I am in search of something sacrosanct to mother.
The reasons for my search are several,
Death, perhaps, is one among them.
* * *
Mother!
Pardon me for not taking you into confidence
And leaving you without proper leave-taking.
In this ensemble of estranged people,
All of us are loners
Serving sentences of exile!
That’s why I walked out of it — alone.. .
Hold up your tears for me, mother!
For, from the people who grieve for me
I course towards those who await me.
Had I stayed behind for any reason
I would only be lugging my life
Like a corpse on my shoulders.
Don’t mistake me for rowing off to the thither bank
Leaving you behind hither.
Who knows… my boat may sink midway through!
.
I know, when I am dead, people would grieve for me,
And, above all grief….. you will be shattered…
I know what it feels to a mother
to identify her child lying in the mortuary:
she develops the illusion
that he was ‘still’ in her womb.
Summoning all your reason, now, I know
You must be wondering how I slipped thro’ your hands…
Hurried as a derelict, becoming a wound to you…
Who should, in fact, be nursing
Your life’s wounds off perennial violence;
And, perhaps, been wondering,
What weapon had instilled confidence in me,
Who used to rush into your arms for reassurance
Even for a slight fever, or fright!
Mother!
Delve deep into the recesses of your memories and experiences
To find an answer.
* * *
What’s there in our homes?
You may better call them cages or cobwebs instead,
Where we live like birds that have forgotten to fly
Or like beetles clipped off wings.
They are there only as conveniences for our fathers?
.
We are all prisoners.
And among the prisoners, what’s there in their laughter,
In their shake-hands, embraces and kissing
But for the heat of corporeal senses
And the hissing of the crisp currency notes?
Did the warm currents of love and affection
Ever flow from one to the other?
Knocking the other man down
The victorious hoists his flag over the vanquished;
Or, cursing freedom and knowledge
Makes his heart a haven to darkness;
Or, scripts pitiful climaxes to life
As of a cage easing off a dead bird;
Or, a spider letting go off the skeleton of a house fly…
That’s all!
For how many generations my doors must have bathed
In the blood of mothers and their daughters!
And on how many tombs of theirs
These Kitchens and Bedrooms have been raised!
No violence can surpass killing of the ‘self’ each day…
Mother!
I saw many mothers bathed in blood like you.
Saw greater human tragedy on the streets and slums,
Saw the razors of rupee slivering lives with finesse,
Saw starvation deaths before hoards of food grain,
Saw childhood ulcerated between the merciless cogs of machine tools
And saw the man-eater Democracy
Sucking people’s blood in gulps.
.
From fathers to governments
The enemy is omnipresent and polygenic.
Just for the love of life,
Dear Mother, I took cudgels against the enemy.
Mother!
If there is anything in this world
Sacrosanct to you
It’s just… ‘Revolution’.
* * *
Telugu Original: “VAAGNMULAM” ARANYA KRISHNA… Written after reading MAHASWETA DEVI’s “harzar chourasi ka maa”…
Photo Courtesy:
BOOKS ADDA
Aranya Krishna is a senior poet writing for over 25 years. His poetry Anthology “Netturodutunna Pada ChitraM” ( నెత్తురోడుతున్న పదచిత్రం) was released way back in October 1994. He is a Senior Stenographer in the Department of Posts. He lives in Hyderabad.
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