up crops.

I sat on the hillock

and watching the earth covered by the skies
in one sight,
called out loud: ‘Avva!’

My child
running over my heart’s cry of tears,
holding the saree-end of my mother
and with his thumb in mouth, follows her.

The sign of love that grew between me and mother

is a dense sea full of memories
I run to mother
who stands like a sea in the rain.

My mother like an innocent girl

holds my child in the left hand
and my wife’s hand with the right
the chariot of their walking feet
is moving ahead
I, a devotee pulling that chariot,
no matter how far, I am someone
who has tied it’s rope to my back.

In the footsteps walked by time

not placing my feet even by mistake
I recognize the ‘cheetah’ even in the dark.

Seeking the grains and lentils of life

rushing into the fields
those who cast a net on our very heart
know
the loss of having lost the net.

31
How to stop loving
if you ask me to stop?
After being kin to the
stickiness of heart.

2.

The time when everything turns to mud

does life grow heavy?

O nectar like love

what is the last game
of your finger touch?

Hold me still closer

I will only evaporate
what is the last song of the river
which hugs the sea?
Clouds, rain, earth…
what are all these?

When will it be unravelled

that the sea is greater than the Himalayas?

32
Waves: the Rangolis5 Drawn by my Mother

An unknown voice calls

not out of the house,
out of this very body!

How shall I go before listening

to the words of mother?

Wasn’t she the one who built a wall

around this life, and filling blood
called it a lake? If the water flows out of the lake
doesn’t it go waste like a broken stringed tamboori6?

In the darkness of the den

in the whirlpools of water
in the flame of forest-fires
in all my ‘desires’ and ‘concerns’
I have seen its shadow;
the life-wing inside has cried and fluttered.

Then, I first remember my mother

if she lets her hair loose, and stands in a kacche7 with me
where would it run
for her one cry it’s pillars
would start melting and dripping like wax.

When she walks

the trees bow down and stretch their shade
while ascending the mountains paths
the birds start singing.

5 Rangoli: A pattern-picture drawn in front of the house usually by joining the dots, or by
looping the lines around the dots.
6 Tamboori: a stringed instrument used by poor wandering singers and singers of religious
songs.
7 Kacche: A particular style of draping a dhoti or a saree which allows the legs to move more
freely.

33
She walks
inside the house and outside the house.
When once I followed her saying
Avva8… avva… she threw my black stone
into the tank, and singing
went somewhere far away.

Mother, who is not there even when she is there

spreads like a forest within me
I who have lost the way
stammer: avva… avva…
When she finds me again
she caresses and says, ‘Where were you,
you were not to be seen,’ and sits
singing through the night.

I can hear the consoling words of a few people

and also the knife-edged words
which cut through my gut.
A few others being mothers themselves
rub ointment over the cut wounds.

I should tell everything to mother

I run again and again
shaking head like she heard everything,
throwing whatever she gets on me
she walks away into the plains.

I who run behind

not seeing her even in the plain
cry ‘avva… avva…’
I hear someone crying avva from that side.

I somehow decide
and try to jump towards it
by sleeping on railway tracks
by walking into sea
by going to the peaks of mountains;

8 Avva: Colloquial way of calling mother; corresponds to the English mummy or mama.

34
an invisible hand grabs then
and when I turn back it’s avva.
‘What are you doing here?
I was searching for you everywhere,’ she says
and hands jaggery and groundnuts to me.

What is the lifespan of the rain which rains on the sea?

And isn’t she the sea itself?
Me who came out of her, am sitting on a boat
when storms rise the wings which come
and the life which wants to fly away
I have consoled rubbing on its back
when calm, I dream of reaching
some other shore.

I go on rowing
where would she take me?
the waves which rose at that birth
the rangolis written by my mother
between that my journey…

Avva,
tell me where is the end of your love?

35
It’s Raining on the Sea

We have to face each other and

and he is not ready

I’m reminded of
the paths in the field
that we walked together,
the hands which quarreled
for the wafers of ragiball
sticking to the bottom of the cooking-pot…

Waving the torn clothes of

father and mother in lake, and waiting
for fishes which wouldn’t come
the moments we stood, our backs bent to hunger.

The dense smell of

avare, ragi and jowar of somebody’s field
that we burnt and ate at midnight.

Collecting honge, hippe and neem seeds

before the crowing of the cock
the days we waited for Saabanna
who would bring peanuts on the cycle…

Even when the ground broke into fissures

on the passing of famines
our tears didn’t stop.

The grandpas and grandmas who sat

like the deities of the home
with their ash-covered-ember eyes
haunt me.
He is not ready,

36
to take shape with all these things old.

When he was the insect crawling

on plants and trees
I was the earthworm underneath, tilling the soil.
He was the firefly flying from plant to tree
and by the time people started to praise the light,
I had hidden my head
among rotten flowers and fallen leaves.

He might have lots of reasons to go far

I do not need any reason to love;
to rain on the sea, is its permission required?

He is not ready
he acts like all his memories have faded
the flower blooms and wilts,
even the tree which had flowered
dies, eaten away by termites.

The smell it has left in me

becomes a humongous tree
and sprouts well before the Spring,
I have held back the tears
hidden in heart
from falling to the ground;
thinking that one day he would hug me tight
and become my mother…

We must face each other,

if he doesn’t get ready I have no choice
but to climb the staircase of that court.

37
Woman

The woman
is very picky
she doesn’t swallow everything she gets;
man
is the sensuous one
who licks
everything he gets.

Civilizations drowned
because of this
sensuousness.

But the woman who sat in between,

sorting the illusion, dream and theory
in her nirvana
holds his hands
from civilization to civilization.

38
Like A Drop of Rain

Walking in the forest path

as the sun
blazed on my head
hungry,
I opened
the lunch box

The roti had mother’s

fingerprints on them.

Mother’s memory
is making the long road ahead
easy.

39
This is Just a Line

My grandmother who was

‘mother’ to me since birth
told me that she who was known to
me as ‘my sister’ was actually my mother.

When she was in her last sleep

I went to see her.
The lamp in her urgency
had burned really fast,
the flame was only as big
as the grain of a corn.

How terrified she must have been

that night.
Was death crushing her
beneath its thumb?

I moved towards the bed

and said, as usual, ‘mother!’
I heard my own echo again.

‘Even as she breathed

she didn’t respond
she didn’t break her promise.’
I who did,

40
became the calf of Dharanimandala9
who mumbled, ‘grand ma, my grand ma!’
Who will take care of me
which language will take me to her?

She somehow said that

and walked off firmly
leaving only her footprints.

How to transform mother

into grandmother?
To the poison of broken promise
I have stood like a stone.
Ahalye10 teach me how to meditate.
In the day the night
in the night the day
seeps in,
not in every season
is there such a miracle.

I call my grandmother ‘mother’ again

no one has heard a stone as yet.

How to transform
someone who I always thought
to be sister
into mother?
This question is enough
for meditation.

As I thought
my sister was
like an incense stick
when lit,
and as my grandmother had told,
like a perfume
like the very sandal
she stood,
9 Dharanimandala: literally, the earth. Here, it refers to a very popular Indian folk story
about a truthful cow’s encounter with a hungry tiger.
A tiger ambushes a cow which has strayed away from the herd. The cow requests the tiger
to allow it to feed its calf and promises to return. The tiger doesn’t believe that the cow
would return but still lets it go. The cow returns home, feeds the calf and entrusting the calf
to its relatives and friends, comes back to the tiger and offers itself as its food. The tiger
moved by the cow’s truthfulness and feeling terrible about having thought of killing it, jumps
off the cliff and kills itself.
10 Ahalye: A character in the epic, Ramayana. A woman cursed into being a stone; she
revived after being touched by Lord Rama’s toe.

41
O my brothers.

From the bottom

the statue is cracking
can’t you hear that sound?

This poem is
just a line
of the sound of that crack.

Wandering Paths which History Doesn’t Recognize

Below the stars

for whom does it rain?
In a village faraway, a village festival,
the sound of drums and atmosphere of a fair,
when is the time when men’s voices get wet in celebration
it must have rained in that village.

The wheels of ox carts which come from that land

will be covered by moss
bells tied to the neck will be shining
and chime with new sounds.

the cow- and goat-herds of our village

listening to that drum-beat
with their cow and goat, travel that path,
pitching tents in the midst of greens
they open new pages of life.

Little children on those pages

write the pictures of

42
colourful flowers
elephant, ant, tiger, deer, cheetah, grasshopper, butterfly
lake, field and plain.

Hearing the news of rains in their village

they touch their ears
and remove their tents and leave.
Dog, sheep, goat, donkey, cattle
return grown stout,
like going to a playground
the young ones come jumping.
Avva who reached the house
dusting, cleaning the floor, drawing rangoli
boils lentils in salt water,
driving sheep and goats into the pen
tying the cattle in the shed
keeping water for the thirst of the husband
she serves hot ragiball and curry.

Lighting the lamp and splitting the dark room

she opens the pouches and sacks
brought on back of the donkey
containing groundnuts, jaggery, lentils and rice
and embroidered old cloths,
and loosening the knots of saree ends
having sandalwood flakes and chunks of sugar
she calls the children.

Children,
eating groundnuts, jaggery, rock sugar
smelling the barks of sandal
look wide eyed at the opened sacks.

Separating the lentils and grains

keeping the sprouted grains aside
she meditates on tomorrow’s rain.

Like a curtain between the earth and the sky

in the same speed the body heats up.
Like being called by the thunder and lightening,

43
like little stones flung on the coconut fronds,
covered over the house, a sound
and the roof begins to drip.

The cock, hen and the chicks

which walked out proudly somewhere
mother calls in… making sounds like them.

Even children happily go ‘kva kva!’

their cry-song never ending…
After the passage of a long time
from some corner, the ‘kva kva’ sounds come
splitting through the darkness.

Avva with her eyes closed beneath the blanket

opening them like getting a boon for her meditation
cries kva kva koooo… again in the darkness
like pipers playing trumpets on street.

Listening to it the fowls which come

shaking their bodies as if returning from a victory

The chicken who stand bewildered

to mothers scolding, the hens and cocks
which sleep even as they hear her out.

Children pushing the fronds on the hut

watching the shapes of lightening and thunder
startled, with their bodies turned cold,
cuddle under the warm saree of their mother
isn’t there mother where children’s fear hide?

This emptiness which fills at its will

if mother is not there, if she is absent even in her presence
who stands in that empty space
who calling, caresses and fondles?

44
 Avva’s Words

Heavy rains
bring wealth and danger
at once.

45
The charm of the blue sky
is the play of lightening, thunder and storm.
Why son, I see
no jewellery on your face?

We keep the ritual food

for the dead,
feeling sorry
for their insatiable desires.

46
People nowadays
act like
they carry the earth
on their heads.

They who say

don’t look for the source,
know its result.

47
Remember your previous step
wash your heel.

He who climbs
must definitely be small
and reaching, should become clean.

When the clouds have gathered

try to forget the pain,
it will definitely rain.
No part of earth
has ever remained completely barren.

48
Do not mock saying
he hasn’t learnt the letters,
he who has ploughed the earth
is a billionaire
in the poetry of love.

Your life,
like being cooked
in cold water.

When the thorny jackfruit

is clawed open
the sweet flesh inside
is like the soul
of the poor man.

49
For a long journey
three are better than one.

When the ground id wet

the termite
lifts the mud up.

50
Status, looks, wealth
should be like the work of an earthworm
underneath the ground.
As the earthworm climbs up
closer comes death.

Roots
The tall mountain
is no taller than the river,
the river was born there
a bit above the mountain.

51
The ice candy of the village fair
gave birth to the city
and emptied the village.

The forest springs forth

many tunes and melodies
that is the spoken word
of our little child.

The depth
length
breadth
and height
of orphans
is more,
is more.

52
The question is looming
large.
We spread the question
and make it our pallet;
make tomorrows our pillows.
The stars are leaning towards us
fruits are dangling.

Though the lover has

stabbed and killed his love
yesterday’s memories of love
are killing his tomorrows.

Who has seen

the tears
of underwater creatures?

53
Word history
turns the scoundrels of this land
into gods;
folk literature turns even the dry tree
into a river.

A phony poem
born on the heart of paper,
death of another plant.

However high people

might fly in the plane
they have to return to soil.

54
He who was thinking
that nothing in the world was right
woke up from his sleep,
and the risen sun
was washing
the dirt.

The cobbler
by seeing the face itself
gets the measurement of the feet.

Do not share your

pain and weaknesses;
they could become the stairs
taking you
to the depths of hell.
If tell people you must
look for those who’re like mirrors.

55
Condition

The shields of the

bombs and shells
that America dropped
on Laos
have become homes
for many people,
today.

Flower and Fiber

In pained eyes I’ve seen

burning meteors

Nobody grew for them

even a small flower;

with the newly brought fiber

for them are being spun
hanging ropes.

56
From the Diaries of the Dead

Those who enter Cambodia

see a map of a thousand skulls
these skulls one by one
tell their stories
which begin,

‘One day
after the declaration of peace
while returning from the war
America,
thinking that the bullets would go waste
lined up thousands of Cambodians
and killed them all.’

When Ocean Stands, Head Bowed

When we bend our heads

in front of the barber
even as he follows our order
the freedom of time which creates
the game of his fingers,
is a mystery of life.

57
A Journey through the Desert

They wander the deserts of Arabia

seeking faraway blooms
they pour sand on themselves
and sing their own elegies.

Between birth and death

only a few times they see clouds.
a Satan called storm
snatches even them.
With eyes clouded by dust
they would have expected all these
their eyes stretch in rapt desire
towards the moon appearing at night.

We Indians
we have ocean, river, grass, plants
mountains, hills and green valleys –
we have ice-capped peaks,
we also have hunger
which we’ve created on our own.

In the desert
camel the companion
of the lonely wanderer.

When the stomach had stuck to the back

on his shoulder as a companion
there was a bird;
with the flash in its eyes
it would hunt the far-off prey
and bring it to him.
A day of those two lives
would end in the flesh
of burnt prey.

Once in the water-spring

oil spurted,
like fruit, hen, grains and cloth
it became the well-spring
which brought pouch-fuls of gold,

58
the spring of oil
became a well,
everything began to come
to where they sat.
Water, seed, plants, climbers, artificial forests
fishes and fowls, water fountains
dazzling bungalows, girls
bursting with youth, days without nights.

Those who were wandering

have joined now in a fair
the storm is wandering with a howl
old men are muttering as if in a dream
‘the tiger cub is dreaming
wandering in an artificial forest
holding its body against water fountains
and hugging women
falling in liquor bowls
and growling in gambling halls
to become like its father.’

Now the camels

by the bungalows, beside the streets
outside the museums and
are eating someone’s garbage
and are ruminating age-old ties.

59
Like Blood Splashed

Whenever they mention Bellary

I’m reminded of its terrible heat,
it’s like walking on a hot pan.
Jaali shrubs which do not grow deep roots,
wherever the earth has collapsed
the lines of stone,
the rain which pours, never stops
still there is no water to drink.

The treasury inside

the monstrous hills and mountains;
seeking minerals
as soon as the helicopters spluttered around
the village,
everything changed.
The tilling of tillers
turned towards mountains and hills.

I’m reminded of the fair

of Maari festival;
all around me the hills and mountains
stand faded,
before being shorn off
they have bowed their heads.

On the roads, red muddy water

house, temple, shop, tree, plants, creepers
all red,
like the red of the hen sacrificed
to prevent the craze of the son
maddened with lust.
Everything’s red,
even the saree of a pregnant woman
is red.

Like a line of red ants

smelling each others behinds

60
the lorries down the hills and mountains
are passing.

To collect cheap oar

from passing lorries
all along the flat road
there is constant competition
to dig life-pits.
The whole village is alert;
they roost over night nest
and turn into day;
the birds are learning
to fly even before hatching from eggs –
a weave of red to the market;
lightening rain to the fashion bazaar.

After the setting of sun

the clouds appear as though
they are bleeding red
such is its terrible heat.

Bellary, like walking on a hot pan.

61
Mother’s Children

Ragi, like farmers

becoming one with the soil
stretch their bodies to sun
and into black grains break.

Paddy,
like the people of city
below, there should always be water
which is money.

If water isn’t enough

the pulp inside will wither
and before bearing fruit
it dies.

Farmer
puts his faith in the next rain
and waits
everyday
as if meditating;
and like plant buds
sprouting in rain,
he plays around like a jogi.

His field is his world

waiting-hut his palace
parrot, blue jay, earthworm
spider and ant are companions to till.
Fate itself stands with him
as the grains begin to swell.

Hot blood of the city

ate rice without seeing mud

62
so it can never know
the biting habit of root.

The Spark

For the pleasure of a few people

turning the villages and fields
barren,
these palatial high-rises and
luxurious apartments of
crazy kings,
are widening the highways of people’s heart.

These villagers
who lost their land for them
stretching hands for rotten apples
limes and grapes
fallen by the fruit-shops of the city,
are wandering the lanes
as if cursed for life.

To send them to prison,

false crimes
are being created;
the spark of light
is being doused
as easily as pinching the wick
of a candle.

63
Source Which Never Empties

The lotus blooms hiding its roots

in the depths of the lake.
Being in water but not being like it.

64
They Who Thought It Was…

Disgust and dirt

take birth in the eye
and die there only.

Lots To Do

How many problems here?

Counting them in itself is a problem

……………………………….

waves, storms, cyclones, tsunamis themselves

haven’t stayed here eternally.

Amoeba

65
No male
till date
has understood
the pain of woman.

he simply pretends –

in her eyes
his picture swells
like an anxious amoeba.

Chain of Ice Tightens

Now, in the lanes

of the great cities
crying rooms
are being created.

It’s Becoming Blue Again

The river is flowing

swerving around and piercing through
the boulders and rocks
carrying afloat or drowning

66
stones, thorns, insects
and thrown shards of glass.

The river has turned red

no one has seen its scratched body.

Wandering around thousands of villages

flowing in fields and groves
it reaches the heart of the sea.

The heart of the sea

turning a little red,
is becoming blue again.

On this Earth

If everyone without knowing the gut

writes like a scholar
then no plants and trees would survive.

67
Happiness

Pain as long as it is inside

swells;
when it comes out,
shrinks.

Natural life

In devotion
thought,
the thought which broke the devotion.

68
Jogi said

He who lives in nature

is better than an
one who argues for it.

Baba Budan Giri

The mountain
has gone through
the cloud

the cloud
which
descended
slo-
wly

swallowing the ground

had become the gut.

69
Patent Notice

They who stole

the different species from the forest
and the different seeds of the land
and flew
in helicopters and planes,
are teaching us environmentalism.

Denizens of the Road

The progeny of those who

spill thorns on road
is still growing

We till at night
and sow the seed of light.

When they walk on those roads

let the roadside trees
we planted
solace them,
and the thorns planted by them
let it catch fire
and let the roads become clean.

70
Ocean in the Drop

It was raining on the sea,

the waves
were throwing the dead fishes
out, and with them the ones living.
The crows and eagles
flying above
without bothering about any of these
were spinning around
the peanut-selling old man.

We Are Tribal

We are tribal
we neither sweat
nor shudder
at the hunters
who walk around us

we are used to
feeding arrows
for the fires of our furnace
ever since.

71
Fruit Fallen to the Ground

Four people together

cut the fruit
sucking the juice
and without returning the seed to earth
but breaking it to pieces,
laughing that it got over,
walked off.

The broken seed

mixed with mud, turned into fertilizer
and entering all kinds of life
as it grew like time
the flowers and fruits of the earth

72
began to bloom
even in their eyes.

Drop of Sweat

In the verandah
while hundreds of intellectuals
discussed about the poet, poetry, play, cinema and
politics –
the master of all that was tilling the soil
till sunset.

Now and then,

the master was mentioned
by the intellectuals –
some said he was a hare-brained philosopher,

73
others that he was a mischief-monger, fated
to be what he was.
And some others still called him
a stupid old man, a lunatic –

The grains that he had brought from

the fields and stacked
were laughing, listening to all this.

(Inspired by a folk tale)

Fate and Grains

On every grain that is eaten

the name of the eater is written
until death suddenly pounces,
this rule continues unbroken.
Every grain one’s own,
and after death
that of someone else.

With his death the story ends

74
the remaining grains,
someone else’s…

(Inspired by a Hindi saying)

World of Dew

‘This world of dew

is only a world of dew

and yet.’11
the sea roars,
god knows what urgency –

11 A haiku by Kobayashi Issa

75
the koel cries,
who knows indicating what?

Before vaporizing, the dew

burns:
one moment
like a millennium.

Is it the roar of the sea?

or the indication of the koel?

Give the Street Kids Some Space to Sleep

‘In the midst of the greens

sings the skylark
free of all things.*’

Sitting in a gunny sack

tied underneath

76
the Kengeri bridge of Bangalore
my eyes which float
seeking that sound
identify within themselves
all its colours and techniques
the different incarnations of motherliness.

All the sounds of the vehicles

on the bridge, sound like
that of the police.

If remembered
the whole day’s a mess.

Many nights
for their kicking practice
they used us like guinea pigs.
Only they know why they used to beat us like that.

Like on the last cradle

of civilization, there
I was
swinging off-balance.

Once when my ball

hit the net of the goal
and untied the gunny sack
I joined the great city.

Even now
amidst the green
the skylark sings.

Who knows which homeless child

is playing there!

(Inspired by a haiku by Basho)

Like Ashes Growing on Smoulders

Mother who travels

from village to village,
everyday, pitches a tent
in every village

77
and ties a donkey to its right

As usual the moon appears upon the house

children gone begging, return –
groping in the bag
separating the grains
she keeps three stones
and douses the fire
of the stomachs of hungry children.

She has the big dream

of building a house
to stop the whirring
wheel of time

Even the children have the same dream

but what to do
life is not so easy.

How to hide the spark

of her urgent dream
in the end of the saree?

Like ashes growing on smoulders

every night, they tell a story to mother,
with moon as the witness.

In those stories
building a house of her liking;
smearing the earth with cow dung
to a door smooth as sandal,
tying mango-leaf-hangings
which would make a koel blush
and drawing a patterned rangoli
‘come in mother!’
they said.

How many moons

heard those stories
and called to witness
they come every night.

Mother who would go to sleep

listening to these stories
every night,
in the morning

78
pitching a tent in the next village
would dream of those stories again!

(Inspired by a folktale told by Jungli Seeniah)

Midnight
inside the hut;

79
on the plate
the scrambling of a rat,
what a chill in the stomach!

(Inspired by a haiku by Buson Yosa)

80
Before Unfurling Wings

Truth is like the wild peacock

it has no obligation towards us
many alluring charms it has
at the time of unfurling wings.

It’s richness can’t be had

in a single glance
behind,
in front
beside
above
below
inside, outside
a truth beyond all these
keeps flowing.

You praise it,

it won’t bow.

Criticize it,
it smiles.

81
Our Children

From city
they came to forest
holding Pepsi Cola bottles
‘Save forest!’
‘Save city!’
they lectured endlessly.

Our children
who insisted on having
those Pepsi Cola bottles
catching the road to city
became orphans.

82
To Mother Earth

I am not
just a lump of jaggery
mother
a child full of dreams
monstrous fleas have thronged
drive them away
with a kiss.

My People

Rain-
clouds
which
appeared
in
summer heat.

You

If
I go on despising everyone
what am I?

83
Strategy

There was a time

when America was thought to be
a land which had broken the walls
of slavery and racism.

A slave there
thinking of the famine of the future
in the field of the landlord
saved
a handful of grains;
a pair of male and female
animal and bird;
for a future day.

the sons of the landlord

thinking that that concern
of the slave was unfounded
taking the job of saving everything
now are stealing the best
of all the lands.

Their strategy
is to create a famine in the future
by hoarding in the present.

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Song of Life

On the hot earth:

the eye of cloud glances
in fields, farms and plains:
song of life.

Half starved, bare bodied,

in the hot eyes
for the seething dreams:
the song of life.

The rotting love

between the people,
spreading root and sprouting:
the song of life.

Tree growing out of seed

the climbers spreading
to each tree
and blooming flowers
the song of life
which wanders the entire forest.

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Power of Faith

In places where we have respect

things follow us
orders get passed;
people throng around like ants.

This place is the witness

that the man has lived.

It is not
that it is mine
or those who believe me are great
this is the power of faith.

Time

I like the beedi

to arrange money for beedi
I must smoke the cigarette.

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Source of Fulfilment

If people
have faith
in us

then somebody’s cow gives milk

and someone else’s ox
tills our field.

The field sows itself

and stands full for harvest,
they stretch their arms
and distribute grains and fruits
their faces radiate with fulfilment.

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First Step of Creation

The master is a lame man

who cannot even stand;
by the morsel given by mother
the first step of creation

before the student could

open his eyes
seeing his masters defeat
the master had won.

A Question of the Bowl

A student goes
to his guru
and begs him to teach poetry.

guru says:
it’s beyond your ken,
suddenly a thunderbolt strikes
and the house of the guru is split into two.

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The students who holds a bowl
in the journey of life
sings his folksongs
‘when god doesn’t protect
that guru will’

Mud Lamp

Ragi and paddy –

while sprouting
and growing
stare at heaven;
gathering the
golden crown
of harvest
they bow to the ground.

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Drizzle Beneath the Palms Holding Water

How to catch
that far off moon?

beyond all our rituals

he has moved effortlessly
for millions of years.

A child
lifts water in it’s palms;
the moon that
shines in it
in a drizzle beneath the small hands

Lanky neck stretches

and without hesitation
drinks
every drop of the moon
the child’s stomach turns into a sky.

The stars caught with the moon

stand above the tree
someone’s sitting beneath it
curly hair
a faint smile on lips
lips which have bloomed
like the petals of a rose

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underneath his feet beasts have played;
like light twirled and thrown
around it
a fair of onlookers
drums, cymbals, tamboori
the festival of youth.

Jogi’s Question

I was sitting in field;

late dusk
singing, a jogi entered the field
wondering from that distance who it was
‘hoy!’ I cried.
That, for the protection of my field
could I simply let him
enter my field?

Jogi lifting his iconic tamboori

asked a question:
‘Who is more shy, male or female?’
Standing in my field,
he asks me a question!
I took out the boomerang of speech
and sticking an answer in it, threw:
saying ‘female.’

I hadn’t expected at all

but from that side
an answer came,
like forest rain which came without a sign
like the flood which swallowed the village at midnight.

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He screamed back:
‘You are male
how did you answer, female?’

Wisdom

Till now no one has heard

the sound
of any woman
speaking aloud
in any epic
or religion.

The words
of woman characters
of Mahabharata
sound like whispers
caught under the shadows of religion.

I understood Draupadi12
by the fact that she dreamt of Karna.

If a woman roars aloud

12 Draupadi: the daughter of king Drupada and wife to all the five Pandavas. Karna
– the son of Kunti, the

mother of all the five Pandavas – is disowned by his mother, which ultimately results
in him being a part of the Kaurava faction: the arch-rivals of Pandavas.

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then the helm of power
melts like candle,
and kings and kingdoms flow
towards villages,
fields and farms.

If we search history
we get thousands of biographies like these.
Politics has the guts
to travel beyond religion and the puranas.
For this reason, religion
always fears politics.
But still
politics pretends as if it is the slave
of religion.

If religion has to become a pawn

all this needs to be done –
politics knows that.

Travellers who wander

in the ruins of this history
long to see this;
and when they see,
they are amazed.

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Breaching the Order of Face the Tail had Shook

Between cultures
histories
objects
letters
religions
parties
politics
the elephants and chariots
which stand,
and on their backs, glittering golden umbrellas.

In its shadow
people are wearing the costumes
like the characters of some play.

All around the celebratory show,

the blind support
of people who believe whatever they say as true.

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In the faces of innocent people
has appeared the lines
of a poster
of people with their hands stretching
for the treasure inside the mirror.

By unsheathing the sword alone

can you become a king?
does he have the formulae
to safeguard people?
Money, politics, education, religion
can bring some kingly charm
to people, isn’t it?

King means
light in front
darkness behind
the blood which flows
in the constricted darkness
this is a common thing for them.

Freeing white pigeons in the day

people who
flung stones at them at night

Their winning secret

under their footprints
has grown dense thus:
make people believe
what you say is true,
if you can’t
by talking about your mother
make them forget theirs,
victory is yours!

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Water and Fire

A piece of roti for the hungry

I stretch my hands,
Oh God
make my hands longer.
To carry orphans
lot of strength
lot of life-force
is needed.

I’m not the sinner

who kills the hen
laying golden eggs.
Let my long hands
touch you alone

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I’m the one cooked
in the fires of orphan’s hunger.

Has the rice cooked O Lord?

Lift a grain
and test my own self.13

Generation

Why are wandering paths forked into a thousand?

In the same paths, our great grandparents
were searching for wet earth
till the day they died; holding seeds in palms
they would sow when it rained
and sing the song of harvest.

Far away, a roaring sea

a land beyond that,
there, price of gold for seeds.
Though my grand father and grand mother
knew this fact since the day they were born,
they never tried to step into that land.

13 ‘One grain of rice is enough to know whether the rice is cooked or not’ A common
practice in cooking which has become a popular folk idiom.

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Kallu Baana14

Desert
heap of sand wherever you see
the wind that blows is
erasing the faces
if you look back
there is no trace of footsteps
your walk is the path.

Sun which burns hot on head,

14 Kallu Bana: Kallu Bana is the corpse of a diseased person, or of a person belonging to the
lower caste, cast off in the wastelands as food for wild animals and birds

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sand turned to smoulders beneath feet,
strengthless, I am dragging the legs

eyes, dried up lakes;

and sometimes, the shadows of vultures –

how can I decide to be a corpse-to-be-cast-off15 on my own?

Will the heart accept?
I have to disappear from all these. But how?

Birth,
I shouldn’t have been born; in this land of
faded colours;
in the burning gut, the blood boils;
in the pulse of nerve
a colourless fair of speech and silence.

All the Shudhodhanas and Mayadevis

who embraced me whole
in the looming darkness of terrible nights –
this poetry
is their first child.

The Saga of Drunkenness

Politics is an art
politician is a poet

The infinite creation born of love

the aim of politics;
the efforts which thinks beyond self,
that labour, its home.

On the throne of power

15 Translation of Kallu Baana.

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drunkenness of pride
welfare of people, the sacrificial lamb
nation’s progress, daily beheaded.

Centuries passing
and centuries returning
past future present,
the wheel of politics turns
like a compromise between
earth and sky.

Reflection of Darkness

Like the drop of poison

hidden in the beauty of snake’s hood
in the intoxication of drunkenness
death is hiding

The pleasure of drinking doesn’t kill me

it kills the wife and children

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bitten by the snake of drinking
life’s ruined, come to dust

Inside the dense bamboo growth

the bird of poor peoples breath is caught.
And inside the sweating eyes
there is only the reflection of a moonless night.

Prison Song

Since thousands of years

with the sculpture of caste and creed
who built life-tombs?
Sweating from dawn to dusk
burning their pyre of dream

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who held the torch
in the fire of their pain?

Earth, sky, air and light

our right, they laughed
who were they who went on
boasting, I’m superior, superior.

Earth, water and natural strength

its not ours, they cried
who were they who went on
suffering, feeling inferior and inferior.

In the village, in the town

and in the glorious country
as the strength of creed is crying
every mind is a prison house.

Where is that guru’s home

everyone’s native home
which enters everyone’s life
and which keeps growing like time?

The Song of Mother

A lake is not just a lake

it is the eye of the village.
A lake is not just water

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it is the granary of civilization.

As the field overflows

let our lives overflow
but chasing away rain, and cutting forest
filled the lake with silt.

It is not the lake that’s covered

it is our lives come to dust.

Bearing with people and animals

the mothers who take care of villages.
If the heart of these mothers overflow
the grains and the lentils fill with juice.

Afterword
Kempavva

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Avva
Kempavva
has opened her heart
in her heart a cage-swallowed
parrot flutters.

With the parrot inside she is speaking;

like the sunflower field
which looks at the sun in the morning.

3
Every line of her wrinkled skin
is a path in a dense forest
in the folds of that path
the shadows of birds
flying in flocks,
in the dimple of the cheek
the sound of the roar of the sea.

4
The legs have gotten down
somewhere beneath the ground;
the face, high up
has disappeared somewhere in the skies.

5
Using her shoulders
she is holding tight;
from the never-drying well
she has made me drink
a handful of water.

6
My avva
is the blue space which gives birth to stars,
the drop of water
which has curled tight
its thousand arms.

Nagatihalli Ramesh

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When disaster itself is holding his hands
who can save him?
These men and women, his friends
who find hundreds of reasons to love
to hate, pick from the bottom of their heart
a reason.

O god even you won’t save him

he is the primal man who jumps out
of the frame of your game.
Even you are just an insect for him.

Whether he will win or loose

he’s one who has thrown the
clothes of cause and effect.
He has no taste for them now.

He is the son who gives everything he has

and runs to his mother;
look at him in a state of nirvana.

He is the swimmer who has fallen into

the sea called compassion
he has seen the mud grown dense
turning into a pearl.

Disaster is a golden fire-pit

a rest-house for those who win divinity
and still rise up.

Standing in the hot golden cast of the rest-house

he remembered his mother,
and pulling his mother in his arms
he himself became the mother.

Around his soul, flowers have bloomed

like the celebration of the young bird
which has reached its home;
he is now at peace,
relaxed beyond
pleasure and pain
lies and betrayals….

One day in May 2006, I saw Nagatihalli Ramesh’s mother. Till then he had

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created his mother’s world in me through his talk, songs and crying, and like
unravelling all those pictures he showed her to me.

There are very few people in this world who have hated women as much as I
have done. Even as I sought them for consolation, love and tenderness,
seeing their narrowness, guile and selfishness I have recoiled in horror.
Ramesh’s mother Kempavva is someone who has reached a saintly state and
has forgotten all sense of this and the other world. Giving off rice, clothes,
jewellery, money for those in need and then standing with her hands
outstretched, her figure has reminded me of Jesus Christ. Christ said, ‘let the
wealth flow down from above.’ Avva, like Christ, is both a giver as well as a
bhikshu. That she stands here as the very earth is a testament to man’s
capacity to be transformed. From the time I have seen her, my old pictures
have started blurring and my hate related diseases have started
disappearing.

With the above kind of diseases becoming common, the magical touch of
mother’s fingers is the only cure for the modern world.

A child who has lost mother’s love, even in the cosy confines of his house
feels like one lost in a forest. In my journey from such a state towards one
which promises love and tenderness, avva has haunted me like a huge
explosion of awareness; to her, and to Rameshanna and Shobhaakka who
opened up these possibilities, I am forever grateful.

Phoenix
Ravi

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 Success Story of a Villager
Nagatihalli Ramesh is a proper village lad. About two decades back he lost
his way into the city of Bangalore like an orphaned calf. Though born into a
well-to-do family, throughout his childhood he had to experience humiliation,
inferiority and ridicule of people. He lost his father’s support even before he
could come of age, and was shaped by the otherworldly-motherhood of his
mother. Though initially neglected for his stammering, he overcame that
through sheer effort and innate talent. He’s someone who has mastered the
art of spell bounding people with speech. During the 80’s he won almost all
the debating competitions in which he participated with the help of his exact
logic and eloquent speech, tempered with great presence of mind. On the
streets of the rich city he sold fruits and vegetables, and distributing
newspaper to households, he built his life through his own efforts. In
moments of great despair he slept on railway tracks to find the ultimate
solace. As trains do not arrive on their scheduled time in our country, he
survived.

Later he graduated in science and journalism, found flourishing ground in the

shade of kind-hearted men and grew into a tree. In the 90s to provide
succour to the dreams and aspirations of village lads like him, he started a
magazine called Spardha Prapancha, and in spite of all hindrances, has been
running it for the past twelve years. He is the kind-hearted man who offers
support and love to all those dreamy lads who, orphaned, stumble into the
great doors of Bangalore. His life itself is a miraculous story.

KY
Narayanaswamy

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