K. Satchidanandan

K. Satchidanandan (b. 1946) poet, critic, translator and editor, is one of the pioneers of modern Indian poetry. With 20 collections of poetry besides 15 collections of translated poetry, two plays and 17 collections of critical essays, interviews and travelogues in Malayalam he also has two highly acclaimed books on Indian Literature originally written in English and several edited works of poetry and criticism, in English and Malayalam. His work has been translated in over seven Indian languages and several foreign languages. Satchidanandan has won 14 awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awards (four times), Behrain Keraleeya Samajam Award, Kumaran Asan Award, P. Kunhiraman Nair Award, Ulloor Award, Odakkuzhal Prize and Pandalam Kerala Verma Award. He has represented India in several international literary events. He heads the Sahitya Akademi, the Indian National Academy of Letters.

Stammer and Other Poems
Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Delhi

Gandhi and the Tree

Gandhi was walking in the sun
That had survived Naokhali.

‘Come, have some rest.'
Gandhi turned back:
It was a shady tree.
‘You? It is not yet time
For me to rest', replied Gandhi.

The tree complained: 'The world
Is in a hurry. I have grown old,
No more do I flower nor bear fruit:
Even birds have abandoned me'
‘Don't worry', Gandhi said,
‘you are waiting for the axe
and I, for the bullet'.

‘Don't say that', the tree was in agony,
‘someone will need that shade'.
The memory of spring escaped the tree
as a sigh.

‘Pray', said Gandhi.

If you-don't stop, I
will have to walk with you',
the tree now began to walk with Gandhi.
A wind blew. A bird
Flew to the tree.
‘See, I am in bloom again',
the tree laughed with white flowers.

‘You have started walking? Then
I can cease.' Gandhi's blood
Whispered as it gushed out,
like a prayer for every being.

‘See, my flowers are growing red', cried out
the emancipated tree.

Three birds that had
dreamt of fruits
came flying from the East.

Translated by the poet from the Malayalam

Mon Amor

I hug you with my eyes
you caress me with your wounds
I peel off your garments
you wipe off your bloodstains
I suck your lips
your acid burns mine
I taste your tongue
your untold tales sour my mouth
I rouse your nipples
you mourn your estranged son
I run my fingers across your belly
you start as if remembering a rape
I play on your behind
It grows heavy with distances
I press my lips on your petals
you remind me of our orphaned kids
I enter you
you scream like an embattled city
I raise you to the rainbows
you climax in a rain of bombs
I break and scatter in you
My sharpnels pierce you

Love
bleeds
in prisons.

Translated by the poet from the Malayalam

Mustard

Little brown seed,
who has filled your tiny body
with so much verve?
Are you a guerrilla warrior
seizing her fury
from the passion of Telengana?
Or, a suicide bomber
exploding at the touch of flaming oil?

I have seen your home
from the train's window,
the field where you fell
from those dark lean hands
to bloom on Krishna's cool waters,
dancing in yellow,
offering the whole South Wind
your inimitable mustard flavour.

Brunette born to yellow and wind,
did you ever dream
of being ground into love,
or bursting into memory,
and moving hot from tongue to tongue
like a secret message?
Or, that your taste would linger
in the gyrating blood of men
much after you had melted away?

You who set the directions afire
with your fervent charm,
You who, like certain brief loves,
burn down bodies,
I would never know
the secret of your orgasmic outbursts.
But still, I shall go on
singing praises to your sacrifice.
My freed soul would shrink into a mustard seed
and enter heaven with you,
exciting God's tongue
until our warm scent seeps into
each one of his beloved creatures.

Translated by the poet with Rizio Raj

Lal Ded Speaks against Borders*

Last night I saw:
a Chinar tree, its leaves and boughs atremble
bleeding from its roots
scream and run.
He was afraid to look back.
The Dal Lake where the sky had drowned
was a river of fire that scattered sparks.

A terrible beast
with an allegator's body
and a thousand dragon faces,
its eyes sending forth lightning
and dead babies dangling from
its ten thousand claws
emerged from the lake.
Wherever the venom from its
forked tongue fell,
brothers began to fight one another
and the sandalwood and saffron
withered in the wink of an eye.

The sun got extinguished
and the women went astray
in the dust storm its breath aroused.
The shikams that were filled with lotuses
now carried the unclaimed dead.
It rained bones.

Siva danced in the lifeless snow
piled on the ruins.
The voice of his drum woke me up.

2

I sit alone in this solitude,
my throat blue with the poison I drank.
Where are those deodars that blossomed all over
the moment I asked them about Siva?

O, saints of the valley,
when did our words ooze away from hearts
like water from unbaked pitchers?
Springs and stars will not talk
to those who believe in borders.
I don't believe in borders
Do the grains of sand know
the land where they lie?
The roots of apple trees reach for one another
under the walls built by man.
Wind, water and roots
work against walls.
Birds snap borderlines
with their sharp wings.
The lines on the map
do not stop even a dry leaf.

Let us be rivers.

3

I travelled from earth
to heaven and hell without
the permission of any word.
The body remained here; the soul
rode the rainbows.
At times it saw an eagle
split into halves, at times,
horns protruding from clouds.
Saw Pandavas' mother
gather dry wood in the forest,
Krishna reaching Kalindi with
soiled clothes on the back of a mule.
Saw Shiva's bull plough the field,
Parvati roaming the hills shepherding the lands,
Sita singing from a tribal's hovel.
Heard the laughter of Lava
from a tiger's cave.

4

I see darkness at noon
We sip wine sitting on volcanoes,
dance on the edge of graves.
Perching under the moon that
glistens like Nandi's eyes,
the nightingale told me that
blood knows no borders.
It is one's own blood that
continues to run in another.
When the two touch each other in love,
blood becomes one;
touched with hate
it flows out, screaming.

Even clothes are borders
So I strip myself and attain my Siva
naked like the breeze over the lake.
My lips are wicks that burn
My breasts are flowers
and my hips, incense.

Ask the peepal and the palash,
The soul has no race or religion;
Nature suckles everything.

The sky is the throat of the Neelkant.

5

I asked the skylark to reveal the
meaning of its song before she died.
She replied that the embers will die
if they do not gleam.
I saw her song being baked
for the hungry.
It climbed the loom for those
shivering naked in the cold,
it arched itself to form a roof for
those without a shade.
Then I understood
the meaning of prayer.
Each stone became Sambhu.
Cuckoo layed eggs in every vein,
every nerve became santoor.
I danced in the leopard's cave;
The Word lost its boundaries.

6

I am a lake,
of measureless blue.
Siva, my shore, of endless green.
No fences of iron, no, not even hedges.
Let rains and deer graze on both sides.
O, those who try to milk the wooden cow,
arms are meant to hug.
She who has conquered greed needs no sword,
she who has conquered lust, no veil.

Follow the stone's way
It is both pestle and Natraj
Stain it not.
Look here, my throat
is the chalice of Brahma;
A dove and a lion on my shoulders
I am the childhood of the future
the badam tree that has lived seven lives

I am the alphabet.

7

I do not believe in borders.
No fortresses can stop those
who move from birth to birth.
We were in the past
We will be in the future.
Infinity is ever fresh,
fresh as well, the Moon.

O, mind that's restless inside the body
like a child on its mother's lap,
go from small attachments
to bigger ones.
Go to the place that has no directions.

Consciousness has no borders
outside the senses.
Endless is the sunlight of the jeevanamukta.

Farewell to the vain mornings
where blood-stench blooms
Farewell to the rains of history
that taste of gunpowder.

Come back, vineyards,
Come back my lambs,
sparrows, lotus ponds:
the Infinite calls
from within the sand grain.

*Lal Ded (Lalleswari, Lalla Arifa) 14th Century Kashmiri Saint Poet­ess. According to legend she was born in a Brahmin family of Osempore; she changed her name to 'Padmavati' after marriage. Unable to stand the taunts and torments of her in-laws, she left home and learnt philosophy from Siddhas (like Sreekanta) and Sufis (like Nandrshi, Mir Sayyed Ali Hamadomi, Hasrat Sayeed Husain Samnani), challenged rituals, castes and religions, became a naked Saivite saint and wandered chanting her vakhs. Here the poet imagines Lal Ded commenting on borders from the besieged Kashmir of today.